Shelley McIntyre didn’t just leave corporate—she walked away from a long career in tech and consulting and into something completely unexpected: grief coaching. But as Shelley quickly discovered, grief isn’t just about death—it’s also what we experience when leaving jobs, identities, and entire versions of ourselves behind.

In this candid conversation, Shelley shares her journey of transformation, from leading corporate strategy to coaching GenXers who feel stuck, burned out, and unsure of what’s next. Brett and Shelley talk about grief, imposter syndrome (or why we need to stop calling it that), purpose as a moving target, and the creative rediscovery that often happens post-corporate.

This episode is a must-listen for any GenXer wondering if they’re alone in feeling “done” with corporate life—and what the other side might look like.

What We Cover:

• Shelley’s surprising path from tech to grief coaching to GenX transition work

• Why grief is at the heart of every major life and work change

• The hidden cost of staying in corporate too long

• How to recognize your “hell yes” moments (and why they matter)

• Why imposter syndrome might just be learning in disguise

• Why purpose isn’t a prerequisite—it’s a result of action

• Creativity as a gateway to rediscovery

• What Shelley listens for when helping people “deprogram” their corporate identity

Quotes Worth Sharing:

“All knowledge is rumor until it is in the bones.” – Shelley

“We don’t pathologize a kid learning math…so why do we call it imposter syndrome when we’re learning something new as adults?” – Shelley

“Purpose is a trailing indicator—it’s not something you find on a worksheet.” – Shelley

“You don’t need to pick one path out of corporate. There are many. Just start walking.” – Brett

Connect with Shelley:

🌐 ShelleyMcIntyre.com

🔗 Follow Shelley on LinkedIn

More Free Resources:

🎒 Grab the Escapee Starter Kit

👥 Join the Escapee Collective

🎧 Follow the podcast for more inspiring escapee stories and expert insights

Hi, Shelly. Welcome to the Corporate Escapee Podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

Now my pleasure and definitely looking forward to this and I do say that a lot, but that's because I always get guests that I'm interested in talking with. Yeah, but we're really, when we connected, I hadn't realized, yeah, I would call you maybe one of the OGs working with Gen Xers escaping the nine to five grind. Before we get how you got there, maybe just share with the audience a little bit about who you're working with today, what you're doing, and then I'll take you back in time a little bit.

Yeah, like similar to you, I really love working with Gen Xers who are dying to get out of corporate. They want to build their own thing. And maybe they don't have the exact idea of what the thing is yet. And that's the journey that we go on together. But they know that it's just not that anymore. They're just done.

Exactly. Anything but that. Yeah. So interesting because mine, I've shared my story a of times how I ended up with the corporate escapee. So I'm curious, what were you doing before you started coaching and how did that, how did this all materialize?

Yeah.

Yeah, well, the coaching journey has taken some twists and turns itself. I started that five years ago and I began as a grief coach, helping people through major losses, whether it was jobs or divorces or people who had died. And that gave me such a solid foundation in the nature of transitions.

Yeah.

And as I expanded out my practice to any kind of work or life transition, what I noticed first of all was every transition comes with a sense of grief and loss. And we have to look at that straight on, or we're going to bring a lot of old baggage with us into whatever we do next. And I found that over time, the people that I was most excited about working with and the people who would find me the most,

where people in this Gen X generation who were like disillusioned, felt really stuck, wanted to make a big change, but didn't really remember who they were anymore.

Yeah, such a good point. And the funny thing is we're not necessarily the generation that was known for asking for help, right? think that's starting to shift.

Exactly. Yeah, so a lot of people just suffered alone.

Yeah, so interesting. When you first said grief coach, I'm like, that's perfect for corporate. I over exaggerated my anti corporate rant. But so is that what you were doing prior to going solo as a grief coach? Or is that something you picked up as a second chapter or third chapter?

Yeah, that was a third chapter for me. Before that, I had a really long career in tech and consulting. So that was my world. and, you know, I learned to speak that language and swam in those waters for so long that coming out of it, it was like, I don't know if you had this experience, but after you left corporate, did you notice like you were driving around during the day and you're like,

Okay, yeah.

Who are all of these people? Like, why aren't you at work? How is it that you could be living a life so different than what I've been accustomed to for decades? Like, what have I been missing?

you

100 % yeah and it's like where could people be going at 10 o'clock in the morning or yeah yeah and even now even more so after COVID but before that yes it was exactly what have I been missing or what do they do how do they make this work

Yeah.

Uh-huh. Yeah, and that was a light bulb for me to, after I left, to be out in the world going, there must be other ways to do this. Must be other ways to live. What could I learn here?

And how did you head down the Grief Coach path? Because that seems like a departure. And I'm always super curious how the journeys take people in different directions.

Yeah, and the thing I love about these, these twisting paths is that whoever you ask, even if it's the most random, bizarre jump from one thing to another, most people can go, that was a straight line. I can tell you exactly why every move of that made sense. But in the moment, it feels crazy and random, but we see the continuity when we look backward in hindsight. So,

Yeah.

For me, when I was in my consulting role, what I was seeing a lot was, I did strategy consulting at this boutique firm and we would spend a year creating this beautiful strategy for a company. We'd be working with all the senior executives. And when we're ready to roll out the strategy, the employees were like, nope, I'm not doing it. And they would resist.

I started to dig into the nature of the resistance. Like what is the resistance to change about? And what I came to really quickly is that it's about grief. People resist a change if they are worried that they're going to lose something really critically important. And the big losses that they tend to face are their sense of autonomy, their connection to other people.

and their sense of competence, being really good at something. If you threaten any of those three, people are gonna dig in their heels and not change, even if the change is good for them.

Interesting. It's funny, we had kind of a similar path because I went corporate into management consulting and I was really brought in more as an industry expert working with the consulting teams on business requirements and all those types of things. But I met somebody that was a hundred percent focused on change management. And in my mind, historically change managers, like that's the fluffy stuff, right? The stuff you need to put no, no, once you get working and you see how that works and the client,

Come.

Nope.

had built a detailed transition plan like it was system changes so not even layoffs at this point.

And part of what was built layered in was the change management, the communication, why, why, why these things, their budget got a little tight. So what's the first thing they cut is the change management. we'll, we'll tell the workers after the fact that this has happened, right? So it's, it's funny that that's kind of what was yours, but that was the first time it really opened my eyes to the human side of the business. Right. And it's just, it is, it's, it's so important, but yet it's the first thing that we.

Dismiss or at least that's my experience

Yeah, and like it makes me think of the root of the word sabotage. Do know where that word came from? So in French, the name for boots or shoes is saboteur, S-A-B-O-T. And sabotage came about because it was the workers throwing their saboteur, their shoes into machinery to stop the machines from working in protest to a change.

but I'm super curious.

Interesting. All right, you learn something new every day. I'm gonna give you full credit when I use that story from now on. But yeah, I mean, we do it to ourselves sometimes too, right? The self-taught. Huh, interesting. So did you have to go get then certified or just school or what was?

Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah, so when I started investigating grief and really where meaningful conversations were happening, I quickly made contacts in the death care community. And this was still while I was working. So I went to this conference called End Well, which is about death care innovation. And I met tons of amazing people. And it really opened my eyes to like, there are

really cool important conversations happening in this space around death care and grief. And it was people that I met there who were like, you should go get some training in grief coaching. And I did, I learned something called the grief recovery method. And it's kind of a system for processing through losses. And I worked with clients for a couple of years doing that before.

widening it out and going back to coaching school for a year to really get deeper into the methodology.

Okay.

Yeah. And then when did you kind of make this switch into the corporate transition or the Gen X or is how did that, was that just opportunistic or did you say, I'm done with this path. mean, if it's like me to your point, it kind of just ebbs and flows and there was no hard stop. just kind of moves in that direction.

Yeah, it was a flow for me too. When I kind of transitioned from grief into general transitions, I just started paying attention to who came my way where, and you've probably found this too, like you get some folks who come to you and say, I think I need help. I'm not totally sure yet. Maybe I'll call you in another month.

And even if they sign on, can be a little bit of a struggle because they're not fully invested. But what I paid attention to were the people who were coming in to me and going, yes, let's start right now. I'm totally signed up. And those hearty yeses turned into my favorite clients. And you know that kind of

Right.

health of the business review that you do once in a while where you're like, okay, who are my favorite clients? What problems are they coming in with? What problems do I love helping them with? Who do I have great rapport with? What kind of clients am I kind of dreading? I mean, we're working together, but it doesn't feel great. So I just paid attention. And it became really clear over time that the people that I loved were like,

Yeah, I get it.

motivated, creatively inspired, ready to take stuff on. They wanted to get out of the swirl of where they were in and they were super focused on whatever the North Star was, even if they didn't know what it looked like yet. And it was, it's that piece that I find the most exciting. Like if you know that you're going to leave corporate and go buy a franchise, more power to you.

You probably don't need to be working with a coach. Maybe you need to be working with a business coach on how to, yeah. Yeah. But if it's somebody who's like, I have forgotten who I am. I don't remember what I like anymore. I don't remember how to like something because I've had this corporate mask on for 20 years. How do I deprogram myself because I want to love my life again.

or selection, somebody can help you think through, yeah.

Yeah, it's so true. And I'm going go back a little bit. you say, because I think we overlook when you talk about the yes, right? The enthusiastic yes. There was a book I read and it's a while. And maybe I didn't take enough out of this book, but I think the author talks about the hell yes. It's like hell yes. When you get that hell yes moment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think sometimes I forget that during the process because I'm nodding along as you're talking about the certain clients you like or you get. And, you know, when I have those one-on-one

That's right. If it's not a hell yes, it's a no.

just brief introduction calls, right? You tell pretty quickly who is the hell yes, maybe not from me, but them knowing, all right, this is a person I would sign up on, right? Can I buy stock in this person? Because they're gonna figure it out. Even if they don't have it figured out, you have confidence that they're gonna get through that, through whatever they're trying to get through. And I think you're right, it may not be...

It could just be a timing, right? We've all hit different breaking. I talk about my breaking point when I got there. I didn't realize it until I looked back. I hit the breaking point. And sometimes I think that's where these folks are that, the golden handcuffs are still there. It's not great. I don't know what the future is, but I'm not like, yes, I've got to do it. But you're right. When you come across those folks, you get it.

Yeah.

But there are hints, right? Like the cycle, like the length of time that it takes for somebody to learn about coaching and think, maybe I want to work with a coach. And then when they hire the coach, it's like eight months. For a lot of people, it's a long time. So what I have noticed in the past is some new person will start reading my articles on LinkedIn or

my profile or they'll kind of just start like inching their way but they're getting to know me through my writing and I think this happens with you too right they're getting to know you through your podcast through membership in your community and when they're finally ready they're really ready

that makes sense.

Yeah, no, I think that's right. And I always joke there's the powers of the lurkers, right? Sometimes you don't even know that they've checked it out, but they, when you have that conversation, they know everything. yeah, that was three episodes ago, you talking like, huh, you listened to my podcast, right? So a hundred percent right. It's the vocal ones that probably will never buy from you. It's the, the lurkers are the ones that are kicking the tires and just slowly, yeah, getting to know you. think that's the perfect way of saying it.

Yeah

It's so funny, I went to a party at my old company, like sometime last year. And I haven't talked to most of these people in a long, long time. And I walked in and there were two women there who I worked with briefly. And I walked in and they were like, Shelly, we read everything that you write. We love it. And I was like, you do? It was such a shock.

Hahaha

But people are out there and they're paying attention.

Yeah, that's a good reminder because even if you don't or you think nobody's looking at your LinkedIn, people are looking, even if you get 150 views, that's 150 people that have looked at this, right? So it's sometimes we minimize, see the folks that get the 20,000 views on every post. like, I don't want that or I don't need that because our businesses don't require that, right? We're looking for those hell yes people that are ready to take this journey. And if they're not, just keep following along for a little bit more, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, but I think it's also a really good point that you make about not minimizing the attention that you do get because if there are Gen Xers out there who are like, okay, I want to start something new, but man, I'm having to start over. I don't know anybody. I don't have expertise in this area. Like you actually do. You're never starting from scratch.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is funny. It's almost a reset, right? Because I just started with somebody and you remember not too long ago and it was like, I don't know. You know, how do I don't know if I can run at we didn't call it discovery session, right? With the new customer, I don't know how to have those kind of like, you're applying for a new job and you're interviewing with your potential new boss. What are the questions you're asking? What does the role look like? What are the kind of the challenges? What am I stepping into? I'm like, it's the same thing. You're just you're learning about that customer. So it's right. It's a reset.

and confidence, right? I mean, I think that's the biggest thing, or at least that I really didn't appreciate in the early days, but as the deeper I go, the more I realize it is a mindset shift and confidence and some of those basic things, not the tactics and the tools, which are important, but if you don't get the mind's shift right and the approach right, it's gonna be twice as hard to get where you're trying to get to.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

But I'm curious, like, what is your relationship with the confidence and the mindset shift that you had to go through?

It was a fundamental change, right? What helped me where I think I had the benefit was a detail of, well, let take a step back. So I did a small entrepreneurial venture, a digital marketing agency for a few years, but it just never took off right up. But I was able to sell a few deals and clothes and get a little practice, but not enough. So I ended up going back to corporate.

Yeah.

back in your normal corporate job, go to market, helping build a company, blah, blah. But then when I went to management consulting, all of a sudden I was responsible for selling. So it gave me the opportunity to learn how to sell, because it was selling myself. The practice we have didn't have B2B digital transformation. That wasn't anything that this company did. So it was really selling my service and what I did in corporate. And the story I tell, one of our clients actually had to call an old boss of mine because the company didn't have any reference.

referenceable clients, right? So it kind of opened my eyes to how I can go into solo consulting because one, I know what they're billing me out at two, now I know how to sell. mean, it wasn't really so it still problem solving. I would never consider myself like a traditional used car salesman or any type of salesman, but it gave me a different set of confidence that I may not have had starting it. So, but I still had

Mm.

huge imposter syndrome as I was going through, right? Not just from selling it, but then delivering it. And still today, I still have doubts, right? Am I doing the right thing? So long-winded answer to your question on confidence, it's much higher than it was, but part of it was just doing. That's the thing, I mean, with this community now and all the other kind of the ecosystem around it, I had no idea what I was doing, right? This is a whole new world.

Yeah.

And if I would have waited for the perfect answer or the perfect time, we wouldn't be having this conversation today. I may be a client of yours, right? But it just, yeah, got me to change my mindset just to approach this much differently than I would have when I just got started.

Yeah. Can I offer something about imposter syndrome? Because I have a real problem with that as like, think we've pathologized it in a way. I think imposter syndrome, the way that we talk about it today, is a normal and natural response to circumstances that you're in. Like, why are we pathologizing learning? Like, we don't...

Please.

Okay, help me.

We don't say to kids who haven't mastered math yet and they're like anxious about it or they feel like they're supposed to know math, like no, they're just learning. It's okay. So it's not only that we're learning something new and that's hard, especially, you know, a lot of times as adults.

Yeah, you're right.

we maybe are forgetting our skills in the moment that we can lean on. Like you developed some really fundamental skills in selling and confidence that you then remembered, but also we're in this culture that demands expertise. And so if we buy into that cultural demand for expertise and believe it of ourselves, then we're going to feel terrible. But if we say,

Bye.

Right.

hey, I just haven't perfected this yet. I am figuring it out and there is nothing inherently wrong or a crime about that. Then can we just get on with it? Like, can we release this inner critic, this judgment that we pour on ourselves about having imposter syndrome and just say, I'm figuring it out.

Yeah, I think I just found the open to our podcast. We're going to lead with this, this clip into it, but no, it's so true. And, you know, that is one thing I talk a lot with folks and I'm like, it's okay if you make mistakes, right? This is, this is in corporate where you make the wrong decision, right? Or you invest in the wrong thing and you have to overanalyze everything and you get punished for it. Right? I mean, I've, you know, I worked myself out of a job early on because I push things too hard, too fast. And even if it was right or wrong decision, it didn't matter. So I learned that not.

push that hard and just keep it within. But with what we're doing we can make mistakes and it's okay. We learned we don't do it that way again it just didn't work out exactly the way we wanted or whatever right. So I think you're spot on.

And not only that, nobody knows what they're doing. Nobody. People at the very top are winging it just like you are.

That's true.

Yeah, and again, you'll get smarter, better, you'll learn. you're right, there's, because the people we're working with a lot of the time, they're coming to you because you have more knowledge, even if you don't know maybe the right way to package it yet, or say that or deliver it, you know more than the folks that you're going to be working with in these businesses, you just do. And so maybe that's what you try to lean back on is the confidence that you know how to do this. Right? Right.

Yeah, well, but even even if you don't, like I just talked to an old colleague who just bought an a small business that, you know, was owned by an older person who wanted to sell it before he died. So my friend bought the business. He doesn't know anything about their product line. He is learning. He's having to like go in and repair, repair things in the warehouse. Like he

He was at a big corporation. He had no exposure to this stuff. So some people could look at that and say, who are you to think that you can run a company like you're just some tech guy? How could you possibly learn this stuff? But he has a background in research. He knows how to make employees happy. He was a great manager. He's a problem solver through and through. So he's employing all those fundamental skills.

Thank you.

in a new context. So we have the scaffolding, right? We have these basic skills and strengths, and if we can marry them with our values, then the rest is just context and content, and we can learn new content. We've done that a hundred times before.

for sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is so true, right? I never thought about putting the wrapper or how to re... because most of time I have these conversations, it is just that in passing. So I'm glad you called that out because you're right, because this is one of the biggest opportunities that we have when we're escaping corporate is to accept that we don't know anything. Well, mean, part of us, think we do know that we don't know everything, but it's OK that we don't know. We don't have to hide the fact that in corporate, you can't tell anybody you don't know what you're doing. Right.

no way you gotta put that corporate mask on and pretend and either try to figure it out but yeah there's no but out here you're right it's okay to say hey part of this I'm just I'm figuring this out right this you're coming along for the ride and we're gonna get there it's just so I just think that's such a good point

Yeah. And like as the older we get and the more wisdom we accumulate, I think the more we realize that we don't really know anything, right? You've never known as much as you knew when you were 21 years old. You were the smartest, most incredible person back then. But now in our fifties, you know, we have the wisdom to be able to say, I don't actually know much. And

point.

All right.

somebody, you know, somebody 10 years or junior might look at us and go, what are you talking about? But it's just because our context has been broadened so much that our, our worlds are much bigger and we're looking around going, no, I'm a tiny droplet here. But it doesn't mean that you don't have really critical skills and strengths that you can apply to a new context. And that's going to be easier for you because you do have that

amassed wisdom.

Yeah, that's well said and so true. It's funny, I've got three daughters, 30, 26, 23. And just seeing, right, the 23 knows everything. Not in a bad sense, but right now she's on top of the world, knows everything. The 26 year old is starting to think, huh, this is new. haven't seen 30 year old now just has a new baby, right? Buying their first house. They're like, whoa. All of sudden the realization is like, maybe I don't know as much as I did when I thought of when I was 25. So you're

Yep.

Uh-huh.

right and as you go up that chain you do but you're okay with not knowing you realize me you don't know everything it's when it first happens it kind of knocks you around a little bit but it's okay

I think there is a fear that some people have that they're going to leave their comfort zones, whether that's the type of work that they've been doing, the comfort of the corporate environment, the regularity of a paycheck. Like all of those trappings can help people operate in this smaller and smaller zone. And if you let fear keep you from pursuing something that could enrich you,

So you will hear she...

then I feel like that's a warning sign. Like, you want your world to shrink and you stay miserable and burned out? Or do you want to go through the temporary pain of exploration and discovery to see what's out there, to see what's on the other side?

Yeah, I think it's, funny. I've been talking, I've said a lot of, we're on the same wavelength because as I look back to, think my newsletter over the weekend was talking about, uh, when I hit record on the podcast for the first time, right. It was the first time I did something different in a long time that opened, but all of a sudden it opened up this new world of learning again, that as I got older, did, cause early in their career, you're trying to learn cause you want to advance. And so you're picking up the learn, learn, learn, learn. And then eventually you get into that comfort zone where it's comfortable.

I may be miserable at the end, it's comfortable because I know what I'm doing. But then all of a sudden you start learning again and it just opened up a whole new world to me, right? Reading all these new books and talking to guests. just re-energized, right? That life that was, you know...

Arcing up and then you hit that threshold. I don't know where it is Everybody's probably get a different point, but then all of sudden it starts to maybe just flat line, right? It's just going through the motions and you don't have that energy the excitement the direction and Some people just never come out of that that going through the motions and that's I think My greatest fear for people is they don't they don't pop out of it pop out if you don't like what's out there You can always pop back in but if you don't pop out

I'm not articulating that very well, I think you know what I mean. Just get out of that comfort zone for a bit and see what's out there. Most people that come out are energized and just have a whole new outlook when they do that.

Yeah, and it has tangible effects too, right? This impacts your longevity, your health span in your life, how sharp you're going to be cognitively. Like we're going to live for a long time, right? And we might look back at our parents' retirement. Like I looked at my father-in-law who retired from the automotive industry after 45 years, and then he sat in his chair for the next 15 years and watched TV.

Yes.

And we can't do that, right? We have people in our lives that we want to stay healthy for. So even if we don't, we can't summon our own reasons to make a change and we want to stay in our miserable comfort. Could we look around at the people in our lives who are relying on us and the kind of quality of life that we want to have for the next 30 years, right? We've got a long time left of not like

ways.

Yeah, yeah.

corporate productivity, but to do what lifts us up and helps us feel alive. And isn't that the goal just to feel alive every day?

reached into the, yeah, 100 % I'm bored because we just had that moment. So my four month old granddaughter was over here and my 23 year old daughter was talking about, because her name is Margo, right? And so she calls her Margs and then they said, well, Margarita, right? And so on your 21st birthday, Margo can have Margaritas and then my wife today was like, God, 21 years, we'll be 79. I'm like, I hope we're there. I'm like, I'm planning on being there, right? I mean, that's goal, it's 21

Yup.

one seems like a long time and like 79 doesn't sound that old anymore and so I agree with you because when I when I made that escape it was purely monetarily I didn't realize how much my my wife needed me to get out of that that routine but then it opened up the time and then the health and then I'm like alright longevity but not just longevity but healthy the health span became more important it just

Mmm.

All of these things just built and I stopped looking at it from the money. Still have to have the money, still have to pay the bills. But I started measuring things more in a happiness, right? Of the different things. Financial is one of them, but fun, health, purpose, which if you would have asked me, is corporate purpose important? No, but yes it is. yeah, it's again, part of my own journey and discovery is figuring out where I think we're all going to end up there.

Yeah.

Can we help people get there sooner? Right? I think that's the goal.

Can I say something about purpose? So I think purpose can also be weaponized. Like, do you have your purpose? Do you know what your purpose is? You have to just follow your purpose. Just know your purpose. And I think that can be really anxiety producing for people where they're like, I don't know. I've just been working this job. Like, I guess to be a good person, I don't know. I think sometimes purpose is a trailing indicator.

police.

interesting. Okay.

Purpose is an outcome of you trying a whole bunch of stuff and seeing what it feels like. Because we don't necessarily know. It's not an exercise that you can do on a piece of paper independent of experimentation. But if you're going out and you're reading the books and you're trying different classes and you're interacting with new people and you find something that you're like, I really care about this. I think this is something that needs to change.

And I'm going to dedicate myself to that. Well, you might have the inkling of a purpose, but it might come later. And that's okay.

Yeah, I think that...

100 % right. Yeah, I think that's so true and you do when you when you realize like I have to have purpose You're right. It doesn't work like as much as I want because I thought At like in after I started having this journey of discovery started thinking about the purpose. It's I think my purpose is to help these Businesses that are stuck between 1 and 10 million get through that because they have the right ideas. It's just all execution So how do we help that seemed like but then when I was in consulting? like, just really don't like the consulting it wasn't the

the energy driving. I wasn't passionate about it. Then it was the fractional leadership, kind of the same thing. I liked it. It was better, but it still wasn't where it was. And it wasn't until I stumbled into this, building this community.

and then starting to having the conversations with folks who are on kind of this shared journey, but maybe a little bit behind that's where all the energy came from, right? So I'm still not a hundred percent sure that this is a purpose that it's not leading to something else that I don't know yet, but I've started to directionally go where that purpose, where I'm feeling it more than just making a financial decision, if that makes sense.

Totally. And I love what you said. And I feel like this is something to remember. You will stumble into your purpose. It's not a straight clear path for most people. You're going to like fumble your way into it. And then when you're there, you're like, you'll be, you'll realize,

This is what it is, or this is closer to what it is, or I'm in the right arena for further experimentation and evidence gathering.

Yes, yeah I think it is and accepting the fact that this may not be the end purpose right I did it completely stumbled into this right I was looking for a purpose I don't know what it was and again maybe this it's funny because when I was doing other things while still building this

it kept pulling me back into this direction. And I can't tell you what it is, other than I caught the energy that was pulling me towards this because these are the conversation, like having this conversation around now, I'm already energy as I've got two pages of notes and right, we're on more 30 minutes in, right? So it's, I don't know. And it's the same thing when I meet somebody that's still in corporate, but that's ready to get out and they don't know if I can do it in.

Yep.

Again, I've become more of a pep talk in the sense of, yes, you do have the skills. You have everything that you need and going. so, yeah, it's been hugely rewarding. But again, I'm not convinced that this is the end of it. I'm not sure where it's going, right? So.

Yeah, I mean, and if we center that back on purpose, it's never the end because purpose always has to keep up to date with who you are now. Like if you think about, if you rewind 25 years in your life, helping Gen X people escape corporate will never, like that's not even in your zone of thinking. Right. And then 10 years from now, it might morph and change and be different. So,

Yeah.

Thank you.

Two years ago it wasn't.

Yeah, and that's okay, right? mean...

Its purpose is water. It's going to move and we have to let it move.

meandering of it. Yeah, and again, I thought maybe it was just my short attention span that drove that but I think it is. Again, I just don't want to get sucked into that the corporate, you know, going with the motions, right? Go with the flow type of thing where you get into with that that journey and part of what and I think maybe that's what part of drove my

escapee journey was consulting, fractional, and I was doing some business development that I think over the course there's been nine different ways that I've monetized that corporate experience. And I didn't set out to say how many different ways does this work. I think it was this one's not quite working for me as well as I want. Maybe this one works better and then this one works better. Then I realized you don't have to pick one. Right? Because that was part of the journey too. I'm like, well, I have to be consulting.

Yeah.

And then I have to be fractional. I'm like, no, you don't. You can do a host of different, you go back to what you had mentioned being a problem solver. That just opens up a bunch of different doors to find what works for you, what works for the client. And, you know, the last thing I'll say on that is, you know, working with a lot of folks, a lot of things we start with is your corporate experience and how do you tie that to start, you know, building your solo journey? Because that's where the money is going to, I think that's the path of least resistance is using what you've been doing for your career.

help smaller businesses, but many folks are finding different opportunities, right? Through coaching journeys that they're just slightly ahead that they're getting, they're going in different directions than they thought they would. So I mean, kind of encourage folks to keep that open mind as you're starting this process, cause you don't know where it's going to go.

Totally. And the thing I love investigating with clients about is who are all the different permutations of you that you buried in order to get by in corporate? Was there an artist in there?

Yes.

Is there some other kind of creative person? Is there an athlete? Like who, who do you miss? What part of yourself do you miss? And can we get some of that back?

Yeah. One of the lines I love from up in the air when George Clooney asks, I forget who the actor is, you know, how much did they first pay you to give up on your dreams, right? Incorporate. And this guy was like a chef before he went into corporate and just shut it all down. I know it's a corny movie quote, but it does remind me of the fact. And I'm curious too, your perspective, because you know, part of this journey for me has really been around creative, which I didn't know I had any creative.

Yeah.

Inklings in people with the podcast which would be creative and the content and I'm just fascinated by Creative people and their process and how they unlock it I'm like and I start talking more and more escapees that are that have that in them as well I'm like do we all have this in us or maybe it's your point. Maybe some it's it's the athlete the artists But there seems to be something with creativity in this process as well

We do.

I think we are all inherently creative and we can unlock ideas by trying stuff. Like I'm a huge proponent of saying go get your hands dirty. I know you've never painted before try some painting. If you want to take singing lessons, do it. Because if we get into a space of creativity, even if we tell ourselves we're not creative people, I think that's bunk. We're all creative people.

If you try stuff that involves your body and your senses and you're making things, new ideas are gonna come from, like you don't know where the ideas are gonna come from. And we can unlock different parts of our brain and our hearts if we engage in creativity and creative practices.

Yeah, and maybe that's just one of the things that we had in our youth that we didn't realize we were being, which we did, we had to invent play, right? A lot of the things we did was just wasn't structured. just kind of, even some of the games we played were just what we had thought up, right? So.

Yep.

Exactly. And so that's a great way to look at it actually, that creativity and adulthood is a substitute for play. Because we don't know how to play anymore. Like when was the last time you ran around with your friends and played tag in the yard? Probably a while. But creativity gives you some guardrails and lets you play and just muck around.

Yeah, I mean, it's so true because I think about when I started the TikTok channel, it was literally just an outlet for me to rant on corporate and just try something different. And it became something I'm still doing on a daily basis or almost on a daily basis. I'm recording something. It's just become second nature now versus something I really had to do. But when I started, it was just for fun. It's really interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, so I know time is flying by, so we may have to come back with a part two with you because we haven't even got into your coaching framework and those type of ideas. So maybe, let's do that. We'll pick a time to record and we'll do it. The next one we'll focus more on the tactical side of the escapee, because I really do want to get in and learn more of what your approach is, how you work with people. And I think that would be a good standalone.

Great.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

episode but I didn't want to pass your journey by because I think it's super fascinating and just the more we can educate people that there is no one path out but there are paths out is you kind of the bottom line of this right

Yeah, for sure.

Interesting. Any final parting thoughts before we wrap up this one?

Yeah, my favorite proverb, which I say to everybody, all knowledge is rumor until it is in the bones. You have to try stuff and see how it feels before you will be convinced that a different life is possible.

So true. No, it's so true. Yeah, you can you can imagine it right but until you feel it and do it. So good. I was gonna say maybe that leads the podcast but I still think we're going back to the imposter syndrome because I think that one's there but this is this is right up there. So so in the short term between episodes what what's the best place for folks to connect with you learn more about you etc.

Yep.

Yeah, my website is ShellyMcIntyre.com and I also post a lot on LinkedIn. I'm happy to connect with people there. Yeah.

put that in the show notes for sure and I do promise folks that we will with Shelly's blessing do a second episode that's gonna be more focused on the tactics because again you've been doing this you've been working with Gen Xers for how long?

That'd be great.

Well, really five years if we include the grief coaching, yeah.

I've years, So the early days of the Gen X escapee movement. So yeah, we'll definitely dig into that because I know you've, again, you've worked with some folks and got some really good ideas. So yeah, we'll circle back. Stay tuned. It won't be too long, folks. I promise. And again, Shelly, thank you for joining us. I appreciate the time. And I'll catch you later. I know.

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you. I feel like we could talk for 12 hours.

This would have been another one of those super up-sodes if I didn't break this into two, but this way we'll tease it with the, we'll get the tactical into the next one. Awesome. Thanks, y'all. You have a good rest of your day.

That sounds great.

Thanks, Brett.