Episode 83
83. From Passenger to Pioneer: Owning Your Authority with Jillian Reilly
So many of us are unconsciously waiting for approval—running inherited scripts, following old rules, and sitting in the passenger seat of our own lives. In this episode of Cool Change, Chuck Allen talks with author and change guide Jillian Reilly about the radical act of giving ourselves permission.
Together they explore why self-authorization matters more than ever, how to spot the quiet “stirrings” that signal it’s time for change, and practical ways to start listening to your inner voice—without waiting for someone else to green-light your life.
Whether you’re facing a career shift, navigating relationships, or simply craving a new way of showing up, this conversation is an invitation to slide into the driver’s seat and design a life that feels like you.
Resources & Links:
- Jillian Reilly’s book The 10 Permissions: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
- Jillian’s website: tenpermissions.com
- Learn more about the Cool Change Method: coolchangelifedesign.com
Connect with Chuck:
- Podcast: Cool Change on Apple Podcasts | Spotify
- Website: coolchangelifedesign.com
- Instagram: @chuckallen
Transcript
Hey there, and welcome to Cool Change, the podcast about living intentionally and navigating life's transitions with purpose.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Chuck Allen.
Speaker A:Each episode, we explore what it means to design a life that you don't want to escape from, whether through personal reflections or conversations with change makers or just practical insights from the Cool Change Method.
Speaker A:This is a space for anyone who feels the stirring of change and who's ready to hold up their story to the light and who wants to live with more clarity, more joy and courage.
Speaker A:All right, welcome back to Cool Change, everyone.
Speaker A:I'm Chuck Allen, and today I'm joined by Gillian Riley.
Speaker A:Gillian's work explores the idea of permission, how so many of us are waiting for someone else to authorize the lives that we want instead of stepping into our own authority.
Speaker A:Her book digs deep into this idea, and I think it actually overlaps beautifully with the Cool Change method.
Speaker A:So, Jillian, thanks for joining me.
Speaker B:Chuck, it's great to be here.
Speaker B:Thanks.
Speaker B:I'm looking forward to this.
Speaker A:I am, too.
Speaker A:So when someone asks you what you do, how do you usually describe your work?
Speaker B:Oh, gosh, that's such a good question.
Speaker B:I mean, I've of late described it as helping people navigate profound change.
Speaker B:I feel like if I back up and look at all the things I've done in my life, the thread, the red thread, the through line is, you know, whether that was at a social level, an organizational level, an individual level.
Speaker B:There were people who were trying to make change or manage change, and my work was around kind of being with them as they did that.
Speaker B:And, yeah, I guess for the backdrop of the book is that we're all having to manage a lot of change right now.
Speaker A:Well, we're referencing the book, but I haven't said anything about the book.
Speaker A:Why don't you give us a quick what is the book about?
Speaker B:Yeah, it's called the 10 permissions, and the subtitle is Redefining the Rules of adulting for the 21st century.
Speaker B:The theme, or the premise is that, you know, the world has changed radically over the last 20 years.
Speaker B:We know that we live it every single day.
Speaker B:And yet, you know, we haven't necessarily, if you will, updated the rules for ourselves, given ourselves permission to think about how best to reference my response to the previous question, how best we navigate this world as adults, where a lot of the old ways of operating are either, you know, now not feasible, not desirable, increasingly irrelevant.
Speaker B:And so the 10 permissions are kind of 10 different provocations, if you will, to think differently about who you're allowed to be, how you're allowed to behave in order to thrive in this current world.
Speaker A:Well, I love this whole idea.
Speaker A:I mean, you use the word permission in a pretty powerful way.
Speaker A:So let's just park on that for a minute.
Speaker A:Can you share what you mean by, by that and why it feels especially urgent in the world that we're living in right now?
Speaker B:Yeah, I would talk about permission as authorization and in this case I'm obviously, or not obviously, I'm referring to it as really self permission.
Speaker B:So, you know, one of the things I talk about in the book is what I describe as the permissions paradigm that we raise children and young people to seek permission to do the things they want to do, to defer to authority, to look outside of themselves for a green light, to do things, particularly when it's things that they really want to do or things that deviate a little bit from the norm or the expected or the routine.
Speaker B:What we don't do is prepare adults to self authorize, to give themselves permission.
Speaker B:And as you said there, you know, so many people I've worked with throughout the course of my career who are either unconsciously sort of waiting for that or just not used to, to authorizing themselves, not used to sort of stepping into that authority and saying I am allowed.
Speaker B:And the reason why I think that's particularly relevant right now is within the context of the unraveling scripts for who we're supposed to be and how we're allowed to behave.
Speaker B:There's a lot of pressure on individuals to make a lot of choices.
Speaker B:And the concept of right choices, wrong choices is now, you know, up for grabs.
Speaker B:So that self authority is absolutely critical in this moment.
Speaker B:And I think the absence of it is one of the reasons that we see so many people feeling anxious, overwhelmed, afraid, afraid of a world that isn't playing by yesterday's rules, but they're not entirely sure they're allowed to make up their own.
Speaker B:So yeah, it's, it's a product, Chuck, of, you know, all of my work in the world of change.
Speaker B:And as you've just sort of referenced, I think it's kind of really coming to the fore for me right now.
Speaker A:You know, this reminds me quite a bit of something that I cover with my clients pretty frequently.
Speaker A:And the word picture that I oftentimes use is the idea that we call people out, including myself from time to time, of sitting in the passenger seat of their own lives.
Speaker A:And the encouragement is to slide over once and for all into the driver's seat for a change and put your hands on the wheel, look through the windshield, put your foot on the accelerator, and begin to be purposeful and intentional in making some decisions.
Speaker A:And part of the question often comes out, who is sitting in that driver's seat for you?
Speaker A:Is there a part of you or is there a relic of a former you, or is there some other figment of an authority figure, a parent, a boss, sitting in that driver's seat for you?
Speaker A:And what would it take for you to oust them from that perch and slide over into the driver's seat?
Speaker A:It feels very similar to what you're describing.
Speaker B:Oh it absolutely.
Speaker B:I mean, I think there's even a line in the book where I talk about, you know, you are driving, you are driven.
Speaker B:So you know, you are driven by an intrinsic motivation, by an internal desire, a sense of agency which is an inherent part of any human and a requirement, you know, for being a fully fledged adult.
Speaker B:And yet, as you are describing, as I have encountered in my life, there are very few people who are comfortable sliding over.
Speaker B:And the fact that so much of it is sort of a default way of operating, and that's what I'm getting at with the provisions paradigm, that it's not a, it's just an ingrained way of operating that kind of carries over from, you know, young youth, young adulthood into adulthood.
Speaker B:And I think the thing is, in a, in a previous world where you could, you know, slide into ready made roles that were already pre approved and press play, you know, you, you had a storyline that you just fit into and you could feel a little bit like a passenger in that story where somebody else had already decided how it unfolded and you were just, you know, going through the motions.
Speaker B:And we all know that there were legions of people who behaved that way.
Speaker B:And I think again, one of the requirements and the opportunities of this moment is to slide across because those ready made roles, those set scripts, they're not delivering, they're disappearing in the face of AI.
Speaker B:The reward structures for that sort of put a suit on and sleepwalk way of operating are no longer there.
Speaker B:So you can't just come of kick back and, you know, hold on to the status quo and hope that eventually it buys you enough security.
Speaker B:So, you know, I think it's one of the, one of the really hard things about this moment is that I think we're deeply aware that we need another way of operating, but we haven't been prepared to do that.
Speaker B:Nobody's told us that it's okay and we haven't you know, really gone and done the work to slide across.
Speaker A:So, yeah, I think that's like no one's in charge.
Speaker A:No, it feels like no one's in charge.
Speaker A:And when we are not in charge, then we're a little questioning as to who actually is.
Speaker A:If we were questioning, actually, that would be helpful.
Speaker A:I liked what you said about the fact that this feels like a default for many of us for some reason.
Speaker A:And I don't know why it's the default, but it always comes as a surprise to people when I mention that it appears as though that they are just riding around in the passenger seat of their life.
Speaker A:And at the same time that they're surprised, they immediately agree that that is in fact the case.
Speaker A:And so it's almost like we don't realize that that is the case.
Speaker A:And I suppose it's only probably gotten worse over the last couple of decades as my generation has, you know, employed a lot of helicopter style parenting and making a lot of decisions for kids.
Speaker A:I just read something in the Atlantic about how parents have taken over the dorm room, even in terms of design and decor, and how it's less and less common to have younger people making their own way, their own decisions and trying to figure things out than it may have been in previous generations.
Speaker A:I also thought recently about doing, you know, I like to dole out some degree of advice or ideas.
Speaker A:I'm further down the path than many young people.
Speaker A:And so when I do a social media post, it's oftentimes sharing some quote, unquote wisdom from further down the path.
Speaker A:But one of the things I thought about recently is, hey, here's a message.
Speaker A:For those of you in your 20s, when people like me share wisdom and ideas and so forth, I want you to understand that we don't know, we actually are just trying to figure this out as well.
Speaker A:And the reality is many of us have probably been on autopilot for too long.
Speaker A:And so let's not make the assumption that the people who are further down the path really know what they're talking about.
Speaker A:Maybe they have something to teach you from their perspective, but let's not assume that they do.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, I appreciate that honesty.
Speaker B:You know, as a.
Speaker B:As a mother myself, you know, I'm catching myself a lot.
Speaker B:And, you know, there's a.
Speaker B:There's something really radical that happens when you accept what you just said, that, you know, just because I'm older doesn't necessarily mean that I'm wiser.
Speaker B:As it relates in particular to you stepping out into the world.
Speaker B:At this moment.
Speaker B:And I think also when I, when I do speak to young people and I kind of say, what, what would it feel like if you truly believe that you knew what was best for you?
Speaker B:Like, let's take that radical leap into a space that as a young person, you are the authority in you.
Speaker B:Like, and you can see there's this kind of like, that's, oh, I get.
Speaker A:To, I get to do that, I.
Speaker B:Get to do that.
Speaker B:And you know, you sit there and you're kind of like, wow, at what stage did we decide that disempowering young people was the way to breed healthy humans?
Speaker B:Well, you know, I know the answer to my own question, which is that, and not, you know, to sound again, too kind of radical, but I think it was about labor.
Speaker B:I think it was about ready made people who would just say yes and no to again sliding into roles, doing what they were told, you know, not ruffling feathers, not asking questions.
Speaker B:It never bred happy humans.
Speaker B:And the thing is, right now, it's not even breeding thriving ones or successful ones in that, you know, you're not rewarded for those behaviors like you once might have been.
Speaker B:You're not slotting into some, you know, institutional advancement is no longer a viable go to strategy for your career.
Speaker B:So putting your head down and playing the game and staying there for 30 years, you know, is no longer your go to strategy.
Speaker B:So now what?
Speaker B:Yeah, now what?
Speaker A:What was the moment that made you realize that permission was at the center of how people navigate change?
Speaker B:Yeah, it was.
Speaker B:I, I'm not being dramatic when I say that I can actually remember what it was.
Speaker B:I was.
Speaker B:So a lot of my early work was in the field of social change, international development.
Speaker B:I'm American, went to South Africa and started a long career in sort of international development across Africa and Asia and southeastern Europe and came up against a whole lot of wicked problems and deep change, and the biggest perhaps being HIV AIDS back in the 90s when there was no treatment.
Speaker B:And I was in Zimbabwe, which had the highest incidence rate in the world.
Speaker B:And we came rolling in with lots of money and good advice and some pretty easy fixes.
Speaker B:It was just like, well, you just need to do this right?
Speaker B:I mean, you can solve all this if you just do these three things.
Speaker B:And we were in particular speaking to women because they were more open and willing to hear the message.
Speaker B:And to cut to the chase, none of it was working.
Speaker B:Incidence rates were not going down.
Speaker B:People were sort of nodding their heads and saying, thank you very much.
Speaker B:This is very interesting.
Speaker B:Now I'm going to go back to the way I've been living for the last hundred years.
Speaker B:And I remember sitting down with my boss at the time and saying, we can give people everything in the world.
Speaker B:We can give them all the money that we have, all the facts, all the skills, all the T shirts.
Speaker B:We can't give them permission.
Speaker B:Like, I cannot roll into your village and by virtue of my presence and my fancy car, be a permission slip to you to be the first or the last.
Speaker B:And I talk about that a lot.
Speaker B:Like, are you going to be the first one to, you know, upend a long standing tradition?
Speaker B:Are you going to be the last one to do something that people have been doing for forever?
Speaker B:And, you know, if that sounds very foreign to people as they hear it, you know, I'm talking to a lot of parents now who are like, how would you feel if your child was the first one not to go to college?
Speaker B:Like, are they allowed to be the first one to make a different choice to what everybody else has done?
Speaker B:Or, you know, on the flip side of that, maybe they're going to be the last one to run the family business because they are looking around and kind of going, is this thing doesn't have legs in an age of AI or something like that?
Speaker B:So the idea of having to make novel choices, things that other people won't recognize, things that other people won't even necessarily approve of, is hard.
Speaker B:It is hard.
Speaker B:And it is not something that anybody else can make for you.
Speaker B:It's something that you have to work on.
Speaker B:And so that idea of, you know, I felt like my work over the course of 30 years has become, become ever more about a person in themselves.
Speaker B:You know, you are carrying around that green light and only you can switch it on.
Speaker B:You're, you know, Chuck, you can't push somebody from the passenger seat to the driver's seat.
Speaker B:And if you did, they'd sit there frozen and go, I don't want to drive.
Speaker B:They have to make that decision.
Speaker B:And that's why I think the world of work, of change is, is delicate and, you know, fascinating.
Speaker B:And yeah, I've been exploring these themes.
Speaker A:Ever since then in my method, my coaching method.
Speaker A:I talk about the mirror, which is getting honest about our inherited scripts, the ones that are kind of running in the background, the firmware.
Speaker A:How do those old scripts shape our tendency to wait for external approval?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, I describe it in the book, use very similar language of.
Speaker B:That's as you, you used the word earlier too.
Speaker B:That's your default.
Speaker B:And I think that the challenge is that so much of it is implicit and unexamined.
Speaker B:It's like you said, so many people don't necessarily know they're in the passenger seat, but when you say they are, they're like, okay, yeah, I am.
Speaker B:But you know the nature of just having conversations with people about.
Speaker B:So what are the rules?
Speaker B:What are what rules does that story lay out for you?
Speaker B:And it's like, what?
Speaker B:Well, there are some, of course, you know, you're operating by a built in set of rules, most of which were just handed down to you culturally, implicitly.
Speaker B:They didn't sit you down and hand you a list and say, listen, follow these.
Speaker B:And that makes them so much trickier to deal with because they're unexamined, they're unconscious, they're unspoken.
Speaker B:And so a lot of, for me, as I think what you're describing with your work, the entry point of permissions is making that implicit story explicit.
Speaker B:Like, okay, let's look at it as you are talking about, what is it allowing you to do?
Speaker B:Who is it allowing you to be?
Speaker B:And is there potentially more space in it than you are recognizing at this moment?
Speaker B:Because the truth is it's a complete construct that in some cases bears no resemblance to your reality.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You've got so much more room than you actually think you do, but you've been operating that way for so long that there are these internal boundaries that you don't even get close to.
Speaker A:So, yeah, it feels like almost a victimhood oftentimes, doesn't it?
Speaker A:You know, volunteering for victimhood, whether it's real or whether it's not, the idea that there are other people at fault for my situation.
Speaker A:And we can always point to society, we can point to our parents, we can point.
Speaker A:Everyone is wounded somehow.
Speaker A:And I suppose that the more apt we are to point to those external factors as being reasons, excuses as to why we are up against what we're up against, the more difficult it is for us to take agency or to authorize ourselves with the sort of permission that you're talking about.
Speaker A:Is that right?
Speaker B:Yeah, I would agree.
Speaker B:I mean, I think there will be people out there who will bridle at the word victim because they won't see themselves in that light.
Speaker B:You know, I talk a lot about outsourcing your agency, which we raise children to do.
Speaker B:Like, let's be really clear that we reward people for looking externally to say, well, what should I do?
Speaker B:Tell me what to do.
Speaker B:And I'm not coming on here and saying that we need to throw all that out and the kids should be allowed to run free.
Speaker B:But I think we need to be far more intentional about the ways in which we are gradually cultivating an ever greater sense of agency and authority and adaptability in young people to allow them to walk into the world.
Speaker B:But as you pointed to earlier, we're doing exactly the opposite right now.
Speaker B:We're designing the dorm rooms because we're afraid on their behalf.
Speaker B:We look out at the world and go, oh my gosh, it's so scary.
Speaker B:There's all those default ways of operating aren't working anymore.
Speaker B:So I need to protect my darling and make all the decisions on their behalf and, you know, make sure that they are kind of cosseted within this beautiful and orderly world.
Speaker B:Because I'm very afraid that the world out there is not that we then scratch our heads as to why they step out once we are no longer able to decorate their lives unequipped.
Speaker B:But they've never.
Speaker B:We've never prepared them for this.
Speaker B:And so, yeah, as a parent for me, I feel like right now it's incumbent upon me to prepare my kids for this world, not protect them from it.
Speaker B:And yet that's what.
Speaker B:And if I could just end there by saying, I get it, you know, every.
Speaker B:Every single experience of mine is that when faced with quite radical change, which I think we are being faced with right now, our human instinct is to double down on tradition, on, you know, what's always been on convention.
Speaker B:We almost, you know, go, you know, dial 10X on that, because that's what makes us feel safe.
Speaker B:So, for instance, in the context of dealing with HIV aids, you know, all of a sudden these conversations around tradition roared to the front because it was like we're.
Speaker B:We're closing down ourselves from this chaos by reverting to the way things have always been.
Speaker B:So I think it's a natural human behavior, and I think we can own it, and I think we can be empathetic with ourselves and each other that I know we're all afraid.
Speaker B:We're all afraid for our kids, but it doesn't help them.
Speaker B:It doesn't.
Speaker A:Well.
Speaker A:And I think it's important probably to remind our listeners right now that we're not parking on only the idea that it's a young people and a parenting issue, that it's very much ourselves as well, that we have failed to authorize.
Speaker A:We're still waiting to provide that authority to ourselves.
Speaker A:And I think, you know, as I look around, even if you look at something like what I would call Outrage culture, where, you know, there's people who just take great solace in being outraged about, name it, whatever the thing is, there could be some very valid reasons for that, but there are so many more people interested in making a point than in making a difference.
Speaker A:And there is comfort sometimes, and it's another way of sitting in the passenger seat and shooting off our mouths about what's wrong with the world.
Speaker A:And only a few people sliding over to actually take the agency and the authority within themselves to do something about it so that they are actually making a difference and not just making a point.
Speaker A:So one of my favorite quotes is, for every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the root.
Speaker A:And so I think the call for us is to see if we are doing.
Speaker A:Doing that.
Speaker A:You know, one of the places work really overlaps is a phase of my change method called the stirring.
Speaker A:It's kind of that initial quiet voice.
Speaker A:And often people sense that something needs to shift, but they hesitate.
Speaker A:How do you help people move from noticing this stirring to actually giving themselves permission to act?
Speaker B:Yeah, when you talked about your method, I.
Speaker B:Honestly, when you said that, I. I felt a stirring inside of me.
Speaker B:I was like, oh, yes.
Speaker B:I, in other contexts, talked about, like, the quickening, which, you know, is that sense of this internal sort of cadence of your life starting to shift a little bit, where you're like, okay, something.
Speaker B:Something's changing.
Speaker B:Something needs to change again, I don't think we've been encouraged or conditioned to listen in, to listen to our internal voice again.
Speaker B:When I do speak to young people and say, you have that voice, it's like, oh, really?
Speaker B:Because all the authorities I've ever been told to listen to exist outside of me.
Speaker B:So why in the world would I listen into that and then validate it and then act on it?
Speaker B:So I think, like, everything that we're talking about, first of all, let's be kind to ourselves and accept the fact that nothing has helped us to listen to that stirring.
Speaker A:If anything, we're here for a reason.
Speaker A:Yeah, we've arrived here for good reasons.
Speaker B:We've arrived here for good reasons.
Speaker B:And guess what?
Speaker B:The world is changing quickly enough that there are equally good reasons for you start to start to allow yourself to operate differently.
Speaker B:And what I would say is listen to that voice around the small stuff first.
Speaker B:You know, a lot of that stirring starts to come up for people around, you know, kind of the big three of work or relationship or family or.
Speaker B:And yet they've never authorized themselves around some lower consequences.
Speaker B:Things like you know, the people who, when you say, what do you want to eat for lunch?
Speaker B:And they're like, I don't know, what do you want?
Speaker B:I'm like, no, listen in listening.
Speaker B:So that, for instance, is something that I do with my kids when I'm like, okay, I want you to describe a want.
Speaker B:I want you to think about that and don't fluff it.
Speaker B:And don't, you know, kind of go, oh, I don't know.
Speaker B:No, say it.
Speaker B:Get used to saying it.
Speaker B:Get used to kind of listening to some.
Speaker B:Something that comes from your belly, something that comes from your heart and not your head.
Speaker B:Like, just cultivate that practice.
Speaker B:And I talk in a book a lot about, like, spend time on the weekends, in all that time when you're maybe deciding some things you want to do, some things you want to spend your time doing, like, just stupid things that might feel very low stakes for you, but are great ways for you to start to tune in to an internal desire that maybe you muffled a long time ago or maybe you never even kind of got close to that.
Speaker B:So put an ear to it and let it take you to, you know, ice cream or a movie or a concert or your bed.
Speaker B:But use that as practice because it's really hard to act on that for the higher consequence choices in your lives, particularly if you have no sort of lived experience of doing it on a more routine basis.
Speaker B:So I really approach a lot of what we're talking about as practice, as building muscle, as building capability.
Speaker B:And, you know, I. I think that also lowers the temperature a little bit of just like, it's okay, we don't need to go and blow anything up.
Speaker B:Let's just start to build up some of the stuff that we've never been allowed to build in our lives.
Speaker A:Yeah, you know, a lot of times people think of change coming in like a lightning bolt, but the reality is that the most instructive, formative change that we in that we navigate in our lives oftentimes comes in more like a small pilot light or a whisper or something that we will miss unless we are quiet enough and intentional enough in listening for it.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:And I think that the high distractibility factor that is going on with all of us right now, whether it be through social media or just, you know, getting caught up in world events or societal sorts of things, you know, the high distraction factor will prevent us oftentimes from being able to listen carefully to that still quiet, small voice inside of us that like to have a seat at the table.
Speaker A:And I'm reminded all the way back five years ago, episode one.
Speaker A:Joey Ryman, really wise guy, said one time, the fruits are in the roots.
Speaker A:And he was talking very specifically about how companies uncover their purpose.
Speaker A:Go back to the original founders and what did they want?
Speaker A:But for us as well, sometimes the fruits are in the roots.
Speaker A:And if we go back to our preteen days and we think about the things that we were particularly excited about, enthusiastic for, and what we were talented at.
Speaker A:I remember.
Speaker A:I remember in my early 20s being thrust into the spotlight of a public speaking opportunity.
Speaker A:And I had to go from Atlanta down to Florida and speak to a group of 80 people.
Speaker A:And I remember everyone thinking, like, oh, my God, are you so nervous?
Speaker A:And I thought, no, actually, I feel pretty good about this.
Speaker A:And I remember the reviews came back and they were really good, and people said, how.
Speaker A:How come you're not doing more of this?
Speaker A:And I remembered way back to when I was 13 years old and I was in a 4H club in Annapolis, Maryland, and I won the Anne Arundel County Grand Champion for public speaking and 4H, and then promptly, you know, threw my ribbon away and forgot all about the fact that.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And there was this reminder that if we can look back to those earlier days, sometimes we can find clues as to what that voice could be today.
Speaker A:But it does require quiet, and it does require, to your point, a practice of listening from within and allowing the distractions to fade for a little bit just so that we can see what that could be trying to speak to us about.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And, you know, one of the reasons I like your stirring so much is because I think.
Speaker B:I think people expect the message to be clear and resonant, and I think often it's just a sensation or an emotion or a scrap of a memory or something, you know, and.
Speaker B:And I think to just, like, allow yourself to start to piece some of these things together.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:I remember, like, I was 13 and I love speaking or this or that.
Speaker B:Without, again, the high stakes requirement to translate that immediately into a capital P purpose, or an obvious next step.
Speaker B:Because, you know, again, my own experience in the world of human growth and change is that we need more permission to kind of create this mural of ourselves that's not linear and it's not, you know, this idea that I'm a hero and I'm out to kind of unveil and pursue my purpose.
Speaker B:I think it's a little bit messier and a little.
Speaker B:A little bit more complex than that, and that's okay.
Speaker B:But so many people feel like, it's got to be this crystal clear sort of vision for who they're supposed to be be.
Speaker B:And I think particularly now, what a wonderful time to start just piecing things together.
Speaker B:Because the cookie cutter roles are now the ones that are least interesting for you.
Speaker B:Like the, the ones that everybody else can do, the ones that, you know, are so recognizable.
Speaker B:Like, those are the first to go.
Speaker B:Those are the things that will not have legs.
Speaker B:What a wonderful moment to start to kind of pull together a scrapbook of your unique self.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:That in a previous time might have looked unwieldy and unemployable because he didn't know what to do with public speaking.
Speaker B:Like, how is I going to monetize that?
Speaker B:How is that useful?
Speaker B:Screw it.
Speaker B:Now it's like, great, all right.
Speaker B:I get to be this much more diverse human than maybe my father felt he could be or I felt I could be back in the day.
Speaker B:So I really feel like there's an invitation right now for us to start to kind of see ourselves through, you know, far more varied and interesting lenses than maybe we were allowed to previously.
Speaker A:There is an open casting call.
Speaker A:Let's just formally announce for new pioneers, for new frontiers people, for.
Speaker A:For people who are in the driver's seat, who have self authorized themselves to be creative and to imagine more and to think differently and to throw away the old scripts.
Speaker A:So, open casting call.
Speaker A:Everyone is welcomed and we hereby officially give everyone permission to give themselves permission.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:To begin to imagine what it might feel like to truly, truly believe, if you believed in your belly, that what you just described, those frontiers people, those multi potentially, or whatever you call it, you know, those people who were previously seen as problematic are now in their driver's seat, in the world's driver's seat.
Speaker B:Like, what would it feel like for you to really kind of go there and be like, awesome, okay, here's what I'm going to be like.
Speaker B:Play around with what that might feel like for you and where it could take you.
Speaker A:Well, we both mentioned our kids.
Speaker A:Mine are in their 20s.
Speaker A:How do you see permission playing out differently for younger generations compared to those of us who grew up in more hierarchical systems?
Speaker B:That's such a great question.
Speaker B:And I think it's a complex one because I think we've already touched on a number of things that make it really interesting because it is far less hierarchical identities are far more fluid.
Speaker B:There's so much more room for them to put their own twist on things, to show up perhaps with less of a sense of, you know, a boundaried identity than I think I had to.
Speaker B:And I think they're your, I mean my kids are younger than yours, but I think they will look out in the world and be very aware that you know, they have to and they get to find their way through life quite differently.
Speaker B:At the same time, they are growing up during an era of what I would call the end of predictable progress, which is what we've already talked about.
Speaker B:So there's fear, there's so much more fear than there was when I grew up.
Speaker B:There's, I think we're in a moment of like grieving, as you said, who's in control, who's looking after us, who's going to look after me?
Speaker B:I've lost faith in institutions to do the work that, you know, when I was growing up, I still believed that they would do for me.
Speaker B:I'm not going to get a pension, I'm not going to get a gold ban for my loyalty.
Speaker B:So I think it's sort of the double edge of fluidity, which is that yes, there's ample space for them to show up as a fuller expression of themselves and all the opportunity that comes with that, but that has generated this tremendous fear amongst parents and adults and others in the room, understandably so, about, oh gosh, okay, so what's it gonna look like for you?
Speaker B:And so I think, you know, it's, it's a, it's an interesting time.
Speaker B:And I think that self authorization, that permission that they need to give themselves is more critical than ever because, well.
Speaker A:Awareness is half of it, isn't it?
Speaker A:Being aware that we have not yet self authorized is the first step, isn't it?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:And I think being able to, to grab the opportunities that are available to them somehow through the potential overreach of parents is really important.
Speaker B:And you know, I see a lot of kids within my, my son's circle who are, who are navigating just that like almost like managing upwards within their own family to kind of say, listen, you know, I, I got to do this my own way.
Speaker B:While you have parents who are fretting on the sidelines going but, but, but, but don't you need my help?
Speaker B:So I think it's, I think there's an awareness that they have to potentially step into a degree of self authority that I never was required to in order to navigate.
Speaker B:But I think they are dealing with a far more fretful, fractious time potentially than I stepped out to at the same time.
Speaker A:And it might be tempting for someone who is Younger, listening to this to feel like, yeah, I need to.
Speaker A:And therefore come to the table with a little more of a confrontational, like, fight back against the whatever.
Speaker A:And let me give you an example, just in real life, for me, how I've seen it actually done very well.
Speaker A:You know, very recently, one of my daughters, who is 27 years old, scheduled a meeting with me from afar and we had a meeting and she had put together a.
Speaker A:Basically a presentation for me on how I needed to think differently about social influencing, about social media, and had.
Speaker A:Had really gone to some work to educate me as to some things that I otherwise might not have been aware of.
Speaker A:And she does this for a living, but her reaching out, her being proactive about that, her from a place of empathy and grace, saying, there's something that I can share with you that might be helpful, is a way of stepping into her own authority without having to fight against the man, the script, the call it what you will in a way that I think is very effective.
Speaker A:And so I share that as an idea for people who are wanting to step into their authority to use it for good and to see what you can do to help those who are even further along the path or around you or a little bit behind you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:One of the things I say in the book is that I think, as you rightly have pointed to our default, our reflex when hearing this kind of conversation is that it's an act of rebellion.
Speaker B:It's an act of aggression, if you will, a finger in the face of the man, as you said.
Speaker B:And I don't in my heart see it that way at all.
Speaker B:I see it, as I describe it, as a yay me rather than a boo you.
Speaker B:It's like, let us appreciate the fact, as your daughter has, I think sounds like laid out for you, that what we're talking about is a process of adaptation.
Speaker B:We are talking about how everybody over the course of time has adapted to different circumstances.
Speaker B:So we happen to be sitting in quite a time of acute adaptation.
Speaker B:And that is going to require people, as I said earlier, to make novel choices, to do things that might look really weird to me.
Speaker B:I don't get it.
Speaker B:I don't get the social media thing.
Speaker B:How is this an actual job?
Speaker B:Okay, well, let me explain to you how it is now, and I think, as you've described, to approach that with empathy.
Speaker B:So I get it.
Speaker B:You know, you did what worked for you when there was a very different reward structure, when there was a very different sort of set of opportunities available.
Speaker B:I am now adapting to the ones that are available to me.
Speaker B:I empathize and respect you, emphasize with and respect you.
Speaker B:But please offer me that same consideration that I am.
Speaker B:I am trying to figure out how to make my way through a very different world.
Speaker B:And, you know, I come back to that phrase, novel choices, because I think that that's the point at which it gets very, you know, sticky, where it gets just like, oh, what?
Speaker B:What is this?
Speaker B:What are you doing?
Speaker B:But it doesn't have to be one where I'm negating or dismissing or denigrating the choices that came before me.
Speaker B:I'm simply recognizing the fact that I'm under.
Speaker B:I'm working in conditions that are requiring me to make different ones.
Speaker B:So I will make different choices.
Speaker B:And I think for me, that takes the judgment out.
Speaker B:And it.
Speaker B:And it introduces a degree of what you've described.
Speaker B:Empathy, understanding, curiosity.
Speaker B:We can lead from that place.
Speaker B:We really can.
Speaker B:Even though we don't see much of it in public, in our homes, in our lives, with the people we love.
Speaker B:We can do that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And we cannot lead from a place of defensiveness right from the beginning, or outrage, where we are just so suddenly aware and therefore suddenly indignant that we have been reading from the wrong script.
Speaker A:Let's just use a little bit more grace with ourselves and others to recognize that everything that's in place was someone's good idea, and a lot of other people bought off on it, including us.
Speaker A:And so to offer that we don't have to come from a place of defensiveness and negativity, we can simply decide to authorize ourselves to understand with grace, with why things are the way they are.
Speaker A:And if we don't understand, we can just acknowledge that people before us thought differently, and we have the opportunity to think differently as well.
Speaker A:Let's do that.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I mean, when you say it that way, it's like, duh, of course.
Speaker B:But, you know, there's so much fear, and I think there's so much fear of irrelevance, fear of loss of status.
Speaker B:You know, those for me, are the two things that so often get in the way for everybody that, you know, is unexamined and unarticulated.
Speaker B:And so it shows up as indignation and judgment.
Speaker B:But I think we're all trying to figure this out right now.
Speaker B:And that's why, as you said earlier, you know, we can talk about.
Speaker B:I talk about people who are 15, people who are 35, people who are 55.
Speaker B:I literally know people who are at every single one of those ages who's Sitting and looking at their life right now and going, well, this isn't exactly what the go to script was, is it?
Speaker B:Things are quite different either than I anticipated or expected or am prepared for.
Speaker B:And so maybe there's great opportunity in that for me, as you've just said, to make different choices.
Speaker B:Okay, I can.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And maybe I am also kind of, kind of grieving the fact that those go to choices that I thought were going to serve me right now aren't.
Speaker B:And that feels hard and I'm afraid because I've got to make my own choices.
Speaker B:And actually that's something I'm used to doing.
Speaker A:Well, for someone listening right now, who knows that they are waiting for permission, whether it's in their career, the relationships, just daily life, what is a simple practice that, that they can start today to begin authorizing themselves.
Speaker A:And I'll go first in that I've already mentioned the idea of creating quiet space for listening.
Speaker A:I mean one of my clients, I simply, we are in the early stages of the change process.
Speaker A:This idea of the mirror and the stirring and you know, her assignment includes 10 minutes of literally sitting there.
Speaker A:We're not talking about meditating, even sitting there in the quiet and just being for 10 minutes and, and allowing ideas to arise as they will or not just creating some space.
Speaker A:A speed bump in your day is a practice that someone could start today to begin authorizing themselves.
Speaker A:Any, anything else that comes to mind.
Speaker A:What would you recommend?
Speaker B:Yeah, well, you know, I talked a lot about like, I see weekends as a wonderful time.
Speaker B:I call them permissions playgrounds because we've got more room in those spaces.
Speaker B:And you know, my first permission is be willful because I think want and desire sit at the heart of a lot of this.
Speaker B:And people's lack of connection to desire and want as a starting point for kind of making that move over to the driver's seat.
Speaker B:Because to be in the driver's seat you have to know where you want to go, where you're going to go next, whether you're going to turn left or right.
Speaker B:So cultivating want not as a, you know, again, sort of foot stamping, hand bashing down, I want this.
Speaker B:But beginning to tune in in the same way that you're describing to that want.
Speaker B:And I, you know, call them like of a Saturday afternoon.
Speaker B:Pick a Saturday afternoon and make it your, you know, I want weekend time where you're just like, what do I really want right now?
Speaker B:Like, and really sort of sit with it a little bit and think about it.
Speaker B:Is it rest Is it company?
Speaker B:Is it entertainment?
Speaker B:Is it quiet?
Speaker B:Don't judge those choices, but maybe allow yourself to act on some element of it that requires nobody else's permission and maybe nobody else even knows about it.
Speaker B:I want to take a nap.
Speaker B:I want to go for a walk.
Speaker B:I want to go.
Speaker B:I want to make, you know, lasagna tonight.
Speaker B:I'm gonna go and do it.
Speaker B:So start with the things that you don't even need to articulate to anybody else, but you can make them happen if you decide to act on that and start to cultivate that tiny little loop, you know, that little action loop, that little tiny agency loop of I think I want to do something, there's no real reason that I can't.
Speaker B:I'm going to act on it and see how that feels.
Speaker B:And for me, that's a really tiny little re.
Speaker B:Patterning loop that allows you to just start to get more familiar with the voice that you're describing and the feeling of listening to it and acting on it.
Speaker B:And then you can graduate up to things that you maybe do need to articulate to other people.
Speaker B:Do you need to say to your partner or your friend, yeah, and I don't want to.
Speaker B:I don't really think I want to go, you know, to that same Chinese restaurant we always go to.
Speaker B:Oh, oh, okay.
Speaker B:Oh, all right.
Speaker B:You know, how does that feel?
Speaker B:So I'm a bit.
Speaker A:What if we instead.
Speaker B:What if we did something else?
Speaker B:You know, I think a lot of us around these kinds of conversations, our brain and our heart and everything goes to.
Speaker B:To high stakes and hard.
Speaker B:And I want to.
Speaker B:I want people to play around with the idea that there could be tremendous potential in playing around with low stakes and pleasurable because it's providing you access to something that you might not have ever accessed in your whole life or certainly your adult life.
Speaker B:And there's so much potential in that for you to start to stretch out a little bit into pieces of yourself that haven't come out to play for quite a long time.
Speaker B:So to experiment.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's one of my permissions.
Speaker B:Is just.
Speaker B:So it's.
Speaker B:It's sort of finding a little bit more of a fluid adaptability in your way of operating that maybe at some point feels out of bounds for you at a professional level or at a higher identity level.
Speaker B:But, you know, at the level of days, not years, you know, minor choices as opposed to big ones, maybe there is some space there.
Speaker B:And maybe in playing around in that space, you start to realize that, you know, there's space in other Ways too.
Speaker A:We have to be open to the ideas that these things could be very unexpected and, and have that be okay.
Speaker A:I mean, I love your idea of creating these sweet small experiments.
Speaker A:These just like, listen, try the low stakes, more of surprise and delight sort of a thing.
Speaker A:And you know, recently I kind of did that myself and I was listening to a singer, songwriter at a bar and I thought, man, I would really like to be able to do that.
Speaker A:I used to be musical.
Speaker A:I used to play all these instruments.
Speaker A:And that evening I came and took a guitar off the wall, which has been a display piece with, you know, some autographs for some other musicians.
Speaker A:And I started to tune it and I started to play a couple chords and then that led to, I wish I could I knew more about vocals.
Speaker A:And then I started taking some vocal lessons and now I just started taking guitar lessons.
Speaker A:And what I'm fostering there is this idea that feels like for me, the stirring.
Speaker A:The stirring is a return to musical creativity.
Speaker A:And it's totally unexpected in my mid-50s that that's something that I would do but paying attention to it and wow, so pleasurable.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, I think the saddest thing for me about our adult lives is that so many pieces of ourselves as I talk about in the book, just get discarded and flattened out because we don't see them as being monetizable.
Speaker B:You know, they get cast aside because, well, how are you going to make money from that?
Speaker B:What are you going to do with that, Chuck?
Speaker B:And it's like two things.
Speaker B:Who cares?
Speaker B:We're here to live a rich life.
Speaker B:And, and I think one of the biggest lies that our Gen X generation really bought into was that your leisure time, your interests, your hobbies were irrelevant.
Speaker B:Your work was the biggest expression of your value and your reason for being here.
Speaker B:Rubbish.
Speaker B:You know, let's go find a whole bunch of things and see where that takes us and see what that opens up for us.
Speaker B:Some of it might hold clues for something that we will find professional expression in.
Speaker B:But guess what?
Speaker B:Maybe we'll also just feel more satisfied, have a greater sense of, you know, just baseline meaning and connection in our lives.
Speaker B:And from that place, you are a much better operator in the rest of your life because you're kind of like, oh, hey, I'm alive to the choices that I have at my fingertips.
Speaker B:In your case, literally that, yeah, you know, I can make these, I can do this.
Speaker B:It doesn't, you know, my, my 17 year old has a great phrase which I sometimes use, which is, it's not that deep.
Speaker B:Like I'm allowed to take that guitar off the wall and an alarm bell isn't going to go off.
Speaker B:So why am I not choosing those little things more often?
Speaker B:Whatever that looks like for me.
Speaker A:That weird sense of not self authorizing.
Speaker A:I like the way you talk about that.
Speaker A:You know, if.
Speaker A:Listen, we've talked about a lot of things here and as we begin to wrap up, I'd.
Speaker A:I'd like to ask you that if listeners walk away with just one thing from this conversation, what do you hope it is?
Speaker B:Oh, gosh.
Speaker B:That it's okay.
Speaker B:Two things.
Speaker B:Can I do two things?
Speaker B:I want to do two things because I find people going two spaces.
Speaker B:One, it's okay if your life doesn't look the way you expected, expected it to at this moment.
Speaker B:And as I said, whether that's 15, 25 or 55, if you're feeling like you're not following the script and that feels uncomfortable to you, you don't have what you expected.
Speaker B:You're not where you expected to be.
Speaker B:It's okay.
Speaker B:We are living in a different world.
Speaker B:We need new stories and now stories.
Speaker B:And you're allowed to make them.
Speaker B:Which leads to point two, which is make them okay.
Speaker B:We have choices now that our parents didn't.
Speaker B:We have options that we often don't allow ourselves to entertain.
Speaker B:So don't act like you've got two choices when you've got 20.
Speaker B:If you're somebody who's very specific about how you drink your coffee or how you want your car, take that same energy into the rest of your life and curate it with intent.
Speaker B:Because we can and we have to.
Speaker B:So, you know, calling all pioneers, find that within yourself and allow yourself to design a life for this moment.
Speaker B:Because you can.
Speaker B:You're allowed.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Finally, where can people find your book and continue following your work?
Speaker B:It's currently available on Amazon.
Speaker B:So you can order it on Amazon, buy it on Amazon.
Speaker B:It's available through Barnes and Noble and a few other online retailers.
Speaker B:You can go to my website, tenpermissions Calm, and it describes sort of some of the other work that I'm doing around that.
Speaker B:And I am speaking of calling all pioneers, trying to build community.
Speaker B:I think a lot of us are doing this work, if you will, in isolation or, you know, without the help of others.
Speaker B:And I think we're entering into a time of a lot of people who are going to be trying to figure out what their next steps are and feeling alone in that.
Speaker B:And I don't think we need to be so I believe the next decade is going to call upon us to seek out community in a way that maybe we haven't felt we had to, but now we might want to, to co create, to collude, to just know that we're not alone in trying to design lives that serve us and suit this moment.
Speaker B:So there's more about that on the website and yeah, I'm just, I'm excited to get this out into the world.
Speaker A:I am too.
Speaker A:I think this has been such a thoughtful conversation and I honestly think that your perspective on permission as a core life skill is something that our audience will really carry with them.
Speaker A:And I certainly, I'm going to be digging deeper into it myself.
Speaker A:And to those listening, if you want to go deeper, then check out Jillian's book.
Speaker A:And as always, you can find more information about the Cool change method@coolchangelifedesign.com so thank you again, Jillian.
Speaker A:Loved our conversation and it's going to stick with me for quite a while.
Speaker A:And I thank those for our audience as well.
Speaker B:Thank you, Chuck.
Speaker B:Same.
Speaker B:I love your method.
Speaker B:I'm a great admirer of the work you're doing and I'm just happy that we had the chance to exchange in a little more detail from around the world.
Speaker A:You're in South Africa, right?
Speaker B:I am, I am, but that's.
Speaker A:And I'm in Oregon.
Speaker B:That's the beauty of our fluid world.
Speaker B:We can connect.
Speaker B:And yeah, I'm just excited to that.
Speaker B:This book has introduced me to people already who I never would have encountered before.
Speaker B:So it's, it's one of the great joys of this whole process for me.
Speaker A:Excellent.
Speaker A:All right, well then take care and good luck to you.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Thanks, Chuck.
Speaker A:All right, that's it for today's Cool Change.
Speaker A:Big thanks to Gillian Riley for reminding us that permission is a given.
Speaker A:It's claimed.
Speaker A:If this stirred something in you, take the wheel.
Speaker A:Start small, but start today.
Speaker A:You can find Jillian's book, the 10 Permissions on Amazon and more about the Cool change method@coolchangelifedesign.com so until next time, give yourself permission to live a life that feels like you.
Speaker B:Sam.
