In this episode, meet Jenn T. Grace, my friend, a champion of storytelling, and financial advisor consultant turned founder of Publish Your Purpose. Jenn shares her personal path from navigating corporate challenges where she hid a big part of her identity to empowering authors through her organization.

We discussed crucial ways to align your personal values with your professional environment and touched on the struggle of balancing genuine self-expression with career expectations.

At the core, this episode is a rally cry for you to remember that your story matters; whether you're contemplating writing your own book, striving for authenticity in your career, or simply looking to better understand yourself and others.

This episode offers valuable perspectives on how personal and professional growth are interconnected. This line from Jenn pretty much sums it up for me: "There's a place for vulnerability in professional settings, but somehow we've lost our way in being able to do that."

Note: This episode was originally published on 5.12.24 without video.

About Jenn T. Grace:
An award-winning author, nationally recognized speaker, and savvy publishing strategist, Jenn T. Grace is the founder of Publish Your Purpose, the acclaimed hybrid publishing company that gives first-time authors the secrets to getting their books written, finding an eager audience, and marking their place in the publishing world. She is the author of seven books, including Publish Your Purpose: A Step-by-Step Guide to Write, Publish, and Grow Your Big Idea. Jenn has been featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and CNBC.

Key Takeaways:

• Freedom and connection in the workplace happens when we can open up and be more vulnerable with telling our stories.
• Workplace culture may lead you to ask if it's a place that aligns to your values or if it's time to leave.
• Our superpowers often come from the places that we shame, hide, or don't know how to embrace.
• We often make efforts to conform, but the more we do the work on ourselves we can see that we don't have to be around people that lower our vibration.
• Grief work is part of pruning relationships in our life as we honor our priority to rise to the next level.
• When you free yourself from what's not serving you, you become more of who you are, and more confident that you're worthy of better. You deserve more. This is the process of becoming your own best friend.

Quotables:

• (5:38) Jenn: "I find that so many people have stories to share that either are not currently reflected in what's available, or they feel like they're not good enough to be the one that shares the story, or they're not important enough, or there's that kind of underlaying of imposter syndrome that I think everyone experiences."
• (12:42) Tosca: "My belief is that the reason why we're in this situation with workplace culture is because we're not showing up, giving ourselves permission to be all of who we are and to be vulnerable and to just be honest because we're all just stuffing shit, you know? And all people really want is connection at work."
• (39:45) Jenn: "We have to be brave enough to take that first step to say, I don't really know how I'm going to get there, but I have this vision that I want to get somewhere that's not here. Let me start exploring and take that first baby step because the path illuminates itself."

Jenn's Links:
Publish Your Purpose

Tosca's Links and Resources:
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Tosca's Website: https://www.toscadimatteo.com
Get in Touch with Tosca: https://www.toscadimatteo.com/contact
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toscadimatteo/
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Props for:
Theme music by Adrian DiMatteo: https://adriandimatteo.com