#72 - Shifting Identity with the Seasons of Life + Growth ft. Amy Simpkins
There are seasons to each year. We know this. Fall, winter, spring, summer...and we all know what each of those seasons bring, right? But, did you know that there are seasons of life too?
In today's episode, we've got Amy Simpkins on the podcast. Amy is a former aeronautical engineer. She jokes that her mom would call her a former rocket scientist and she's not wrong. She was living the dream in her field, but got the itch to challenge herself and try something new and completely different. Since her rocket scientist days, she has two new businesses - a renewable energy company and a coaching business helping entrepreneurs tap into their inner innovator.
On today's podcast, she talks about identity, how it can ebb, flow and shift throughout the stages of your life and how the iterative processes engineers use actually apply to our lives and our growth as well! It's a fascinating new perspective that I have been applying to my life constantly since I was exposed to this idea and I'm so pumped to share it with you!
For show notes, head to coachellyn.com/podcast and, of course, post on instagram and tag me @coachellyn so that I can shout you out and say thank you!
WHAT WE TALK ABOUT…
Changing careers from engineering to coaching and how she made that transition
The “perfect storm” of the corporate setting and wanting a new challenge (other than climbing the corporate ladder)
The struggle of STEM fields when trying to find a new challenge…
Realizing that your field ISN’T what you want anymore…
Realizing that you want to be a coach…and the ups and downs of that experience
The process of defining what you do actually want in life
The iterative process and how to give yourself space
Values and the role they play in your life
quotes from this episode:
“I interviewed for several different positions, but none of this feels fun! None of this feels compelling to me!”
“It was too important to me! It was too important to me to be doing to be doing a job that I really loved doing. And I had been as a corporate engineer. It had fulfilled that for me. And all of a sudden it wasn’t anymore…”
“I’m a nerd! I don’t like people…I like math! I’m going to build spacecraft. Isn’t that good enough for you?”
“I had gotten to the astronaut application! And basically decided not to put it in. I sat there in front of the blank application and I was like: ‘I don’t think this is what I want with my life’…Flying in space would be super duper cool. But that’s not what I want to do with my whole entire life.”
“I may not actually know what I want to do with my entire life…”
“I really felt like a split personality. I had my work personality. I had my mom personality. And then I had this third ‘Amy as an individual’ personality. And it felt very fragmented. And when I left engineering, I had a total identity crisis. Cuz I realized that I had built my entire identity on the job title of engineer. Like: ‘who are you?’ I’m an engineer…like that was the answer to the question…That’s who i AM. And if I’m not that, who am I? And going through that process of releasing engineering as a job title…”
“It wasn’t a pretty process. And I can’t tell you the program I followed…”
“What are my life goals? I haven’t asked that question in a really long time! These were the seeds of my spiral process. Everything needs to be iterative. Not just tech design or business development. But my own personal development! I need to leave space for myself to grow and for my needs and desires to change! REVOLUTIONARY! Who would’ve thought? But it was such a hard process to get there…”
“And for those of you that know your values…how do they show up for you at work? How do they show up for you in your parenting? How do they show up for you when you’re traveling". That’s part of being a holistic person. Your values aren’t different depending on the hat you’re wearing or the location you find yourself in. And they should be a driver behind what you do…”
“Growth means allowing yourself to explore who you are right now without expectation that you’ll be who you were yesterday…”
Resources in this episode:
Book a transformation call here
Join the Growth Tribe Academy or learn more here
Follow Amy Simpkins on her website, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook…
Books and resources…
“The Renaissance Soul” - Margaret Lobenstine - click here
Pat Flynn books - click here
“Spiral” - Amy Simpkins - READ THIS BOOK! IT’S SO GOOD! - click here or get a signed copy on Amy’s site here!
Rebecca Anuwen’s Group and Website
