EP 105
Welcome fellow confidence crusaders, neuro nerds and success equalizers, this is your podcast, Real Confidence. I'm your host, Alyssa Dver, and I'll be sharing a bit of basic brain science, some surprising social secrets and a touch of tough love. Why? Because I believe confidence is everyone's fundamental right and choice. So let's get to it.
Alyssa Dver:
This is the first time I think I've ever done a podcast with somebody in the room with me. Shelly. Awesome. It is awesome. I'm beyond glad. It's you. This topic we're going to talk about, I know, is emotional, cathartic, exciting, has all the emotions. So either one of us needs tissues, I have some right here, but my friends who are listening Shellie Rapson is with me, and we've known each other a long time because our kids grew up together, and they're both now seniors in college, so at least 15 years, I would say, and I've known you as a professional communications expert and a phenomenal mom and many other monikers, but you just did a whole 360 on your life, didn't you sure did? So let's start with the career and how it went and why you made the change. Yep, you don't mind, tell the story.
Shellie Rapson
Yeah. So, so let's see. I was in the corporate world for almost 30 years. Interestingly, I'm a French literature major, but think it's a classic case of you take the opportunities as they present themselves. And I did that and ended up in the corporate world, doing tech, and then publishing, and then research, energy. So I've been in a lot of different industries. My longest tenure was 10 years with a health tech company, which really was a catalyst for this new path that I'm on. And we can circle back to that. And so, you know, after a rewarding career, an exciting career, you know, there was a an inflection point. And I don't know if now's the time to get into it.
Alyssa Dver:
Well, inflection point is an understatement, yeah. So I know a couple things happen. Actually, it sounds like almost a perfect storm, in some ways, a lot of pieces of lightning hitting at once. So what was the first one?
Shellie Rapson:
Well? So really, it came down to my younger brother, Jason. He fell sick 18 months ago, and he lived on the west coast in Portland, Oregon, and he got pneumonia, and so it was very serious very quickly, because it became advanced to sepsis. And so my mother and I, my mom lives in Northern New York State, where I grew up, Cosper New York, just like 30 minutes from the Canadian border. So I we flew out there to be with him, and unfortunately, he just declined, and he succumbed to his illness, and we were able to all be there with him. What's doubly devastating is that he was a twin, and we had already lost his twin brother, Jeremy, for whom my older son is named. And Jeremy was killed by a drunk driver when he was 17. And so it was, it was devastating to use an overused word, but it's apt, and it just brought up, obviously, a lot of grief. I was very worried about my mom, having lost two sons now, and I came back, got her settled back into her place. But still, it's just, when you go through something like that, you're in shock, I will say shock is a merciful thing, because it's what keeps you functioning.
Alyssa:
Yeah, yeah, I can understand that.
Shellie Rapson:
And so I thought I would just get my mom settled, jump back into the workforce, because I did have a job at that time, a corporate job, and I thought I would just pick up where I left off and because I I've always characterized myself as someone who is excellent compartmentalizing.
Alyssa:
Is that it's excellent. That's a funny word to put in front of it. Is that a good thing?
Shellie Rapson:
So. So it's so this has been part of my journey and reflecting. Because I think up until recently, I would have been very proud to tell you that I can compartmentalize, and very I would, you know what I would consider, it a skill compartmental. I viewed the ability to compartmentalize as a skill, and I'd had other challenges in my life over the years where I could okay this challenge I'm going to put in this little box over here, and I'm going to close it, and I'm going to go and do this work, and I'm going to do this thing, I'm going to raise my kids, and I'm going to support my husband through his career transition, and I'm going to do all these things, and I did for a very long time, and this particular instance, after a couple of months of being on the job, I realized I'm not compartmentalizing and and I'll just a little sidebar. I mean, society generally doesn't handle grief very well. It's taboo, it's hard to talk about, and I think it's particularly difficult in the workforce and companies want to be supportive, but they don't really know how, and they say the words, but the actions don't always follow, and the expectations, more often than not, are okay you had your bereavement time now you got to get back to work, and after a couple of months, I was struggling and deeply just sad and and worried about my mom, and I came to a revelation that I needed to leave the workforce and take care of myself.
Alyssa:
Let me. Let me stop you for a second, because I'm curious. Do you think other people knew that you were struggling, or was it just that you knew you were struggling?
Shellie Rapson:
So I was trying to, again, compartmentalize, so I probably was not articulating that I was struggling.
Alyssa:
Was it visible in your work? You think?
Shellie Rapson:
I think partially, yes, but I, I usually I'm very assertive, and will say, look, there's a an issue here. Let's sit down talk about it and figure out how to solve it. But I just didn't have any reasoning skills, strategy skills. I was just trying to show up every day, yeah?
Alyssa:
But I mean, who, who could have helped you figure it out? Right? That's part of it too. Yeah, you just said not very good at understanding and dealing with it. So, you know, yeah, maybe what's one of the first times, and certainly not the last time that it was like, I can compartmentalize this it's not going anywhere. So combination of the work being not so supportive, and is that an understatement, that they weren't supportive again?
Shellie Rapso:
I think they wanted to be. They just didn't know how. And in fact, there does seem to be this emerging category in the workplace. Now, I've been seeing companies speak to grief in the workplace and loss in the workplace, whether it's a death, whether it's a miscarriage, whether there. It's very interesting to see how there is a gap here that companies are trying to fill.
Alyssa:
Well, that's good. I hope that that continues and gets better and better. Because you're right, there's, like, all kinds of situations, even losing a pet, for that matter, or, you know, there's all kinds of things that can come to mind that would have the same need. So you come to this realization that you've got to take care of yourself, like it's just not going to get better, and you need to separate from work. So how did they react? And then what, what did you do? And what was going through your head at that moment. I'm going to separate and do what?
Shellie Rapson:
it was. It's so interesting because it was kind of an on the spot decision. I just had this inner knowing
one day having a conversation with a colleague that I need to leave, and usually and now I will say I've been the primary breadwinner in my family for almost the entire time that I've been working. My husband is a teacher, and switch careers from private sector to being a teacher about 15 years ago, and it's not like I went home and did the pros and cons and added up all the money and tried to figure out, can I do this? I just, I just knew I had to do it. It's probably the first time that I. Right? I just knew so clearly, the knowing was 100% that I needed to do this for me, and it was the first time that I think I really put myself before an organization and put myself even before my family.
Alyssa:
That's good for you. For doing it good. Even better to say it out loud, that's incredible.
Shellie Rapson:
And even by saying it out loud, there's still a teeny tiny voice in the back that says, well, that's selfish, selfish, right? No, it's not selfish. It's the opposite, because who's going to take care of them if you're not no good, right?
Alyssa:
All right, so you you tell the employer out of here, and what was like on your brain? One of you did you know what you wanted to do next?
Shellie Rapson:
Not 100% I knew I just needed to rest. And this happened in December. I'm a winter person. I grew up on the Canadian border, so I winter, to me, is comforting. And I'm a nature enthusiast, and I'm a, you know, hobbyist with photography and wildlife. And so this gave me an opportunity. Those things were in those early months of not working such a comfort.
Alyssa:
Good. Well, you are, you said amateur. You're not amateur, amazing photographer, but you clearly have a connection with nature. Yes, I know you're very religious, so I'm sure all those things were a great comfort.
Shellie Rapson:
Yeah, I leaned on my faith, I leaned on nature, and I have phenomenal friends. I mean, I really do just incredible friends. And, of course, my family, yeah, and I was still trying to also, it freed me up to not only take care of myself, but of course, my my biggest concern was my mother, yeah, who is elderly, living by herself. She and my brother Jason, talked twice a day. Oh, they had an extremely close relationship. My mother said something profound over the holidays. It just stuck with me. She said, You know, I did all that worrying for years about him, and it didn't do any good. And she thought, I don't think she consciously thought by worrying about him, it would keep him safe. But of course, she worried about him being safe, because she had already lost his twin in a really traumatic way, a drunk driver. You have no control over that. And so, you know, there was a deep bond between them. And so I started calling her twice a day to sort of fill in for those phone calls, texting, driving up there, visiting, because, understandably, she was completely devastated.
Alyssa:
Lost. Yeah, and what a good daughter you are. So it's not a trivial trip. So from here, so wow,
at that point as you're going through this, you don't know necessarily what the future is going to be financially, if you're going to go back and do something career or otherwise, you just know you got to take care of you, your mom, your family. You need to be present. Yeah, it sounded like, from what you said before you knew you needed to do that. Were you still that confident that that was the right thing to do at that moment in time? Did you remember saying to yourself, I'm so glad I did this?
Shellie Rapson:
Yes, yes like each day that passed, I could just feel myself. It was such a relief, a relief that you didn't have to go deal with yes and pretend to be okay. Oh, pretend to be okay. That was probably the thing that I just could be me for whatever, for however I felt that day, for whatever I was dealing with. There I could be authentically myself.
Alyssa:
Mm, it's interesting Shellie, because I've interviewed on this podcast, people with physical disabilities, very clearly, they're hiding things all the time, even psychological, neurological issues. But it never dawned on me that people could be hiding that kind of a grief or a situation where they're trying their best to show up in a way that nobody else knows. Yeah, amazing. Oh my goodness. What a burden. So great again for you for taking action. Um, at what point did you feel that you needed to, like, do something? Because I know you have done something, so I'm not jumping the shark here, but you know, was there a moment you're like, Okay, now I'm ready to do something else.
Shellie Rapson:
Yeah, so originally so I stayed off LinkedIn for like, four months. I literally just didn't want to even think about work, and I started it was probably around my mom and I took a trip to Florida just to be together and enjoy the weather and visit family, and that was healing as well. And when I got back from that, I thought, you know, what do I want to do now? I mean, I still have to work at some point. It's too early to retire, but I can be more flexible about what it is I want to do. And I distinctly remember being in my car and pulling up into the driveway in front of our house, and as I turn the car off, it just popped into my head and it said, you're going to go do global health.
Alyssa:
Global Health. Why?
Shellie Rapson:
So first of all, I love global health. And in fact, you know this, my son, Jeremy's in the Peace Corps right now over in Benin, West Africa, and he is a rural community health worker there. And we planted that seed with him when he and I went to Rwanda with our church, we did a medical mission. But even before that, I was this company that I worked with for 10 years in Health Tech. They developed a clinical app that doctors used to treat patients. It's got all the latest evidence based information, and we would donate that app to some of the poorest settings in the world, all over the world. And I loved this sense of mission, that even though this was a for for profit corporation, we were still taking a product and putting it out there, so that our mission, so for clinicians who could provide the best care, especially those who didn't have the resources could do that. And I got really involved in the communications pieces of that program. And it was the reason, honestly, that I stayed at this company for 10 years. Because, of course, you know how corporate is, reorgs and leadership changes and job changes, and you know they move you around like chest ponds on a board, and there was a lot of that and but the mission to help these people provide better care to vulnerable populations around the world was just so paramount. I said, I don't want to do anything else but this.
And so then when I went to Rwanda, I went twice, actually in 2018 and 2020 right before COVID, literally right before COVID. And if you talk to colleagues who know me well, especially from the health tech company, they'll tell you, oh, this is what she wants to do. I made it clear to everybody. And I just said, this is when I pulled up in my driveway, and I just said, now's the time to do this. Now is the time to do this. When else are you going to do this? You know, you've taken a break. It's do you really want to go back into corporate America? And I knew I didn't have the stomach for it, the patience for it, the inclination. I didn't have, didn't have any of those things, yeah, and, you know, not to align corporate America, because it did give me a comfortable life, and I was able to provide for my family. So I don't want to, like, be all down on corporate America, because again, it I did have some positive experiences, and it was a way to make a living, yeah, but I'm in a completely different place now.
Alyssa:
Yeah, understand.
Shellie Rapson:
And I'll never say never, because you never know what will come across your desk, your email or phone. But global health is where it's at for me, and so I researched certifications, and I've been enrolled in a global health certification program at UMass Amherst. I've completed my coursework, and I've loved the subject matter like loved it, and now I'm getting ready to do my practicum in Uganda and two months, and I'm working with an advisor on what that should be, and by the way, I'm also doing pro bono work for a non profit that does this development work in Uganda. Health care, building wells and developing all kinds of infrastructure so that villages can thrive. And so it's keeping me the subject matter is relevant to the field I want to be in, and it's resume building stuff. And once my practicum is done, we'll see what happens. But I'm going to be back looking for those roles, and it could potentially be contracting to start, I don't know. Yeah, you don't know yet, but it does, but I know that much.
Alyssa:
Yeah, well, that's a lot. And I think the much that is the most compelling for me is the fact that your face lit up when you're talking about the content of the course and how you loved it, and it confirmed that that's where you need to be.
Shellie Rapson:
Yeah, it really is like when I'm on these calls talking about these, some of these, these projects where, in fact, one program is we're trying to bring ambulances to a village, because these villages don't have a way to get their sick loved ones to a hospital. And in Africa, too, there are very dark cultural considerations around the burial of the deceased, and sometimes that's a barrier to getting people to the hospital because they don't have a way to get them home.
So you know those types of programs, and you know infection surveillance and basic things like having running water so you can wash your hands. Yeah, which is foundational to good health, yeah, right. Now the Norovirus is spiking everywhere. And what do you hear on the radio? Wash your hands. Wash your hands, right? The most fundamental thing that you can do for your health but if you don't have ground water, how are you going to do that?
Alyssa:
Yeah, antibacterial stuff, right? Well, yeah, good luck with that, too, right? Um, obvious questions that probably nobody will ask you, but of course, I'm going to ask you because I love you, and I would love our listeners, and there's probably people out there going. You were very brave. You're very you had clear messaging from somehow, some way, you know, in a lot of ways, you were directed, but I can only imagine there's gotta be you said before you felt a little selfish. Do you still feel that? And how are you dealing with it?
Shellie Rapson:
You know, I don't anymore, because I know that I'm now going out into the world and I can make an impact on a lot of people, and I think it's okay to do what you want to do. So many of us don't give ourselves permission exactly to do what we love and to do what matters to us.
Alyssa:
It you know, it's interesting, because I don't care what religion you're from, I hope we all believe that we're here for a reason, more than just taking up space, at least, I believe that. And so when you figure out there there's a reason why you're here, which you clearly did, I cannot be selfish. That's beautiful, but financially, we get pulled right? And I'm sure there's people listening, going, yes, I'd love to do what I want to do, but I can't, because I'm the breadwinner, because I've been doing this career for so how do you reconcile that?
Shellie Rapson:
So I would say that's a timing issue, and I will be the first to say it's a privilege to be able to do that. So my husband and I talk about, you know, what do we really need to live and we raised two boys, and, you know, a nice town, they got an excellent education, and those are the things that kept me in the workforce, in the corporate workforce, specifically, because those things do require money. And we're at a point now where we're, you know, within 10 years of retirement. And so it's really just a practical conversation about what we what we can afford to live on. Do we need all this? And I'm at a point in my life, and you hear this a lot from people who are, you know, heading towards retirement, like we want a simpler life, and our boys are pretty much launched, and so now we can truly think about, how do we want to live? And our retirement plans are to build a cottage on the coast of Maine, pretty much, and not just a little 1500 square foot cottage. And we don't need all of the stuff. In fact, we don't want all of the stuff, yeah, and it feels good to be at the in that place, to not be chasing things, stuff, a simple life, but an impactful life. That's what we're aspiring to right now. Yeah. And that feels good, yeah. And it frankly costs less money.
Alyssa:
Yeah? Well, so I guess it depends on what kind of impact and what you're going to how you're going to achieve that, right? If you decided to go to Harvard public policy, it might be a different thing than U Mass, right? Yeah, but, but there's usually, if there's a will, there's a way, usually, I find it fascinating. That's the word I'm going to stick with, that you are so clear on what you needed to do, and sitting here looking at you, which, again, is a privilege. So thank you for coming over. There's no doubt. And your face is lit up. You look better than I can never remember you looking happier calm so Amen, double Amen. I'm not going to cry as I'm saying it, but I think anyone who's listening out there who is saying, you know, they hate their job or they were made to do something more important and better, if there's one thing you wish you knew then that you know now, or something that somebody could have told you, what would it be?
Shellie Rapson:
To not be afraid i was afraid to change because, of course, when you are the primary provider, you know, you feel a deep sense of responsibility, and I never wanted to do anything to jeopardize my family's, you know, well being. But you know, you mentioned earlier when I was telling you how the number one reaction to my leaving the workforce was, wow, you're brave. You're so courageous. And I was initially really surprised by that, because I'm like, why is this brave? Why is this courageous? There's so many heroic things that people are doing out in the world, and me leaving the workforce is brave, but now I understand it better, because you can be you can trap yourself into thinking that you have to do it this way and that was me for a long time, and this was an opportunity again. I made this decision, not even knowing if you know it was the best thing to be doing for my family collectively, but I knew it was the best thing for me, and we're figuring it out.
Alyssa:
And I bet they're flourishing as a result too.Shelly, thank you for sharing. Thank you for being here. I I have chills on chills, and what a great story, what a great result. And I'm so excited for you and for the world. Thank you bringing your gifts forward.
Shellie RapsonL
Thank you.
Alyssa:
Before we totally wrap up, I want to let you know that full transcripts and show notes for this and other real confidence episodes can be found on www.AmericanConfidenceInstitute.com/podcast. I also want to remind you once again that the best way to get confidence is to give it to others, and you can do it just by liking and sharing this episode on your preferred podcast social media channels. You can even give me some confidence by noting topics you'd like me to consider for the future. So for now. This is Alyssa Dver. Thank you for helping to bring more confidence to the world.
Master editing done by Ben Weinstein with original music performed and composed by Jeff Mitchell. Real Confidence is a production of American Confidence Institute, All Rights Reserved.
