Welcome. This is A Glimpse Inside, and I’m Wendy Perrotti. You’re listening to episode three of our four-part series, This is My Year. On our last episode we met Claudia, an Executive in corporate communications, who at that time hated what she’s doing. She wanted more than anything to just write.

Today, we’re here to coach her on making that happen or maybe something else. Claudia’s gut last time told her, “You are a writer.” But fear kept overriding and saying, “You’re not good enough.” Even though this is crazy, she’s an award-winning Writer. The last time I talked to Claudia, we asked her to trust her gut. Even though you’re hearing these episodes about a week apart, the recordings have a two month span between them. We’re going to have a lot to dig into with her today. And Claudia, I am so happy to have you back.

Thank you so much, Wendy. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Before we start talking about making it happen this year, we were chatting a little bit before we hit record and the ‘it’ might be different. Let’s take a look at what that is. But let’s start by having you bring us up to date on where you are when it comes to trusting your intuition, any homework that you did from our last session, and what’s been going on for the last two months.

Yeah. It’s been an interesting two months, Wendy. A lot of things have happened in that short period. Kind of personal family emergencies having to do with my dad’s health. And to be candid, I haven’t really written that great American novel, and I haven’t done a lot of writing. Major life events, I was laid off from that job that I was really unhappy with, which is a really good thing. I can’t tell you how relieved I felt when I got the notice. And second and maybe not so good is my father suffered a stroke earlier in the year. And he’s finally home, but he’s just a different person.

In the course of the time since we last spoke, I will say that, again, haven’t written. But I did do the exercise where I started talking out loud to my inner critic, Calamity Kyle, I call him. That inner voice that’s always telling me, “No, you can’t do it. No, don’t do it. It’s unsafe. You’re not good enough.” Et cetera. Interestingly, that exercise alone has sort of given me some courage to look other things in the face. Probably things that in different circumstances I would have sort of not pursued, or I would have convinced myself that, “Nah, not going to do it.” It’s been a really interesting time.

What are some things do you mind giving us some of what are some of the things that you’ve kind of looked at or taken head on because of your conversations with Calamity Kyle?

I would say if I could summarize it in one word it’s assertiveness. I’ve seen that manifest in this job opportunity that presented itself shortly before I got the layoff notice. It’s for an executive position higher than one I would have ever really held. More salaries at stake here than I’ve ever made. It’s something that does interest me from a work perspective. It’s a global company, and it would involve some international travel, some domestic travel, and being able to use my foreign language skills.

I think pre this discussion and before I started chatting with Calamity Kyle, I kind of think I would have choked during the interview process and probably wouldn’t have made it past round two. But actually right now I’m on round eight. Yeah. It’s crazy. The other thing, too, as far as assertiveness is dealing with my father’s situation. He’s pretty much reliant on 24/7 care. We live in different counties, so it’s very difficult for me. I can’t just move into his home and sort of supervise things.

This past week, I’ve had to do just that. It’s a temporary thing. But I had a major problem at the very, very beginning of his time at home, and that was with the caregiver team I handled. They told me at the very beginning that, yes, they were skilled and qualified to take care of the needs of a 89 year-old man with dementia, and all the things that come with that. Come to find out on the first day they just completely freaked out. They changed the team altogether, because the team that had interviewed for it said, “We’re not up to this.”

So, I had strange people in my father’s house tending to his needs. They were, to be candid, pretty neglectful. I think pre Calamity Kyle conversations, I would have just been sitting wringing my hands going, “Oh my gosh. What am I going to do?