Ep.13 When You Have Everything But Something's Still Missing

Welcome to the Seen Heard Value podcast with me, Aimee Bateman. These episodes are for anyone ready to move beyond surface level career advice and dive into the deeper work of authentic success. 

This is where career strategy meets self-discovery. So let's go. 

Hello? Oh my goodness. It feels so good to be back. This. Second season of the podcast is slightly delayed, and by slightly, I mean nine, 10 months delayed. So, thank you for, thank you for coming back. I hope you enjoyed season one, and if you haven't listened to it, go back and have a little listen. There's quite, quite a lot of episodes, fabulous episodes with some lovely guests. 

If you're new here. But if you are one of my podcast listeners or in my community that has been messaging me saying you couldn't wait for the podcast to come back, thank you so much. Some of you will know that I lost my, my. Gorgeous mum last year and took some time away from the podcast, kept doing my female fear of the program because that is good for my soul and that is the thing I was born to do. 

But certain things had to go on the back burner. I wasn't wanting to be visible, if that makes sense. I, I was in healing mode. And I'm not sure you ever really heal from losing a parent, but I certainly feel like I'm, I'm through the other side of it. Now we're coming up to a year and, um, yeah, I'm, I'm ready. 

I'm ready to be seen again. Ready to be heard again. I am here. So this podcast, if you notice the beginning of the trailer, new little jazzy trailer, I got really emotional when Darko, my podcast editor, did that. And sent it to me to listen. I got really emotional. I got a bit teary actually, because I feel like we are going to go deeper. 

It is time to go deeper. I feel like I've changed a lot over the last year. We're always changing, right? That's the point of being, that's the point of life. But I definitely feel like I'm ready to go deeper. I've been going really deep with my clients on their female Fear program. And this stuff is emotional. 

When you go deeper, it's emotional. And it should be emotional because our, our careers and what matters to us and how we spend our time and who we spend it with and re-meet ourselves and all that jazz is emotional stuff. And it should be emotional. And if we're feeling things, then we're doing it right. 

So that's what I want to bring, that energy, that vibe, that message, and that. That transformation to you now through this, through this season of the podcast. So what are we going to start with today? Well, I think. A visualization session would be really, really good. A lovely way to kick off the podcast. So what I'm going to ask you to do, if you can't do this now, just pause this podcast until you can do it. 

And if you're driving or something, you might want to pause because I really want you to close your eyes for this podcast episode. We're going to do some visualization stuff and we're going to tap in. Deep, my friend. It's about time that we reconnected to who we are. Because as women leaders, we are so many things to so many people and in work and at home that sometimes we just, we just get caught up in it, don't we? 

And I want us to stop and remember what's important to us. So if you're driving. I give you permission to stop this podcast and go and listen, to go and listen to some awesome tunes. But if you are walking the dog or you are in the office, or you are at home and you are somewhere where it's safe to go and sit and close your eyes and let's do it. 

Okay? I want you to close your eyes and I want you to take five deep breaths. 

2, 3, 4, 5. I'm doing this with you by the way. My eyes are closed. And I want you to imagine a day in the future where you are in a work capacity. So you are in a, your professional environment. It's how you, how you make a living. And I want you to imagine that this is the most perfect scenario for you. 

We're not worrying about what people expect from you. We're not worrying about people. People want from you. We're not. We're not worrying about anything. It's just your ideal day, the day that's going to make you happy. What are you doing? What work are you doing? Who are you serving? What problem in the world are you solving? 

Who are you helping? And I want you to imagine where you are sat. What kind of environment are you in? Are you outdoors? Are you working from home? Are you in a really busy office? Are you on location? Where are you doing this? What does your office look like? What does it feel like? What's the environment like? 

Is it fast? Is it busy? Is it calm? What's it feel like? And then I want you to imagine what you wearing, like what are you wearing? Are you casual? Are you comfy? Are you not even bothered about what you're wearing? Are you in a killer suit? Is that you? What are you wearing? Are you in your wellies? It doesn't matter. 

What are you wearing? Just picture everything. Focus on everything. And now I want you to think about who are you talking to? Who's around you? What type of people are they? What personalities do they have? What values do they have? What's the energy they're bringing? What's the weather they're bringing? 

What are you talking about? What projects are you collaborating on? 

What are you earning? 

How are you feeling about yourself? You're taking a break. You're going into the toilet, you're washing your hands, and you're looking in the mirror. When you are looking at her, what are you feeling? 

Who is she? 

What values is she displaying? What behaviours is she displaying? 

Okay, 

so you can open your eyes. And I want you to grab a piece of paper or some notes, and I want you to write down everything. You can pause the podcast, but just write down everything. Just keep it flowing. Keep your hand going. Just write down every little thing. And while you're doing that, I want to share with you. 

How this was probably the most powerful thing that I have ever done in my career. My 23 years to date. I did this with my coach. It was about seven or eight years ago now, and I was running my startup career cake, so a successful startup. I was. Exactly where I wanted to be, exactly where I'd planned to be. 

Everything that I'd ever wanted had happened. It was my, I was living the reality. I was living what I sort of envisaged years before. Through a lot of hard work and a huge amount of intentional actions, I might say, but I was living it, but something fell off and I felt stuck and I didn't know why. And my coach did this exercise with me, and when I opened my eyes, my face was soaking wet because I, my face was streaming with tears. 

And it was in that moment that I realized. When I wrote down what I had visualized, how far away I was from where I really wanted to be, I had all of this external validation, lots of awards, my salary, you know. Successful e-learning company, all that, working with some brilliant people, investors that I was like, I couldn't even believe that they'd invest in my company. 

People that were working for me that were so smart, I couldn't believe they actually wanted to work for me. Everything was perfect, but something fell off and I didn't know. And when I opened my eyes, I knew, I knew because I was running this, I was running this e-learning company. So what that involved was. 

Being in a studio, writing, learning content, working with experts all over the world, 50 odd experts on our platform, 10 million people watching our learning content. There were so many people having impact from my work and the work of my team, and that's what I wanted. I wanted to help people. I wake up. 

You might have heard me say this, but I, I genuinely feel like when I wake up in the morning, I'm like, how many people can I love today? How many people can I help today? I love that. It makes me feel good. I get a lot of self reward and satisfaction from that. So that box was ticked also, I thought, but what I really missed was connection. 

I changed since starting my business 10 years. We're all changing, we're evolving. The 40-year-old woman certainly wasn't the the 30-year-old woman, and, and I needed connection and I didn't get, I wasn't having any of it now and again, somebody would send me a message and say, oh, I watched a video. That was great. 

It really helped me, but I wasn't seeing it. I was just talking to a camera and then putting that content out on LinkedIn learning or wherever it was. I didn't see people's faces. I wasn't feeling it. So what I imagined was when I closed my eyes being in this lovely house. Nothing too grand. But I remember we had a nice driveway and it was white. 

That's what I envisaged and a nice gravel driveway. And I was sat there in my lounge with about eight or nine other women we'd, we were at the top of our game and what we were doing and. And we were having snacks and drinks and we were, the room was just full of love and gratitude and all of these women were thriving and I was part of that. 

I was a small part in their journey. I'd mentored them or coached them and I brought them together and we were, yeah, we were just celebrating each other and we were really happy and. And then I opened my eyes and I realized I didn't have that. So I might have been helping millions of people. 25,000 a month, I think on, on our platform through the video content. 

But I wasn't seeing anyone. I wasn't sat in a room with anyone. I wasn't having real conversations, you know, I'd, I was really missing that, that connection. So that was when I decided I needed to exit my business. What I want you to do is, is. When you are writing this piece of paper, I want you to really think about all of the things that you envisaged when you closed your eyes, and I want you to map out how far or how close you are to that today and what needs to change. 

We're going to really look at this over the next season of this podcast, but what needs to change? I was very. Clear that I needed to exit my business and create an environment where I was going to be around women leaders in that environment. Hence why I've built my female further program. I run that cohorts three, four times a year, 10 women in a cohort. 

And we do, we hang out for two months and we work out how they're going to thrive. Like I get to coach and mentor them, and I get to do everything that I used to do on video in real time. And have these really deep, intimate connections and see the transformations. For myself, it took me a few years. I get that, but you need to start with that vision. 

You need to, you need to know where you're going, but I just think this is such a beautiful exercise because you're giving yourself some time to really imagine and listen to that inner voice to tell you what she needs, what she's really missing. And then you can start making a plan. But this is where it starts, my friend. 

This is definitely where it starts. This is the journey to come home to yourself because you spent your twenties proving yourself, earning the money, getting seen, all that, all that kind of stuff. I've been there. I've done it. This is the time in your career where it's your turn. Yeah. This is your turn. So let's make this next season, this next chapter, as close as we can get it to that vision. 

Okay. I hope you find some time to do that. Um, thanks for being here. We've got some more content for you. Next week we're going to dive into how we make this vision a reality. We're going to start looking at designing that plan. So if you enjoyed this, come and join me next week for the next episode, so we can take that next step, and I'll see you soon. 

Have a lovely week, my friend. 

Hi. Do you want to spend some real time with me so that we can reconnect to who you are, what lights you up, and map out your next chapter, one that truly fulfils you. Well, each month I hold a live exclusive insider session where we work together to do exactly that, and these sessions are totally free for my brilliant podcast listeners, and that includes you. 

Now, I keep these sessions really small and intimate, so spaces are limited, but you can grab your spot. The link is in the show notes or just drop me a note and we can get cracking. I cannot wait to see you.