Life Leaps Podcast

19. "I Gave My Two Weeks" - Deciding It's Time To Step Back, Breathe, And Figure Out What's Next, With Andrea

• Season 1

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Andrea Gomez Kerr just left her full throttle job in marketing  in search of some time, space, and who knows what's next.  Today we'll hear how Andrea: 

  • Realized she'd reached the point of burn-out
  • Is creating the financial space for her family - she's got three small kids - to live on 1 salary instead of 2 (hint: she's managed to cut 40% of their expenses!)
  • Is now examining the kinds of decisions - conscious and not - that landed her on her current trajectory and how she can re-think and rearchitect her life moving forward
  • Insights for us along the way



Andrea's is another leap we'll track in the months to come and I can't wait to introduce her to you all today in Episode 19.

Learn more about this podcast (and us, with a blog I recently started!) on the Life Leaps Podcast website here. 

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Andrea Gomez Kerr: [00:00:00] You can be busy and not stressed.And I didn't know what that felt like. 

Life Leaps Podcast:  Happy Wednesday, everyone. Today we're with Andrea Gomez Kerr. Who just left her full throttle job in marketing, in search of some time space. And who knows what's next. Today, we'll hear how Andrea at number one realized she'd reached the point of burnout. 

Two. Is creating the financial space for her family. She's got three small kids to live on one salary instead of two. 

 Number three is now examining the kinds of decisions conscious and not that landed her on her current trajectory. And how she can rethink and rearchitect her [00:01:00] life moving forward. And finally number four as always. there'll be insights for us along the way. Andrea's is another leap we'll track in the months to come. And I can't wait to introduce her to you all today. 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: I live north of Atlanta with my husband and three kids originally from this area anyway, and then went off to the University of Georgia. And got a degree in advertising and went on from there. So yeah, it stuck around home base. 

Life Leaps Podcast: And you, said that your family is originally from Columbia.

Andrea Gomez Kerr: My parents. So they were born there and they moved here in the late seventies to the United States. not knowing English, it was really hard on them. They worked two jobs and, they did everything they could to just give us a better life.

and that started just by them uprooting their entire careers and moving to Miami, which is where I was born. and that's where I lived until the nineties. And then, moved to Atlanta when my dad found a different. Wow. 

Life Leaps Podcast: and we would go every summer. We spent a lot of time [00:02:00] there. Our entire family still lives there. I

Andrea Gomez Kerr: that was the place we went. If we had vacation, if we had the resources to do it, we were heading over there to see family, and it was awesome. And I think as a young kid, I think I maybe, took that for granted. And as I got older, I really had more of an appreciation of my culture and my roots.

And my family there. So I miss them a lot. We all stay in touch and it's very central to our family that wherever we go, we're gonna try to find a Columbian restaurant to eat at or,Columbian music. Or if there's a Columbia artist coming to town, we usually take my mall. So,very much a part of my life and something I'm trying to instill in my.

My three half Colombian, half Irish kids. 

Life Leaps Podcast: I love it. Yeah. We're all mixes of something nowadays. It's 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: it's good for them too. to know that they're, mom is from Columbia and that, They're family. They have family outside of this little nucleus, this little bubble that we've built for them here, that they're connected to the world.

 I love 

Life Leaps Podcast: where are you living right now?

 I'm pretty much at the foot of the Appalachian Trail. We're a really small town, [00:03:00] not super small enough that we register on a map but it's definitely about 15 minutes from Lake Linear and closer more to stone Mountain, sunny Mountain that.

Okay, so you mentioned that you finished school in advertising and for a while you were working in journalism.

You were doing like something a little more in line with what. Gone to school to do. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I felt in college I had this idea that I was gonna work at an ad agency and that it would be relatively easy to find a job as an intern and an ad agency and then stay there at that agency.

And we're so naive to think that everything's gonna go is planned. And the reality of it is it was hard to find an internship and much less a paid internship. I had to find something where. , I could make a living and still survive. Cause I was paying my way through school and I knew that there was no net.

And I just jumped right into an internship, unpaid, working at a multicultural ad agency while [00:04:00] also working at a bank. So I, I was doing both. And from there, Yeah, it was crazy. I had moved from Athens, Georgia to Atlanta and I felt like there were more opportunities to get into advertising.

 and I was living with my parents and just got on that hamster wheel there. It was immediately like, study, get good grades, go to school and get a job in the discipline that you studied. And that's what I did. Like I went. Stayed there, cut my teeth there at the ad agency and through just networking.

Got a job at at and t.doing advertising sponsorship, like local advertising for the southeast region. And did that for a while and I was pretty happy to be honest at that point. I just recently had gotten married and I didn't have kids, and focus was purely on building my career.

Like it was just go, get on that trajectory, perform be good at it and double down in that. And my career was my focus, like I said and so my output was probably at 200%. and it was [00:05:00] formative and it was great, but my gosh, I was busy and that's all I did was work. And I loved it.

And from there I went from local advertising to working on brand strategy, which is where I ended up. Pivoting in my career later on I used that experience doing brand strategy at and t and then going on to FinTech and then into a different role in cloud services and digital transformation.

I stayed there for a few years and ultimately, Andrew, I don't even know what that stuff means, . Oh gosh. It's nuts. Either , I don't either. I'm not a tech person and I'm like, how am I gonna do brand strategy? For a tech company if I'm not techy. But really I, the way I explained it to my parents is if you're really good in, in marketing, you can market anything.

And I tried to be that. , it just meant that I had to really sink my teeth into the stuff that we were selling And so for a long time it was wireless. And then from there, learning the [00:06:00] FinTech world. And then that's just financial services. And I stayed at a financial services company for about a year.

And then I was laid off, and then I went on to working at VMware. And to me, that was the highlight of my life. I felt like at VMware. I was able to balance like motherhood and we'll take a step back a minute, but motherhood and work. 

Okay. So you finish school, you go to work right away. You do get married. , but you're, you don't have kids, you're still in hustle mode.

Yeah. Yeah. But I was going through something interesting at the time, Karen.

I think. , I'll probably even take a step back from there. I, when I mentioned I didn't have kids, I was actually trying to have kids. , so that's an important factor to bring to the table, is that going through fertility treatment. To distract myself from that heartbreak and that stress.

I just went straight into work and it was just work. And that was where I felt like I could channel all that [00:07:00] anxious energy is career. So I was like doing really well and channeling all my energy into that and basically, Performing and that anxious energy I had was there.

And then all of a sudden after what, like six years of trying to have kids, we finally have kids. And That's terrifying to someone who has been able to deliver it 200% at work and in your career to all of a sudden scale that back and be a parent.  was tough to do in the kind of work that I was doing.

In wireless. And so I definitely made a move and made a pivot. And so from then on it was just been a game of how much can I be devoting to my career and how much can I be devoting to my home and my family and my kids. And Andrea, what, when was it that you ultimately, after those six years of trying, did have your first.

Ooh, let's see. We started trying to build a family in 2010, and my son was born [00:08:00] in 2015. Okay. So actually really about five to six years. I wouldn't say maybe between 2009, 2010. We were really actively trying to Wow. Have a family. Yeah, it was really tough. It was really tough. I look back on that as.

Really hard time as a career woman and then also as a potential mom. , my gosh. Wait, I just realized something. Andrea and I think that, you are saying that basically you were you're pouring yourself into your career. Partly a because you're smart and you're dedicated, and you're who you are, but you say part of the big juice there was also just like you were unable to have a family in that moment.

And so you're like, I'm gonna throw myself into this other area of my life that gives me purpose, meaning, distraction, whatever. Oh, totally. And then you build up this thing and you're like, I've created a monster because now I have a family and I can't keep this up, , I can't keep this thing running.

It was awful. It was awful. And Karen, like that to me is [00:09:00] that moment of I'm gonna have to start chipping away at this career thing. I've created a monster. I've created a character of myself that is this working mom in heels that also has a baby on her hip. And there was some pride in that. They're like, oh yeah, I can do it all.

It's fine. It's not bad. And I think the hardest part for me was in all of a sudden realizing that I had to give my B game at work. And I know that's controversial no. You should be able to be good at all these things and you don't have to sacrifice that. But no, I couldn't keep giving it 250% at work.

because that meant that I was not giving 250% at home. And at that time, remote work was not an option for me. And I was driving almost an hour and a half, two hours each way to the office. And it hit me that I would no longer be able to do that because I had to have my seven month old child in the backseat.

Driving [00:10:00] an hour and a half each way to take him to school because no school near my home would open early enough to let me drop him off to get to the office by eight 30. There was no way. There was no way. And then the risk of hitting traffic on the way home to go pick him up before daycare closed.

It was awful. So what did that mean as a working mom? It meant that I would. Giving my child a bottle in the car that I would be breast pumping on the highway, that I would be feeding him chicken nuggets on the way home because he was crying and screaming and hungry. So he's crying. I'm crying and this cannot be life.

Like this cannot be it. I'm doing something wrong. I can't balance both. It's just not sustainable. And you said that your, your husband's a pilot and so you Yeah. Unique. It is difficult. All the things you're balancing are difficult for anyone period.

But to be also in a partnership. But, co-parenting was someone who's has to be gone a lot. It sounds like it was [00:11:00] even worse for you Oh yeah. Cause of that. Oh yeah. And when it was just me and my firstborn son, We just made it happen. He was doing medical flight, transport and his schedule was unpredictable and it just had to be that way.

So it was fine. Our stomach did, but then we got pregnant with twins and that's a whole nother ballgame. Here I am still working my tail off and trying to find that balance. And then now I'm having two more children. It's what is going on? How am I gonna do this? And he had to make some changes to, to work somewhere in a.

In a flight department that had a little more predictability and he did that. But unfortunately, my thing didn't change. I was still working in FinTech when my twins were born. So all of a sudden I have three kids under the age of one and working full-time, and my husband's gone and it was awful.

And I, I don't remember the first two years, how old so how, what are the age? What were the ages? Like how far apart were your twins from your first Oh gosh. My oldest wasn't [00:12:00] even two. See, he was a year old when the twins were born. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It was nuts. It was nuts. But for a lot of medical reasons, I had to, if I was gonna have more children, I needed to do it rather quickly.

 and so I just figured it's either one child or we have more, but if we have more, they're gonna be close in age, so we gamble. There you go. , you gamble. Oh my gosh. Holy cow. Okay. Yeah so I think that was, that really started planting a seed of how long can I keep up this charade of me being this.

Aspirational career person and having these babies at home who depend on me and need me. And we had no pair at the time who made everything just work. She was fantastic and she was like a second mom to them, but then also she was like a sister to me and she was the magic behind all the wizardry that we were pulling off behind scenes, so when she was gone, When she had to go back to Columbia, I [00:13:00] was still in tech, and I was working Pacific Coast Hours and I had three babies and I'm like, gosh, at least the work is inspiring. At least I loved what I was doing at VMware.

 I was just, I was gonna ask You liked the work, okay. I love the work. I love the work. It took the edge off some of the stress that I was having. You can't have all the stress and be in a job where you are not fulfilled. There's always a trade off, right?

If you are stressed, but you're stressed in a healthy way, you're finding some kind of out somewhere and it's work that invigorates you, then by all means go do it. You can do it right and it powers you through some of those tough moments because at least the work is rewarding 

from not only what I was able to provide and the value that I was providing to a team, but also the kind of work that I was doing like knowing what it is you wanted to sell and who you are and what the brand stand for,and what that brand should be and what gets in the way of that brand and trying to solve for those challenges  and honest, just being able to support my family [00:14:00] and my household, doing work that inspired me and in, and invigorated me You struggled, but you've loved your work. And then something changed. 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: So unfortunately there was an acquisition pending at VMware, so I had to take a big leap out of there.

 I really had to. make a leap that was hard to make. So this is a pivotal point. yeah, 

I was at VMware for about four years, and when the impending acquisition was announced, I was just crushed.

I was like, oh gosh, that means, a lot of change is gonna happen. Maybe good change, but it was also a risk for me. It's , what happens? There could be way offs. I couldn't take that risk. I'm supporting my family. I'm supporting three children.

Yeah I found my sweet spot and I wanted to stay there and everything felt like it was imbalance and harmony, and the work was great, and all of a sudden the rug gets swept from underneath me.

I thought I could stay here forever, and if I was gonna be a working mom, I was gonna be here and I'm gonna stay here with the people I love. But that wasn't an option anymore. 

I'm, it was really hard. It's do I leave and find something [00:15:00] else? Or do I stay and stomach it and see what happens. It's a Silicon Valley company and the tech industry was doing some crazy, wild things and we were bouncing back from Covid and so there are a lot of factors that went into me deciding that it was time for me to leave.

Okay.What year is it?

 this is six months ago. Six months ago. So six months. Okay. just to ground it's crazy timing wise. So 

 what happens. What do you do? 

Another position fell into my lap and I took it.

And it was a promotion. It was in the same kind of industry, and I felt that I felt deep in my gut. I was like, I don't even know if I'm doing the right thing, but I'm just gonna, I'm gonna do it. And I just felt. I felt like I was doing it because I had to. I felt like I was going into another corporate position yet again because I had to, because that's all I know and because I, decisions were made that I made, they're decisions I made, but they were almost like, The next logical step.[00:16:00] 

It felt like I was always just chasing that next step. of course I'm gonna get that college degree and then I'm gonna, I'm gonna get that job and I'm gonna stay on that track and I'm gonna stay in this industry and I'm gonna stay in corporate.

They're almost like unconscious decisions that I made that kept me on this trajectory. And all of a sudden I just wake up and I'm like, Oh, gosh I made all these decisions, but I haven't gotten to travel. I haven't gotten to take a break with my kids. I haven't been able to do all this. And so I'm sitting here turning 40 and I'm like, this is a lot of change.

I just left the job that I liked and now I'm just taking a job that I feel like I just have to take to stay afloat. And it's only been six months since then, right? So I've technically been at this role for six months. and feeling in my gut that I'm completely off balance. Yeah. So yeah, there's a C shift because even though you're struggling in other areas of your life, you still light up and love your work for a while.

But now that you have to make this change, [00:17:00] this new company, suddenly the sacrifice. Feels a lot less worth it. Let me ask you, you mentioned like I make all these unconscious decisions what did make you go to this next job in the first place? Was it purely financial?

 we have to make enough money? Was it psychological? Was it, oh gosh, that's a great question. I would say it was a combination of. Not knowing any differently thinking this is how it's gonna have to be if we wanna live in this house, if we wanna have our kids going to tutors, if we want to have.

This lifestyle and this car, and if we want to be able to stay debt free because that's what we've been doing, then of course you're gonna have to go get another job. Of course. That's the only way, and Also, it's a little bit of like performance anxiety on my end. Like I don't know what it's like to not work.

I don't know what it's like to just take a break. And so it wasn't in the fiber of my being. I was going to be a working mom. It's what I was used to. That's what gave me that sense of Purpose and the value that I was bringing to my [00:18:00] house and my family, it was that, mom is making some money and mom's keeping us afloat.

And mom, although she's working and busy and she's in meetings, she's still taking us to baseball. I, my worth was so tied into the fibers of being a working mom that just unconsciously was like, all right, what's my next? I didn't make a decision to be a working mom. It was just, what's my next job?

That's it. I think it's just, I've always had this fear of not being able to stay afloat or I've always been like worried about money. I've been providing for myself since I was a teenager.

The only way that I was gonna go to college is if I paid for it or if I had scholarships. I paid for my own car, I paid my own bills. I paid my own cell phone. There was no net. I couldn't just go to my parents and ask for money. I couldn't just go ask them to pay for my wedding. Like they worked their butts off to give us the foundation to be able to support ourselves.

And I'm not gonna let them down. And I'm not gonna let my husband down. I'm not gonna let my kids down. And so I was just sustaining a life. Really, [00:19:00] and that's what I've been doing and I didn't know any different. Andrea, that is very powerful what you just said. And to reflect for a second, you weren't just sustaining a lifestyle.

You were sustaining what you saw as other people's expectations, which then became your up . Yeah, totally. And I didn't see it while I was in it. I just thought that this is just how it had to be. , but when I was in it, I was realizing that sure, I'm super stressed and I cannot pick up my kids from the bus stop, so I need to go get aftercare.

And because they're doing aftercare, they're not doing all their homework as much so that I needed to get a tutor and oh, guess what? Like the expense of my lifestyle was owning me. It was like the golden handcuff of making just enough money to keep your family afloat. But then also that meant that I had to spend more.

to keep this lifestyle going. Does that make sense? I think so. So you're basically saying it's like [00:20:00] for me to keep working the job that I need to make the money to support the lifestyle. I need to make more money and stay with the job because I have to pay an O pair to let me keep the J to let me work.

Yes. It's like I have to pay the pair and the tutors to let me work, but I have to work to pay the pair and the tutors , and then yes. Okay. Okay. Yes. More money, more problems. So sure, I may be doing that, but. What if I were not to work? That means I would be able to stay home with my kids.

I wouldn't need aftercare, I wouldn't need the tutors. I wouldn't need an O pair. I wouldn't need, there would be sacrifices that would need to happen. And for a long time it was like, oh, there's no way we can make those sacrifices. So it just felt . So it did come up. It came up, it just felt, it came up unsustainable or un unattainable really.

It felt, just along the way. And I'd have these moments in my career where I'm like, oh gosh, this is stressful. Why am I so stressed? This is crazy. And I would just daydream with my husband [00:21:00] at 10 o'clock at night. We're both exhausted. Oh, what would it look like if I didn't work? And it always came up.

But I, I never really visited that. I never thought that I could do it. I didn't think that we would be able to pull that. . And so it was just more of a daydream. It was a pipe dream. Like I, I don't think we could do it. And so I just kept working and muscled through it. And eventually where I was with this last job, I just wasn't fulfilled and I was faking it till I made it.

And honestly, I just wasn't true to myself. I had this feeling in my gut that I need to take a break. And I didn't take a break. I just went into the next job. and I should have listened to my gut and I'm a little hard on myself about that, but I think my gut was telling me like, you need to take a break, Karen.

I was, every morning waking up with my chest tight, stressed, my jaw clenched, my heart, just racing, my heart pounding before it's even seven o'clock in the morning. Just anxious because I wouldn't know if I would be. Having meetings at that day when I know my [00:22:00] husband may or may not be flying and if he flies and I was depending on him to take the kids to practice, that means that now I need to take the kids to practice, which means now I have to change my schedule and my meetings and my boss is still waiting on me for this, or I have these meetings I need to be prepared for, but I can't do them because my kid is sick.

Like I just felt like spread so thin all the time. So anxious. You were burned all the time. I was burned out. and what that meant was a, I wasn't doing a great job at work, I don't think to my standards. Everyone else thought I was doing fine, but I'm such a perfectionist that B game to me was horrifying.

I wasn't really available to my kids. They'd come home and I would just tell them to be quiet because I'm in a meeting or by the time my husband gets home, I just hand him all the kids and I'm like, here. And I had no time for him either. I was. Resenting him almost for being gone. Yeah.

And leaving me with this huge plate, , like the weight on me felt so heavy that I would wake up and just be like, I cannot believe I'm doing this. This is nuts.[00:23:00] And to compound that the work wasn't even invigorating for me. 

So Andrea, what I guess we all know in the end what you did , which is leave, but like what happens? So you are just in this total acute struggle mode, which it seems like, yeah, maybe this has been building up for some time. Yeah. But one of the critical pieces of your sort of Tower of Life decisions here, one of the critical pieces, which is you liking your job gets pulled out.

and it just feels like the whole thing's crumbling down. What, yeah, what do you do? What happens next? Yeah. On top of being that stressed, we got a diagnosis for one of my twins. He was diagnosed with autism, and at that moment I knew that I needed to be more present with him to understand him better and to get him to the therapies he needed to be.

and that just helped me prioritize. I felt like now I know what's important, like I am not going to lose a connection [00:24:00] with this kid just cuz I don't understand his world. And so my focus, it was almost like that forced me, was a forcing function for me to click down into my kids and be more present into what they need from me.

And I think. , and this is just recently, right? Like he was just diagnosed and I I know exactly what happened. I was in a meeting. I was in a meeting and the meeting was running long and I knew I needed to get my kid to therapy and bless him. He's sitting there waiting for me. I'm an in this call and my.

Boss who may have been stressed at the time had been upset with me about something, or just maybe something minor, but I got scolded. I think that's what it was. I was scolded or reprimanded for something and I thought oh my gosh, I'm done. That's it. I'm done. 

I'm working my butt off, and I just got scolded like a [00:25:00] child, and that was where I turned off the camera. . And I looked at my husband later that night and I was like, I quit. I'm out. I'm done. I'm not worth it. Not worth it. I'm not doing this anymore. And he's we'll figure out a way to get this done.

We can do it. We're gonna be tight, but I support you. And he's been so supportive. He gets it. He feels terrible that he has to travel. He really feels bad. And so I think that the sacrifice we made. Is the right sacrifice for us, because that means that I can actually be more present in my kids' lives, and especially for my son who needs me at a really important time in his life, in kindergarten, it was a really good move.

It's the right move to make. And that was just the trajectory I needed to that moment. That moment that. I almost am so thankful for it that opened my eyes. That's what it took is just one, maybe minor email correction or something that I didn't do via email that didn't meet someone's expectations, and [00:26:00] that's all I needed to set me in motion.

That was it. It just woke me up and I was like, oh, I'm not doing this. I don't have to subject myself to this anymore. I don't have to subject myself to the stress and not meeting expectations and then letting my kids down. I'm not doing this anymore. . And so yeah, it was very recent and I'm just in week two of not working and that I was gonna say, you talk about this with my gosh, such clarity that it seems like it could have been 10 years ago as if it's been like this really long , but this just happened.

You are, like you said, last week was your first week off the job, . Yeah, basically. Yeah. It's terrifying. It's absolutely terrifying. But also I'm not, I don't have the level of stress that I had. I think that a lot of times, We confused being busy with being stressed. You can be busy and not stressed.

And I didn't know what that felt like. I didn't know what that felt like. I'm busy, but I'm not stressed. Andrea, after you had that conversation with your husband, what did you do? Did you go in and just quit? Did [00:27:00] you, what, yeah. did you give your two weeks notice? I gave my two weeks. 

 I knew that I could not be there more than two more weeks. Like honestly, the thought of being there one month longer was gonna send me into orbit . I was like, I'm not doing this anymore.

This is insane. So two weeks and I just hung up my hat. How? And it's wild. . It is wild. So what let me ask so, and share as much as you are willing and, but , a lot of things that come up when people make these leaps is money dollars and cents. you mentioned, you've given some reference, right?

You're like we'll just tighten our belts Do y'all have a certain number, like savings net? a certain plan? Have you changed your budget? how are you gonna go from living on two salaries to one and perhaps your salary was even higher. like how are you gonna do this?

Because that's what people really wanna know. Yeah. Yeah. So I we're stay tuned. figures. Yeah, we were both making six figures and I was doing [00:28:00] pretty 

well, 

not gonna lie. and some of my value that I felt was like I am earning money that I never thought I'd be able to earn. Like it was just great financially.

I was doing stuff for myself and we were planning vacations, we were doing all this, but it wasn't worth the stress. It was like the juice wasn't worth the squeeze and. It's it now, honestly, it's bizarre. But my kids needed pants. I went to Goodwill yesterday. I bought them pants. Normally what would happen is I would get online, I would go Amazon shopping, target, it would be there in two, three days.

It is much more labor intensive and I have to be much more focused financially to sacrifice some of the frill, some of the frills that we were having, some of the conveniences too, maybe to very convenient, very. Honestly, I've eliminated almost 40% of our expenses. What? Just so [00:29:00] that we could survive.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So we're paying off our car early. We're, I'm foregoing a lot of the things that I normally would have done. My nails are a mess. I'm , but I'm really doing this consciously and with purpose. I'm really trying to go in and do I really need to do this? Will it save me from having to be stressed to go find another job?

And you know what? I may go and find another job, Karen. That's the thing. I don't know. I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I don't feel this financial pressure to go find that next thing right now, but I know that I'm just gonna have to find something that gives me purposes, aside from just existing.

I I do wanna do something and I don't know what it is. I think that's amazing. And what I think is amazing is you are very honestly and frankly, realistically being like, I don't know what's next. I'm not saying I'm leaping now to forever be here just to take, to just to raise my kids and not do anything else.

But I'm also not saying I'm gonna go get another job [00:30:00] tomorrow. Maybe I don't wanna do that. you're like, either way. I have created, the act of creating the flexibility in my life financially. , to be able to make that choice when it makes sense for me to make it. And Yeah.

Eliminating 40% of your budget. Oh my gosh, that's great. Yeah. That's impressive. But that also tells you that we were under a golden handcuff, right? , what does that tell you? That means that the money we were spending, we didn't have to.  and and I was doing that and being stressed and having a job to pay for things that I didn't need.

Like it was this vicious cycle. Does that make sense at all? Yes. Yes. Maybe I'm not articulating cause it's only been a week of me looking back, but at the. Truth of it. I'm finding that I don't need as much as what I thought I would need.

I'm. We've stripped a lot of things back that we don't need, and I'm happier. I'm way happier. Would you mind just like sharing a few examples you, I [00:31:00] think you already have, but like basically, rather than going on to Amazon or Target for like quickest convenience, but being willing to pay a bit more to get pants for your kids, you're like, yeah.

I'll get used pants for my kids, whatever. They're gonna outgrow them in two weeks anyways. I'm not gonna do my nails like, is that's the kind of thing, oh gosh, now I have time. Okay, perfect example. Now I have time during the day to meal prep and make food and actually be, this sounds insane because people who know me know that I can't cook at all.

Like I'm useless. Useless. You're not alone. But I have, oh my gosh, the worst. The worst. And. It's a joke in our friends and family, like our circles like, oh my gosh, let her bring the napkins to the party. Don't let her make anything . And so here I am home. I'm like, what am I gonna do with my time?

I'm meal prepping. I'm gonna the grocery store. I've never been to the grocery store like my husband did all that, but he was doing all of that because I was working. when he's home and he's not flying, he's doing the cooking, the cleaning, he's getting the kids ready for [00:32:00] baseball. He was doing all that.

And now that is on me and I'm doing it happily because that's now my new role. But now the way I'm cutting budget is I'm making meals from scratch. , and that's way less expensive than buying things that are already made or going out to eat because it's more convenient or because I didn't have the time to make dinner at home, we would go to baseball and immediately go to a restaurant just because I wanted a get out of making dinner and b, I did not have the time to make dinner or else we would be in bed at nine 30.

So it's just suspicious cycle. I was working and then spending money going out to eat and spending money to order Uber Eats or something because I didn't have the time to make the meals. And yeah, we're saving money there too. I'm buying a lot of stuff and ingredients and doing stuff at home, and it's more work and it's more labor intensive and I'm doing a lot more cleaning, but we're saving money too.

We're eating better. And let me ask you, because. Probably because it reflects how you're feeling right now. You're being very positive about all of this. [00:33:00] Tell me some of the low points, some of the doubts, some of the fears, some of the, , there have to be some things existing alongside this. Oh yeah, there's a bit of an identity crisis that I know is gonna be creeping in

Yeah. You mentioned that you were journaling at like basically, so you've been journaling since the experience, tracking how you've been feeling. Oh, tell me, is it different every day? Is it, I would say there's a theme of what am I good at? What the hell would someone ever pay me to do if I wasn't in corporate America?

Like I get compliments on. My house decor. Does it mean I'm an interior designer? No. I get compliments on my social media posts because they're witty or they're funny or they're, self-deprecating. But does that mean I'm gonna be a blogger? No, I don't know. Or You have a really good eye for marketing.

Why don't you start your own agency? Oh, I don't know. And so I'm in a bit of a paralysis of I don't know what I'm good at. I have no idea what I'm good at. And what [00:34:00] would help me bring income in. It's like it needs to meet together. It needs to be something that I get fulfillment out of, but also something that brings home bacon.

And it's what does that look like? I don't know. And so there's a little bit of who am I? What do I do? What am I good at? How can I bring value to someone else's life? I know that whatever I wanna do, I, whatever I end up doing, I want it to be impactful. I don't know that I will want to jump in a corporate position.

So what does that entail? Wow. Stay tuned, , I was gonna say, I love it. Okay, so I think. Yeah, I would like to stay tuned. I would like to . I think that you are on this journey and I think it's a new moment to be able to capture someone who is like truly an active leap in progress. And I love how this came up recently.

You and I are connected through friends of friends and many moons ago we had, spent some time together, but it really has been years. We've been, we. Social media connection, right? [00:35:00] Yeah. And so I love that in this moment when I was thinking I'm gonna try and start tracking people's leaps in progress.

 just here and there. Like this could add, this could be really exciting, this could be fresh, live new, very raw, authentic, special, whatever, that you came back into my life. I came back into your life. I think the timing is literally, you were like, oh, I just made the decision like today or this week or whatever it was.

When we first connected a few weeks ago, I was like, let's get on the phone. , let's, oh God. And now it's only been again two weeks since. Since yeah, I love it. I want us to stay in touch. I want us to track your leap. I think that I'm not alone in wanting to hear down the road highs, lows, lessons learned, and, but really just tracking your exploration because When we hear, I think there's a really important space for hearing about people's leaps who've already happened and there's an argument that leaps are always in progress and life is always a change of course.

Hearing someone whose leap was several years [00:36:00] ago, who's reflecting on it now I think there's real value in that because sometimes we only learn really in hindsight exactly what was happening and connect the right dots and have, there's a big benefit in that.

At the same time, I think that there's like a real rawness and a really important space for capturing things also, as they happen when they're fresh. I'm just so excited to hear more about where your explorations all I had to say in, in the next, coming weeks, months, whatever. Yes. We will have to stay tuned.

Yeah. . Yeah. If anything, I hope just puts a mirror in front of the faces of other women that are having these moments of being in their late thirties or forties and feeling like they're spinning too many plates. I hope that it's a bit of encouragement that. , you can lift some of that burden. You just have to prioritize and figure out what's important to you and what are the sacrifices you're willing to make.

And, I can't guarantee it's gonna be pretty, I have no idea what I'm doing. And it would be interesting to look [00:37:00] back on this as my weeps progress, yeah. But since making this leap I've had, three or four friends going, oh gosh, I wish I could do that. And I'm like, oh. That means that there's a lot of us who feel this way, that means a lot of us are burned out.

And hopefully this just helps people see things while they're in it, to know that maybe it doesn't have to be that way. I love it. Stay tuned. Thank you. 

Life Leaps Podcast: And stay tuned. We will. Plus more on Andrea Gomez Kerr and this podcast and the show notes for this episode. 

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Karen Tanenbaum

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