On Second Thought with Jackie Pfeifer

Jackie Pfeifer
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  • Personal Journals
  • Updated weekly

Welcome to On Second Thought with me, Jackie Pfeifer, a podcast for ambitious women and mothers who built a life doing everything "right," and are now questioning whether it's actually the life they want to keep living. Nothing has to be falling apart for you to question what comes next. You can be grateful for your life and still change your mind on the direction you want to take. Through honest conversations, new perspectives, and practical tools, this podcast will help you feel brave enough to question yourself, honest enough to get real clarity, and capable enough to explore new directions without blowing up everything you've built. Because sometimes creating the life you want starts with one honest realization: "On second thought, I want something different."

  1. 4 days ago

    12: 7 Questions to Ask When Your Job Becomes Your Identity

    Have you ever cared so much about your work that a hard day, a piece of feedback, a mistake, or a moment of uncertainty started to feel personal? Maybe your job is not just a job anymore. Maybe it has become the place where you prove that you are capable, responsible, valuable, needed, and enough. On the outside, it looks like ambition. It looks like drive. It looks like high standards, commitment, work ethic, and caring deeply about what you do. And a lot of that may be true. But somewhere along the way, work can stop being something you do and start becoming the place you go to understand who you are. In this solo episode of On Second Thought, I'm sharing the 7 questions I'm asking myself as I learn to separate my identity from my work. I talk about why your job is not stable enough to hold your entire sense of self, why work anxiety can sometimes be tied to fear, validation, control, or belonging, and why there is a difference between caring deeply about your work and needing your work to prove something about you. I also talk about financial safety, performance pressure, feedback, perfectionism, being needed, feeling valuable, and what it could look like to care about work without carrying everything on your back. Come sit at the table: The conversation doesn't end when the episode does. My Substack is where the rest lives: my raw, unedited thoughts on every episode, free, every week, plus the world I'm building around style, beauty, travel, and the questions we're all actually asking. And when you're ready for the decisions (what I actually bought, booked, and believed, names and prices included), listeners get 20% off your first year: prettybigthoughts.substack.com/777 Start free: prettybigthoughts.substack.com What's Discussed: (01:33) Why I'm still in the middle of untangling my identity from work. (03:53) How ambition, drive, responsibility, and commitment can quietly turn into over-identification. (07:06) Why work is not stable enough to hold your entire sense of self. (12:19) Question 1: When did my job become more than a job? (16:03) Question 2: What am I afraid would happen if I loosened my grip? (23:40) Question 3: Am I proud of my work, or dependent on it for validation? (28:13) Question 4: What parts of myself have gotten quiet because work became so loud? (36:16) Question 5: Where did I learn that being needed means being valuable? (42:18) Question 6: What would it look like to care without carrying everything? (47:37) Question 7: What do I want my relationship with work to feel like moving forward?   Listen to This Episode If You've Been Thinking… "Why does work feel so personal to me?" "Am I proud of my work, or do I need it to prove I am enough?" "Why does feedback make me spiral?" "Why do I feel guilty when I am not being useful?" "What would it look like to care about work without carrying my whole identity through it?"   Learn more about Jac Pfeifer: Instagram: @officially.jac

  2. 8 Sept

    11: Mom Guilt and People Pleasing: How to Stop Saying Yes Out of Obligation with Carla Greenan

    How many times have you said yes before you even stopped to ask whether you actually had room for it? At work, saying yes can feel like proof that you are ambitious and committed. At home, it can feel like proof that you are a good mom, partner, daughter, or friend. And when you are the woman everyone knows they can count on, saying no can bring up enough guilt that taking on one more thing somehow feels easier than disappointing someone. On second thought, maybe being capable does not mean every request deserves access to your time and energy. In this episode, Carla Greenan and I get into why ambitious women can become so used to saying yes that overcommitment starts to feel normal, where the pressure to "do it all" actually comes from, and how to figure out what deserves a place in your life before guilt makes the decision for you. Carla Greenan is a former CPA and Professional Certified Coach with 18 years of experience coaching leaders, working parents, and ambitious women through personal and professional transitions. After a 23-year career at a Fortune 500 company, where she became a founding member of its Internal Executive Coaching Team, Carla launched 3Be Coaching to help working parents move from simply surviving everything on their plate to creating careers and lives that actually work for them. What's Discussed (08:17) Why ambitious women can start believing they have to keep saying yes if they want to keep getting opportunities. (15:55) How the "good mom" standard can quietly become an impossible combination of everything we see other women doing well. (21:26) How much pressure can come from assumptions about what other people might think, even when nobody has actually asked more of you. (40:37) Why thoughts like "they will think I am less committed" can change the choices you make at work before you even know whether they are true. (49:29) The questions to ask when you know you are overloaded and need to decide what actually deserves your time right now. (56:43) How to slow down a request instead of automatically saying yes, and create room to negotiate what is actually realistic. (1:00:32) How to say no without apologizing, overexplaining, or accidentally taking responsibility for solving the problem anyway. If saying no still makes you feel selfish, difficult, or like you are letting someone down, listen to this episode of On Second Thought with Carla Greenan.   Come sit at the table  The conversation doesn't end when the episode does. My Substack is where the rest lives: my raw, unedited thoughts on every episode, free, every week, plus the world I'm building around style, beauty, travel, and the questions we're all actually asking. And when you're ready for the decisions (what I actually bought, booked, and believed, names and prices included), listeners get 20% off your first year: prettybigthoughts.substack.com/777 Start free: prettybigthoughts.substack.com    Learn more about Jac Pfeifer:  Instagram: @officially.jac    Learn more from Carla Greenan & 3Be Coaching: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/carla-greenan Carla Greenan's 3Be Coaching: https://stan.store/3BeCoaching   Website: 3becoaching.com

  3. 1 Sept

    10: How to Know When an Opportunity Is Worth Betting On with Katie Love

    Have you ever caught yourself thinking, "I worked this hard to get here, so why am I even thinking about doing something else?" Maybe the career is good. Maybe you are successful. Maybe other people would love to have what you have. So when something new starts pulling at you, the first instinct can be to talk yourself out of it. Be realistic. Be grateful. Do not throw away everything you already built.  On second thought, maybe we have been looking at a career pivot the wrong way.  What if the better question is not whether you should leave everything behind, but whether there is an opportunity sitting inside what you have already learned? In this episode of On Second Thought, Katie Love and I get into how she knew it was time to pay attention to something new, what made her willing to bet on an industry people were still dismissing, and what she wishes women understood about following an opportunity before there is enough proof to make it feel safe. Katie Love is a former NBC news reporter and the founder of Love Social Media, the multimillion-dollar social media agency she has spent the last 10 years building. Before becoming a founder, Katie spent eight years in broadcast journalism covering crime, missing children, natural disasters, and presidential elections. Today, she leads a team of 25 and helps women-led businesses and major brands use storytelling, content, and community to grow online. She has lived both sides of this conversation: building the career she thought she wanted and then taking everything it taught her somewhere completely different. What's Discussed: (05:25) What it can feel like when the career you worked so hard for no longer feels like the place you are supposed to stay. (11:05) How to recognize the skills you can carry into your next chapter instead of assuming a pivot means starting over. (14:09) How to spot an opportunity before everyone around you sees why it matters. (18:05) What to do with the fear that nobody will need, understand, or pay for the thing you want to build. (31:24) Why slow growth does not automatically mean you are on the wrong path, and what to pay attention to before you change direction. (37:47) How to tell the difference between something that needs more time and something that actually needs a new strategy. (49:01) What to remember when everyone else's success is making you feel like yours should be happening faster. Listen to this episode if part of you keeps thinking about a different path, but another part keeps reminding you how much you already invested in the one you are on.   Come sit at the table  The conversation doesn't end when the episode does. My Substack is where the rest lives: my raw, unedited thoughts on every episode, free, every week, plus the world I'm building around style, beauty, travel, and the questions we're all actually asking. And when you're ready for the decisions (what I actually bought, booked, and believed, names and prices included), listeners get 20% off your first year: prettybigthoughts.substack.com/777 Start free: prettybigthoughts.substack.com    Learn more about Jac Pfeifer:  Instagram: @officially.jac  Learn more from Katie Love & Love Social Media: Instagram: @katielovesocial  Website: loveyoursocialmedia.com/

  4. 25 Aug

    9: The Cost of Saying Yes to Everything with Dr. Tiffany Moon

    From the outside, Dr. Tiffany Moon had built the kind of life a lot of women are told to want. She was a successful anesthesiologist with a family, friends, travel, a career she loved, and a life that looked more than fine to anyone looking in. But internally, she was going through the motions, running on the treadmill of achievement, and feeling like something was missing. And if your life also looks fine from the outside, but you have been quietly running on empty, this conversation may feel uncomfortably familiar.  In this episode of On Second Thought, I sit down with Dr. Tiffany Moon to talk about the cost of saying yes to everything and what it took for her to realize she deserved to be happy, too. We talk about people-pleasing, burnout, obedience, boundaries, joy, and the pressure high-achieving women feel to keep being responsible, impressive, and easy to count on, even when they are quietly running themselves into the ground. Dr. Tiffany Moon is a board-certified anesthesiologist, entrepreneur, author, speaker, mother, and former star of The Real Housewives of Dallas. She is the author of Joy Prescriptions, a book about moving beyond perfection and creating a life with more joy, connection, and meaning, making her the perfect guest for a conversation about what happens when achievement is no longer enough and a woman finally gives herself permission to want a life that feels good from the inside. Come sit at the table: The conversation doesn't end when the episode does. My Substack is where the rest lives: my raw, unedited thoughts on every episode, free, every week, plus the world I'm building around style, beauty, travel, and the questions we're all actually asking. And when you're ready for the decisions (what I actually bought, booked, and believed, names and prices included), listeners get 20% off your first year: prettybigthoughts.substack.com/777 Start free: prettybigthoughts.substack.com What's Discussed (02:30) Why high-achieving women often confuse achievement with happiness. (03:45) What Tiffany's life looked like from the outside before she realized something was missing. (05:42) How running herself thin made Tiffany feel like a shell of herself. (07:39) Why Tiffany started feeling called toward something outside the identity of doctor and mom. (18:39) What led Tiffany to write Joy Prescriptions and why the process brought up parts of her past. (30:41) How being praised for being smart and obedient can turn into people-pleasing. (37:46) How Tiffany went from anesthesiologist to The Real Housewives of Dallas. (53:27) Why therapy, coaching, conferences, and getting into the right rooms changed what Tiffany believed was possible. Listen to this episode and learn why wanting joy, visibility, connection, and a life that feels good from the inside does not make you selfish. It may be the moment you finally stop abandoning yourself.   Learn more about Jac Pfeifer: Instagram: @officially.jac    Learn more from Dr. Tiffany Moon:  Instagram: @tiffanymoonmd Website: tiffanymoonmd.com/  Facebook: tiffanymoon

  5. 18 Aug

    8: What Survival Mode Is Doing to Your Brain and Body with Robina Abramson-Walling

    For a lot of women, the problem is not that they cannot handle pressure. The problem is that they have been handling pressure for so long that their body has started treating stress like the normal setting. You might not call it survival mode. You might call it being responsible, dependable, productive, ambitious, or good under pressure. But when your body is always bracing, your brain is always scanning for the next problem, and rest feels like something you have to earn, the life you are "handling" can start quietly draining you. In this episode of On Second Thought, I sit down with Robina Abramson-Walling to talk about what survival mode actually does to the brain, body, hormones, and nervous system. We get into why so many women numb, overachieve, over-function, react quickly, feel guilty resting, and keep pushing even when their body is asking for something different.  Robina Abramson-Walling is a registered nurse turned holistic-wellness practitioner based in Toronto, Canada. She is a board-certified health coach, certified Biofield Tuning practitioner, and is currently pursuing her PhD in Natural Medicine. Her work focuses on supporting women through burnout, chronic stress, hormonal change, perimenopause, menopause, and the mind-body patterns that keep high-achieving women stuck in survival mode. What's Discussed: (05:28) Why survival mode can hide behind numbing, overachieving, and staying busy. (05:51) What chronic stress can do to the brain, body, and hormones. (06:16) Why breathing can help tell the nervous system it is safe. (27:41) What it means when the body gets stuck in fight-or-flight. (33:57) The signs that stress has become your baseline. (40:30) How to notice which parts of your life feel heavy. (01:15:37) How to reframe the thoughts that keep women over-functioning. Listen to this episode if everyone thinks you are handling it, but inside you feel wired, tired, reactive, and like one more thing could send you over the edge.   Learn more about Jac Pfeifer:  Instagram: @officially.jac    Learn more about Robina Abramson-Walling: Website: routeofhealing.com Instagram: @routeofhealing

  6. 11 Aug

    7: Why Peace Can Feel Uncomfortable After Survival Mode

    Have you ever made it through the hard season, only to realize your body still feels like it is waiting for the next thing to go wrong? Maybe the pressure has eased. Maybe the crisis has passed. Maybe you finally got the title, built the thing, launched the project, or created the life you said you wanted. But instead of feeling settled, you feel restless. Quiet feels uncomfortable. Rest feels hard. And the second you have space, your mind starts looking for the next thing to fix, chase, build, or protect. In this solo episode of On Second Thought, I'm talking about why peace can feel uncomfortable after survival mode. I get into why removing the stressor from your life does not automatically remove the stress from your body, how survival mode can turn into your baseline, and why the life you love requires a version of you who feels safe enough to receive it. I also talk about how this shows up in my own life, especially through achievement, urgency, always needing something to do, struggling with stillness, and learning how to choose my life on purpose instead of constantly bracing for what might happen next. What's Discussed (00:29) Why removing the stressor does not remove the stress from your body. (00:57) How movement, touch, crying, walking, and emotional release can help your body close the stress loop. (01:18) Why asking for help is hard when you do not know what kind of help you need. (02:29) The weekly question that helps me notice whether I am choosing my life or just bracing for it. (03:26) The tools I use to manage stress, including journaling, morning pages, sound frequencies, therapy, and AI support. (05:12) Why the life you love requires a version of you who feels safe enough to receive it. (08:18) The seven signs that survival mode may have become your normal.   Listen to This Episode If You've Been Thinking "Why do I still feel stressed when life is technically better?" "Why does rest feel harder than working?" "Why do I keep chasing the next thing instead of enjoying what I already built?" "What if I have been calling it ambition, but it is actually survival mode?" "What would it feel like to choose my life instead of constantly bracing for it?"   Learn more about Jac Pfeifer:  Instagram: @officially.jac

  7. 4 Aug

    6: What Hard Seasons Can Teach You About the Life You're Building with Kayla Hale

    From the outside, a woman can look like she is winning while privately carrying a season that feels impossible. She may have the business, family, reputation, growth, and life she worked hard to build, while also dealing with betrayal, pressure, disappointment, or the fear that one more setback might be the thing that finally breaks her. And when the path gets hard, it is easy to wonder whether the struggle means you made the wrong choice.  In this episode of On Second Thought, we talk about how to keep moving without making permanent decisions from temporary pain. We explore how to separate what is actually happening from the fear surrounding it, why support and discernment matter when trust has been broken, and how hard seasons can strengthen your boundaries, leadership, faith, and ability to protect what you are building.  Kayla Hale is a Board-Certified Physician Associate, CEO of HaleStorm Aesthetics and Wellness, and a nationally recognized leader in aesthetic medicine. With more than a decade of injecting experience and a background in general surgery and emergency medicine, she has built a multi-million-dollar brand centered on clinical excellence, patient trust, and whole-body care. Kayla is also a national trainer and speaker for Galderma and Lutronic, a Key Opinion Leader for Glo2Facial, and a member of the Glo2Facial Clinical Advisory Board and Plated Clinical Advisory Board. She is known for her expertise in facial balancing, laser skin rejuvenation, and medical-grade skincare. What's Discussed (05:09) Why ambitious women begin questioning who they are becoming and what they want next. (09:22) How betrayal, loss, and postpartum pressure became one of the biggest storms of Kayla's life. (21:36) The moment Kayla realized the storm was preparing her instead of only taking from her. (25:07) How to protect your confidence when you are being misunderstood, judged, or attacked behind the scenes. (33:24) What to do when you feel like you cannot keep going, but people and responsibilities still depend on you. (45:57) How to stay present for your work, marriage, and children while carrying something difficult. (56:58) Why being told no does not always mean you are on the wrong path. Listen now and learn how to move through a hard season with stronger support, clearer boundaries, deeper discernment, and the confidence to keep building without letting one setback define your direction.    Learn more about Jac Pfeifer:  Instagram: @officially.jac    Learn more about Kayla Hale:  HaleStorm Aesthetics and Wellness: halestormaesthetics.com Instagram: @halethebeautyqueen

  8. 28 Jul

    5: 5 Things I Wish More Women Knew About Having Second Thoughts

    Have you ever looked at something you once wanted so badly and wondered why it no longer feels like a prize? Maybe it is the career path, the title, the relationship, the role, the goal, or the version of success you spent years working toward. You may still be grateful for it. You may still be proud of what it took to get there. But something in you starts asking whether it still fits, and suddenly that second thought comes with guilt. Am I being selfish? Am I being flaky? Did I waste all that time, money, energy, and effort? In this solo episode of On Second Thought, I'm talking about the permission slips I wish more women had when they start wanting something different. I get into why growth can change what you want, why a second thought can be information instead of failure, and why outgrowing an old dream does not mean the old version of you was wrong. I also talk about the goals I used to think were the prize, the choices that helped me get here, the fear of making a decision that feels permanent, and what it means to become someone new without abandoning who you were. What's Discussed: (01:37) Why giving yourself permission to change your mind can feel so hard. (02:00) Why we say we want growth, then shame ourselves when growth starts shifting what we want. (03:32) How a second thought can be information instead of something to fear. (06:16) Why you are allowed to outgrow what you once wanted. (08:36) Why changing your mind does not erase your progress. (12:47) Why you are allowed to want what actually feels true to you, not what you think you should want. (21:42) Why becoming someone new does not mean abandoning who you were. Listen to This Episode If You've Been Thinking "I worked so hard for this, so why does it not feel like the prize anymore?" "Am I allowed to change my mind after everything I invested?" "What if wanting something different does not mean I failed?" "What would I explore if I knew it did not have to be permanent?" "Can I become someone new without rejecting who I used to be?"   Learn more about Jac Pfeifer: Instagram: @officially.jac

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Welcome to On Second Thought with me, Jackie Pfeifer, a podcast for ambitious women and mothers who built a life doing everything "right," and are now questioning whether it's actually the life they want to keep living. Nothing has to be falling apart for you to question what comes next. You can be grateful for your life and still change your mind on the direction you want to take. Through honest conversations, new perspectives, and practical tools, this podcast will help you feel brave enough to question yourself, honest enough to get real clarity, and capable enough to explore new directions without blowing up everything you've built. Because sometimes creating the life you want starts with one honest realization: "On second thought, I want something different."

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