I Wanna Be Me When I Grow Up Kara Monroe

Hi all.
I mentioned in this week’s newsletter that I’d be starting to drop into your feed once a week with a podcast episode. Here is that episode. You can:
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Welcome back to I Wanna Be Me When I Grow Up. My name is Kara.

Today we're talking about connecting to purpose. In Episode 1 - I introduced you to the origin story for my life's purpose of "I Wanna Be Me When I Grow Up" - and throughout this podcast I hope you've come to see I also want to help others be them when they grow up too. Today, we're going to dig in a little to our purpose through an idea I call "Believe in Something Bigger."

I've talked previously about how I'm an introvert's introvert. But, I also know that I am at my best when I engage with others, I collaborate, and I expand my knowledge - and even how I think about things - beyond what I know and how I think today. For me, this is the foundation of believing in something bigger.

Religion and spirituality also play a role here for me as well. I was raised in the Christian faith in a pretty small rural church here in Indiana. My faith has always been important to me. As I've matured though, I've walked farther and farther way from formal religion to what Thomas Moore calls "A Religion of One's Own." I am a part of a few different faith communities - some directly connected with churches of varying denominations and others completely disassociated from any one church or faith community. I hold space for all beliefs and traditions and I learn from them rather than assuming they are bad or wrong because they are not mine.

In that regard, I'm going to share a quote today from a friend who I believe would rather remain anonymous. The friend sent this on behalf of a small spiritual community I am a part of to another member who just suffered a deep loss. They said, "When innocence is lost, when the old rules and paradigm no longer work, good people like you do not nurse resentment or withdraw for long, you embrace what you have learned/experienced and bring it to the rest of us as a measure of wisdom."

Here are your questions to think about how purpose might play a role in your personal framework for wellness:


What is your purpose? In a recent newsletter article, I shared an exercise based on Simon Sinek's "Find Your Why" that can help you discover your purpose if you're not sure of it. I'll link to that in the show notes - https://iwannabemewhenigrowup.substack.com/p/35-lets-meet-the-two-types-of-values
What do you routinely look to that is bigger than you? Things like nature, relationships, faith, a cause you believe in, vocation or calling are just a few ideas of things to think about if this is not a question you've considered before.
How do connect with your purpose? What rituals, habits, and routines help you to regularly recenter yourself in what your purpose is?

Today we talked about purpose and tomorrow we're going to do the first of two days where we look at how we use our resources - our time, talent, and treasure - both to preserve and to enrich our lives. 

Don't forget to like, rate, review and share this podcast if it was valuable to you. Do you want to make sure you get every episode as well as everything else I publish? If so, then subscribe to my newsletter at https://iwannabemewhenigrowup.substack.com/. 

I'll talk to you tomorrow. 


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Welcome back to I Wanna Be Me When I Grow Up. My name is Kara.

Today we are talking about the role organization plays in a well lived life. The phrase I use for this is another I borrowed directly from author and podcaster Gretchen Rubin - Outer Order = Inner Calm.


One of my superpowers is making order out of chaos. Unfortunately, our greatest strengths are also very often our greatest weaknesses.

In order to use my superpower of making our out of chaos, I often make chaos so that I can order it.

While knowing this about myself has helped dramatically in cutting down the chaos making, it is still a piece of self knowledge that I always have to keep at the fore front - where I am complicating something that doesn't need to be complicated?

In the end, I know that order makes me happy and does make me calmer. It's why the very first online class that I'm developing - The Facts of Life Book Course - is all about making order out of our most important information so that we have it in life's most urgent moments. Let's dive into today's questions to see whether or not order and organization needs to play a role in your wellness framework.


Do you like things neat and tidy or are you okay with some mess and disorder? How much of either one (neat/tidy - mess/disorder) is too much for you?
What routines and habits are vital to your happiness and wellbeing? How do you protect these routines? If a habit that brought you great joy has fallen away, how could you begin gently reintroducing it or an appropriate modification to it in your life?
How do you actively cultivate inner calm? Don't have a strategy - here is my favorite super simple strategy that you can do anywhere - it's called box breathing. I like this best if I close my eyes while I do it, but that isn't required which makes it one of the best strategies in a stressful situation for calming yourself. Breathe in slowly as you count in your head to four, hold your breath for a slow count of four, slowly exhale for another count of four, and hold for another count of four. Repeat as many times as needed and then allow your breathing to return to normal.

I'm going to end today's episode a little differently - a slightly longer story than usual with another practical tool for helping cultivate inner calm. Before we go to that story though, two more quick calls to action.

First, if inner calm is a strategy you need to cultivate for yourself, make a list of possible techniques for cultivating inner calm. A few of my favorites include a short walk outdoors weather permitting and if not a short walk indoors, breathing techniques like box breathing, writing down whatever is in my head and tangling my thoughts (usually on paper - definitely NOT on social media), or practicing gratitude and/or an act of kindness towards someone else.

My second call to action is if you need to develop a more ordered set of documents and information for you life, check out my website at factsoflifebook.com and consider signing up for lifetime access to the course. My aim is to not make it cost prohibitive and to create a supportive community of folks who are helping each other on this journey. I'd love to have you join us if that's you.

A final story for today. I took my seat on a flight to Orlando, Florida one evening. Just before the boarding door closed, a woman sat down in the middle seat next to me. She was clearly shaken and a little distressed. She also kept coughing and seemed as though she was having a little trouble catching her breath. My initial reaction was annoyance but I soon recognized the signs of a panic attack. I started chatting with her and after getting her to stop apologizing, I asked her if she had ever had a panic attack. She said no. I asked her to try something. Touch a physical object in your line of vision and name it - out loud. She did this - touching her jacket and saying jacket. I encouraged her to do it five or six more

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Welcome back to I Wanna Be Me When I Grow Up. My name is Kara.

In today's episode we're talking about one of my favorite subjects - recharging your batteries as a human being. Let's get straight into it.



All work and no play makes Kara a dull person.... It probably makes you a pretty dull person too. So, what does it mean to play - and more importantly to recharge your batteries - as an adult?

We are working our way through author and podcaster Gretchen Rubin's Vital 9 elements for a happy, healthy life. I am using this as the framework for walking you through my personal wellness framework. Today - Rubin's next element is recharging. Recharge is defined as to make or become restored in energy or spirit. For me, I symbolize this as finding joy in the journey.

One of the most important concepts in recharging is the idea of play. Play is defined as engaging in an activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose. When we are children, play is natural - but as adults we rarely make enough time for play. You may even be thinking as you're listening to this that you don't even know how to play as an adult.

Let's use that definition to see if we can tease out ways to play. What are the activities you do for enjoyment or for recreation? I love to travel and, even more importantly to adopt a tourist mindset whenever I can. As a tourist you keep your eyes open and look for new experiences and opportunities that you might enjoy. You can do this even in your own town. I also love to do things like reading and writing, making art, playing music and much more. I don't have a purpose for these when I engage in them for play. They might result in something that has a major purpose but I am simply having fun while I am doing those things.

Another aspect to having fun and finding joy each day is to adopt a positive mindset. This is not the same as simply having a sunny disposition or being positive all the time. It is recognizing that life goes in the direction our energy points. If we are directing our energy in a positive way - we will manifest positive things. If we are directing our energy in a negative way - we will manifest those things. I prefer to manifest more positive things - which is why I adopted my wellness framework of "Find Joy in the Journey."

Here are you questions and prompts for today to explore this area of wellness for yourself:


What activities do you do under the guise of self-care? How do these recharge you? When was the last time you scheduled one of these?
Do you have a go to list of relaxing activities you can do if you need to recharge? If not, take 10 minutes and make that list?
What do you do for play? How do these recharge you? If you don't do anything for play, what did you love to do as a kid? What might that look like as an adult?
Does travel recharge you? If so, how can you adopt a tourist mindset in your every day life? What could curiosity do to improve your view of your current world?
In what area do you have a negative mindset. Remind yourself for a week to try positive thoughts rather than negative. See if anything changes



Tomorrow we're going to look at the role order and organization play in a happy, healthy life - and whether or not order and organization deserves a place in your framework for wellness.

Don't forget to like, rate, review and share this podcast if it was valuable to you. Do you want to make sure you get every episode as well as everything else I publish? If so, then subscribe to my newsletter at https://iwannabemewhenigrowup.substack.com/.

I'll talk to you tomorrow.


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Get full access to I Wanna Be Me When I Grow Up at iwannabemewhenigrowup.substack.com/subscribe

I met a friend I used to work with for coffee this morning. We got caught up on all the parts of our lives that you don't see on social media. While we text each other from time to time in between our coffee meetings, it's these get togethers that allow us to really connect deeply.

There are two elements to our coffee meeting that I think relate to the aspect of relationships. First, we met through work and neither of us work there anymore (a statement I can make about many of the folks I used to work with). I learned quickly who my real friends were and they were those who first checked in on my so graciously and kindly in the aftermath of that moment but who then also regularly returned my messages when I checked in on them. While I had no reason to, I felt like I'd abandoned them. A few relationships have fallen off but most are still very close - and the best part is now they are much deeper because we get together socially rather than only at work. This has been a huge upside to keeping friends with the folks I formerly called colleagues and friends and now happily simply get to call friends.

The second element to this though is that I am an introverts introvert. I LOVE being alone. I always have. I have to work HARD to force myself to spend out in my physical energy to give it to others. I know the rewards are immense when I do but it's an effort every time - even with those I deeply love and care about. Multiple times this morning, I said to my friend "I'm just not good at keeping relationships moving" - and it's true. I'm not. But, it's an area that as I'm working my way through this series I know I need to invest some more time in - and perhaps even change my phrasing in my own personal framework for wellness. This is an area in Gretchen Rubin's vital 9 that is quite simply called Relationships and I have no directly corresponding area in my personal wellness framework. I have Celebrate each day which is to remember to enjoy the gift of each day and celebrate both my own and others victories with them as well as cultivate an attitude of gratitude which is pretty self explanatory...but I think I need something else. I'm going to work on that and report back at the end of this little mini series.

And, as I give you your action items for today, I'm going to send a text to a friend that we chatted about over coffee this morning ad see if they can go to dinner sometime before the holidays. Here are your questions to consider as you decide if relationships should play a role in your personal framework for wellness.


Recall from our episode on Energy that I asked you who in your life boosts your energy and who depletes it. Review those answers. Do you need to spend some more time with your energy boosters to help you gain energy?
Who have you said, "I've been meaning to call, drop a note to, etc" that you haven't done? Hit pause and do it right now. I'll be here when you get back.
I just wrote an essay in my newsletter on not letting perfect be the enemy of done...don't have time to write a long flowery letter which is what you planned...send a quick email that says you miss them, have been thinking of them or just wanted to say hi and you'd love to connect again soon. I can almost guarantee you they will smile when they see your name in their inbox.
Who do you need to spend more time with in your life because they will make your life better. These are not shoulds or coulds - these are people you think "I want to spend more time with..."
Finally, I'm going to do a full episode on this just after this mini-series wraps up but I want you to start thinking about who is on your personal board of directors.

My dear friend Tracy Winchell has been writing this lovely series on kindness - and her most recent issue is called accept that whom you cannot change. I will link to it in the show notes for this episode (https://roamanjournals.com/posts/kindness-accept-that-whom-you-cannot-change).

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Welcome back to I Wanna Be Me When I Grow Up. My name is Kara.

My American listeners know that one of the most common questions American's ask one another on meeting is "what do you do?" We put a lot of stock in this country and culture on productivity - but what happens when your identify shifts in a day? Today, I'm sharing Vital Area 2 - Productivity or what I call Show Up and Shine

I wasn't sure what I'd share with you today but since I'm coming up on the one year anniversary of this moment, it's time to start talking about it publicly. On January 14, 2021, just after I'd wrapped up a group broadcast in our organizational Town Hall to about 800 of my fellow employees, one of the HR team members showed up in my doorway and told me my boss wanted to see me.

"Am I being fired?" I asked him. He didn't answer and just asked me to come with him. That was all the answer I needed.

Within 30 minutes I was exiting an organization I'd given 23+ years of my life to for the last time.

In the aftermath of that moment, I had to transform my identity around "what do you do?". Today, when someone asks me, I say I'm a Consultant, Coach, and Content Creator. More importantly to me, I'm building the life I want to live every day surrounded by the people that I love and want to spend time with. Instead of meetings and an overwhelming number of emails and way too much time in the car, my life is now filled with creating, publishing, and facilitating discoveries by others.

Part of what I think made this transition easier is that my "work" identity was not tied up in my job title but in this idea that whatever I do in life I'm going to show up and shine - whether that is volunteering, helping friends, being with my family, creating content, working with clients or what I did for those first 20+ years - leading a large college. I am not a title or a job description - I am me and I'm trying to be a better version of me every single day.

So, as we did yesterday, each of these episodes include a brief journaling exercise. Journal just by thinking about the questions, by writing, by typing, or by dictating text to speech...or discuss these with someone you trust. Do what works for you. Here are today's questions to consider: 


What are all of the roles you have in life? (For example, just to name a few, I am a daughter, sister, aunt, dog mom, educator, writer, business owner, and the list goes on...) 
When someone asks you "What do you do?" what do you say? 
How does what you answer to that question encompass ALL of your roles? If it doesn't, how would you rewrite it to be more encompassing of your whole self? 
What word or phrase might be useful to you to encompass how you think about being productive in your life?

If you answer any of these questions, I'd love for you to drop me a note and let me know what you discovered. You can email me at kara at iwannabemewhenigrowup.com or you can go to anchor.fm/iwannabeme and leave a voice mail message.

Something I realized as I went through this experience is - from a professional standpoint ALL of us, except through death which is less than ideal, will experience a day where you are in a professional role followed by a moment immediately after where you are not - whether through retirement, leaving for another job, or having your job ended for you like I did. That's why I prefer to put more energy in relationship development and building which is what we'll talk about tomorrow.

Don't forget to like, rate, review and share this podcast if it was valuable to you. Do you want to make sure you get every episode as well as everything else I publish? If so, then subscribe to my newsletter at https://iwannabemewhenigrowup.substack.com/. I'll talk to you tomorrow.


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Get full access to I Wanna Be Me When I Grow Up at iwannabemewhenigrowup.substack.com/subscribe