Suzanne Proksa:
Welcome to the Suzanne show. With me, Suzanne Proksa h r and business strategist, former featured etsy seller, plant addict, concert lover, gardener, landscaper in training and human, straight up obsessed with helping others and cheering on women. Here we talk a little business, personal development, women's health and a whole lot about things that matter. Help people and give them joy. Grab your coffee or your wine, break out one of your hundreds of notebooks, light that soy candle and let's dive in. Welcome to another episode of The Suzanne Show. Everybody at the love of my life, of course, I am here today with Dr. Clarissa Castillo Ramsay. Hopefully I said that correctly. She is an abstract artist, leadership plus life coach, author, podcaster and organizational psychologist with a passion for helping creatives start designing life on their terms. This is going to be a very awesome discussion, I think very empowering for a lot of women out there. I cannot wait to get started. But first I would love to have Dr. Clarissa talk a little bit about yourself and how you got here and your background and all of that wonderful stuff before I start asking you all the questions.
Dr. Clarissa Castillo-Ramsey:
Thank you so much Suzanne, for having me here. And I will try and be brief because I have been on this planet for 50 years and how did I get to where I am today? Well, there are two themes that have run throughout my life and the first one is that I have always been a creative, I've always been an artist, but that really wasn't a career that my parents supported. And my parents came here from the Philippines and I just knew what a sacrifice that was for them to leave their families and start a new adventure here. And so I always wanted to make them proud. But I remember as a young child, my mother asking me, oh, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I said, I want to be an artist. And she said, well, you'll be rich and famous after you pass away, so maybe you should pick something else. And so that kind of always stuck in the back of my mind. So with my creativity, that kind of ebbed and flowed through throughout my life until more recently. The other through line in my life is that I loved helping people. I loved being that support to help people solve their problems. I didn't know how that would translate into work, but that was something that I had a natural talent for. I was able to encourage people, ask them questions, to help them solve their problems so that I knew about myself. But getting to where I am today, it just honestly took a series of pivots trial and error, working some fun jobs, working some terrible jobs. And eventually I did land my dream job, which was being an internal coach for healthcare organization and I really loved my last career, but I also knew that eventually I wanted to work for myself. And I think so many people, especially during the Pandemic, they ask themselves, am I really doing what I want to be doing? And that is something that I also ask myself. So in 2021, I chose to finally leave my day job and embark on this up and down, roller coaster, creative entrepreneurial journey.
Suzanne Proksa:
My guests always do a way better job than I do on the intros, so thank you. Thank you. So my first question is an interesting one. There's quite the push for us to be able to just be ourselves right now and slow down and care for ourselves. Often easier said than done, I have to admit. It's one of the things that I actually appreciate about COVID I know that sounds crazy, but how do you think that the COVID era has impacted our viewpoint on this, on what's important?
Dr. Clarissa Castillo-Ramsey:
That is such a great question, Suzanne. And I think the pandemic really forced people to slow it way down. And I remember doing some vision board workshops right before the Pandemic hit. And then after the Pandemic hit, so many people came back to me and said, clarissa, I didn't ask for this to be on my vision board. And I said, you know what? Yeah, nobody asked for a global Pandemic. But a lot of people in fact, there were at least a handful of people in every workshop that I did. People said people put their family on their board. People put getting back to their creative passions. And I think the pandemic forced us to slow down, to reevaluate what's truly important to us. And we got to do that. We got to do that. We got to get quiet. We got to really take a look at what's really important here.
Suzanne Proksa:
Thank you so much for your thoughts on that. Now, certainly one of the things that has come out of this time is more people wanting to pursue entrepreneurship, and making that transition can be full of confusion and a little terrifying. How do you suggest that people start actually preparing themselves for that transition?
Dr. Clarissa Castillo-Ramsey:
Oh, my goodness, Suzanne, that is such a great question, and I love what you said. Prepare for the transition. And that is what I tell my clients. You don't need to quit tomorrow. You don't need to quit in six months, but you do need to start before you're ready. And so there's a couple things that you can do. The first thing is, I think there's this just dream, dreamy vision of, oh, my gosh, leaving the nine to five, working for myself, having all that freedom. Yes. And the freedom is fantastic, but I think not. I think I know you've also got to think about, okay, well, what is it that you wish to do next? And start there. Start taking inventory of what are your KSAs? What are your knowledge, skills, and abilities what would you like to be doing? And start with that. Think about what kind of problem you can solve and for who. And you can also start preparing your corporate exit by really taking a look at your numbers. I know it's not sexy, but taking a look at what is it going to cost you every month to live the life that you want to live and just start there.
Suzanne Proksa:
Excellent. Excellent. It's no easy feat. I mean, I remember when I made the jump. It's just a little terrifying. So to take it a step further, then what if they truly are not ready to make that move yet? Whether it be financially, mentally or something.
Dr. Clarissa Castillo-Ramsey:
Else, that is another great question. And like I said earlier, you don't need to quit tomorrow. You don't need to quit in six months. And I know so many people who have gone from who started full time and they went to part time, so they sidestepped their way out. It wasn't like they were here today, gone tomorrow. You can talk to your boss. You know, it is hard to find good team members these days. People are just kind of burned out and tired. So I bet you if you had a conversation with your boss and gave them the heads up about what you want to do, they'll work with you. That might sound counterintuitive, but I think nowadays with the gig economy, it's worth a conversation with your boss so you can potentially co create your exit.
Suzanne Proksa:
Yeah, I absolutely think that that is a possibility for a lot of people. But then also, of course, I'm sure we can both agree that in other situations that that might not be feasible. And I think that you really have to follow your gut and your heart. You know your employer better than anybody else, so you should be able to make that decision as far as whether or not that is something that you're going to be able to do without any negative implications. I know that you say you are a big cheerleader. I know I certainly am. Especially for women and people who have traditionally been held back. If you had someone in front of you right now feeling as if they weren't enough or they couldn't possibly make a change in their lives, what would you tell them?
Dr. Clarissa Castillo-Ramsey:
Great. Another great question. I would say, you know what? You have already made it through some of your toughest days and I would encourage you to take a look back at all your success that you've already had. Let that be a reminder that you are capable of doing amazing things. Are you a mom? You gave birth to another human being. Did you learn how to tie your shoes? Did you learn how to read? Did you learn how to write? These are things that we cannot take for granted and know when is too small or too big. And I like to tell my clients to keep a Hype file. Hype. And I think I first learned about this through Marie Forleo, and that's basically going through whether it's a text, an email, a voicemail, just maybe you can keep a file of testimonials, a good employee review, a thank you from a coworker, a family member, or a friend, just to remind you that you are amazing. So that's what I would tell somebody. Go create that Hype style.
Suzanne Proksa:
All right, so let's get to the part, the reason why you're really here. Tell us about your painting your path framework and who that is intended to help.
Dr. Clarissa Castillo-Ramsey:
My painting your path framework is honestly, anybody can use it. It's what I have used for myself to get what I want in life, to achieve my goals, achieve my dreams. But for the people that I work with, the people who identify as creatives, that are in the cubicle life, that want to leave the cubicle life at some point, this framework is especially for them. So step one is to dream. I think as adults, we don't take time to really close our eyes, get quiet, and paint that picture of what we want life to be outside of the corporate space. What does that look like? What are you doing? Use all your senses. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you taste? What do you touch? Who's with you? So that is step one is to just see it as already done. And then step two is to decide. Decide that your dream, that you are worth, that you're worth it, that this dream is worth pursuing. Then step three is to make a plan. And we don't need to see the whole staircase. We just need to see the next step. And how I help my clients with that is to first help them create that corporate exit plan. And again, it doesn't need to be something that happens tomorrow. It doesn't even need to be something that happens in six months or even a year. Some of my clients decided, okay, I'm going to give myself two years. I'm going to give myself three years to build up some savings, figure out what I want to do, and then take it from there. So step three is putting a plan together. And I love helping my clients figure out step four is, okay, now that we have the plan, it's time to take action. It's time to be brave and do the uncomfortable thing. Make the phone call, email somebody, make the request, ask for the sale. Put your class out there, whatever it is, is to take action. And then step five is to reflect, okay, you launched your thing. How did it go? What worked? What didn't work? So that's the five step framework. And then the foundation to all of this is two parts. The first one is having that growth mindset. And if you've ever read Dr. Carol Dweck's work. She talks about the fixed mindset and the growth mindset, and the fixed mindset basically says that you have a limited intelligence capacity to learn, whereas the growth mindset says, you know what, with time, with effort, with feedback, you can achieve anything. And so I work with my clients a lot on developing that growth mindset and building that muscle. And then the second piece is self care, because the path to entrepreneurship is scary enough and then having a day job trying to build something you can easily burn out. And so I work with my clients on having a self care plan that's sustainable, that feels good to them because you've got to fill your cup up first before you can take on anything else.
Suzanne Proksa:
Wow. I mean, what a great thing to be able to go through that framework. So I'm sure there are people who are listening and they're hearing what you're saying, and they're thinking that they absolutely could use some help, and you are the one that can help them. How can they reach out to you? Do you have an offer or something that they can sign up for? Do they just reach out for coaching? Talk to us about how that works and where they can reach out.
Dr. Clarissa Castillo-Ramsey:
Thank you, Suzanne. I do have a Facebook community called Create Your Abundant Life. People can connect with me there. They can check out the group. And I do events throughout the year, and I do interviews with people who help creative aspiring entrepreneurs as well. And I do offer one on one coaching group coaching, so people can connect with me that way. I also have a podcast, Painting Your Path, so if people want to learn more about me, they can also check out the podcast.
Suzanne Proksa:
Okay, it is time for takeaways. What are one to two, maybe three takeaways that you would like the audience to walk away from this episode with, or even if it's maybe a first step based on what you do, is there a first step that you would like them to take to get started?
Dr. Clarissa Castillo-Ramsey:
That is such a great question, and I would just say this take off the pressure and just have fun and start with step one of my framework, and that's just to dream. What are you passionate about? What is important to you? What skills do you already have that you can leverage and just start there?
Suzanne Proksa:
So I want to close by saying thank you so much, Dr. Clarissa, for being on the show and talking about this topic. It's definitely time, and a lot of people are making changes, and I think it's really interesting to see. And so I love having people on the show who can help people make those changes and help walk them through it so that they don't have to struggle. So thank you again. It was so nice talking to you, and I will talk to you soon.
Dr. Clarissa Castillo-Ramsey:
Thank you so much, Suzanne, for having me. It has been a pleasure and I look forward to helping as many creatives as I can. Thanks again for having me.
Suzanne Proksa:
I hope that you loved this episode. If you did, give me those shout outs, show me some love on itunes, give me a rating. And hey, if you want to know where to find me, you can find me on pretty much all social media at suzanneprokesa. That's Suzanneproksa. And you can also head over to my website, suzanneprokesa.com. Until then, see next episode and share parte music for you.
Dr. Clarissa Castillo-Ramsey:
Dad didn't have anything that involved in Class 17,030.
