Hard Lessons, New Beginnings, and UNBLOCKED Confidence: Finding Clarity in Career Paths and Career Pivots
Episode Details
Transcript
Welcome to the very first episode of the UNBLOCK Yourself Podcast.
We are kicking things off by sharing a little more about who we are, where we have been, and why we care so much about helping people live and work with more intention.
In this episode, Greg interviews Whitney about her journey — growing up with a lot of change and challenge, building a career as a young single mom, and spending years chasing success.
We talk about survival mode, work, identity, and the hard (but good) decision to stop living on autopilot and start making choices that feel real and meaningful.
We believe you can get UNBLOCKED. We believe you can create a life and career that actually feels like yours.
And it starts by getting honest about where you are, and what you really want.
In this conversation, Whitney shares:
- Growing up fast and learning to survive
- Building a career without a real sense of "why"
- The cost of being valued for the wrong things
- What it takes to step out of autopilot and into something real
This is Whitney's story. Thanks for being here for it.
We’d love to connect with you. Here’s where to find us:
Subscribe to Vienna Five Newsletter
Every other Thursday, we talk to people who got UNBLOCKED. You'll hear stories about finding clarity, career paths, career pivots and living with intention. Our guests tell us how they realized something had to change, made bold moves, and built lives that feel more aligned, more alive, and more intentional. We’ll share some of our own stories too, because we’re right here, figuring it out like everyone else.
Whitney
Even, you know, most recently, I really struggled with, like, pretending to care when I was selling any longer. And it's not that it's a bad product or a company or anything like that, but I hit this point in my life last year where it was like, alright. I need to make a change because I can't do this every day. And it's something I just don't care to put energy into, and I wanna do something that matters. Hi. I'm Whitney. And Greg
I'm Greg. Welcome to the Unblock Yourself podcast. Whitney
Too many of us are stuck on autopilot. We're following a path that seems like it wasn't our choice, leaving us feeling stuck even when life looks good on the outside. Greg
In each episode, we sit down with people who escaped autopilot and are unblocked. They share the stories about what they're doing now and what they did to get there. Whitney
You'll leave feeling inspired by the stories you hear, but more importantly, you'll have real tactical steps to get unblocked in your own life. Greg
Well, hello there, everybody. Whitney
Hi, everyone. Hi, Greg. Hey. Speaking to you here. Greg
Hey, Whitney. Yeah. Couple microphones in our studio, the Vienna Waits studio. Whitney
Which is actually our living room. Oh my god. Greg
The people need to think we are we're atop a mountain somewhere. Meditated we meditated for twenty minutes before this. We did yoga. Oh, none of that none of that is true. None of that is true. Hey. I'm excited, though. I'm excited to dive into a podcast, talk about the mission that we're on, the people we're working with. How about you? How you feel? Whitney
I'm excited. Well, no. I'm not excited yet, but I think I will get there. But the only reason I'm not excited is because podcasting has really been your thing, your dream. It's something you that you've known you've wanted to do. It's definitely not something I ever thought I would do, and I don't like the sound of my own voice. But I think that's pretty common. So I'm here for it. I'll get over it. Greg
Here's here's what I'm nervous about ultimately is that I think people are gonna listen to this. And they're gonna be like, oh, man. Greg's always wanted to do this, and he's gonna be so great. And they're gonna be like, no. No. No. Shut up, Greg. We just wanna listen to Whitney. Whitney
Oh, okay. Greg
That's cool. Whitney
Well, we'll see we'll see about that. Greg
It's so lovely. Just listen to the sound of your voice. Well, we are here because I think it was all about starting this journey together, this mission that we wanted to go on. And the mission is about an idea, and that idea is that living with intention is really important. Whitney
What does that mean, Greg? Greg
Oh, well, let's not let's talk about it. We thought a podcast would be a good way to unpack this, so let's do it. We think that living with intention is all about being really intentional about the decisions that you make about different things of different areas of your life and then taking action on those decisions. And when it comes to this podcast, the place that we find that people need to be most intentional is where they spend most amount of time, which is at work. Yeah. People people don't seem to be as good as being intentional at work as they are in their personal lives. Whitney
It's so true. I think people at work are very structured, and there's meetings and reviews and goals, and people just that falls apart when it comes to most people's personal lives. Greg
Well, I think that's true, like, for sure for you. Whitney
For sure for me. Greg
It's spoiler alert. We work together, and that was before we were romantically engaged, I would say. Yes. I was. We did we did work together, and you're incredible. You're, like, a top performer. Whitney
That's nice. Greg
Well, it's not nice. It's true. Whitney
Personal life was a disaster. Greg
Living was I think that's Then that Whitney
is the point. Greg
That is the point. Yeah. When we worked together, not to brag about you a little bit, but, I mean, you were always the, like, number one on the team, just somebody we could rely on, biggest clients, biggest opportunities, You can I mean, close the biggest deals? That's that was just you. That was what you did. And then, I mean, I've always thought you're an awesome person, but I think your story as we'll get Whitney
into As we will. Greg
I think it's there's a lot of twists and turns there. And I think Yeah. The things that you were so good at at work, you struggled with some of that in your personal life. Yeah. Whitney
For sure. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think we're just real people. Right? And we're starting this podcast, and we are not PhDs. We're not psychologists. We are not coaches of any kind. And I think together and separately, we've had to navigate a bunch of hardship. And, you know, I think we've realized that it's really easy to live on autopilot. And as you'll learn, like, we have firsthand experience with the fact that life is terminal and nothing is guaranteed, and anything can happen. And people, you know, save for retirement their whole life and never do the thing or take the trip or try the, you know, the new business ventures that they wanna do. So I think we're kinda here to help people shake out of that and get off autopilot. And, yeah, I think we're doing that a few different ways through the business that we started last year, which is sort of our our our baby. Greg
An exciting group of people, unblockers, going through our first set of programming, which is exciting. Whitney
Yeah. We have, yeah, the program, unblock yourself, and then You're a big thing. Oh, for sure. We have a retreat. Greg
Oh. Whitney
It is coming in September, and, yeah, I'm very fired up about that. I'm sure we'll we'll talk more about that. But, yes, Waypoint retreat. Greg
It's gonna be amazing. It's Whitney
gonna be great. Greg
But while we are here and while we are having a podcast and while we are gonna do this together, we wanted to do it because it does help us to dig into and unpack that idea, what living with intention's about. And we got some exciting people lined up that we're gonna talk to, and these are people who are doing that job or doing that work, I guess, to live intentionally through their work. They're doing work that fires them up, excites them. They're going on a mission, and they are, I think, living inspiring lives because of that. And we wanna hear from them, not just because their stories are gonna be entertaining, but I think they're gonna inspire us, and we hope it'll inspire you, listener, to think differently about what you can do, what you're capable of in your work life, but also kind of inspire you to take action. Get after it. Whitney
Get after it. But this episode, we will not be interviewing anyone yet. Yet. No. But we are gonna share a bit more about us. I think it's good context setting on who we are, what life looks like for us, and we'll probably just give you a bit of context on why we're doing the work that we're doing, which we think is living intentionally. Well, it is living intentionally, and it's pursuing something that we're very passionate about. Greg
This is our mission. This is our work, and this is our version of aligning our work to our purpose. So let's get into it. Whitney
I don't think we've said this yet, but we're married. Greg
Oh, yeah. We should have talked about that. We're married. So we are in when we talked about the Vienna Waite studio, we mean our living room. Whitney
Yes. We are married. We this is both of our second marriages, actually. So we've both been married before, and I am divorced. Yes. And Greg is a widow. Greg
Yes. Oh, gosh. I hate it when you say that. I hate it when you say that. Widow. I'm not a widow. What what yes. Widower. Widower. Oh. There's a box you gotta check on a form. Widower. Okay. And there's a whole group of us who are not well understood. Widower. Okay. Well, different things. Whitney
I actually I don't think I've I knew there was a difference. That's probably a bit embarrassing. Greg
Not even. Whitney
But that was a big bomb drop, and we just, like, left it there. We I promise we'll we'll share more context, because that is not a a top a light topic at all. So, yes, we'll definitely give more more details. But, yeah, collectively, we have four children. Greg
Mhmm. Whitney
Four kids together, which is a lot. Greg
Yep. And, hey, if any of the four of you are listening to this, we love you. Oh, yes. But we never Whitney
planned on having four kids. Well no. And we didn't have them together. So I just wanna know. Greg
Love brought you all together. Whitney
My son, my only the only child that I had have birthed, is fourteen. He's the oldest. He's fourteen. And, and then Greg has three kiddos. I didn't birth them. No. No. He did not. And they are two boys, ten and eight. And then the only girl who's the youngest Greg
Mhmm. Whitney
Is six, almost seven at the time of this recording, anyway. Greg
Yeah. The ladies run this household. That's for sure. Whitney
Wow. I don't know about ladies, but Greg
She well, let's give her the full credit. She definitely does. We'll give her the full And the boys would agree. Yeah. Totally. Cool. Well, let's take why don't we dig into it? And that. You said that we're not interviewing anybody, but that's not exactly true. I think you just wanted to be left off the hot seat, but I'm gonna put you firmly on the hot seat because I think we're gonna interview you first, and we're gonna tell a little bit of your story. Whitney
Sure. I'm here for it. Although, like, deeply uncomfortable again. Greg
Our producer Amy says that the, like, the more you start talking, the more comfortable you'll get with us. Are you having fun yet? Not yet. Okay. Well, then let's just interview you and see if this gets any better. This will be great. Okay. Here we go. Well, everybody, I would like to introduce you to Whitney. Welcome to the podcast, Whitney. Whitney
Thank you, Greg. Thanks for having me. Greg
Oh, it is my pleasure. Well, Whitney, I think we need to start with a little bit of context because here we are today, twenty twenty five, but a lot happened before that. Why don't we just start with a little bit of the foundation? Where are you from? Where were you born? Just some high level details on where you grew up, then we can dig dig a little bit deeper into that. Whitney
Yes. So well, I will say we have been, writing about some of our stories. So we have a blog, and I've actually been able to open up quite a bit, through writing, which is great. This is not the same, so I will do my best to open up, in this format. So, yeah, I mean, going back, I grew up with divorced parents. It was messy and traumatic in many ways, and they actually ended up deciding on living in different provinces. The majority of my time through the school year, I spent in Ontario with my mom and stepdad and my brother. And then my biological father lived in Calgary, Alberta. So growing up, like, our me and my brother, we kinda joked about, like, it'd be great if we could have had air miles back then, because we would fly from, you know, Ontario to Alberta every summer back and forth. And, yeah, we spent the summers in Calgary, which was, you know, kinda cool. I used to work at the Calgary Stampede for my first jobs. Greg
When you were a kid, what what did you dream of being? Whitney
I think if you asked me then, maybe a teacher. But I will say, like, we didn't have a lot of money growing up. I watched my parents live, you know, paycheck to paycheck, and there were a lot of struggles. We moved around a lot, and there was, you know, lots of different jobs that my parents had and, rental house to rental house. So just, I would say, like, not a ton of stability in that way. So even the fact that we're kinda talking about aligning work with purpose and living intentionally, like, if you told me back then that that's something I'd be talking about, I'd be like, I don't even I don't I don't understand what you're saying. It doesn't make sense to me. It's just nothing that, that I grew up and, I guess, had around me as examples of living intentionally and, and doing work that matters. I don't think that's the right word. Greg
But Work that I I guess work that matter to you. Sure. Yeah. Is it more about surviving then? Yeah. For sure. So you you were saying earlier that you've been doing more writing, and that's been a great idea to or a great way to get some of your ideas and thoughts out. You just wrote what I think is a raw and powerful post about being the pretty one. How does that play into your story growing up? Whitney
Yeah. Like, since I was a little girl, a young girl, I feel like everyone was always said, oh, you're pretty, and you're cute. Right? And it's kind of the thing that people would focus on. There was a hyperfocus on the way I looked and my appearance. And I think I was other things too. Like, I was sporty, and I think I was kind and all of these other things. But for some reason, there was just so much focus on my looks. Right. And then I think as I got older, that was kind of where I placed the value. I think the narrative inside my head was, oh, I'm pretty. Like, I'm the pretty one, but I'm not the smartest one. I'm not, you know, maybe the nicest one or, like, all of these other things. So I just think I didn't hear enough of you're brave or kind or pick any other any other description descriptive word. You know? So I I think that definitely played into the narrative I told myself, especially as I got into the workforce too. Sadly, like, I I started working full time when I was eighteen, and that's just kind of that was reinforced through male dominated industries and, you know, unwanted, looks and comments and gestures and just always really feeling like my worth was the way I looked and totally based on my appearance. Let me give you probably my worst example, of what how this showed up in my professional life. So I had resigned from a company, and it was my last day. And I'm going around the office, and I went in went into one of our c suite offices, who was male. So as I'm saying bye, I, that day, happened to be wearing a sweater that had elbow patches, and he made what was not a funny joke at all, and said that those elbow patches on my sweater belong on my knees. Greg
Nice. Classy. Whitney
Yeah. And, you know, I think, like, in my shame, I he laughed it off like it was a joke. But, yeah, that's just an example of some of the things that I've dealt with through my career. That just stuck with me for a really long time, like, a really long time. I think only now I'm coming to the realization, like, you know, I'm so much more than that. I'm so much more than that. And it's funny even saying this out loud because the fact I'm, like, admitting to the fact that I'm you know, that people would think that I'm pretty is a bit hilarious because I would never consider myself that way, but it's just the things people said, and it's just the way it made me feel. Does that make sense? No one's not conceited because that's, like, not the point. Greg
Well, I think the way you frame it is not conceded. I think you're saying it as a bit of a if anything, it's it's actually not been helpful to you. And I just knowing you and being married to you, I I've had that experience of so often just telling you, oh, Whitney, you look beautiful today or this, and it's never served me well. That's never led to, oh, I love you too, and now it's usually, fuck you. Get away from me. Like, what do you what do you want from me? So I think it says a lot. This is a recent insight, by the way. Whitney
Yeah. I feel like you'd say that. And I'm like, I just I can't hear you, and it actually is, like, somewhat insulting. So please don't. Like, tell me something. You know? That means something. Compliment me in other ways. Greg
Which is, yeah, which is wild. But I hear you. Well, before you kind of turn the tables here, maybe just a little bit more about moving into your twenties and moving into your career because you hinted at it there. You started working at eighteen. I mean, your career was we talk about the importance of working career and living intentionally. I mean, your career was was your focus. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Whitney
Like, I guess, Nat and, and my son and and Cole. I got married quite young, and I think that's, you know, searching for that stability and and not having stability through my childhood. I I got married young to a wonderful man who's still one of my closest friends. And we we co parent. Yeah. We'll have to get them on the episode on a podcast at some point. But, yeah, it's I got married young and just got divorced, very shortly after. Our son was only eighteen months old, and I basically was a single mom with shared custody, of course, for the next, like, ten years of my life. So, you know, I I grew my career, and I just did what I had to do to pay the bills and put Cole first. And, yeah. And that's kind of the next ten years of my life. Greg
To your credit though, and you did more than just pay the bills and put food on the table. I mean, you built a pretty impressive career. Yeah. I mean and if you don't do it, I'm gonna list off some of your accolades, but I'd love to hear from you. Just just so what some of those highlights were. Like, we're Yeah. This was not paycheck to paycheck Whitney. This was certainly a woman who was on a mission and Sure. Achieved some great things. Yeah. Whitney
First off, I put myself through university while I was working full time. So for a while, I was taking courses slowly, one by one, at night, for years, and kinda pushed through that. I was pregnant at university, which was kinda funny. Greg
We put it together that we might have been crossing paths in the halls, and you had been the weird pregnant girl. I Whitney
know. When I teen. Yeah. But I wasn't. I was into my twenties. Greg
Yeah. You you would have looked young. Whitney
Yeah. For sure. Greg
We probably saw you and were like, god. We don't even wanna look in her We do Whitney
not wanna get girls pregnant. Married. You know? People just didn't know. Don't judge a book. Greg
My Whitney
ex girlfriend, Greg. But, yeah, I put myself through university. I worked at Blackberry for a number of years, which a lot of people where we live did. And I had a kinda account management, customer success, sales roles, and I think you kinda mentioned it, but I managed a lot of large clients. I sold to many large clients, and and that was great. I mean, again, like, I I liked it. It it did what it needed to do for that point in my life, which was to provide for myself. And, yeah, I was able to travel and do the things I wanted to do. Did I love it? No. Was it something that, you know, fired me up? And no. Like, even, you know, most recently, I really struggled with, like, pretending to care when I was selling any longer. And it's not that it's a bad product or a company or anything like that, but it's just I definitely hit this point in my life recently. We're kinda skipping ahead a little bit, but I hit this point in my life last year where it was like, alright. I need to make a change because I can't do this every day and keep, you know, talking about the same thing. And it's something I just don't care to put energy into, and I wanna do something that matters. Yeah. QVN awaits. QVN awaits. A few more things in between there. But yeah. Greg
We'll come back to those. We'll come back. Thank you for listening to the Unblock Yourself podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow and rate the podcast. Your ratings and feedback mean the world to us. We'd love to stay connected with you via our biweekly newsletter called the VNF five, where we share ideas and advice that we found helpful on our own journey to live with more intention. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Instagram. For those Gen Z listeners out there, no, we're not on TikTok. But depending on if you ask for it, we'll just have to do it at some point. The links to find us in social are in the show notes. The Unblock Yourself podcast is edited and produced by Bespoke Productions Hub. Thank you for being here. 
