If I continue to do this, is it going to be who I'm becoming and who I feel I am? Or is there something more? But it's not about wanting more, it's about wanting something meaningful and something purposeful, helping individuals find their own authentic voice and understand that journey that I went through, probably a lot of people go through that and doesn't require them to give, but it does require them to come back to themselves. And I think if more people felt that self empowerment and that authenticity, we have far better leaders and far happier people and far happier environments. Hello, welcome back to another episode of Code 3 Life Reinvented. I am your host, AJ Jones, and I have a guest today who I'm really looking forward to speaking with. She has an incredible career in the legal world and I will let her describe that, but she's no longer there and we're going to find out why. As part of this journey, we're going to understand a little bit about what transformation and transition looks like and the messy parts and the good parts and the fun parts. So thank you for investing some of your time today to listen to this episode and I'd like to welcome Varyshka to the show. Hello, Varyshka. Hi, Adrian. Thank you so much for having me today. It's an honor to have you as a guest on our show and I am super thrilled to get going here. So let's just get right into the conversation. This podcast is called Code 3 Life Reinvented. Did you have a Code 3 type moment? It doesn't have to be lights and sirens and a big emergency ride to the hospital. Just in some format. Did it appear to you? I think many people have those moments where they question what they're doing next, whatever the catalyst might be, whatever they code 3 catalyst might be. And for me, it was about, like you mentioned, I've had this legal career. I've practiced law within a law firm in South Africa and I moved into corporate and I've been in corporate for the last 15 years. I've worked for global giants, companies like Accenture, Google, DHL, all of these names people know. And it's been an amazing career and very successful with the titles and the office and all the things you can think of from the outside looking in perfect on paper. But I had a moment where I was standing in an office in Central London, which is where I am right now in London. I don't know if the greatest cities to work in, great for travel and great for different markets and business and you name it. I don't need to sell it. But I was questioning, do I want to keep doing this? Is this who I want to be? The reason why I'm asking myself that question at that point in time is because everything looked great on paper, but I had this feeling of emptiness or not feeling fulfilled. With that comes a sense of guilt because you think other people looking at you will say, "Well, you have all of this stuff. Why are you being so ungrateful? Why do you want some more?" But it's not about wanting more. It's about wanting something meaningful and something purposeful. I did everything I needed to do. I needed to change direction. And so I saw that as my cold three-moment because to make that kind of pivot and change is difficult for you as an individual to digest, but imagine all your loved ones around you. So you have to deal with that. A huge part, an absolutely huge part. But when I think of your careers, I understand it. You've made a big investment in becoming a top-flight lawyer, law school and exams and intense job interviews, an intense performance culture. You're in a high stakes, high reward, high risk environment on the corporate side as I understand it. To walk away from that, I mean from some aspects, like, "I don't want to deal with all that pressure." But you're involved in some very interesting deals, M&A work, I believe, and things along that nature, which could be very interesting. And there I say sexy in some regards. It takes a real moment of reflection and honesty. Historical honesty is I like to say with yourself to allow that inner voice to shine through, as you said, that you wanted meaning and purpose. And is this really the life you want to have at this stage in your life? And it was interesting, too. You mentioned the word guilt. Tell us a little bit more about that guilty feeling because I'm sure there are people listening to this who probably feel the same way. When you have that moment, like you said, to have that self-reflection and almost raw honesty with yourself, it didn't happen just in that moment. As Steve Jobs says, "You can only connect the dots looking backwards, not forwards." I had pivoted from working as a law clerk to a justice, to going into a law firm, to going into a house in banking, then I moved to consulting. So I had done many jumps, maybe like six jumps in my career. When I say pivots, I changed industry, not just company. I changed the whole sector, really. But it was all still legal, commercial and business. And the reason why I did those things is because I felt this thirst for knowledge and experience in life. And I thought to be a better lawyer, I needed to understand business. And to have a bigger impact, even if I wanted to go back into the judiciary, I needed to understand life. I needed to understand people, cultures, markets, businesses. So this whole time, I'm doing all of these pivots and changes to acquire knowledge, to acquire experience, to acquire what I thought was going to take me to that point where, "Oh, now I'm ready to do this." And the this that I had thought when I was a very young law student and then started working with, "I was going to be a judge. I was going to go back to the judiciary and I was going to sit on the bench, but I couldn't be a 20-year-old judge. I needed to go learn about the world." Once I started to go and work in business and realized what life is like and the power and resources that businesses have, initially I wanted to work for non-governmental organizations. And I realized, "Oh, they don't have as much power in what they have to use, whether it's resources, whether it's law, whether it's policy, that made me decide to go into business where I saw the money and the power to influence and make positive change." So at the whole time, I'm making these changes and these pivots with that "why" in the back of my head. Granted, it allowed me to climb the ladder to what looked like very ambitious and to do those things, to get the roles, to get the money, everybody needs money to live anyway. But the goal was never a title and money, but I knew that's what would help me get to where I needed to be. And so the long answer to that question was, "It's about understanding what it is you're trying to achieve and then you stop and you always check to see if you're getting there." And I had reached that point where I felt like I was losing something along the way. Every time I made those jumps and justified them, it was also missing something. And I guess that little gap or that thing that was missing started to grow even bigger till I actually felt that what we call the emptiness or that need for, "Okay, I'm not really achieving this the way I would. So I need to reassess this. One of the other things I think you might relate to, or even other people might relate to, is that. Sometimes there's a quite voice in your head that's saying, "Hey, is this really what we're going to do? Is this really what we're going to be? Are we getting it done? Do we feel good about this? It's the tiny little things that make you think, "Oh, man, that I'm pleased." And you can't ignore it. You get to a point where you can't ignore it. That is a really important point because I think in the world from which we both come, me from financial services, you from, as you just described in corporate law, there's a lot of money, there's a lot of prestige, there's big responsibilities, big mandates and remits and all this sort of stuff. That little voice can talk to us whenever that voice shows up wherever you are commuting or going for a walk on the weekend, whatever it is. But I think a lot of people just tamp it down. Like, "Ah, what is this? I got a lock in on work. I got to answer some working emails this weekend. What's going on here?" But you allowed yourself to listen to it. Why? Did that, too, the bit you explained about sort of tapering it down, just saying, "Hey, okay, I know, we're going to get there." Or not listen to it at all and distract yourself and believe that, "Oh, but I have more to prove." So it asks you the question, you go, "But I'm not ready yet." Or, "I need to go and do this. I need to learn this." And so I'm someone who loves to learn so everyone, so I'll also pick up some studies along with WEC. And so I was doing a lot of that when I wasn't feeling fulfilled and the voice was questioning me. I was like, "Oh, let me go and do some volunteer work locally. Let me go and do this course thinking that will fulfill me and give me something more." And so when it's stopped doing that.
that, what started to happen, and it's obviously because I chose to observe it and I chose to question it, is the universe started creating circumstances that opened up, I guess my path and my way and my mind do not then distract myself and not ignore it. If I was doing lots of great deals and traveling around a lot and enjoying what I was doing, then suddenly it all just, there wasn't anything like that anymore. It was quite down, things were changing, circumstances were different and I had to decide, oh do I want to do this role or should I ask for some other challenge wherever, whichever company I was in? And I would do that, I would ask for another challenge, but that's where I was making a mistake because it was telling me to stop and think, it's like you've done everything now, that's great, it's time for you to go and do that. And I didn't know what that was until the circumstances all culminated around me in such a way that I couldn't ignore it anymore. It was about am I happy on a day to day basis? And if the answer was no, then I had to ask why because it's just something I can't ignore. It's incredible that you did listen to it and for those that are listening to this episode and you hear that voice, I think for us and I would both agree, listen to it because it's probably not going to go away and that voice is going to resurface in different ways and means throughout your life. It does, it needs to speak and it needs to be heard and you address it in some capacity. I applaud you and those that are listening to that voice, that inner voice that's telling them, hey, this isn't it, am I happy on a day to day basis? No, okay, why not and what am I going to do about it? So that's the key part. Okay, so you've listened to yourself, now you're going to take action. What are you doing now and how long have you been doing what you're doing? I was fortunate enough to take the action and take some time out to actually distance myself from what I call that old life to be able to decide what to do next. It just so happens that I decided to go and study something again and without knowing it, I was going to end up doing that which I've been doing for the past year which is an executive coach. And the reason I chose to do that because I realized I've got so much of experience and whole lifetime in corporate, why not go back and help them from the outside in? And that was my justification for then deciding to do that and helping individuals find their own authentic voice and understand that journey that I went through, probably a lot of people go through that and doesn't require them to leave, but it does require them to come back to themselves. And I think if more people felt that self-empowerment and that authenticity, we'd have far better leaders and far happier people and far happier environments. You are preaching to the choir. Those are some magic words in my worldview, authenticity, alignment, authentic truth, and that leads to happier people, happier environments. That is absolutely ideal. There's no doubt. You said earlier and I put a pin in it that I do want to come back to it, I'll take the pin out. You talked about when you transition, you have to work with your loved ones. That conversation can be really scary. Even if you've been with a partner of spouse for many years through thick and thin, approaching them and saying, "Hey, you know what? I've got to listen to this and I'm going to tap out of what I'm doing. I'm going to leave this and walk away and go follow my instincts in my heart, some play sales." In your case, it sounds like you walked away from peak earnings in your career, probably with fun cash and prizes and stock options that go with it, I'm guessing. You're nodding out. You walked away from that and you actually didn't have a plan yet. Your plan was to listen and go back to school, do some learning and some capacity. How did you work with your loved ones who support you? What was their response? Was there pushback or concern? How did you navigate through that? Part of it is also because of second-stances and it helps, depending on the situation and what kind of plan you have. Also, your loved ones know who you are. If they have enough trust in you, it's almost as if, "Well, unfortunate enough to have that in the sense that it's one of those, you know what you're doing. You're going to bounce back and it's going to be fine." I think the big good challenge for me was, I knew that it wasn't something, or for most people, I think when you do that sort of change way, it's like, "I got to figure it out for me. I got to listen to me. I know this is the right thing for me to do because it's generally what intuition does. It gives you the answer without necessarily having the evidence or the proof where you can justify it to other people. The hardest part of that journey was let people know or let my loved ones know that this is what I'm doing and that I'm okay and this is the right decision for me and I will be okay and to let it go and allow them to watch and trust because they're going to have their own process and I didn't have the capacity to help them through that process, depending if you tend to be on your personality, if it was stronger one, etc. So I think for me, it was more about digesting the fact that I was making a decision and I wasn't sure what was going to happen. I just knew it was the right thing to do and I had to just let them know that they have to continue to trust me and that I will be okay and that's not an easy thing to do because most people are not comfortable with that and I'm not saying I was super comfortable with it but I just had to trust because if you've trusted your intuition before and done some big things and some small things, it lets you know if you can trust it again with something like this. So again, I'm fortunate enough to have done that and just went with it but no, it was not for me or anyone around me. I can imagine what those conversations would be like and it sounds to me like you did a little bit like what I did and what I call my trust fall with the universe. Like I'm not exactly sure where this journey is going to go but I know it directly. For me, I wanted to go help and inspire others to get more out of life. It wasn't at all sure what former format that would take or where that would lead me. Thankfully, the fabulous Mrs. Jones aka my wife Liz, she was urging me to do it. Like you are so you've got to go like do this or you're going to go crazy if not now when. Thankfully, there was a bit of a different conversation but it's still a conversation like okay, well how are we going to make ends meet if we're going to forego this salary like how are we going to figure it out? You can figure it out. You can figure anything out. It's interesting. Regions figure out. Did you have a way that you got sorted out to help you with this journey? I would never advocate for people making decisions without having any kind of plan. So I still had a plan in place. I still had plan A, B and C but I also had the luxury to be able to process and take that time out. But it meant making sure that like you said financially you've got something in mind. You also know what you might do when you're ready and if you have the luxury to give yourself that time then that's great. But I also think that once you can have a plan in place life doesn't always go according to plan and nothing is ever guaranteed. Even if you have a salary job or even a business you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. That company could have some kind of issue or the markets might do something. So, whilst nothing is guaranteed everything is still figure outable. And I think all of that taught me and now again looking back is interesting the intuition and having the self belief is what sort of gets you through a lot of it. It's not easy but still gets you through it. It's very important to trust yourself and like you said, what was it? What was that term you used in? Trustful with the universe. Yeah. Thank God. It's really that. Because there's several aspects you've got to have faith in and you just don't there's no crystal ball. No, there's no crystal ball and it will never go the way you planned. I like to ask myself in these sort of situations, what's the worst that could happen if it doesn't go right? Can you do that math, that calculation, the calculus, however you want to say it? What is the worst thing? Maybe you have to downsize your house. What you really get pushed and you're just not sure exactly can you make the move? Let's just do a quick honest assessment. What's the worst thing that can happen here? And once I identify that, can I live with that and what impact would that be for me? Okay, then let's go for it. Right? You know what that makes me think of is that when you get to that moment where you question things and you make that change, you almost have to redefine your version of success or rather, it's more you get to your own definition and not everybody else's. The defining authentic success is one of the most important things.
the core pillars of the more methodology without any prompting, you brought that up and I put a huge smile on my face. But I think that is so important and I think is often overlooked. Can you step away from the world in which you've been hardwired to achieve accomplished, accomplished, accomplished, current, whatever? And step back and say, what is my version of success? And that is important to me, not my peers, not my mentors, not my parents or my spouse or partner to me. And that takes a lot of courage to step back and honestly look at things. A lot. And it takes time because it doesn't happen overnight and you got to sit with it because if you are honest because that process only really works if you're truly honest, you sometimes have to let go of something that you loved that was really a part of you and will still be a part of you but not in the same way. And what that does is you have to grieve that's lost or that's attachment in order to take it with you in now a different form. And until I learned that, which I hadn't known until a good few years ago, understanding that's okay to look at it as so-called grief in a way and process it that way, it made things so much easier to then digest and carry. Although you go through the sadness, you go through the challenge, you go through digging deeper and those moments that most of us would prefer to just avoid. But what I've also learned is you just can't avoid it, it's inevitable. You do it now or later, it's going to happen. It's going to come up and best to recognize what it is rather than buried so deep that you can't even recognize the root cause. What has been throughout this journey for you, what has been the hardest, toughest part, biggest challenge you've had to work your way through? What's a big learning curve to jump from something that's so structured, so it's easy to say, "Oh, that's the part where I need to, if I learn lots of them, oh, I need to become managing partners, for example." So you know, you aspire to something, there's a pathway, there's easy to find a mentor, it's easy to go around. When you come out of that structure, you come out of those pathways and now you come into something that's completely opposite, so you're changing your entire mindset, albeit by choice, but it's a totally different way of looking at the world. And to restructure your life, restructure your thinking, your mindset, finding people, and doing things that are super uncomfortable is challenging because every day I'm learning something new because I'm trying to close a learning gap between being an employee to being self-employed or being my own CEO, if you will. And that's very different. I love it, I love the idea and I chose to do it, but it challenges me every day. Would you go back, anything calling you back or how are you feeling about it now? I can't imagine myself going back to what it was. I don't think we can ever be the previous versions we were anyway, but if you think about environment and circumstances, someone said, "I could take you and transplant you into exactly that same situation you were in," Vance would be no. But if I were to go back and do anything work with people, it would be in a different way because I'm a different version of me. I think differently. I see it differently. You just can't go back. So, yeah. Looking at your career in success in general, what have you found to be a truth about your success in general that is actually a lie? I think it comes down to that definition of success. You study, you work, you strive to prove yourself and you think that proving yourself is the title, is the things you've done, the monetary value of a deal or the big client or the big names and the getting awards and all of those things. And whilst that does tick boxes and maybe opens doors, it's not my version of success. Now that I've done it, I can say that and I wouldn't take it back and I wouldn't change it and I loved it when I was doing it. But if I think about the truth of the matter is, I don't know if I was doing it for the reason. Well, there's no right answer. What are those truths we've told ourselves all along and then we realize, wait a minute, that's actually not true at all. I ask that question because I think it helps people open up their minds for those who are starting to listen to that voice or they've heard it loud and clear and they don't quite know what to do with it. It's helpful to hear those answers to that question. If I think about when you're in something and someone tells you, oh, you need to be here, you need to do this, you need to care about that. If I think about the corporate which you've been in, when someone tells you, oh, it's about these numbers and we've got to get that deal done and everyone talks in this thing, oh, I was so busy and I worked till this time and I helped us when I'm thinking, is that really how we see the value? I mean, yes, it's part of the job. Yes, it's something that needs to be done. But we're touching the wrong value to these things. That's what would get me every time. It's like, sometimes I struggle to have those conversations and I couldn't speak that way, which then might have held me back or didn't give me that extra promotion or that extra prize or whatever because when you start to question that, you're like, surely that can't be important to them. Surely there must be something else or somewhere else they want to be. And it's not just about, oh, let me get this deal done because then everyone think I'm amazing. Come next year, they forgot about that deal you did, right? For the lies we tell ourselves in those environments, what's actually important to you and why is it not okay to say that's part of the job, but that's not important to you. They're amazing to think like in those environments, right, that you're just referenced. Is everyone thinking the same way? We all are thinking the thought that we're not saying it out loud and we're all like saying these things and participating and showing up in a certain way. That's kind of interesting that you're not on me there. Yeah. I've been thinking about that a lot more these days in different environments because I'm watching people talk about things and a simple example and a very sort of everyday example is, so I do salsa dancing in London and there's multiple venues and there's multiple organizers, multiple scenarios for these things, right? Some venues are amazing, some are not and things are changing, new ones are popping up. And so I listen to people give feedback, oh, have you tried this place? There's one particular place that's new and obviously I'm not going to name it and I haven't heard one good thing because when you talk to people outside of it, they'll tell you, oh, this is not right, that's not right, but they go, right? And then they go, oh, but you should try it. But the truth is what they really want to say is, I paid to go there and it really didn't deliver. That's what they should be saying. Not I'm criticizing the organized on criticizing the venue. It's like, it didn't live up to my expectations and there's nothing wrong with that. And people do the same thing for other aspects of life because they don't want to come across as, I don't know, negative or putting someone down, but there's a difference between relaying the facts and also how you feel about the situation versus complaining or being difficult. And I think if we told our stories more from our own perspective, maybe more people will really tell you what I actually feel like that. And maybe we should give the organizers some feedback and maybe they could improve it rather than we're all just complaining, but we still show up. Oh, it's just kind of interesting, right? What does this mentality, this herd mentality, we're in a way, we just changed the conversation a little bit, it could make a huge difference. I think. And by the way, I owe you an apology because I introduced you as Varushka as if you're like Paley and you have one name or like Ronaldo thinking of it's famous soccer players. I'm talking with Varushka Tagasar and her website is varushka-ar.com and you have a quote on there by the great Maya Angelou. But the quote that you have here, maybe you can shed some white, white, some important to you and how it hits and stuff. All right, here it is. Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. That is my favorite quote. It's the one that has gotten me through particularly this pivot and change in my life because it's like I was speaking before where we're all talking about the same things but we're not valuing it the same way. And I didn't understand what that meant early on in my career, but as I moved along and as I figured things out and decided that's not the type of leader I want to be or that's not the type of individual I want to be in that particular role. I'm never going to show up in the morning and speak to my colleagues and start talking about how many hours I've worked or what deal I'm on or whatever it is. I was like, I get why are they doing that? But that doesn't sit with me in a way that says that's how my value is. That's how I value myself or that's how I should be measured. There's a time and place for everything.
And so the same thing happened when I got to that aha moment and that point that said, "Okay, you walk away from this. You're going into territory that you don't know. But if you stay here, you're not going to be able to do better, which is God, then, help people be better at what they are doing as well, because everyone has something to offer. Everyone has a story. Everyone has a gift. And I saw that more people, as I was going through corporate and had been speaking to lots of people. I had seen a theme personally that stuck with me is this need for self-empowerment, this need for authenticity, this need to just show up and be who you are and contribute in a way that says, "You're there because you're supposed to be there, not because it's just a role or just a job. You have something to offer as a human being." And so the quote about knowing better is that once it's like I said with the pill in the matrix, once and you can't walk away from it. And that was the intuition and that was the thinking behind, "Okay, I can't keep doing this because I know better now and I have to do better." And whatever that's going to look like, that's what this journey is about. So that's why I absolutely love that quote. "If you do the best you can until you know better, then when you know better, do better." And we keep learning every day, right? Absolutely. So the truth is, when you don't know enough, you're doing the best you can. That's the part I truly believe. So when people do feel like they've woken up and had that aha moment, don't be hot on yourselves if you didn't know before, you didn't do anything before. Because now that you know, you can do something about it, right? Yeah, you weren't ready to really hear it or take action. Yeah, don't beat yourself up. Have self-compassion. What's still unfolding for you right now? Do you look ahead? From a business perspective, it's having more of a sustainable approach to what I'm doing and how I'm doing it now that I've chosen the pathway and just being more in that mindset and deciding in which directions I want to go in, because once you open up that, there's multiple things you can do, multiple ways you can do it and just learning to focus and prioritize and making sure that I am giving back in the right ways and not splitting my attention in too many places. So it's really about building up the coaching business and also doing a little bit of legal consulting on the side and deciding how I don't think the plan is quite there when I'm still architecting it. Reflecting back on this conversation we've had and I've really enjoyed it. I think you've got some great perspective. What is something that you could advise the listeners to the show today that they could put into practice immediately? That could help them. We just speak about self-belief our journeys. So we've gone through a bit of a process and I'd love to say to people who are even just thinking about it, not sure where to start, stop with knowing yourself. And what I mean by that is just question how you make your decisions on a day to day basis. What are those core values that you're using? Because that's what tells you when you're going off-kilter, when you betray yourself in some ways and that's why you might not be happy in a particular situation or something doesn't sit well with you. Because in that helps you sort of train and trust your intuition. And knowing yourself and using your intuition and then building self-belief, those things really, for me, it's core to having a strong foundation. So no matter what life throws at you, you'll be able to believe that you can handle it. And after that finding purpose, finding value on a day to day basis, being satisfied with what you're doing comes a little bit easier. Really know yourself and make the space to learn about yourself and enjoy that process of discovery. Maybe I'd love your thoughts on this. Get away from the computer. Step away from the computer or whatever screen and go for the walk, go someplace to really tune in and listen to who you are, what's calling to you from inside. It's not an easy process. When I first heard all of that, it was like, people asked the question, "How do I figure out who I am?" It's like, shouldn't I already know? We get so cluttered by everything that's external, which is why you advise of get away from a computer and not a screen or a phone, because then it allows you to not let the external stuff impact you. And then you're like, "Oh, I feel that. How do I feel that?" The answers will come, because you're not being distracted by all the noise. Varish, thank you so much for joining the show. Code 3, Life Free and Vennid. I think there are some really interesting points that you shared throughout the course of our conversation. Some that jumped out to me here was around listening to that voice. I think it's easy to dismiss it, to try to tamp it down. That inner voice is saying something for a reason. You need to listen to it and understand it, have a conversation with it, if you will, and then take some action based on that. But it's there for a reason, whether it's light as a feather tickling your elbow or it's like a sledgehammer hitting you in the forehead. I'll listen and see what you can do with it. Trust. Varish, I didn't keep count, but you must have said trust a thousand times. I mean that in a good way. It's right, it's true. You have to trust the journey that you're going on. You are capable, you are talented, you have all sorts of genius elements to you. You can't figure it out. Everything is figure out double. Sometimes it might not be super palatable given how your life has gone to this point. In my world, I left expensive Northern California and moved to the coastal North Carolina area, which I thought I would never leave California, but for me to live my version of more this made sense. So it's okay, things can be figured out. It's not the end of the world. If you have your health, you're doing all right. It's without health, you have nothing. And then start with knowing yourself. Really is a good place to start. It's first because tip for the day. Get outside, go know yourself, listen to what comes up, really pay attention to it. So, Priska, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and wisdom. If this conversation moved or inspired you, check out our website, morecareerwellness.com that's M-O-R-E, careerwellness.com for workbooks, workshops and ways to join the more community, our destination for accomplished professionals at a crossroads who are ready to redefine what's possible and move beyond a status quo that no longer serves them. You can reach out to me at
[email protected]. And remember, life doesn't wait for the perfect moment. It waits for the brave one. I'm AJ Jones, host of Code 3 Life Reinvented. Let's keep growing, keep choosing you and keep redefining what's possible. Until next time.
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