For today’s episode, we are delighted to bring back a beloved alumni of Your Clear Calling!
Are you struggling to align creating an intuitive, fulfilled life with a career to match?
In this episode, Your Clear Calling (YCC) alumni Sarah Castle shares about how the course helped her move from Amazon executive to college professor and launching her own business.
Before YCC, Sarah carried work home with her every day. She knew she needed to make a change, but didn’t know how to make the leap.
You’ll hear how Sarah decoupled her worth from her job in order to reallocate time to her family, friends, community, and things she loves to do. Hear about the unexpected benefit of incremental changes towards a goal…. even when the timing doesn’t feel right.
Sarah is the founder of Castle Coaching & Consulting, a firm focused on helping individuals and companies get clear on what they want, and then, going after it! Prior to starting her business, Sarah was an executive at Amazon, where she worked for 15 years. There she held a variety of roles in mergers & acquisitions, investment fund portfolio management, digital devices, Amazon Alexa voice technology, digital and print books, and human resources.
Through all of this experience, she honed in on her purpose – transforming organizations and elevating leaders. Now, she’s working in my purpose every day by being a coach, consultant, and speaker. Outside of her business, she lives a full life where she’s a mother, mentor, entrepreneurship professor, non-profit board member, published author, athlete, home cook, and an all-around badass!
“I actively worked on having what I’d call a detached commitment to my work. I was going to work hard, but I started to set some boundaries around the emotional connection to that work. And so when I did that, I could see that I hadn’t set any boundaries there. And I realized, oh, I can still do a good job, right, be a good employee, be a good leader and manager, and I don’t have to be consumed by this all the time. And so when I was able to start to detach myself, which also means decoupling my worth from what I’m producing at work, then I started to see things differently.”
“The key for me is I was doing little things over what ultimately was a long period of time. It took me a couple of years, but it was kind of like, oh, I’m going to get an LLC for my consulting business. I have no idea what that business is going to be about, but I’m just going to start this process. Or I’m just going to get these headshots taken. And then I had headshots that I could use for speaking events. And so these things, it’s progress. And then they almost all ended up mattering or being helpful later, even though I didn’t know what they were going to be for when I did them.”
“The other thing that led to a lot of action for me is I started telling people about my vision and about my goals. So many things started to happen more quickly when I did that because then suddenly these opportunities came to me. Oh, I’d like to teach. Oh, why don’t you come guest speak in my college class? Oh, okay. Oh, you did a great job on that. Why don’t I introduce you to these other people? Right. And so there’s just things like that when you tell people about it, that it can accelerate or it does accelerate your progress and your ability to take action because other people help you with the action.”
“Your Clear Calling just helped me get aligned to being able to say yes immediately. I just knew in my body, full body sensation, I got offered this opportunity like, yes, I’m going to do that. And so Your Clear Calling helped me get there. And then I had set some additional goals around training for myself and kind of building the second arm of what my new career would be. And so it was after your clear calling, I didn’t think it was going to work out, actually.”
“Going through the exercise of picturing where you want to be in ten years and you do that in a guided way, that helps a lot, just being able to listen in for what that could be and then work backwards and create goals for that. To me, that’s life changing kind of work.”
“I had many points throughout my corporate career, where I felt like I lost my mojo, my essence, because I was working on cool things that were innovative, and it was fun a lot of the time, but not always. And so I had lots of moments where I was like, oh, this isn’t quite me. And so I practiced knowing what I wanted and what I liked and what made me feel good, so that when it came along, I could say yes to it. There’s something about tuning in more frequently and regularly around intuitively what you know you’re meant to be doing or what you’re into or what gives you energy.”
NICOLE
Welcome to the School of Self-Worth, a podcast for ambitious women who know they are worthy of an astoundingly great life. Join us weekly as we get on the right side of your intuition, redefine success, and reclaim your self-worth. I’m your host, Nicole Tsong, an award-winning journalist who left it all behind to become a bestselling author of three books and work/life balance expert helping ambitious women unlock their intuition and step into a life of fulfilment and radical joy.
Every single week, I will bring you diverse and meaningful conversations with successful women from all walks of life who share insight about what it takes to be brave, joyful and authentic every day. Every episode is thoughtfully designed to leave you feeling empowered with tangible tips and advice that will lead you to your next breakthrough.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of School of Self-Worth. This is my Your Clear Calling Success series, wherein I sit down with a few of my incredible, inspiring past Your Clear Calling students to share how their lives have been completely transformed by Your Clear Calling. If you’re not already familiar with my signature program, it breaks down the exact steps required to identify and live into your purpose. It helps you completely shift your relationship with yourself and with those whom you love. Within the span of 20 weeks, you won’t recognize yourself from the first day of the program to the very last day. It is a wild ride and a total metamorphosis.
Today I am sitting down with coach and college professor Sarah Castle, who used YCC to get dream gigs at work, then leave her corporate job of 15 years for a full time job as a college professor, land speaking gigs and launch her own coaching business, and more importantly, to build a relationship of unbreakable trust with herself. As you’re listening, if you’re like, “Oh my God, I see myself in Sarah, this is exactly the kind of transformation I want from myself”. You are in luck, because Your Clear Calling just opened for enrolment. It is your turn to create the life and the purpose you imagined for yourself. Doors close Tuesday, May 30. So if you are all in, go to Go NicoleTsong.com YCC to secure your spot in the May 2023 Cohort. Again, That’s Go NicoleTsong.com YCC.
Well, Sarah, it is so fun to have you here on School of Self-Worth. Welcome.
SARAH CASTLE
Hi, thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here because this is a topic I’ve been working on for a long time.
NICOLE
I know it’s been such a journey and really, we’re here as part of the alumni series for Your Clear Calling. And right before, we were talking about that time in your life when you took the course because you really had so many things going on. So I would love to start first perhaps with your Self-Worth journey and then we can talk about that time in your life where you were coming into Your Clear Calling and really making a ton of transitions and change. But let’s just get a little bit about you first so people can get a sense of what you’re about and what you’re up to these days.
SARAH CASTLE
Okay, for the self-worth journey, I can’t help but go back to childhood, essentially for this. So I grew up with a single mom who worked really hard, and a lot of what I was focused on was, how do I build myself a different life? How do I build my way out of this? How do I not have financial constraints, how do I have more freedom around this? Where I saw my mom being worried a lot. I think a lot of decisions I made are grounded in how do I achieve, how do I accomplish things, how do I earn, how do I build this life? I kind of got into some really strong patterns around working hard, and it’s great in many ways. I accomplished a ton of things and got to the point where I was giving so much to work that I wanted to have coaching, so that I could get help on making other decisions, right? And so that’s what a lot of my kind of focus around self-worth was on; how do I just build this life for myself? And several years ago, I got to a point where I don’t have to worry about that, I don’t need to think about it that way. So then I really started to consider what I wanted to do? What do I really want to do now? What’s my purpose? How do I put myself in a position where I can achieve these things that before wouldn’t be practical, or didn’t seem like a good idea, but they’re things I really wanted to do. That’s kind of where I started and where I am now, then we can fill in the blanks.
NICOLE
Totally. Well, Sarah and I met years ago in the yoga world and really looking back to where you were at. She was in the Your Clear Calling cohort in the early part of 2021 and the winter of 2021, and by that point, Sarah, you were starting to put in a lot of change, like, you had spent a decade plus in corporate culture, really, with your head down, just doing working hard, like you said. Could you share a little bit more about what was the mentality that you had going into the course and what were you hoping to get out of that work?
SARAH CASTLE
I was looking for change, like, big change, and trying to figure out how to go from where I was to where I wanted to be. And you and I had done work together before this, and so I had made incremental changes. I made some really positive job changes, some positive changes in my life. I had a kid. A bunch of things had happened, but I was at the point where I was ready to shift. The time to shift is now! That’s what I was looking for when I joined. Your Clear Calling was just how to make the leap. Yeah.
NICOLE
So you had actually really done a lot of hard work to know you wanted to make change, because for so many people, that is a very difficult stage to reach.
SARAH CASTLE
Yeah. Goals helped me so much, and I had really clear goals around opening my own business someday, goals around speaking, writing a book, these things that I could not figure out how to make time for in the life that I had.
NICOLE
How many hours were you working then? Would you remember at that time?
SARAH CASTLE
I don’t know. It’s hard with how connected we are. And I was a senior leader in running big teams. I was never off, and so I worked probably a normal day, but then I was always looking at email, never fully on vacation, probably working almost every night after my daughter went to sleep and parts of the weekend. That was a peak work time for me. It was a peak amount of work in my career because of the nature of the job I had, and that might have helped push me towards wanting to change and figuring it out, because I didn’t want to live like that anymore. I wanted to have more time for family.
I wanted to branch out in different ways. I was putting all my energy into one job, but wanted to be doing like, five different things. I wanted to do some nonprofit work. I wanted to do work in the community. I wanted to spend more time with my daughter and husband. I couldn’t figure out how to quite make the jump. And that’s when I joined YCC.
NICOLE
Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that. I feel like so many people who are listening are resonating with this because they’re a bit overworked and doing a lot, and they have families and things they care about outside of their work, and yet they can’t figure out how to even find the time to start to make the change. And what would you say was instrumental for you in starting to figure out how to even make the time to sort through what this would take?
SARAH CASTLE
I think one of the biggest things for me was that I actively worked on having what I’d call a ‘detached commitment’ to my work. So I wanted to do a good job. I was going to work hard, but I started to set some boundaries around the emotional connection to that work. When I did that, when I started to do this, and I think it’s probably from coaching and from the course, I could see that I hadn’t set any boundaries there. And so I realized I can still do a good job, right, be a good employee, be a good leader and manager boss, and I don’t have to be consumed by this all the time. When I was able to start to detach myself, which also means decoupling my worth from what I’m producing at work, then I started to see things differently. It was like I can say yes to this other thing, and I started to say yes to other things, which almost forced me to spend less time working, if that makes sense, like I needed other reasons, other ways to spend time.
Once I started to become detached, committed, yet detached, and said yes to these other things, I created an environment where I was starting to be full in different ways, and I had to work less because I said yes to these other things that I wanted to do. So I don’t know if that’s a good strategy or not, because it was still more, but it was a reallocation of how I was spending my time.
NICOLE
Yeah, well, I like it because what happened is you started to go towards something which you and I have talked about many times. Right. How do you give yourself something to move towards? A lot of us spend a lot of time wanting to get away from something, I want to be done with working so hard, I want to get away from my job. But then we get really directionless around this. So you actually gave yourself things that were fun for you, or exciting or interesting.
SARAH CASTLE
Yeah, it’s like starting to work on a book. I started writing my draft outline on a vacation, right? And that was just like a fun project to have. Then I started to do some nonprofit work after looking into the ones that were closely tied to my heart or to what I really wanted to be spending time on. So you’re right. I was doing things I had always wanted to do but hadn’t ever done, because I didn’t think I had time. But I actually did have time. I just had to say no to work, and set more boundaries there.
NICOLE
Well, what would you say in terms of the tools that you learnt in Your Clear Calling around that separation and decoupling of self-worth from your work? Because that is such a journey for so many, especially women who are high-achieving and work really hard and have these powerful jobs. What helped you in the course and then to start to actually do it in life?
SARAH CASTLE
One of the things that helped me the most, and since I’ve done this now many times, is around setting a vision. So going through the exercise of picturing where you want to be in ten years and you do that in a guided way, that helps a lot, just being able to listen in for what that could be and then work backwards and create goals for that. To me, that’s life changing kind of work. And I used to be the person who, if someone asked me where I wanted to be in five years? Please don’t ask me that question. I hate that question because I didn’t know. I was just taking opportunities as they came, which was good many times and every now and then not so good. But I couldn’t look forward for myself. But with the tools around vision and goals, it actually made it really easy to look forward, with the power of knowing what you want.
It’s kind of an exercise where you outline some key things you want. These really simple things made it easy for me to start to see what I actually did want and then move towards it.
NICOLE
Yeah. Which brings us to a really important point, the action piece. I find that is the thing that really stops a lot of people from saying that there is something that they want, and are going to bring that into the world. And for you, what was that shift? Because you also had some time where you knew you wanted to leave, but you didn’t do it for some period. So what kind of prompted that shift for you?
SARAH CASTLE
Sometimes it’s just timing. There was a period of time where I was ready to leave and make a big change and then my husband got laid off like, and so all these practical things come into play. But I think the key for me is I was doing little things over what ultimately was a long period of time. It took me a couple of years, but it was like when I decided to get an LLC for my consulting business. I had no idea what that business was going to be about, but I was just going to start this process, get a lawyer, get the LLC set up and then see what happens. Or I was just going to get these headshots taken because we can win this in an auction, and it would be fun to have. And then I had headshots that I could use for speaking events, and those speaking events started to come. What I found is with the actions, they could be really small, and then they just started to layer on. Like I got invited to speak. Wonderful, I have a headshot for that, right. Or now I want to be a coach. I have an LLC. Now I’m ready to start a coaching business.
I bought domain names just randomly without knowing exactly what I was going to be doing in the future. I bought like five or six domain names with the idea that I would use them. And so these things were progress. They almost all ended up mattering or being helpful later, even though I didn’t know what they were going to be for when I did them.
NICOLE
Well, I love that you are taking aligned action that was very messy without attachment to the outcome. And I was laughing when you were talking about detached commitment to work, because that’s actually what I think about purpose, that we have to have a detached commitment to purpose, because that’s what you were doing with the buying of five website domains.
SARAH CASTLE
Yeah, right. I knew I was going to teach or coach or consult, but it was all grounded in wanting to grow the leaders of the future, and so what kinds of things would I need to do that? I think that one of the key things you can do is start making these incremental changes where you’re putting yourself out there a little bit. And then the other thing that led to a lot of action for me is I started telling people about my vision and about my goals.
NICOLE
Because it makes it real.
SARAH CASTLE
Yes, it does make it real. And so many things started to happen more quickly when I did that because then suddenly these opportunities came to me. “Oh, I’d like to teach. Oh, why don’t you come guest speak in my college class? Oh, okay. Oh, you did a great job on that. Why don’t I introduce you to these other people?” Then I ended up teaching, being an adjunct at a different college. There’s just things like that when you tell people about it, that it can accelerate, or it does accelerate your progress and your ability to take action because other people help you with the action.
NICOLE
Yeah. Or they can also be reminders when you’re not yes, wouldn’t you say? And I remember the time where your boss was holding you accountable at your job. Do you remember that? When you were telling her it was time for you to go, she was basically like, yeah, of course, because she already knew.
SARAH CASTLE
Yes, it was a male boss and yes, sorry, he totally did that. Good memory, because I had been talking about it, I knew I was going to work my way out. That’s interesting. Now I’m thinking I did it twice because I then took a different job, which freed up my time in a different way, and then I fully exited. So that was like a two-putt step away. But in both cases, my bosses knew what I was after and why, and they supported me when it became time to actually leave or to change jobs, to go do the thing I was most interested in, it’s time to say goodbye to the company and go out on your own.
NICOLE
Well, I’m curious because what was that self-worth journey then like for you? Because it’s one thing to have the self-worth to tell everybody, and then for you to actually exit, because you exited your company. So what was it like to say, “I’m leaving behind this job I’ve had for 15 years?” I mean, not one job, but this company you had been at for 15 years to go out on your own, which is a level of courage that is really, really challenging for so many. And I’m not saying that everyone has to do the pathway that Sarah took, but it was a really clear pathway for you that it was time for you to go.
SARAH CASTLE
Yeah, it was not hard, which is surprising because people ask me that. They’ve asked me that a lot. I’m only not even a year out from this change, and so I still am connected with people I worked with before. And they often ask me, “How is it? Do you miss it?” Like, “No, I don’t”. And the transition was totally fine. It was easy. I was ready to say goodbye. And you might relate to this, or others who listen might relate to this, but sometimes you just know you’re done and you’re ready to move on, and then you just do.
So for me, I had been working on this. I knew what I wanted to do. I knew what my purpose was. I had been making these incremental changes. Suddenly, all the pieces came together even quicker than I expected them to. And so when it was time to go, I just said goodbye, and I was fine, and I knew it would be okay. The biggest challenge for me was more the wealth part of the equation, which was going from a really financially stable, privileged position to a lot less stable and earning significant less. And so that’s the part where I still practice and get tripped up on.
But I gave myself time. I gave myself two years. I have a goal that I’ll double my income in two years. And so I often have to remember that, recall that for myself, which is, I gave myself that time. But otherwise it wasn’t hard to say goodbye at all. Which could be true for other people probably, too, where you think it’s going to be hard, and it turns out it’s actually not.
NICOLE
Well, I feel like when we often have something that we know deep down, this happens sometimes with conversations. People will have difficult conversations and they will come to me and say they don’t want to have this conversation with this person. I’m like, well, they know. They already know, something is below the surface. This is true whether it’s a work relationship or if it’s your partner or anybody in your friendship. It’s always percolating under there. And so we like to pretend like nobody knows or understands, but the truth is, your company knew, your people knew, everyone knew as much as you did, that it was really time and you were ready to go.
SARAH CASTLE
Yeah, I think that’s true. No one was surprised, and it didn’t make me a less good leader in my last one year or six months. In fact, there’s probably elements where I was better at my job because of how I was showing up, how I had set boundaries, what I expected of my team members. There’s some ways where I think I created actually a much better working environment, as I was planning my exit. Right. Or I knew that it would happen in the next year, or however long. Then when I did go, everyone was like, you’re right. You’re meant to do this. Go make the most of it.
NICOLE
I love that. And then where would you say your clear calling came in? Because it ended before you exited, but it was definitely during that stretch. Where would you say by the end of the course, I think it was March or so in 2021, how it helped you mentally to really make those big pushes, because you left a few months after that. I don’t know if I should reveal this.
SARAH CASTLE
I already knew that I was making one big career change. It happened before Your Clear Calling ended. I had already said yes to something that then was six months away, before I started the new thing. Your Clear Calling just helped me get aligned to being able to say yes immediately. I just knew in my body, full body sensation, I got offered this opportunity like, yes, I’m going to do that. And so YCC helped me get there. And I had set some additional goals around training for myself and kind of building the second arm of what my new career would be.
After YCC, I wanted to do coach training. I didn’t think it was going to work out because I wasn’t sure they were going to offer that training. I still had a goal around going through some kind of coaching certification, then YCC ended, it turned out the company that I wanted to go through training with, did end up offering. Again, there I was prepared to say yes because I had spent time thinking and listening into what I really wanted to be doing. Sorry, this is a long way to say Your Clear Calling just helped me know what to say yes to. And when the opportunities came, I was clear, and I just did it.
NICOLE
Well, I love how you’re showing everyone It can be really simple, but we go through a lot to make it simple. There’s a lot of inner work and different pieces you have to go through to get to that point where you know what to do, and you are not going to sit and debate with yourself over the things you know are right for you.
SARAH CASTLE
Yeah, well, and I had been working on that for a long time. I keep this notebook of all the coaching and self-development work that I do, and I found my first version of my goals. It’s from 2016, and I had a five-year goal that I would teach either a college or a high school class. And it’s so interesting. So five years would have been 2021, and then later I created more goals. Like, this was an old artifact, but it’s really interesting that then I created other goals that were kind of like that. Actually, before 2021, I was teaching a college class, so a bunch of this had been percolating and had come out in different goals, and maybe I’d been moving towards it, but it didn’t become a major career shift until some years in when I realized that I love it. I know I’m meant to do this, and then I was in a position to be able to make it my work.
NICOLE
That’s amazing. Sarah and I have had a couple of rounds of work before, and when we were setting goals, once, you said you want to be really careful what you write down, because they come true.
SARAH CASTLE
It’s true. Almost all of them have come true, and I work at it. Sometimes things happen where I’ve not necessarily told someone, yet they’re working on it for me. It’s not like I’m looking at my goals every week to see what I said I was going to do in April 2023 or October 2023. But I will go look at them, let’s say at least twice a year or three times a year, and I’ll be like, oh, that’s done, or that happened. So there’s something by doing the work and I think Your Clear Calling helps with this. It’s already in your mind or, you know, and so you’re probably doing work on it without realizing that you are.
NICOLE
Well, I was going to say that is actually what we do in Your Clear Calling, is we do goals, but we don’t do goals. And no offense to the corporate side, but the corporate way where you have your Q, one Q, two goals, or whatever it is that you’re working on, these are really like we spend the time and the equivalent is, say you are wanting to decorate your house. You would go really basic, like you’d get your palette first, and if you’re like a pinterest person, you’d make a vision board and you really look at all the pieces, and you make sure you’re super aligned on everything. And then you set the goals. A lot of times what people do, I think, is they just kind of like grab bag. Like, oh, well, that person said that. And I used to be like this too. A lot of my goals just land it in my lap.
Someone told me journalism seems cool, so I thought, “Great!” And then I became a journalist for ten years. Right. Whereas Your Clear Calling is much more intentional about what is the correct fit for you, which is to me, much more the definition of what purpose is.
SARAH CASTLE
Yeah, I can see that too. And you learn to listen to yourself. I mean, we get all this information from other people and expectations of what we think we should be doing. For me, there’s a very natural path to just keep going, get promoted to the next level, take the next biggest job, right? And so you can kind of get into this default mode where you’re doing all the right things and life can be pretty good, but it still doesn’t feel quite right. Like, you know, it’s not quite right, or maybe you want more or who knows? And so spending the time to be really specific about what it is you actually want is really helpful. Then you’ll develop goals that will get you somewhere where you want to be and kind of remove the influence of expectations that others might have on you.
NICOLE
I’m curious for you. When you said that something came up for you, where you said you feel like something is not quite right. And when that happens, and you’ve never said this specifically, I’ve heard this from other people where they might feel guilty about it, or they feel like they shouldn’t get to because they’re in such a privileged position, because they have these big jobs, where they make a lot of money. “Who am I to give up that kind of stuff?” And what was your experience trying to sort through that? Like, “No, no, I, Sarah, get to go after something different.”
SARAH CASTLE
So I had many points throughout my career, corporate career, where I felt like I lost my mojo, my essence, because I was working on cool things that were innovative, and it was fun a lot of the time, but not always. I had lots of moments where I felt it wasn’t quite me. Other people might have recognized or felt this too, but sometimes we just ignore that and maybe ignore that for long periods of time. And so what I practiced, because all of this is actually practicing, we have to learn how to practice all this stuff, to stick to what we really do want. I just practiced. I practiced knowing what I wanted and what I liked and what made me feel good, so that when it came along, I could say yes to it. I’m not sure if this answers your question, really, but I just think there’s something there about tuning in more frequently and regularly around intuitively knowing what you’re meant to be doing, or what you’re into, or what gives you energy.
I guess that’s what I would say. I was becoming really clear on what gave me energy and what didn’t, and then started to make decisions based on that.
NICOLE
There’s just more to life than what you were doing for what you wanted. Right. There was just more for you to do, that you were done doing the things you had done, and it was time for you to do something different.
SARAH CASTLE
Yes. I definitely even had certain jobs before I made the big shift I did recently, just knowing that it wasn’t enough. or I was meant to do more. Sometimes it just took me a little too long to realize that, or maybe I waited too long, and now I’m better at not waiting as long. I think that the practice is being able to say no to this, or yes to that, and how to get sharper on doing that more quickly.
NICOLE
Yeah, because that’s the muscle you get stronger at. You act faster on the things that you know to do instead of staring at it for a while. We like to stare at it like a piece of art on the wall. You’re just going to look at it instead of saying, okay, it’s time to go.
SARAH CASTLE
Yeah. But we can also get handcuffed to things. I definitely had financial handcuffs in some ways, and that was probably the biggest or the hardest thing for me to rationalize. But still, there’s some level of bravery you just need to have to make change and then trust that you’ll figure it out. And if not, then you can go back or you can do whatever. There’s so many options.
NICOLE
Well, that’s what I love. What you’re sharing is that there are so many options. We get into this idea that the only way that wealth and abundance comes is through the paycheck you get every two weeks from your job, versus realizing there’s so many different ways you can live in this world, and then contribute, because you’re living in these other ways in the world.
SARAH CASTLE
Yeah, I agree with that, and I see that more and more every day. But I was taking the very conservative route in my life and that didn’t really line up with how spontaneous I wanted to be, or the level of risk-taking I actually would prefer to take. And so at some point through the work with you and Your Clear Calling, and other work that I did over some years now, I just started trusting myself more. Like I was saying before, be ready to say yes to things that were going to be different than what I had been building up for myself over 10 or 15 years.
NICOLE
Well, that’s why I call it unbreakable trust in your clear calling, because it really is that and how do you learn to do it, so that you can lead your life and really trust yourself to do it. And you’re not asking everyone else, including me, that you know how to do it yourself, right?
SARAH CASTLE
There’s a community in all of it. But this goes back to talking to people, sharing what you want to be doing with others. And I’m like, wow, there’s so many people who helped me get to where I am now, and some were little small things, and others were much larger, but it’s a community, and now it’s interesting. The world that I exist in, which includes a bunch of female entrepreneurs and coaches, are just very different communities than I was in. Man, I learn so much every day, and I am continually in awe by how brave people are and how much courage people have to go out on their own or do something different or try something new. And so even being in that environment with those communities makes me braver too, for whatever my next things are going to be.
NICOLE
Absolutely. Well, I’m curious, can you share with everyone some of the results you’ve had since the course? So since that spring of 2021, what has happened in your life?
SARAH CASTLE
There’s a lot of things. A lot of things. I’ll try to think of the biggest ones, but one, I left a job that I really didn’t like, that I was talking myself into regularly saying how I’m in this job so I can learn these things. I would have to tell myself, every week, that I’m in this job to learn, or I’m getting promoted. So I left a job that was consuming in many ways, and I moved into a job that I loved. That was step one, I loved, and it was good work with a good team, and I was building again, and it was innovative. Then I got offered to teach full-time. And so even though I was in a job I loved, I knew that I was meant to teach.
I said yes to a full-time teaching job, and now I teach entrepreneurship at a college, and I launched my own coaching and consulting business. I spend more time with my family. I have been on multiple trips across the US and the world. I’ve rekindled friendships that I didn’t put enough time into for a period of time, and I’ve been able to just reignite some of those where I had just not let it go. And similarly with family, I have stronger relationships with family members because I’m putting time into communicating differently. I ask different questions. So there’s so many things about my day to day life and really big, really big shifts.
NICOLE
So powerful. Well, I love what you’re sharing is both personal and professional, because sometimes we come into these things for professional reasons, and then so much of the benefit is actually really personal.
SARAH CASTLE
Yeah, that’s true. I mean, often I talk about career the most because that has been my focus, and I’m still very career oriented. But when I did those visioning exercises that we were talking about before, almost every vision exercise that I did was actually about my family. I would be in these scenarios where I’m spending a certain amount of time with my daughter, or I could go to her performances or games or whatever it was in the afternoon, and I was like, well, what kind of job would I need to have to make that possible? So a lot of my visions were grounded in spending my time differently than how I was. And it’s about health. It’s about personal life and relationships and about career. Even though I tend to lean towards the career. It’s all completely integrated.
NICOLE
Awesome. And then what would you say as your tangible tip, actually, if anyone is struggling with the idea of it or investing in themselves to be in this course, what would you tell them?
SARAH CASTLE
I would tell them that if they’re thinking about it, if they’re on the edge, I guess I would say just take the leap and invest in yourself. I think often, and especially for women, we don’t invest in our own self and development as much as we could. And for me, I’ve invested quite a lot, probably over the last ten years, which has dramatically shifted my life in so many positive ways. So I would just try investing, like knowing that you’re worth it and investing in that and to see what happens, because I think it’s very likely, and maybe inevitable, that something awesome will come out of that, because you’re focusing on yourself. And we often don’t do that in that kind of setting or way. So I think it’s an accelerator.
NICOLE
Yeah, absolutely. I love that. It really is. Okay, are you ready for your rapid fire questions? What was the last thing you watched on TV?
SARAH CASTLE
Oh, am I going to be embarrassed by oh, I don’t remember what it’s called, but it’s a movie with George Clooney and Julia Roberts, and they go to Bali because their daughter wants to get married. It was a movie I watched with my husband, and I cried multiple times.
NICOLE
I am the worst with movie title names, so I cannot help you. I’m sure I’ve watched that movie. Oh, is it the brand new one? Tearjerker?
SARAH CASTLE
Yes. But any romantic comedy leads to crying for me. I am a real sucker for love stories.
NICOLE
I am too. I’m a total romantic comedy generation. I’m sad they don’t make them as much as they used to. Okay, what is on your nightstand?
SARAH CASTLE
I have three or four books right now on my nightstand, so I have the one I’m reading, and then the ones that are next up. I’m reading a book called Raising White Kids, which is about just how to think about racial equity as a parent. And that’s super interesting for me. I have a little booklet where I’m writing down something I appreciate every day, essentially, that’s this tiny little notebook. And then I have a ball where I do a little foot rolling every night as part of my bedtime routine.
NICOLE
Nice. I love that. Okay, when was the last time you tried something new, and what was it?
SARAH CASTLE
I just got back from a trip to Scotland, so I did lots of new things, tried lots of new foods on that trip. Not Haggis, because I had already had Haggis, but I tried other new foods, and I hiked to the top of this mountain in Edinburgh called Arthur’s Seat, and I did that with my five year old daughter and my husband. And so that was a pretty new experience. I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it, but we did, and it was awesome.
NICOLE
Awesome. Good job. Okay, last one. What are your top three most used emojis on your phone?
SARAH CASTLE
Okay, so if it’s me, it’s just a standard smiley face, but I actually let my daughter use my phone all the time, and she sends emoji texts to my friends and family. If you’re really looking at it, it’s going to be her emojis, which are going to be the princess. There’s a unicorn, and then there’s usually some kind of rainbow that would come up as most frequently used.
NICOLE
I would love those to be my most frequently used emojis. Maybe I’ll have to take a cue from her and change up my emojis.
SARAH CASTLE
She’s always trying to bring the lightness to others. She’s perfect.
NICOLE
That’s who I would love to receive those kinds of texts from. Yeah. Well, Sarah, it’s been such a pleasure to have you on here. How can people reach you or find out more about you?
SARAH CASTLE
To find me is through LinkedIn, Sarah Castle, and then I have a website for my new business that I’ve launched, which is Castlecoaching.com. So check me out there.
NICOLE
Well, Sarah, it’s been such a delight. We’ve been on such a long coaching journey together, too, and I just love seeing you soar and just put the work in day after day and create the life that you love. So thank you so much for coming onto School of Self-Worth, and I am so grateful to have you in my life.
SARAH CASTLE
Thank you so much for inviting me. This was fun.
NICOLE
Thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode. Before you go, don’t forget if you are a high-achieving woman who wants to uncover your biggest blind spots preventing fast, intuitive decisions, I’ve got a 72-second assessment for you. So make sure to DM me quiz on at Nicole Tsong at Instagram, and thank you for being here and for listening. We read every note that we get from you about how the podcast is making a difference in your life. Please know how much we appreciate each and every one of you. Until next time, I’m Nicole Tsong and this is the School of Self-Worth.
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