31: Robert Pardi on Death, Possibility in Action, and Leaving Well
“Adversity should never be the dominant color on the canvas of your life. It is a contrast color for something else.”
Robert Pardi is a Life Coach, Author, speaker and one of those rare individuals who embraces change. In fact, he lives by a philosophy he calls Possibility in Action, which has allowed him and his clients to escape conformity and reimagine life.
After experiencing the devastating loss of his young wife to metastatic breast cancer, Robert reimagined his entire life and left the world of finance to share the many lessons he learned throughout his life's journey while relocating to Italy.
He is committed to helping people bring desired possibilities into their reality. He acts as a catalyst to break people out of habitual living and consciously craft their life to live an elevated life experience.
He believes that personal growth is a lifestyle and that possibilities exist all around us but without action they remain in the land of wishing.
“Leaving well means that you are giving yourself the opportunity to fully express who you want to be in the journey of your life. It’s not running away. The idea of leaving - people almost talk about it as like an escape -leaving well is not running away. It’s running towards, towards the future you want. ”
Additional Quotes:
Adversity should never be the dominant color on the canvas of your life. It is a contrast color for something else.
Why do we get into burnout? Because we have no boundaries and we're sucked into things that basically feel like an obligation, and we're not getting a return from it.
There are borders and there are boundaries. Boundaries are actually an invitation. They're the rules of the game. You're not going to let somebody in your house and walk on your white couch with muddy shoes. You don't want them to walk over certain emotions. What you're doing when you're setting boundaries is saying here are the rules of the game. I'm inviting you to sit in a space where I can show up authentically, vulnerably, and myself and contribute all of it. It's a beautiful thing, actually.
Know your values, know the story you want to look back on. Look at the fears, look at the risks.
There's no stability except for what we bring to the table.
There will be no growth if there is no feedback. First and foremost, you have to not only communicate, you have to help people understand the value of transparency, the value of being direct, the value of honesty and openness.
Grief is a big pile of crap, right? That's also the best fertilizer possible. Yes there's longing and there's sadness, and there are lots of emotions around that. And it truly offers you the opportunity to grow.
To connect with Robert or learn more about his work:
Books | Free Resources | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube
Take the Workplace Transition Archetype Quiz.
To learn more about Leaving Well, click here.
My Bookshop.org Leaving Well library has many resources to support your workplace transition journey!
To support and contribute to the production costs of this podcast:
This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley.
Transcript:
Leaving well means that you are giving yourself the opportunity to fully express who you want to be in the journey of your life. It's not running away. The idea of leaving, people almost talk about it as like an escape. Leaving well is not running away. It's running towards, towards the future you want.
This is Leaving Well, where we unearth and explore the realities of leaving a job, role, project, or title with intention and purpose, and when possible, joy. I'm Naomi Hattaway, your host. I will bring you experiences and lessons learned about necessary endings in the workplace with nuanced takes from guests on topics such as grief.
Confidence leadership and career development braided throughout will be solo episodes, sharing my best practices and leaving well framework. Expect to be inspired, challenged, and reminded that you too can embed and embody the art and practice of leaving well as you seek to leave your imprint in this world.
Robert Pardi is a life coach, author, speaker, and one of those rare individuals who embraces change. In fact, he lives by a philosophy he calls possibility and action, which has allowed him and his clients to escape conformity and re imagine life. After experiencing the devastating loss of his young wife to mastatic breast cancer, Robert re imagined his entire life and left the world of finance to share the many lessons he's learned throughout his life's journey while relocating to Italy.
He is committed to helping people bring desired possibilities into their reality, and he acts as a catalyst to break people out of habitual living to consciously craft their life. to live an elevated life experience. Robert believes that personal growth is a lifestyle. Possibilities exist all around us, but without action, they remain in the land of wishing.
Robert, I'm really excited to have this conversation. Thanks for joining me. I am. I'm absolutely thrilled. So first question I would just like to ask you is if you would just share about your lovely wife and your journey and That part of your story. With pleasure. Whenever I get to talk about Desiree, I'm thrilled.
So I actually met Desiree when we were really young. She was 17. I was 19. I'll go through the fast version. Super amazing, dedicated, passionate woman that wants to be a doctor. Her career is taking off. My career is taking off. I'm brought to the Middle East as a finance guy. And she follows me afterwards because she was doing an MD PhD.
She took a break during the year. Because the way it works is it's two years of MD, you do your PhD, and then two years of MD. So that's, they keep you in the program, right? So, she comes to the Middle East, and she's diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. And that was right before her 31st birthday. So, of course, that changed the trajectory of everything in our lives.
I mean, we were really at the top of everything. And then it was sort of like, okay, let's, let's deal with this. It's a very unique story. Desiree didn't want to know anything about her disease. So I played the buffer between her and the doctors. She actually gave me a huge roadmap of exactly what she would want up until her death, if that was ever to happen.
Of course, that did happen. The thing is, during that period of time, I actually wound up becoming her life coach without knowing it because she didn't really need a caregiver because she was young, she was strong, but she wanted to become somebody important in medicine. And she wanted to use her disease.
for a catalyst to educate and also for herself. And she became the founding director of palliative care at New York hospital with metastatic breast cancer. She was going through chemo, but she ran the program for about four years and it grew exponentially. And after she passed away, I realized, Loss, to me, is when you lose yourself and you lose security.
And I say it's an acronym, it's lack of self and security. So I lost who I was. And when I look back on who died with Desiree, because that Robert died with her, that life didn't exist anymore, I realized I missed supporting her. Of course I missed her physically and I miss her, you know, emotionally, but that part of me, I missed.
And so I said, Hmm, that's a life coach. And I had went back to Dubai because we were in tremendous amount of debt. She was diagnosed before she was 31. We didn't have life insurance. We didn't think about any of those things. At that time, everything was very expensive. I mean, it wasn't the medicine as much, but organic food was very hard to find.
We're talking, you know, the early 2000s, supplements were very hard to find. Plus there was, okay, Hey, you're not feeling well, let's go to like Puerto Rico or something. So I had tons of debt, went back to Dubai. And then one day I just said, you know what, this isn't the life for me. So that's the very fast version.
Sorry, everybody, if I spoke really quickly, but that story could really like go on forever. So thank you for sharing that. And I have a couple of questions if you don't mind expanding. So you were talking about Desiree's incredible desire to be a catalyst and to use her disease and. That diagnosis for good.
She did an amazing set of things. What would you offer to the, to the person who's listening? Who's like, um, that's great, but that's not something I have in my toolkit to be able to, to be a founding director of something or to launch something like that. Do you have tips or tricks or something that you would say to that person who's listening?
That's like, I can't do that, but I still want to be a catalyst. I love that question. No one has asked me a question like that. So, you know, it's not the magnitude of what she did. First of all, it is the passion is the purpose behind it. See what we learned is we learned that adversity. So let's let's use the cancer because the cancer in a way was the catalyst that adversity should never be the dominant color.
On the canvas of your life. It is a contrast color for something else. So how do you define that something else. This is, it's a lot of identity work, and this doesn't have to do necessarily because people are approaching the end of their life, which we all are anyway, anyone listening to this I'm sorry to say you know we are on a one way train and we don't know when we hit the stop right, so the conductor is not us.
So anyway, what we realized is, okay, first thing I have to define is what is it? I want to leave because the example of how we live is our legacy. Yes, it would be nice to be Bill Gates and leave, I don't know, a hundred billion, gazillion dollars. I'm at whatever he's leaving at this point, but it's the example of how we lived.
That's the story everyone's going to say. So to find that example, then break it down into small steps. Again, it's not the magnitude, right? Desiree didn't go from one day to the next to be the founding director. She had a plan in place, and here's the thing, and I love Michelangelo, that's one of the reasons why I live in Italy, I love the art here.
You know, he could have died while he was doing David, right? But every day he went there, that's not horrible, but every day he went there and he took the chisel, and that's what you have to define. What is that chisel moment for today? Because, I'll just say this as well, this is one of the things that I sort of get flack about, because I realized that it is very dangerous to hope for a better future.
You have to hope for the best day possible today. So the tips and tricks, I mean, there are a lot of them to talk about, but first it really is being intentional. It's defining what's important to you. You have to know what your values are. Values are going to guide you. Another thing, anyone listening here, you have to learn how to set boundaries.
You have a limited amount of energy every day has nothing to do with the disease. Why do we get into burnout? Because we have no boundaries and we're sucked into things that basically feel like an obligation. And we're not getting a return from so I'm going to show you this you won't those who are listening won't be able to see it, but I'll describe it.
I choose a card every day. And especially when I'm about to do a podcast interview and this 1 that came out today is boundaries. So. I just think that that is excellent. The card, I'll describe it for those listening. It's a black card with a rose gold design element, and it's an armadillo. And the reason it's an armadillo is because there has to be both soft and hard, you know, in terms of protection and vulnerability.
And so I just love that you brought that up. I also love that you brought up values. That's something that I work with all of my clients first on is values. And everyone always gives me that look of like, Okay. Eh, what does values really have to do with anything, but it has everything to do with it. I'm curious what you would say around, maybe it's how you work with your clients or in your own personal life.
What are the ways that you let values show up for yourself and the way that you operationalize or make decisions about your life? Awesome questions. I'd love to circle back on boundaries for a second, because it's such a triggering topic. The way I explain it to my clients. There are borders and there are boundaries.
Boundaries are actually an invitation. They're the rules of the game. You're not going to let somebody in your house and walk on your white couch with muddy shoes. You don't want them to walk over certain emotions. Actually, what you're doing when you're setting boundaries is you're saying, here are the rules of the game.
I'm inviting you to sit in a space where I can show up authentically, vulnerably, and myself and contribute all of it. It's a beautiful thing, actually values. So, but the, the border is people think of boundaries as borders, and I just have to block everybody off. No, it's not that at all to think about it as an invitation.
So that's number one. Number two, the question about values, values are. Such a key aspect of, of everything, right? So first of all, people like, well, how do I find out my values? I'll tell you a really great way to find out your values. I'm not going to curse, but I have to use a word that's very important here to use.
Okay. Think of what pisses you off because that's crossing a valley. Right. So therefore, that's a way to understand what, what your values are. The other thing as well. So how do you put them into action? I actually have five key values because at the end of the day, you could do a lot of values work, but you could see that.
You know, maybe spirituality is about, maybe growth is about, Oh, can you really grow if you don't practice spirituality? So spirituality falls into growth. So you'll find your key values at the end of the day. But one of the things to think about is when you have that list in front of you, and this is what I read, I look at it every morning and I think about, okay, how am I going to show up?
What does that look like? What am I going to be presented with today? I know what my day looks like. So. If I'm choosing growth, for example, okay, well, I know that this meeting I'm going into is going to be very difficult. It's going to give me the opportunity to learn how to grow in a situation like that.
So you can predefine these things and this is nothing new people, you know, this is stoicism one on one. This goes back to Aristotle and Socrates and everybody was saying the same thing over and over and over again. Right? So, but I can tell you what I've looked, that's why it's possibility in action. If you know your values and you don't sit there and say, how am I going to show up as my value today, then your values is sort of useless.
I love that. And it brings to mind two quotes that I often talk about. One is from Steve Jobs, who says, you can't plan basically forward. You can only look back to connect the dots. And I disagree with that. And then the counter quote to that is from Africa Brook, who she's incredible. And she talks about like, that is how we live our lives is by pulling in our values, connecting the dots forward, looking and saying, how do I do this in action today?
How am I going to be tomorrow? And that's so, so valuable. I'm glad you brought those things up. I would just love to jump in on that for a second because I, I focus a lot on, on forward work. Actually, even when I work with my clients, I say, look, you know, I will acknowledge your past, right? But let's not go into an archeological dig.
You know, the, the why of the future always outweighs the why of the past. It really does when you start to put things in place, but the only way you can put that in place, it's like you're saying the dots are the values. And so that's what's so great about I was just going to go back a little bit to your experience of leaving and deciding, and I'm curious if there's a particular process or something that you either already knew or learned how to do as you are making your decision to leave the world of finance to start your life in Italy that you would want to share.
Definitely. And. People are going to think, Oh, this is really crazy. You know, the guy had a finance job, so of course he could leave. You know, he had all this money and I can tell you, no, I was teaching English for 8 an hour when I left my job as a Columbia MBA, but here's the thing. So there are a bunch of tools, but it's, it's sort of the mindset, right?
So when I decided to leave, trust me, I was living in basically a five star hotel. I was. Making a decent salary, paying off my bills. I could have been very comfortable for the rest of I really could have in Dubai is a great place to live. And you got the beach. You got the whole thing right? But I looked at those values that I wanted to put place.
I looked at the story. I wanted to look back on. I had just watched my wife pass away in my arms. Actually, the last breath was when I was holding. And so I said, Okay, Is this what I would want? And then I realized it wasn't. And I'm like, well, what are the risks? I really do believe. Look, we have to acknowledge the risks.
We have to acknowledge our fears. Now, here's another thing as well. You know, everyone says fears are false evidence appearing real. That's the acronym, right? I think we've learned to use our fears as an excuse. We have that little knapsack of fears behind us and we take it out and we don't really look at it.
We don't examine it. We don't see how it's true and we don't see it. The worst case scenario. Go right to that worst case scenario. For me, it would have been a 50 year old guy living with my mom. And trust me, that would have been the worst case scenario. Okay. But anyway, so that's, that's another thing, right?
Know your values, know the story you want to look back on, look at the fears, look at the risks. And now you have to realize that it's a process. And here's something, if anyone walks away from this podcast, this is the one thing I want everyone to know who you are right now. Okay. And the life you're living, remove adversity, or whatever might, bad might be happening because it's your reaction to that adversity, adversity, it's the way you're using it.
But you have practiced who you are into existence, you have practiced your life into existence. So if you start to make that change, accept the reality, it's not going to happen overnight, it will be a process. And then when you are confronted with Teaching English for 8 an hour or eating hot dogs every night or pizza for, you know, okay, I'm in Italy.
So if I was eating pizza every day, it's not bad, but you know, doing that for a month, right? That's not a sacrifice. Here's the other thing. If you're going to be intentional about lead, you're going to be intentional about the life you're going to build. Those are investments, plain and simple. You're investing in your future.
So that was the mindset I brought forward when I showed up in Italy. I didn't speak the language. I didn't have a place to live. I didn't have a job. I had really nothing. And I was like, okay, two suitcases. Here I go. I'll make this work. I want to go on the adventure and define myself as the person who's trying to make it work.
And here's another thing. Sorry. I said, try. I hate the word. Try. Try is full of excuses as well. Attempt. You know, I was attempting to make it happen. Try already. Once we say try, we're like, I'll try, but I know it's not going to work. Here's the reason why. So, um, anyway, that was a long winded answer. No, I appreciate that.
And I also am really resonating with your statement around examining our fears, because that also is an action item. That's something that we don't do just once and then look back on it later and say, well, that was a fear or that is a fear. I love that you brought up that in correlation with growth.
Because I think going to then the adversity is not the main color of the canvas of on the canvas of your life. It just reminds us that we have to re examine our fears on a continuous basis to see what has changed and see what our capacity is for whatever that is. I would love to talk a little bit about.
When you gave the acronym of loss, self and security being the last two, normally I ask my guests what their relationship is with change and transition, but you have a really healthy relationship with change and transition. So I'd instead like to ask about your relationship and your growth around stability and security and what you've learned as you've made really big life shifts based on both what happened to you and what you're asking life to bring you.
Well, I, I think just the way you ended that asking life to bring. So we're going to go all the way back for a second, right? I grew up with an abusive alcoholic father. So at some point now I did have his mother who was basically, you know, my guardian angel even then before she passed away now she's truly my guard.
But she would say to me, look, that's an example of what you don't want to be. You can choose to be anything else and, you know, she helped me understand a lot of those things. So when you're thinking about, you know, ask, asking life to bring you something or making life work for you, right? That mindset shift is to realize, well, first of all, the whole thing is our decision, how we're going to look at things.
Number two is, you know, we have a habit of saying this too shall pass when. It's a bad day. Unfortunately, everything will pass. This too shall pass is the daily thing. You know, the ancient Japanese had a calendar of 72 microseconds to actually document change in a much more defined way, right? So stability that we are the stable one.
If we learn how to be grounded and know ourselves, understand our values, we become that stability. The world around us is not stable at all. It has to be in continued change and fluctuation. So it was accepting that. That's what my relationship is to it, because I know that change allows me to grow. I know that change gives me the opportunity to go in 16 million directions if I want to, I know that.
And here, here's another thing. If can accept the fact that things aren't stable, how can there ever really be a mistake, right? Think of the sliding doors move. So, you know, it's just, it's continually moving. And here's, here's the other thing because of this two shall pass. You know, the one way train, we pursue goals.
Thinking that it's that end point, right? And once I get there and so forth, but there's no guarantee we're going to get there. So once you accept there's no stability, except for what we bring to the table, then all of a sudden you remove that and it becomes, you're much more curious. So that's, that's where my relationship is with the stability.
That's interesting. What. Immediately came up was talking about the goals that we think that we set for ourselves that there's going to be an end point. What came up for me was then if we. That almost does away with the idea of growth because if we are growing through the process of our life or towards the process of achieving our goals, the goals should change or the goals should pivot or have, you know, a point at which it kind of spears off into something else.
And so I was just thinking and realizing it's not linear. None of this. I love that. If I could jump in on that. So, you know, of course, goals are really important because without them, then we are sort of just wandering around lost, but it's having that flexibility to actually shift and pivot and course correct and all of that other stuff.
Because you, as you are growing and as you are learning your end values, here's another thing. They change as well. My values changed from when I was younger and angry, you know, I went into finance to get away from my dad because it was, you know, a passion or anything like that. Anger fueled me. So anger has certain values connected to that as well.
Then love started to feel that changed other things. So allowing yourself that ability, but having a goal in mind. So you have some sort of direction. But not weighing yourself down with I need to get to that goal to be to have be it now do it now. Yes. And I would add to that, taking if you have a goal in mind.
So, as you're listening to this, think of something that you're working towards as a goal. Think about your values. And I think that is actually, it gets to what you're trying to accomplish. It's not actually the goal that you've written on your, you know, five year journal or whatever. It's who are you trying to be as you reach that goal?
And that I think gives so much more flexibility and reality based nuance to how we go about our days. If it's, I want to be a kind and generous person who is a living ancestor in the realm of whatever the work I do, that's an easier place. At which to pivot and navigate towards what I want to do in this world, instead of having this archaic goal of, I want to, I don't know, I can't think of a goal right now as an example, but it's just so much better when we connect it to our values.
Agree 100%. And can I share a little idea of, I love metaphors and I have all these crazy ideas in my mind. So I think of growth. I think of it as walking up a flight of stairs, because if you think about it, anyone, if you want to have some fun right now, just, you know, lay on your back and look at the ceiling.
The ceiling is a limitation. You're on the floor. You learn, you grow, you invest in yourself, you start walking up the stairs. When you get to the second or third or whatever floor you want to call it, that ceiling now is your floor because you've learned things. But here's the thing, you're not carrying all the crap from the first floor to the second floor.
Right. You've changed. And so, of course, that means that some of your goals will have would have changed as well. So that's why values clarification is something to do on an ongoing basis. The fear thing is so important to really understand both fear and You. Negative self talk, just ask yourself if they're true, like, are they 100 percent true and find it.
I'm not a big affirmation person. So, you know, to sit there and go, I am abundant. Well, you know what, if you want to think about abundance, give yourself an example of how am I abundant? Just go to the how. That's how you're also going to deal with fears in a different way. I'm reminded about a lot of what I hear when we think of values is that folks will say, I don't know how to find my values.
You gave some good examples earlier. So if you rewind the podcast to get those examples from Robert, and I also think about looking at people that we admire or looking at people that we view as our mentor, what values and traits do they have? What characteristics do they have of how they live their lives?
It's a really simple, quick access to what values you might also share with them. One of my mentors and the people, not actually a mentor, I would call them. Begin so much in heaven if she would be a mentor, but Ava DuVernay is an incredible director in, in America. And I think about the values that she brings.
She is so consistent with the way that she does her work. So it's like, Oh, consistency is probably one of my values. So I encourage you as you're listening to this, if you have not figured out your values, I do have a worksheet that we can, that we can get on my website, but figure out who you admire and what are their values and characteristics that you can borrow.
Can I jump in on that one? Yes, no, nobody saw me, but I was like shaking my hands like, so this is the other thing as well. You know, if we think about this to shall pass, there's no stability, there's change, you have to understand your value. So all of this other stuff, right? You were not built, born in an unbreakable mold.
You can decide at any point in time to start to change, and I do believe in changing identity. That's what I do with my clients, right? That's why role modeling is so, so important. Your value might not be consistency, but it might be what you aspire to. Like, it's not a value currently. But it's a future value you, you hold so important and you have to learn how to, to actually accept it and be it.
So that's why I just, I love the idea of role models. We live in a culture where we compare to everybody on Instagram and Facebook and everything else. There's no, my grandmother was a role model. My grandmother told me to look for role models because I didn't have a role model as a dad. Right? So I believe in that one a hundred percent.
And another thing that you can do as you're listening to this. Is exactly what you just mentioned, Robert, change who you're following on Instagram, add very specifically some people to your social feed or whoever, whatever it is that you open and go through your phone on in the mornings, change who you're following and bring in some of those people that you highly respect and follow them and have them be part of your feed, because I think will also help with the mindset of who you want to be.
I'm curious if we could spend just a little bit of time and translate this. Idea and the concept and the importance of values and growth and our relationship to fear and put it inside the workplace. So imagine the person who's listening now. Robert is a decision maker in an organization and. Whether they have a team or they're in charge of projects, what would you say to them around growth and the importance of values inside of the way that we work together?
Awesome question. Also, because I think that the more you bring values into an organization, the more you can get to what's called like a regenerative culture. But here's the, here's the thing. First of all. There will be no growth. If there is no feed. First and foremost, you have to not only communicate, but you have to help people understand the value of transparency, the value of being direct, the value of honesty and openness.
So create that environment first and foremost, because without feedback, there is no growth. Okay. The second thing as well is that I'm so happy that we are actually doing our best to create diversity. Diversity is also mindset. So it's not everyone's thinking the same. You have to have diverse ideas. So if you want to bring values into the organization, well, first of all, have you defined what the values of the organization are?
Have you valued to find the values of what your team should be? It shouldn't just come in my opinion from the decision maker, sit down with the team, the whole team, have people sit down and say, okay, I think this value would be important. Why debate them? You know, everyone, what does purpose mean? Purpose to me might mean something different to you.
So come up with common. Language around that as well. Oh, our value is purpose. Well, okay. Purpose for me is completely different than for you. So what do we, what do we mean by purpose? So define the language. So that's, as you see, I can go on forever with a lot of things. So I'll stop here for a second. No, I love that.
And I think that's the best way for someone to start. I love that as a really, really good action step. I think I also appreciated so much that you said you can also have the conversation about values. For the team and the work that you're doing separate from the organization. Um, and I think, you know, so often you walk into an organization and you've got the values or the mission or the vision, um, on the wall and having those conversations with your team and the people that you're working with can really help again, to bring those, um, into daily action and operationalization of values.
So that's important. You've said a couple of things throughout this time that. I was just blown away by and I'm like envisioning them as like the quote, because there's really good stuff, but is there anything that you want to say about change or transition or grief or loss that people might be shocked or surprised to hear you say, I would go down the grief or loss more than anything else, because it is so taboo in our culture in general, but pretty much around the world is, you know, let's just say that that grief is a big pile of of crap, right?
That's also the best fertilizer possible. Yes, there's longing and there's sadness and there are lots of emotions around that. And it truly offers you the opportunity to grow. So that is when I talk about that, people just find that crazy because it's also, Oh, well, I should really, you know, it feels weird to grow.
It feels weird to use it as a positive because. Whatever loss, but we're I'm talking about a person here, right, but it could be a million different things. I say this all the time Impotence for a man is a big huge identity below right and that is a loss So that is grief, but take your grief and let it be the question of what's next Let it be the question of what story can I build from this?
That's your power, is to build from what's happened, not let what happened define you. That goes back to what you said at the beginning about adversity is only one part of your story. I think about all the time gardening and just, I mean, this is a very obvious metaphor, but what what a plant can grow in in one environment is what it can't grow in a different environment.
And so what we put in the soil, how we tend to it, how we amend the soil is. What then creates beautiful plant life. And I think about your comment that grief can become a beautiful fertilizer for growth. The person who we can become as we navigate through grief and loss is a wholly different person than had we not experienced the grief in the first place.
I love that because part of part of my quote, let's say around grief is we've. We fall apart. And then it is our role to fall back together whole, but different because we will have to be different. There's a beautiful quote by, I think it's Alan Watts. There's a book that talks about, be careful what you water your dreams with, if you water them with fear and worry or something like that, just think about that, right?
You're going to, you're going to kill the plant. So you, you have to think about the watering. And I'll take that a step further when we were talking about goals and steps and so forth. If you over water a plant, you're also going to kill it. So, you know, don't jump into that personal growth. Let me do it 12 hours a day.
Let me watch all these podcasts. So let me grow. Digest it. Take, take it slowly. That's, you know, savor. I love the word savor. So that's another thing I would just throw out there because I think even in organizations, it is true. We, we live in a world where everything is changing very, very quickly, but the faster we try to do things, the less the lessons in the things we do are visible because it's just a big blur.
Yeah, two things coming up for me as you say that is that we also need to pay attention and notice if we just go about business as usual. If we just water the stay on this track, if we just water the plants every Friday morning without paying attention to whether they need to be watered or noticing what might be happening in the environment around us.
And I think about organizations doing the same thing they've always done and not paying attention and noticing and not slowing down. So I really, really am glad that you brought that up about going too fast, you know, going too fast or. Or loving your plants so much that you're not paying attention to the garden, right?
You're not maybe paying attention to the weeds that are coming closer. I was a tech and telecom guy. So that's, that's why I was brought to the Middle East. So that, that was my work as a portfolio manager. Blackberry is the prime example. Blackberry was the phone. It had the security. It had everything. And, oh no, no one's going to want this, you know, glass phone thing.
Absolutely. Just, they'll believe their own story so much. Their plant was the most beautiful plant. That they weren't paying attention to the environment as well. Yeah, that's important. As we wrap up, I would love to hear from you about what leaving well means to you. Sure. So there's, there's many things that come up.
And what I would say is that leaving well means that you are giving yourself the opportunity to fully express who you want to be in the journey of your life. It's not running away. The idea of leaving people almost talk about it as like an escape. Leaving well is not running away. It's running towards, towards the future you want.
Robert, thank you so much for sharing about Desiree and about your life and your own experience with leaving and all of your wisdom and expertise on how we can live a better life in action on purpose every day. It was my pleasure. It's one of the joys I have to say, I know your podcast and being able to be a part of it.
so much. Speak to the people that listen to you. It's just it's absolutely awesome. And when I think about this wouldn't have happened If I didn't grow quickly, thank you to learn more about leaving well and how you can implement and embed the framework and culture in your own life and workplace. Visit naomihattaway.com. It's time for each of us to look ourselves in the mirror and finally admit we are playing a powerful role in the system. We can either exist outside of our power or choose to decide to shift culture and to create transformation until next time. I'm your host. Naomi Hattaway, and you've been listening to Leaving Well, a navigation guide for workplace transitions.