Welcome Back!

Julie Holly: hey friend, I am so excited to be back in the space with you. It's been a couple of months since I recorded a podcast episode and released it here for you, and that sabbatical from the podcast was so, so good, so essential, so necessary. After 944 episodes, I think it was about time that I took a little rest and took some time to reflect.

Julie Holly: I wanna share with you some of the questions that I was asking myself before we dive in, just so you can get a trajectory, so you can have an idea of, of what was going on inside of my mind. So here are some of the questions I was asking myself. What is rest?

Julie Holly: I mean, do I really need to take a break? Come on now, let's just keep going. Let's be consistent. I was asking myself, can I actually pause life and rest for a little while? I wondered, what is high-performance mindset? What does that look like in this situation?

Julie Holly: also wondered, what is the difference between a human being and a human doing? I mean, I'm seeing these memes all over the place, but what does that actually mean for my life? I had two other questions that were a little bit different,

Julie Holly: and they came later in the sabbatical. One question's a little bit spicy, and it'll probably evoke something in you. Um, so let's start with the easy one. I was wondering, what does community really mean? And the one that's a little spicier, I started asking myself, is there really a mental health crisis?

Julie Holly: All these questions were really important questions for me to ponder. I wanna go deeper into what I discovered As I sifted and sorted through those questions.

Julie Holly: But before we begin

Julie Holly: , Welcome back, or welcome to the Recalibration Podcast, where high capacity humans realign who they are so they can move from pressure and performance into peace, presence, and overflow without losing their edge.

Julie Holly: Before we go any further, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe. Season five is going to over-deliver, and you don't wanna miss a single episode. Let's dive in.

Julie Holly: As I mentioned, I'd released 944 episodes before I decided to take a sabbatical from the podcast, and that final year of podcasting was incredibly intense And that's really downplaying it.

Julie Holly: Creating podcast content for six years straight and daily podcast episodes the final year, and not just daily episodes because there is a high performer, high achiever that is still being recalibrated. Remember, I'm not a guru. I'm not some expert that is trying to, you know, preach at you and s- tell you how you should do it.

Julie Holly: I live this, I practice identity-level recalibration in my life on a daily basis. So as I was thinking about that six years of podcasting and that recalibrating, that ...

Julie Holly: as I mentioned, I've already released 900, 944 podcast episodes. This is episode 945, and I'm saying that because that is a lot of grit and determination to be consistent over a number of years. And so stepping away, taking that, sabbatical felt incredibly foreign to me.

Julie Holly: I felt myself pushing back. I remember the very first Monday that arrived, and that's usually when I would create, you know, the episode content and shape and form it and start creating like long form written content to pair with it. With the final 100 episodes of the podcast, I was also creating the recalibration companion that paired with each week's podcast episode.

Julie Holly: And I was also creating a training that I offered live on Fridays. So the content creation process, especially for an entire year, was incredibly rigorous and incredibly demanding and incredibly satisfying at the same time. I'd never pushed myself in that way, and it felt exhilarating, and it revealed so much to me about myself.

Julie Holly: It really formed and shaped my own recalibration process, my own personal recalibration, and one of those areas had to do with my relationship with being a high achiever, high performer. Because let's be real, sometimes we ask, what is that high performance mindset? And when we start to deviate from what culture says is a high performance mindset, for instance, maybe we invite rest into our life, we can start to experience a bit of an identity crisis.

Julie Holly: So when that first Monday arrived that I did not sit down to start the mass content creation process for the podcast, I felt a little identity loss. Like, who am I? Am I an imposter? Do I belong here? I started asking myself all these questions, And so I had to face that. And part of that process actually began a couple of years ago.

Julie Holly: Now, at this moment, I have more line of sight as to, um, the unraveling of my high performance mindset and the new journey into becoming a high capacity human. I use different words for that very intentionally because they represent different things in my life

Julie Holly: One of the elements that I really felt so much resistance towards was rest. I used to be in the 4:00 AM club. I used to wake up and I'd read my Bible and I would read a book and I would, um, journal. I would work out. I'd, I'd do all these things so early in the morning because I didn't want them to slip through the cracks.

Julie Holly: I had such rigor in my life until about two years ago. I, started to realize that I felt that those things were burdening me and overwhelming to me and restrictive in my life.

Julie Holly: So not creating the content on Monday felt really foreign to me. It's not the first time that I had experienced that. About two years ago is when all of my high- performance, high-achieving hacks, habits, and strategies really started to unravel and come off the wheels.

Julie Holly: And the reason they were coming off the wheels I know now is because what was at the identity level wasn't healed. There were deep wounds there. And so everything that grew from that wound, everything that those high performance hacks, habits, and strategies were being used to build was just infected.

Julie Holly: And so I had released a lot of things. Like, I had released the 4:00 AM club. I had released having to have, um, so many different ways of documenting my life and so many different outside measures around me because they were feeling stifling, they were feeling restrictive, and I was starting to feel like my life was in a cage versus that freedom to create in the fullness of who I am.

Julie Holly: And, and so as I took this sabbatical from the podcast, as I stepped away from the rigor that was involved, and I felt the discomfort of, of not going to my computer, of not dutifully going about this diligent practice, right? All of that, I really started to understand rest and the value of rest and what true rest means. A lot of times we don't rest when we need it. A lot of times we wait until our

Julie Holly: body is sick or injured, um, to take a rest. Or a lot of times people say, "Well, I have my two weeks vacation or my quarterly trips, and that's when I'm going to get my rest."

Julie Holly: This sabbatical really solidified to me how important and critical rest is. Because as I stepped away from the podcast and from creating so much content, I noticed that I had more capacity, right? My capacity wasn't filled with those, with those elements,

Julie Holly: And let's be real, oftentimes if we are high achievers, high performers, we tend to fill the capacity that is now available to us with something else. And yes, I did have many temptations to fill the capacity with something else, and I just had to keep resisting it.

Julie Holly: I'm wondering if you've ever felt that way. I wonder if you've ever experienced this. If you've ever had that moment where you have an opportunity to rest, and instead of resting, you pick up your phone

Julie Holly: A lot of times instead of resting, we end up finding something , to fill the void

Julie Holly: What I learned as I continued to release that pressure of I need to be doing something, I need to be active, I need to be creating, I need to be in motion, and, um, if I'm not doing it in this way, then I need to be doing it in another way.

Julie Holly: As I started just giving my brain space to rest, it was incredibly difficult, and it was also incredibly rewarding. What I did notice is that I was able to rest And here I am. I anticipated resting until September. I anticipated to returning to the podcast with you in September. And I also gave myself permission to say maybe it will be later than September, but I did have a timeline, And so what I found is that

Julie Holly: yes, we can pause life for a while, and we can return. Now, I'm gonna be candid. I had a lot of momentum behind me from the consistency of doing the reps over and over and over again, and I can feel the difference right now in creating this episode, right?

Julie Holly: I can feel I'm a little rusty. And also it's demonstrating to me a lot of what I discovered over my sabbatical about how I communicate and how my brain works that is showing up here now that I can witness. And so when we are willing to take rest, when we're willing to say, "I can press pause.

Julie Holly: I can let this simmer for a little while without being fully engrossed in it," we can come back with a new energy, some refreshed enthusiasm, and a lot of insights that we otherwise wouldn't have access to. Our bodies have to have physical rest in order for them to heal and repair and create new neural pathways and such.

Julie Holly: And so I just want us to consider what that looks like for us

Julie Holly: In our totality, considering our nervous system, considering our organs, considering our brain, considering our soul. We wanna give head, heart, gut the rest that it needs

Julie Holly: Another element that was revealed from the sabbatical

Julie Holly: from the podcast is that there really is a difference between doing and being

Julie Holly: And our family of origins really shape our understanding of doing and being,

Julie Holly: And if you're a fellow Gen X-er, I think the difference between doing and being is so different than the younger generations have experienced. For Gen X, most of us had to prove, we had to perform, we had to have results, we had to have outcomes, and our worthiness, our merit was, was really looking at, did you get the grade?

Julie Holly: Did you make the goal? Did you, did you get the shot? , And that concept of being who we are is enough is a very foreign concept for many of us. That is one of the identity level reasons that I pushed myself so hard. I grew up in a home where being productive and performing, and I don't mean like circus performance, right?

Julie Holly: But like just going through the motions. That is a performance. And so having a good performance on a day-to-day basis where you are helping keep the rhythm of the family alive and such, that was a really high value item in my family of origin. And that is indicative of doing versus being.

Julie Holly: Being doesn't mean I'm not doing things. It's just a different posture of going about things, and it means that I am enough if I am being, if I am here, if I'm existing. It's okay for me to take up space. It's okay for me to sit quietly. It's okay for me to go about my tasks, my duties, my responsibilities in a methodical way, but my worth, my merit, my worthiness is not based upon what I am doing.

Julie Holly: It is who am I being? Who am I showing up in this moment? Am I showing up as a person of character? Am I showing up as a, as a human that is heartfelt and compassionate towards others, right? The being element is critical, and that was being pressed on so much, on the sabbatical

Julie Holly: And you, you may have felt the complexity of that in your own life

Julie Holly: because the truth is, is that our behavior is rooted at the identity level. So whatever is there at the base of our identity is going to grow something bigger. And in my mind, I'm literally thinking, 'cause I love plants. I have a menagerie of indoor plants, and it's so, so much fun.

Julie Holly: So if you were to plant a seed for a dahlia in the ground, you would not expect to see an oak tree sprout from that, right? That'd be so ridiculous. So looking at what is the seed? What is the root level of my identity and what can grow from that?

Julie Holly: If our root level identity says, "I have to do in order to prove. I have to do and perform to know that I am enough and I am worthy," then everything that we grow from that is going to be from that seed. Let me put this another way. If I were to bake a chocolate cake and instead of putting in cocoa powder, I put in chili powder, I wouldn't expect to have a chocolate cake at the end when I pulled it out of the oven.

Julie Holly: It would not magically just transform itself from a cake batter that had no cocoa powder but had chili powder into a delicious, rich, and moist chocolate cake, right? It's not going to transition. It cannot transition to a chocolate cake. It is impossible for it to transition to a co- chocolate cake because the chili powder was baked into it.

Julie Holly: So when we think about our identity, we want to look at what is the root of our identity. If we have some spicy chili powder at the root of our identity, then everything that grows and stems from that is going to have that flavor to it I've said this example for years, but if you're a jerk and you are extremely successful and you gain tons of money, wealth, um, fortune, success, all of that, if you gain all of that, it will amplify the jerkiness inside of you.

Julie Holly: Now, if you are a humble, tender, kind, compassionate person of character and you experience that same level of success and fortune and wealth and you, a- and you experience that, you're gonna be amplifying what is at the root level, which just means, hey, I am a person of character and now that is showing up in how you run your business, in how you treat the people around you

Julie Holly: This reminds me of my era where I was abusing alcohol, and I spoke about that in episode 139 and again in episode 350, kind of little bits and pieces in other episodes as well. But what I discovered was there was a root level belief and identity, That I had to heal.

Julie Holly: I had identity level wounds of abandonment and, um, a desire to belong that I was oblivious to. And although for decades, that flew under the radar because all of that was, was put towards socially acceptable behaviors. It was put towards graduating college early.

Julie Holly: It was put towards high achieving in my business. It was put towards launching a robotics team. It was put towards all these things that were completely socially acceptable. And then I was given the gift of h- struggling with alcohol abuse, and I say it was a gift because that is exactly what led to my recalibration in that part of my life.

Julie Holly: It led me, as I asked myself over, over and over, every layer, going deeper, deeper, deeper, "What is beneath here? What is driving this behavior?" And as I navigated my own internal story, I noticed, "Oh, my gosh, this is the root identity level situation here." And so recalibrating that has provided freedom, not just to, to not abuse alcohol, but to not have to prove, to not have to be a high achiever, high per- performer in order to prove that I do belong, in order to prove that I am enough. So when we heal at the identity level, we affect everything above it.

Julie Holly: so kind of tying this together, this what is that high-performance mindset and what is the difference between doing and being, they play off of each other, right? And if we're recalibrating at the identity level, we can keep the playing field beautiful and clear.

Julie Holly: But when it gets congested, when it gets foggy, when the lens is smudged, we start to confuse a lot of things in our life. That doing and that being can be a massive confusion. We can be confused about rest and its role in our life.

Julie Holly: And it can feel like if, if I do rest, if I do slow down, if I'm not doing, if I am being, then I'm gonna be going backwards, when in reality it's exactly what we need. I just want you to know if you are working through lunch, I know, I know, I, I know you've felt that. If you're working through lunch, if you're, you know, working long shifts and not giving yourself breaks, if you are, um, pushing yourself and you need a bio break and you don't give that to yourself, I just want you to just pause and

Julie Holly: Ask yourself for a moment, what is driving this behavior?

Julie Holly: In totality, the sabbatical from the podcast creation was really important for me, and it really allowed me to see areas , where my clients need more support, where you need more support. And that's why I created an entire list.

Julie Holly: There are 15 different topics that I think are really important topics that we practice recalibrating here on the podcast, and I'm also going to be recalibrating those in a private community. I'll share more about that in a little bit 'cause it's super exciting. And with that, I wanna give you an invitation

Julie Holly: Because for years, I've created the content that I've been drawn towards intuitively. And as I am closing that gap to 1,000 podcast episodes, I actually wanna do something different. I'd really like to have your input on the topics that we prioritize, because some of them are going to be more relevant and, um, some of them you're gonna just be like, "I don't even wanna hear about that topic, Julie.

Julie Holly: I'm gonna tune you out when you touch on that topic." So if you are interested in just letting me know what's important to you, you can vote right now, um, on the topics that we're going to cover , throughout season five.

Julie Holly: I'm gonna drop a link in the show notes so that you can fill out the form. It's so easy. It's so easy because I created it, so I'm like, I know it has to be easy because, uh, those things can be complicated for me to create. Um, can you hear the belief I hold? So I wanna invite you to fill that out.

Julie Holly: Alls you're going to do is you're just going to click on your, your favorite three to five podcast topics, and you're going to let me know. These are the topics that are important to me, Julie, and I've already been surprised.

Julie Holly: I've already gotten some feedback from the survey, and I've been really surprised, honestly, as to what's important to some of you. I'm gonna rattle off , the topics that are near and dear to my heart, and these are topics of things I have lived through, things I've experienced, or things that I am experiencing.

Julie Holly: Um, some of them are things that I've walked clients through. All of them are areas where I have a lot of experience, um, a lot of exposure, a high level of awareness, lots of research that I've already done on these topics, and I just wanna know what would resonate with you. So on that list, there's, AI and your career. It's something - I call built to last. Like, how, how do I last in a

Julie Holly: world that's changing so rapidly before my eyes? And, um, who am I at the identity level when AI can do my job? , I wanna talk about breaking generational patterns.

Julie Holly: I wanna talk about life transitions. Many of you are going through lots of different transitions in life. It might be a new decade. It might be a new stage. You might be, like many of us, caught in the middle, where you are, , you have young kids or teenagers, and you're also caregivers for aging parents.

Julie Holly: I'm thinking I wanna create content for leaders. I want to circle back to my high performance life. I, I wanna do that for me, but I don't know that that is going to serve you. Most of my clients have high performance, high achieving tendencies even if they don't self-identify as that.

Julie Holly: And so I think there's a lot of value to that. I work with so many entrepreneurs, founders, small business owners, and so that would be a really fun area to work on recalibrating together. Money mindset, success, Marriage is on the list, and if we talk about marriage, Super Rad Steve is definitely going to come on the show with us.

Julie Holly: Um, faith and spirituality, alcohol and addictions, and then, a topic that I'm gonna share just, , briefly on is, 'cause I mentioned it, I said, you know, "Is there really a mental health crisis?" , I can't talk about this - without having some level of emotion because it is something that is very real in, in my home, and it is something that I did not expect I'd ever navigate.

Julie Holly: In our home, my daughter told her friend who was over the other night, she's like, "This is the house of real," and I, I loved that because she named something so beautifully. Our house is a house where we speak in real ways, and we're very honest with each other, and we're, we don't sweep things under the rug.

Julie Holly: , And so as we talk about, , is there a mental health crisis, I've had the opportunity to engage that through my son's healing journey. And over the past year, We've had a very interesting and expanding journey in our home of understanding things.

Julie Holly: And ultimately, spoiler, we found out that, um, 75% of our home is ADHD. And no, I'm not one of- I'm not the 25%. , And there's a lot involved when we start to understand what do these things mean. , And so ADHD is actually a topic I would really like to speak about here. , I had a lot of

Julie Holly: preconceived ideas as to what ADHD was based upon my background in education and based upon so many experiences that I've had in trainings.

Julie Holly: And I had to recalibrate information that was 20 or 30 years stale to say

Julie Holly: Where is the research today, and what does that mean for our life? So I truly had to, to release and reclaim. Recalibration starts with awareness, and so there was a high level of awareness. And then I had to choose what am I going to release that's not serving me, and what am I going to reclaim?

Julie Holly: It has been a really exciting journey. It has not been for the faint of heart. , And so , I've invited my son into this conversation for the podcast, and he'd really like to, to be here on the show as we talk about ADHD and teenagers.

Julie Holly: And then I'd like to bring Super Ed Steve , back on the show to talk about what is it like for adults to be diagnosed with ADHD. There are so many stigmas that Gen Xers carry about this. And then because ADHD is everywhere right now, it just seems like, oh my gosh, everybody has ADHD.

Julie Holly: , And so I actually have lots of insight on this, because I've been devouring reading books, consuming content, , sifting through so many things, and speaking with experts on this topic. , And so something I'd , love to bring to the table , , because as I have digested and processed ADHD in my own life, and I, I really am at the beginning of that, candidly, what I've been given are so many puzzle pieces to my life, and so many things make so much more sense.

Julie Holly: And so it's actually it's recalibrating my entire playbook, , which goes back into high performance, high achievement. Again, I'm not gonna get too much. I just want to talk about all of it right now. But, but, , my understanding about ADHD is actually affecting like, oh, okay, so my high performance toolkit, that, those are really good tools, but I was building from a woundedness when I was using those tools.

Julie Holly: What would it look like now that I have healed those parts of my life? What would it look like for me to bring those tools back to the table? Because those tools really did support me in generating the success I was after. Because remember, success is wonderful.... I want you to be massively successful in your life, relationally, financially, spiritually, in every way.

Julie Holly: So there, there's, there's a lo- there are a lot of stigmas around, , the concept of mental health, and I think it's something that would be worth our while to recalibrate together here on the podcast

Julie Holly: All of these topics I can just go on because I work with clients, and I'm covering all of these topics with clients in real time. , And some of these topics are not things that people feel comfortable talking about, even with their closest friends.

Julie Holly: , And so I just, I wanna create a space where we can recalibrate that together, where it's safe to recalibrate it. It's safe to be real about the topics

Julie Holly: So because I can't decide what should come first, I just wanna encourage you to take a moment, I think it'll take you 90 seconds max, to fill out the, your favorite three to five topics that you would like covered in season five of the podcast okay, and remember I asked what does community really mean?

Julie Holly: Well, this summer, over the sabbatical from the podcast, , I had some interesting experiences, and I was allowing myself space to be highly acutely aware with what was going on , inside my life and outside of my life. And one of the elements that I noticed was I really need to be around a community that can support the growth I want in my life.

Julie Holly: And I didn't recognize that at first, and here's how it really came about. One of my... f- he's a friend, a mentor, and I've actually had the opportunity to take him through a recalibration cohort. He's just absolutely phenomenal human. He invited me to attend a rotary meeting with him, and I said, "You know, uh, thanks, but no thanks.

Julie Holly: That's a bunch of pretentious professionals." And that was a story that I had in my head. And I appreciate that he has, , he says that he's in the fifth season of life, and he was so gracious and kind. And I remember w- as I walked back to my car thinking, "Why, why did I say no to that? This person has been such a gift in my life and has opened so many beautiful opportunities in my life.

Julie Holly: Why would I say no to something like going to a rotary meeting?" And so I felt silly, and he graciously invited me another time, and I said, "Thank you so much. I'm so embarrassed that I responded the way I did the first time. , I really appreciate you reaching back out to me. , I would love to go with you."

Julie Holly: I didn't know what a breath of fresh air it would be

Julie Holly: I was amazed that it wasn't stodgy and it wasn't snobby. In fact, I love , that this particular Rotary group actually ends by asking,, after giving the Four-Way

Julie Holly: Test, they ask, "And is it fun?" They're really ambitious, high-capacity humans that are serving our community.

Julie Holly: And it was there at that meeting where I realized I don't have this type of community in my life. And then I started asking myself, "Well, are there other communities that I need in my life?" So yes, I did join Rotary. I love it. I think everyone should check out a Rotary group because if it's as alive and electrifying as the group here in Sandpoint, Idaho, , then I know that you're gonna be amongst amazing high-capacity humans.

Julie Holly: What I also started looking at, though, was what are some other areas where I need community? And so I hired another coach, and I went into her community very specifically. Like, I, I need to be around other, other - like- minded people who are building in the way that I wanna build, and building in similar ways from similar energy.

Julie Holly: I've been absolutely blessed to be part of that community, and I've seen that being a part of my church, being a part of Rotary, and being a part of this coaching community has been incredibly supportive

Julie Holly: for me and my recalibration journey. So with that, I have some clients that are, done with the cohort, but not quite ready for one-on-one coaching, but I wanna have some support.

Julie Holly: I wanna have some community. I've also come across different people that want the support in their lives, but one-on-one coaching or the cohort just isn't the right fit at this time. And so I'm creating a bridge. I'm super excited about it. , I've already built it out, the foundations of it, so it's up, and it's running, and it's a community.

Julie Holly: It makes my heart so happy, and I'm excited. I know it's gonna start out small, but I, I'm just, I'm excited to have a place that's

Julie Holly: concentrated, and where we can come together and be like-minded. And so the community is going live, and if you wanna be a founding member, you are locked in for life.

Julie Holly: and I wanna be honest, the community is not going to be a free community. I know the value that I am willing to deliver and that I do deliver. I know when people come on insight and alignment calls with me that I over-deliver in those calls. . And I, I've already pre-decided that the community is where I want to hang out, where I want to be.

Julie Holly: So many things I love about this community. I love that you can come in at any time. So this isn't come in right now, pressure, join the club, let's go right now, and this ... That's not what it is. It's if this is the right time for you to join the community, come, join the community.

Julie Holly: It is a, it's a year-long commitment, so you'll be in the community for a year. I've created so many podcast episodes, you know I'm committed to what I commit to. So if you wanna join right now, you can join right now. If you decide, no, I wanna join in December, great, join in December. I will say that right now joining before November 1st, you're going to be considered a founding member, which I know everybody says that, but it's kinda cool.

Julie Holly: Kinda cool, 'cause it's going to be small. I'm not gonna try to pour gasoline on it. I fully believe all the right people are going to come at the right time into the community, and it's going to be a beautiful place to recalibrate together

Julie Holly: And I promise you, The rate is a ridiculously good rate. And what's crazy is that some people say like, "Oh, Julie, like you should raise the price on that." And I'm not going to, and the reason I'm not going to is I just feel deeply, deeply compelled that this is what I'm supposed to do, and so I'm gonna do it.

Julie Holly: And I'm excited to do it, and the joy that it's already bringing me is just confirming that I am doing the right thing. , In the community, I'm going to have two live trainings each month, and those will be recorded, so if you can't make one, you can always watch the playback,

Julie Holly: for years I ran a book club, so there's gonna be a book club inside the community where we can read books with intention and have that connection and those conversations along the way

Julie Holly: I think in my excitement, I did not tell you all the things. As a founding member, yes, you're locked in price-wise for life. You also have a one-on-one session with me, and I love that because we get to know each other, and we get to do recalibration work together in that session, and it's so powerful.

Julie Holly: , I have full confidence it's going to over-serve you

Julie Holly: so I wanna invite you to check out the community to see if it's the right time, the right fit for you. And if it is, sign up And we'll be hanging out

Julie Holly: All right. As we wrap up, I just wanna let you know that podcast episodes will be dropping every single week on Wednesdays.

Julie Holly: If I do have a guest, like if Super Ad Steve or my son or my daughter are on the show, I'm going to actually create those as separate episodes that will be on a separate day. So you know Wednesdays, every Wednesday, there will be a new episode waiting for you. You get to decide the topics or help decide the topics, cast your vote, fill out the survey in the link show notes below.

Julie Holly: Again, Wednesdays I'm gonna be here. It's gonna be you and me, and then if there are any other bonus episodes, they will be at different points throughout the week. I have so much more to share with you, and I am so excited that we get to step back into this rhythm, that we get to step back into our recalibration together.

Julie Holly: Thank you so much for listening. Remember, if you haven't already, hit the follow or subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Remember, this is a daily journey, and you're exactly where you need to be today.