Amy Fennell was in the wake of a career hurricane—and then she called Melanie.
Amy had been the President of her company and had an exceptional amount of experience in the industry. But when she started asking deep and important questions about her career and identity, she began asking herself one of the most important questions: “what do I WANT to do?”
While she was thinking about her options, Amy remembered a woman who got on stage at her company’s last conference and talked about something called a Brilliant Rebellion. That woman was Melanie Spring.
Knowing when to dive in head first
Thinking this might be the time to pause and think about what she really wants from her career, Amy reached out to Melanie about joining The Remembering. Little did Melanie know that Amy was so excited that she booked her flight to come visit before the two of them even had a chance to jump on a call!
“At a time when I found myself in the midst of a huge career shift, The Remembering presented a great opportunity, and I just decided I was going to do it,” stated Amy. “It ended up being such a powerful experience. While you go over things at the retreat that are specific to business, it was really more of an inward search for who you are, what you want to be, what you want to do, what fuels you, and what gives you energy.”
Creating a new normal
Immediately after the retreat, Amy went home and completely changed her schedule. She learned how to manage her life and how to include things she values the most, such as taking her kids to school and being home for them after school on a regular basis.
“How did I not do this before, and why was I working so much before?” Amy asked herself.
“I learned to schedule self-care, and that's now a big priority for me. I realized that you can do that and still honor the things you do for work. So I set my own boundaries on how I want to work. It might not have been something that I was able to set for myself or have the confidence to set for myself had I not learned it here.”
Melanie helped Amy dig deep inside herself, touching areas of her life that felt unsatisfying and exploring ways of improving her life experiences.
“One of the biggest things that has been really helpful is the relationships we cultivate,” Amy said. “I’ve really leveraged the ability to have conversations and build on those relationships, where people are willing to say, ‘hey, come do this.’”
As an example, she said, “I’ve been approached to apply for a national CEO position, and regarding the work itself – I can be in that role and I can see myself in that role, but is it really what I want to go back to doing? I don’t know the answer a hundred percent right now, but at least now I have this foundation and the confidence to be able to say, ‘let me make sure that it fits where I want to go.’”
Building awareness of new subtleties
Knowing what fuels you is one thing – becoming aware of what drains you is another. Amy reflected on an important aspect of her retreat experience, explaining that “it also gives you the clarity around what you’re not willing to tolerate anymore. I said yes to certain clients, and it all went well, but when I was asked to do the projects again this coming year, I was able to say, ‘you know what, I don’t think that’s going to be a good fit for me,’ because I just didn’t feel like it was a great exchange for my time resources – the amount of money or the value in exchange for my time.”
Making the tough choices that change our lives
Amy admits this isn’t always an easy road to take. “Being able to do the hard work, to figure out what that really means – I could have easily popped back into just another cycle and another job and another thing and another position. But because of my experience with Melanie, I learned that I don’t have to. I can really think about what an ideal work week looks like for me, and what I want to do and how I want to prioritize that. And even though you’re not going to get it right a hundred percent of the time and you’re not going to know exactly what to do every single time, you gain some core foundations and skills that you can then pull from your toolbox.”
Summing up her experience, Amy said that her work was focused on “building the life I want to live, not working just to have money, while creating a space for the right money, the right exchange for my time to show up. I may make the decision to go back and work for somebody, but I can promise you, it will be under the right circumstances. I’ll be forever grateful for this group of people and the circumstances that brought us together.”
