What We’re Built On: Resilience + Ways We’ve Tripped Up | Finding Clarity in Career Paths and Career Pivots
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It’s just us this week—Whitney and Greg—pulling back the curtain and kicking off a new kind of episode you’ll hear from time to time on the podcast. In between our guest conversations, we’ll be dropping these “core value” episodes where we dive into one of the six values at the heart of Vienna Waits.
This time, we’re talking about resilience. We share what resilience really means to us, why it’s so important, and how building Vienna Waits has tested and grown ours (sometimes in pretty ridiculous ways). We also share some entrepreneurial bloopers and ways that we have tripped up along our journey to build our business. Every one of these mistakes has taught us something and helped us bounce back stronger.
We break down why we believe resilience isn’t something you’re born with, but something you learn by getting up after a fall. Greg also shares our POSSE model we work through in our UNBLOCK Yourself program for resilience and how you can figure out where you might need a little boost.
You’ll hear more of these core value episodes here and there, sprinkled in with our usual interviews. If you ever feel like you’re the only one stumbling your way through something new, you’re definitely not alone. Come for the stories, stay for the laughs, and maybe leave feeling a little more courage to try your own thing.
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.
We’d love to connect with you. Here’s where to find us:
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Greg
So Vienna Waits is inspired by music, and we've talked about this a bit before, Whitney. We are music lovers, you and I. That was a bond that goes back to when I think we first met, and we're we're getting to know each other. We love music. And, it turns out we both love Billy Joel. We didn't know that about each other, but the song Vienna resonated with us. Whitney
It was the lyrics in it. Right? It's like, you can get what you want or you can just get old. Hi. I'm Whitney. Greg
And 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. Hey, everyone. We are back. We're a few episodes in, and we actually have no guest today on this podcast. Greg
Just you and me. Whitney
Yeah. Just you and me. And we're starting a bit of a series. Greg
We're gonna talk about what is so exciting about the work that we are doing and how we've been through trials, tribulation, and emerge the other side through grit, determination, and one of our core values, which is resilience. And just talk a bit about that. Whitney
A question we wanted to start with that we always get. This podcast is called Unblock Yourself, and that's also the name of our program, the Unblock Yourself program. But our company name is Vienna Waits, and that really throws people off. They're like, what does that mean? What's Vienna Waits? We wrote about it, so it is on our website, but maybe you can share a bit more about what that means. Greg
Yeah. So Vienna Waits is inspired by music, and we've talked about this a bit before, Whitney. We are music lovers, you and I. That was a bond that goes back to when I think we first met, and we're getting to know each other. We love music. And, it turns out we both love Billy Joel. We didn't know that about each other, but the song Vienna resonated with us. I've been listening to it for years. I am a I am a I have a tendency to go deep on albums. I love albums, and I found this song years ago, from, just exploring Billy Joel music. And I always liked it, but I didn't listen to what it was about. But you and I just seemed to tune into it at the same time. Whitney
No. I think we were driving to the cottage or something, and it came on. And you're like, god. I love this song. Like, you do? Like, we I think we'd never heard it. Greg
And Whitney
then we're like, it's such a good song. And we, like, turned it up, and I think, like, started listening actually listening to the lyrics. Greg
Yeah. Actually and I think it occurred to us both at the same time that it's a metaphor. The whole thing's just a metaphor. Yeah. So, yeah, you you share, then kinda where we go from there. We tune in. We both liked it. And then Whitney
Well, yeah. Like, I mean, the it was the lyrics in it. Right? It's like, you can get what you want or you can just get old. And I think that at that point in our lives, because we were thinking about blowing up our, well, I was anyway, my, like, work career and what am I gonna do next. And it was like, yeah. Like, I think the lyrics just hit at the right time. And so just that song, I think it stood out. So we started thinking about it. We're like, we knew we were gonna build a business, and we didn't know what the name was gonna be. We didn't, have a plan for that, and there's something about that song that really stood out. And then I think maybe it was, like, a couple weeks later or something. We happened to have a kid free evening, and we found ourselves, uptown in our city, and we went to a open mic night not to perform. Neither of us would. Greg
We haven't been asked that, which has been funny, but, no. We're performing. No. We're listeners. Whitney
Definitely listeners. Nobody wants to hear me sing anyway. You did at a wedding one time. That was awful. You're like, can Greg
you please sing or heard you sing? You did. Yeah. I I can't believe you brought that up. That'll that it requires its own episode. Whitney
You didn't divorce me, so that's good. I Greg
don't think we were married yet. Whitney
True true true true true true true true. Me. So there you go. But, anyway, we're at this open mic night, and one of the first like, this person gets up, and there's a piano. And, like, the song they start singing, they're like, oh, Billy Joel, classic. And Vienna, like, all Vienna is a popular song, but it's not that popular. I think it's grown in popularity recently. Greg
I think since we since we started to like it, then everybody else cut up or Whitney
Must be us. Greg
Yeah. Whitney
Anyway, he starts playing Vienna. We're like, what? That's wild. Like, we haven't heard this song never. Like, certainly not an open mic. It was just such a cool moment, and we hadn't heard that song in years. And so, anyway, then we're like, alright. Let's lean into this. And then Vienna Waits was born. So it's kinda where where that name comes from. Greg
Yeah. And I think the well, the metaphor carries. It's about the fact that we get so caught up chasing, and we forget to really live. And Mhmm. I think that that is a great marker. And like you said, you can get what you want or you can just get old. That, I think, just hammers us every single time even now when we sit down and listen to it. Yeah. It's absolutely a mantra we live by. Whitney
I know. And I I was picturing, like, an office at some point or, you know, a retreat or something, and there's, like, quotes or pictures in the quotes and, like, not only not only that lyric, but slow down, you crazy child. There's just so there's so much gold in that song, and I'm such a nerd for quotes, and good lyrics. So, anyway, just hit me. Greg
Yeah. Well and I think so if we if we kinda build from that, that's where the the name came from. But just the work itself, yes, we've got this podcast now, and we don't have the office with the quotes on the walls, and we haven't built our Vanaoites empire Whitney
Not yet. Greg
So to speak. So we're Not yet. What we're building. And I think there's something to what we're we're trying to do in these conversations and even just doing this work is so often you go, you build the thing, you create this massive success story, and then you reflect back on it and record the podcast and write the book. And there's something great about that. There's lots of those stories out there. I think one of the things that we felt was important was as we're building this, there are so many great stories to capture along the way. And why wait until we get to the other side? It just feels like we'd be like everybody else. Mhmm. If we're gonna be intentional, we're gonna be real and gonna be accessible and help people with the programs that we offer. And even in these conversations, it just felt like we can't wait until we get to the end and retrospectively tell the story that that makes us sound like we're these heroes. Nobody really has it figured out, and neither do we, but we're we're working toward building and making this something that can be helpful to people, which is a big big part of why we want to do this. Whitney
I think too, like, in the, you know, this new age AI world, like, people just need authenticity. They want to heal hear stories, the good, the bad, the ugly. They want that vulnerability. And so I think, yeah, like, through the program and the podcast, it's like, we need to share these stories to help people. And that's helped me a lot hearing other people, you know, and the things that they've they've gone through. And, we're gonna we've already had a ton of guests, well, not a ton, but we've had a few guests, sharing their stories of resilience and things they've overcome. And I just think that really helps. It's people are people. Right? It's you know, you wanna connect with humans. You wanna relate to the stories, and, it can really help you kinda navigate the own your own stuff that you're looking through. Greg
I would agree. And so I think to to one thing to one point, this is when people are getting to know us is Vienna Waits. And anybody who is, again, supporting us, thank you for listening. We appreciate you. For the new people that are getting to know us, I mean, we've had successful careers, and we've done work to build teams and sell deals and grow. This is about taking those skills and translating them into something different. Mhmm. And that's something that we are doing and that we're trying to figure out how to to do successfully and create something new. And through our our programming, specifically, that unblock program is is the unblock yourself program is bringing people in who have skills, who have achieved things in their careers, but are finding themselves just feeling a little bit stuck in saying, well, is this really what it's all about? Questions that we've faced. And like you said, Whitney, I think when we have been sharing our stories, people are starting to share theirs with us. And just to to share those people who have already come through and been part of the the first series of these programs. I mean, we've had somebody who's launched a speaking business, somebody who struggled with self worth and valuing the beautiful person that they are for their their lives, who has amazing daughters of her own, launching a let's call it a brand, but a wellness mission to movement to help help other women see and recognize the beauty that they have themselves and bring that to the world. We've had somebody who's had a side hustle concept on the back burner for a decade, bringing it to life and maybe even turning that into a full time job and, a local legend who's trying to inspire the world to be kinder and launching that and taking it to a whole other level. I think there have been so many inspiring stories starting to come in that while we might just be getting started and we're building and we're trying to build that in public and and do it so that others can see it, we're already seeing other people being so or accomplishing so much, and we've gotta tell, I think, not just our own story, but tell some of their stories too, which this podcast gives us a chance to do, which is exciting. Whitney
Yeah. For sure. I do think we need to it sounds like, oh my god. You guys are so amazing. You're doing all these wonderful things. I think we need to be So Alright. Greg
But so yeah. Oh, people are too near now. Like, what is this? What are Whitney
Like These Greg
people are Whitney
So we narcissists. Yeah. So we I actually think we should share some of the ways that we've messed up along the way, because to get to this point, like, our entrepreneur our early entrepreneur journey, which we're still on, but we've had we've had definitely some bumps along the way to say the least. And I think we should share some just so that people are like, oh, yeah. Okay. Cool. You're human. Because we do have all these wonderful stories, and we're getting, like, you know, these success stories. It's all wonderful, but it's not coming without you know, we we're collecting some bruises as we go. Greg
There are some Whitney
You had the first one, so I'm gonna Greg
Oh, thank you. Whitney
Make you tell the time that you messed up. Greg
I I will say this, that we were doing great at building this business until we started. Like, all the ideas were amazing. And then we started doing the business, and then it, yeah, started to get messy. So thank you for the opportunity to share. I feel it feels it feels like a good one. We've apologized to the individual in question. Whitney
Yeah. And they will know Greg
who they are. But these are just some early fails that we we felt were great to reflect on. So we launched our first program in January, and we promoted it, through our channels. And we we said we gotta celebrate when the first person signs up and pays. That is now then we're in business, and away we go. And sure enough, we post it out there. We get a sign up, and all of a sudden, money showed up. And we went, what? Okay. It's real now. And, also, Whitney
it was, like, the best money, genuinely, that I think either of us have ever made because we were like, we made a thing, we created a business, we put it out there, and someone paid us. And, yeah, we haven't delivered anything yet, but they were signed up. You know? They're like, yes. We wanna be part of it. It was a huge moment. Greg
We're we're high fiving. We're excited. And then we in our excitement I say we. This is definitely a royal we. This is me. I sit back down. I I immediately go, thank you so much. Blah blah blah. Send the email back, and I send it, and we continue our high five and just we're we're fired up. Like, let's go get the next one. Here we go. And moments later, we get another email back from this person who says, yep. Excited to get started. Just gotta let you know it doesn't feel great when you sign up for a thing and you get an email back when they put the wrong name on the email. Oh. So first customer Whitney
Yeah. Greg
First customer, and our first thank you email, was addressed to the wrong person. Wrong name. Whitney
Yeah. Not the best. Not the best. Not the best starting, put to start on. Greg
Yeah. And then this other one, I'll I'll tell it in your behalf. So second one was so in our programming, we sent out a workbook and we this is fortunately digital, not the printed one, because we had these printed beautiful workbooks that you lovingly created, Whitney. But the digital copy of the workbook, fortunately, went out, and we had people work through it. And this local legend that we referred to earlier, who's a branding mastermind who very, you know, generously took the program, had his own mission to accomplish, opens it up and is working through it and points out that where we said assess your values, we had actually put in asses your values, which is a minor typo, but just laughable. And also when you're putting your work out into the world and you have a branding guru pointing out to you that you put asses into your Whitney
I have one too many s's there. Greg
Yeah. I get your s's right. So those are two good ones, but I think you you take the cake. You yours is I might Yours is the best. Whitney
Okay. So this is mine. So, yeah, this was kind of a big one. So we put out you know, we've launched Vienna weights. We put it out on LinkedIn. We're feeling really good about it. Like, people are connecting with us and checking out what we're doing, and that's all cool. And we've updated our profiles and our headlines and all that to say, like, what we do now. And a lot of, like, our messaging was around this thing of, like, helping people get off autopilot. So that's, like, live more intentionally, and we're here to help you get off autopilot. So that was kind of my tagline or my headline on LinkedIn. And cool. Great. Like, again Greg
Sure. It'll follow celebrating. Way to go. Yeah. Whitney
Love the new messaging and stuff. That was cool. That was exciting. But then I get a private LinkedIn message from someone who I don't know that well, but he's very well respected. And, I think we're becoming friends now, so we're getting to know them a bit better now. But at the time, I didn't really know him at all, and he very politely pointed out that, on mobile, my LinkedIn profile headline said, Whitney, helping people get off. And it was like dot dot dot because it couldn't all fit. So I was like, oh my anyway, like, the most. I I just still feel so embarrassed about that. Greg
What kind of businesses? Anyway Whitney
yeah. Like, what? What are you doing? Greg
So I Whitney
was like, oh my god. So, anyway, tip pro tip. Make sure you check your responsive design on all On all devices. Mobile, tablets, desktop, all the places, before you just put something out. So I had to definitely update that. But, yeah, I might take the cake. Greg
That one takes the cake. It's my favorite for sure. It's so It is. So embarrassing. Whitney
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So all of this to say, we are not perfect. We are we're we are we're building just like the people who are are in our programs, just like the people who are coming to the retreat and joining us at Waypoint in September, which is which is great. And for us, choosing to start was the big thing. But these missteps and mistakes, I mean, they harden, they kinda harden us as we go. And just before we close off today, we wanted to talk a little bit about that one core value of ours, which, is the first in this series, which is resilience because it was hard to start. But now that we've started, now that we're making these mistakes and some days feel better than others, certainly, it just takes a lot of resilience for us to keep moving through. Whitney
Yeah. I know you wrote a blog about it actually, Greg, recently, but resilience, like, when you think about it, it's not something that you're born with. Right? People aren't born resilient. It's definitely something that you you build and, you know, you kind of acquire as you as you live and go through different challenges and things. So we're kind of I mean, not us, but everyone is kind of constantly building that as they go. Greg
Sometimes it's like, oh, you're such a resilient person. And some people can be feel like you are or you aren't that, and that's just not what we believe. Whitney
And so well, when we built our unblock yourself program, we kinda went out looking for alright. We know people. In order to have go through change, right, to make a change, and do something hard, like, we know that people need resilience. So after doing a bit more research, we actually ended up building out our own framework, and you kinda coined the term or the, the acronym for it, which is POSSE, p o s s e. You were very excited about it because you're like, yeah. POSSE, it's us. We're like a group of people in the program, and we're like the POSSE. Like, I don't I don't love that, but but it made sense. Greg
I still stand by it. The idea of you've got a you have a posse. A posse makes you resilient. It's hard to be resilient on your own. So it it connects. I think it lands. And and so the POSSE framework I mean, we have more research to do to build it out to reinforce, what this is all about, but the the key spoiler on this whole thing is that it's a five part exercise that we have people do to self assess how much or how they would rate themselves across these five dimensions, give some sense of how resilient that they are or that they may be, and then what you can do about that to grow your resilience. And, absolutely, the number one thing, just fast forwarding to the end, to become more resilient is to do more hard things. But in preparing for the hard thing, what are those different things that might make a person resilient? And so the p, so p o s s e, p is practice. What experience do you have doing hard things in your life? And hard things is relative to the individual. What you have found difficult and challenging, Whitney, is not the same as what I have found difficult and challenging. Your upbringing as we've shared, you had all kinds of things you had to navigate that I never did, and I faced something more challenging than what people would self describe as, well, gee. I could never imagine that, but that's not the point. It's you as an individual, what has been a challenging experience that you've faced. Mhmm. The o is for optimism. Are you somebody who defaults to feeling in control, an internal locus of control or an external locus of control? And if you're somebody who has that more internal sense, like, I have more control or a sense of of control of what's happening in the world, that gives you a better toolkit to be more resilient by default. If you're more external, you know, like, things are happening to me and you can self assess on that. Something to be aware of and a part of your resilience toolkit that you need to build. S, structure. Do you have systems and tools? We talk about this a lot just between you and I. This is where I feel like in our relationship, I brought some structure. Whitney
Oh, yeah. Oh, I'd say. I did not like I had a calendar and, you know, I wasn't responsible at all. But, yeah, you have way more systems and structure in place. But if if something terrible was to happen to us now, like, thank god for you because I don't yeah. You keep things in check. Greg
The idea here is just that. If you face a challenging situation, do you have systems just to carry you through that, or is it just a bit of a a mess? So, again, self assessing there. S, the second s is for support. Do you have a strong network of support to help you navigate those challenging times? You, Whitney, are somebody that I mean, you are just you've you've had incredible people Mhmm. Around you through your life that have just been great and supportive friends for you. Whitney
Yeah. That's a huge one. Right? The people that are around you. It might not be your direct family. It's just having people that you can call on and are there for you, got your back. Greg
Yeah. And I think if you so we have people kinda list out who are those people in facing a hard thing. And so that's the the second s. And then finally, the e is emotional regulation. So how high are your highs and how low are your your lows? And Arthur c Brooks in his book, build the life you want, builds this or built out this framework, that has these four different personality types. And so we have people select which of those four. If you're kinda your highs are highs and you tend to just be high, then you're a cheerleader. If you're kinda low and you tend to stay low, then you're what you call a poet. And then, the the others are I have high highs and really low lows. Whitney, we've identified you as a mad scientist. Oh, yeah. Whitney
High highs, low lows. No in between. Greg
And then the judge You love that? Yeah. I do love that every time. And then if you're a little bit narrower, it's, you know, you don't go really high and you don't go really low. You're kind of pretty consistent. You're this judge, and that's sort of me, in in our scenario. But having an understanding of each of those five dimensions allows you to then contextualize, okay. Am I a resilient person? Do I have these tools in my toolkit that can help you face a challenging situation? And, and if you do, then you have more to lean on. And if you don't, then there are things you can do to practice and build those things, build that resilient skill. So that's the POSSE model, p o That's the POSSE model. Whitney
There you go. I think Greg
we'll do more with that. Whitney
So clever. Right? Maybe someone will pick that up from us. We will sell that one day. Greg
I think it'd be good. I think there's more we could do with it. It's it's been useful, and so we wanted to share it. Whitney
Been. Yeah. Greg
And so we wanted to share it here in case it's useful to any of you. Whitney
Our values is being generous. So Greg
Oh, you're you're giving it away. Well, that that's another one for us to talk about in another episode. Yeah. Whitney
That's a different one. But, yeah, we do use that exercise. It's incredibly helpful. And it it's really just coming down to action. Right? Everything we do when we talk about it is like, let's get people moving. Let's get them actually, like, taking action. And you need to be resilient to do that. And, you know, doing hard doing doing hard things is hard, I was gonna say, but making change is hard. Greg
Mhmm. Whitney
And so you kinda need to build that. You need to get a check of where you might need a a little extra support. Maybe you don't have the support system. You know, maybe you need a bit of help there. Maybe you need a bit more optimism and need to work on that, but there's different elements and things, that you can do and work on. Yeah. So, yeah, there's people in our program and, and people on the podcast that we talk to that are incredibly resilient. And we just love those stories, and and we're gonna continue sharing them, as we as we move forward. Greg
Yeah. We're very excited for an upcoming episode. Won't give away who it is, but I think that'll be a core theme of that episode is just digging into resilience and becoming the hero of your own story and overcoming hardship, but I think it's a central theme in all of these conversations. So we are gonna get back to our interviews, but we we we just wanna mix it up. We wanna keep it interesting, and we will continue to do that because I know, Whitney, another value of ours is adventure. So So we just have to keep Whitney
that going. Definitely. It is definitely adventure. I do we do like to switch things up and change things up. But, yeah, one last thought before we go. Natalie Dumond, if you haven't listened to the episode we had, with Natalie Dumond, please do. It was such a great episode. She shares a ton of valuable insight just on shame and, and her move out of corporate, to, you know, her own adventure in building something and doing something brave on her own. So that's great. But she had told us really early on, like, if you could help just one person, you know, would you do it? And, you know, I kinda wanna ask that to anyone who's listening. Like, if there's something that you can do and you know that you could help just one person, would you do it? So, anyway, give that some thought. I think that's helpful. We have now helped at least one person, which is cool. We were a bit more aggressive with our pool. We picked one million people to help, and so we need a lot of listeners and people going through our program, but we're getting there. And you know what? We've already helped one person. So guess what? It's all worth it. Greg
It is all worth it. So thank you for tuning in. Thank you for everyone who's been part of the journey with us so far. We look forward to sharing more of these episodes and more amazing stories and episodes to come. So thank you, and we will be back. Whitney
Bye, guys. Greg
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 if enough of 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. 
