Have you ever felt trapped in a life that looks great on paper but leaves you feeling unfulfilled? Making a major change can feel terrifying – but what if fear isn’t a stop sign, but a signal that you’re on the right path?
My guest on this episode of The Ambitious Introvert® is Meg Trucano Ph.D. – a developmental psychologist and confidence coach who helps ambitious women navigate major life and career changes. After spending 15+ years leading high-profile research for U.S. government agencies, she experienced burnout and realized external success didn’t equal fulfillment. Now, she empowers women to reclaim their time, energy, and self-trust while building careers and lives that align with their true desires.
Meg shares her personal journey from high-achieving corporate leader to entrepreneur, breaking down the misconceptions around life transitions and what it really takes to make a big change. We also dive into the psychology of flow states, outdated work narratives, and how simplifying your approach to success can lead to more energy and fulfillment.
Meg is also a private client of mine, so we also dive into the changes she’s seen as an introvert working with an introvert-specific coach!
- Big career changes can feel terrifying – but courage is acting despite fear
- Flow happens when skill meets challenge, and more flow may lead to more success
- The outdated work beliefs that are keeping us stuck
- Success isn’t one-size-fits-all – if fact, Meg found more impact (and energy) by focusing on only what actually worked for her.
- Forget perfect plans – just take the next step. Spoiler alert – clarity comes from action, not overthinking.
If you’ve ever doubted whether you’re ready to make a change, this episode is for you.
LINKS AND RESOURCES:
🌐 Meg Trucano Website
◾️Meg Trucano LinkedIn
◾️Meg Trucano Instagram
◾️Changeology
◾️Clifton Strengths
◾️Diary of a CEO
◾️Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
◾️Stephen Bartlett
CONNECT WITH EMMA-LOUISE:
Website: https://theambitiousintrovert.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmalouparkes/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmalouparkes
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Meg Trucano: Oh my gosh, no. You don’t have to be grateful for something that isn’t a fit for you anymore. But then, yes, the way they move on from that point determines whether they’re able to get to that precipice of change and like actually able to enact the change that they want to. But if they allow themselves to stay stuck in that boredom and tell themselves like, no, no, no, it’s fine, you should be grateful for everything that you’ve got. You know, you’ve got to study, pay cheeck, you’ve got all these things like be happy with what you’ve got and they can stay there and they can kind of languish in that state.
Emma-Louise Parkes: I feel like so often ambition is synonymous with change. Because if we want to achieve something that we don’t already have, we are likely going to need to make some kind of big life change to do it. And if that’s the case for you, this episode is gonna be incredibly valuable. I interviewed the Amazing Meg Tricano, PhD. Meg is a developmental psychologist and confidence coach who helps, ambitious women to navigate major life and career changes in Meg’s own journey. After spending more than 15 years leading high profile research for US government agencies, she experienced a burnout which made her question everything.
And she realised that her external success didn’t equal fulfilment inside. After going through her own journey, she now empowers women to reclaim their time, their energy and their self trust so that they can build the career and the life that really aligns with what they want. Meg is also a private client of mine, so it’s been an absolute pleasure to interview her, to share her expertise and also dive into some of the changes that she’s seen in her life and business as a huge introvert.
Working with an introvert specific coach, Meg shares about big career changes and why they can feel terrifying. What to do about that. We talk a lot about flow, which is a really interesting concept when we think about curating our skills and pushing outside of our comfort zone and feeling challenged to do so. Make has a really, really great way to look at that.
We talk about the outdated work beliefs that are really keeping many of us stuck, how success is not one size fits all. And one that I know will resonate with so many of you is what to do when you don’t have the perfect plan, how to really be able to lead yourself to take the next step without knowing the exact outcome, which can feel incredibly challenging.
So whether you have ever made a huge change, whether you’re Considering one now or whether in your big plans, you know that there is gonna be a time when you need to step up and make massive changes, then this episode and Meg in general isnna be a wonderful resource for you. Meg, thank you so much for joining me on the ambitious introvert of which you are a listener.
Meg Trucano: I am al. I’m an avid listener and I never miss an episode. In fact, I asked you the other day, I’m like, why’the? Next episode coming up. You did.
Emma-Louise Parkes: You actually messaged me in slack. Cause you’re a private client as well and said, is there no podcast today?
Meg Trucano: I was like, part of my weekly routine.
Emma-Louise Parkes: It’s so interesting and I love that. And I think it’s just a great reminder of how much when we are exposed to something and we’re consuming it in a good way and we’re taking it in, how much it does become a habit. Like, I know when I listen to podcasts, it’s very habitual. I listen to certain ones at the weekend. I used to listen to a lot when I was driving. I’m getting a car again in a few weeks, so maybe I’ll start listening to them again. I know, but it was such a good reminder where you were like, where’s your podcast? Is it not out today?
Meg Trucano: Yeah, I always do my workouts with you. I don’t like music. I like listening to the, ambitious introvert when I work out.
Emma-Louise Parkes: I love it. I love it. And I did an episode with another client, Dr. Claire Wild, who you know, Claire, also Claire actually found me through the podcast many years ago. She’s been a client for a long time, but she found the pod. She typed introvert podcast or something into Apple or Spott. Yeah. And, mine came up and she went, oh, I’ll give it a listen. And then she jo a programme that I ran many years ago. Now she’s a private client and when she was a guest on here, she was a bit like, this is so surreal that I’ve been listening to this for so many years and I found you this way and now you’re interviewing me.
Meg Trucano: Yes, I know. I have the same mind bend because I met you via another programme that we were both in. You were teaching in a teaching capacity, coaching. And I was taking it and I remember that was one of the podcast resources and I was like, oh, my God, this amazing, amazing. I love, love your energy and it’s just awesome.
Emma-Louise Parkes: Well, thank you and thank you for being here. And now we’renna make an amazing episode that You.
Meg Trucano: I know.
Emma-Louise Parkes: Well, you’re one. Oh my gosh. Okay, so, so much that we can talk about here. First off, obviously I’ve introduced you at the start of the episode, but tell the listeners a little bit about your own story of making a huge change in your life.
Meg Trucano: Yeah, so it’s fairly similar to most other, you know, career breakdown stories, but I, after getting my PhD in psychology, I moved to Washington D.C. in the States and got a job in education research.
And, it was all around evaluating federal policy and programmes and things like that. So I worked my way up in that field and I didn’t ever love it. I was good at it. I was extremely good at it. And I had been kind of on that hamster wheel of achievement and ambition. And you, you get to one thing and you’re like, oh, this is, you know, I gott. Get to the next level and get, get a PI.
Get a first authorship on this paper. You know, all these kinds of things that you feel like actually matter but kind of actually really don’t. But at one point in my, it was around Covid, I realised that my energy was just tanking. I had the Sunday scaries. I would just get this pit in my stomach when I would have to go back to work. And I say, mind you, I loved the people that I was working with. It was the actual work.
And so I just kind of gaslit myself for several years about, o, no, everything’s fine, it’s fine. Then I would get to a point where I would hit kind of a rock bottom. And to be like, I’m done. I’m seriously, I’m done with this. And then something good would happen and I would be like, oh, it’s not so bad, or maybe I’ll be okay. Periods of this just over time. And then I started working with a coach and she asked me a question during one of our sessions and that question was, how will you feel in one year when you are in the exact same position you are now because you, you’ve not done anything. And I was like, okay.
Emma-Louise Parkes: Yeah.
Meg Trucano: So we said goodbye and I just had a breakdown. Like I was sobbing. And my husband came home, he’s like, what happened? And I told him, I was like, I can’t do this anymore. And he’s like, well, yeah, of course you can’t do this anymore. Like, I’ve known that for a while. You’ve known that for a while, but now you’re just acknowledging to yourself that you can’t do this anymore. So I made an Exit plan. Think it was like five or six months exit plan for me to save up, enough money to be able to kind of take a little bit of a break and then go into full time coaching practise. And it, yeah, it was, you know, when I told my team, they were completely devastated. But I think they were also a little proud of me too, that I was doing something, something that they knew really lit me up. So yeah, I exited the corporate world.
Emma-Louise Parkes: I love that they were proud of you.
Meg Trucano: Yeah, they were proud of me and I think somewhat inspired them to kind of do things a little differently and think about things a little differently. And I got many comments that after that about like, you’re so brave, you were so brave to do that. And I never felt brave a second through that entire process, but retrospectively, yeah, I mean bravery is all about doing things that terrify you and just keeping going. you still feel fear, you just keep go, keep going.
Emma-Louise Parkes: It’s so funny you said that because I was literally gonna say, I remember when I was leaving my job and a friend of mine said to me, you’re so brave. And I thought that was a very odd turn of phrase. I was like, I’m not like going to a war zone or running into burning buildings or in anything like that. I’m just leaving a job and starting a business. But yeah, looking back I’m like, oh yeah, that is quite brave.
Meg Trucano: Yeah. And I think there is also an element of like this rebelliousness or this like defiance of the expected thing. Right. I’m sure they expected you to stay in this very lucrative position as an air traffic controller for life.
Emma-Louise Parkes: Right until I was 57 and I could draw my pension.
Meg Trucano: Exactlyah. And so going against that very obvious plan seems brave to people who haven’t yet learned that questioning the status quo and questioning social norms and condition conditioning around certain ways we define success, you know, it’s tough to have that shift.
Emma-Louise Parkes: So let’s go back to your lived experience in that moment. Cause you just said something really interesting. And I think you, you and I have talked about this before for your work with clients, but you didn’t feel brave, you felt terrified every minute, but you did it anyway.
I think there is a misconception when people see other people doing something and they go, oh, it’s easy for them. Hm, that’s okay because they make it look easy or because you don’t know what’s going on inside their head or what internal chatter they have in with themselves. You just see the action. So you Think, oh, well, it’s okay for them because it’s really easy. But I can’t do that because I feel scared. And in fact, everyone feels scared.
Meg Trucano: Yeah. And I find my clients often assume these other people who are doing big things or interesting things or things that they want to do is, oh, they’re smarter than me or they have a different degree than I do, or they just assume they have some sort of quality or qualification that makes it somehow easier for them.
And that is almost never the case. It is literally just a turning inward. And like, I want to do this thing. It’s going to be hard, it’s going to be scary, but I’m going to do it because I care about it, because I want to do it. And you got one life. I feel like really absorbing that information and knowing that guides your actions in a much different way. But yeah, people all the time assume that other people have things that they don’t have. Experience and connections and money and all the things. And it’s very, very often untrue.
Emma-Louise Parkes: I worked with a coach very early in my business who we’re giving coaching a, a really great shine here, who said something gut punch to me as well. She said, who are you waiting for permission from?
Meg Trucano: Ooh, that’s a good one.
Emma-Louise Parkes: Yeah, it was s a good one. She’s a good coach. And that’s the whole point. Right. Like you say, these people think that another certification or something else or there’ll be a right time or that these other people have got this secret, special quality that they don’t have. And actually those people have just made.
Meg Trucano: A decision, made a decision, made the.
Emma-Louise Parkes: Decision to go all in.
Meg Trucano: Yes. And a lot of times people get hung up on this idea of, oh, there is a right way to do this or there is a right next thing for me to do. And really there are many, many different paths that have similar outcomes in your life if you were to take them.
Right.
And the focus on having there be like a single right way to proceed that you’ve over researched and you’ve’ve done all the calculations. And I work with a lot of very ambitious, high achieving, like very kind of like cerebral default people. Right. And they, they like to have everything planned out and they have been taught that there is a right answer, there is a correct thing and there isn’there. Just isn’t. There’s the next best thing for you for right now.
And once you get there, you do the thing, you collect data, you look at it. Does this feel better than before? Cool. Does this feel worse than before? Then use that data that you’ve collected and modify.
Recalibrate as you need.
Emma-Louise Parkes: Something I know that you are very passionate about in your messageing and with your clients is that many people talk about making a big change and it’s like leave the job and start the business. Which was our big change. Right. There’s nothing wrong with that. But actually the big change can go the other way. The big change can be like Jordan Shonda King in actually I’m gonna sell this multi six figure business and be a stay at home mum.
Emma-Louise Parkes: Or I’m gonna leave this very high achieving job to travel the world or be an artist. So I think we can see the changes. I’m moving on to something bigger and better. But it’s not really about that. It’s about fulfilment and energy.
Meg Trucano: Yes. And alignment with what you actually love. And so many people have lost touch with that or have lost respect for that. So I have a very good friend who had always had a dream that she was going to hike the at the Appalachian Trail in the United States. It’s like a very, very list, like 4,000 miles or something from Georgia to Maine. Like it’s a thing like you have to take a year off of work basically.
Emma-Louise Parkes: Really?
Meg Trucano: Yeah. The actual trail didn’t take them all that long. I think they set out maybe in like early February in Georgia, hiked up to Maine. and they were done in the fall sometime. But like it’s a chunk of time and you have to plan for it and like totally unheard of in our kind of work circles. Right. Is this alignment with. What she really, really wanted was to do this thing. She loves the outdoors. She’s so into it and like she just was going to make it happen. Right. And when people plug into what they’re authentically into, what their interests are, you get that energy and you get that kind of o. yes, this is aligned. There are other people that you know, don’t know what their interests are and that’s, that’s a whole other, you know, kettle of fish. But then you have people who know what they’re interested in and they ignore it or they choose to do something else because they think it’s going to be more lucrative or more respected by society or whatever it is. So yeah, it is definitely an energetic difference too between those groups of people.
Emma-Louise Parkes: I know for me I used to laugh because my hobby was starting my business because I love to learn. As you know. I’m a 13 my learner’pretty high in Clifton Strengths. So is my input, so is my selection. So I would take a course about coaching or marketing or something to do with building business. And that lit me up because I was learning. I was learning something new. And it was great.
I got to a stage where the business was set, up and running. I was likeh, I don’t have a hobby anymore. My hobby’s now my job. And I need something to fill the gap of, of what was the hobby. Because I don’t love learning about marketing anymore. That’s just part my data.
Meg Trucano: Yeah, yeah. First of all, same there. You know, you do those exercises sometimes. Like if you had all the money in the world, what would you spend your money on? And I’m like, courses, courses, book more course at books.
So I totally understand that. But yeah, there is a myth out there, and we were talking about this before, before we hit record, is like there is a huge myth circulating that if you follow your desires and you follow your interests, that you automatically have to make that into your business and what you do for money. But there is a very critical place for hobbies. And I actually hate the word hobbies cause it makes it sound trivial and not important.
And I think it’s crucial in terms of our overall well being as human beings. Just absolutely necessary. And it’s a creative outlet. So I wish there was a better word than hobby, but have you read.
Emma-Louise Parkes: I’m pretty sure the answer gonna be yes to this, given that I know you’re an avid reader and a psychologist. Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, oh yeah.
Meg Trucano: I did my graduate dissertation all over that.
Emma-Louise Parkes: So I think that’s the point. Rather than like hobby, which can sound quite trivial. It’s any activity that gets you into this state of flow.
Meg Trucano: Yes, yes. And if we go back to Chiket Mhay’s original definition of flow, it’s actually at a critical inflection point between having the skills to do something and being challenged. And there’s this like very fine balance there. You have to be a little bit more challenged than you. Then you feel like you have the skills to meet. And so that is that tiny little space in between those two things. That’s flow.
Emma-Louise Parkes: I love that because I put an email out last week about the podcast saying I was sharing like five lessons that I’ve learned from doing this podcast for five years. And one of the things I said in that and a tonne of people responded actually, which is unusual for my emails, is that, I started off interviewing friends and peers and then I interviewed some of my mentors and then I would reach out to people that I kind of liked in the online space and then I reached out to people I really admired and you know, then I’m reaching out to people like gay Hendrik who like heroes. And for this to stay. I heard a really good question on Diary of a CEO actually with Stephen Bartlett. He said someone asked him like what do you need to do?
And insure is in place so you can keep doing this for like 30 years. And for him he said it was the quality of the guest. It wasn’t about does the guest have a big audience? He’s gonna sit there and have a two hour conversation with someone week in, week out. He needs to love the conversation. And I think that inflection point that you say that has. I’ve seen that with the podcast. Not that my friends were borring. They’re not boring in any way, shape or form. But my. I guess my own skill set has evolved.
Emma-Louise Parkes: As a podcaster and I want to be challenged. I want to interview people who are talking about things I don’t know about or are gonna challenge the way I think and my perspective. So this is. I would record the podcast day in Dou. I love doing this. It’s my second favourite part of my business after talking to clients which is essentially a podcast as you know. Cause we just voice note on Slack all the time. But that’s really interesting because I can see how I could get bored if I wasn’t being slightly challenged all the time.
Meg Trucano: Yeah. So important. And that’s actually what I wrote my dissertation on by the way was boredom and how flow. my whole dissertation and the research on boredom and affective states has exploded since I won’t date myself but since I went through grad school.
But I conceptualised it as a, as a spectrum of boredom on one end where you’re potentially challenged but you don’t feel like you have the skills and so you disengage. And then on the other end you have flow where you’re pretty challenged but you’re like nah, I got this. And so what I did was I gave middle schoolers.
Middle schoolers’re so they’re just like at this beautiful point between childhood and adolescecentce like’s o they’re lovely. But I gave them a really hard math task to do that I knew was not in their skill set yet. They hadn’t gotten to it in school or whatever.
And then I had them kind of measure their emotional states throughout and when it became too hard for them, they would disengage.
But also they got disengaged when it was too easy for them. So there was this very narrow band of challenge to skill set that, you know, teachers have to navigate that that’s a tough, tough thing to do for each individual student.
So anyway, it’s just a really fascinating concept of this mental state that can drive so much of our personal growth and so much of our lived experience. Right. Is this relationship that we have between the things that we have developed in ourselves, our skills and our competence and challenge something that challenges you.
But if you’re challenged and you don’t have any skills in the area, you don’t believe that you have any skills in the area, you react totally differently. It’s not the same at all. So, yeah, very interesting.
Emma-Louise Parkes: And, from the point of view of your clients, how much do they feel that kind of understimulation, let’s say that boredom, that pushes them to be like, I need to make change, I need to do something. Is that what they recognise in themselves? This like, oh, I’m kind of settling, and I’m not being fulfilled or noourished is the right word. And challenged.
Meg Trucano: Yeah. Oh, for sure. And I think there’s, there’s stages. It’s kind of like, I don’tn toa compare it to the stages of grief, but there are stages that people go through of like, oh, this isn’this this doesn’t feel like a good fit. And then it’s like, oh, my God, I’m so bored. But it’s a stable job. I have a steady paycheck. I should be grateful for this? Oh, my gosh, no, you don’t have to be grateful for something that isn’t a fit for you anymore.
But then, yes, the way they move on from that point determines whether they’re able to get to that precipice of change and actually able to enact the change that they want to.
But if they allow themselves to stay stuck in that boredom and tell themselves like, no, no, no, it’s fine, you should be grateful for everything that you’ve got.
You know, you’ve got a study paycheck, you’ve got all these things like, be happy with what you’ve got, then they can stay there and they can kind of languish in that state. And there are some people that know they hate their job or they hate their relationship or whatever it is, whatever kind of change and they have acknowledged that they are not going to do anything about it. They’re like, I. No, I’m not starting over.
I’m not, you know, I’m not gonna disrupt my entire life. Is not worth it. It’s not worth it to me. I would rather be bored and stagnant and over here just kind of getting by than take the chance on something being way better after a change.
Emma-Louise Parkes: I’ve been doing some research for a secret project, and o. that I haven’t mentioned to anyone yet, but one of the things that I was reading just the other day was this idea that in the 50s and 60s, the pervasive narrative was, if you have a job, it’s a job for life.
You’re gonna join this company unless you do something pretty awful, you’ll be there for life. And you will be grateful for that because we’ve just been through two big world wars in the last 50 years and all of these economic crashes.
And so if you’re in, say, the UK or the US in the 60s and you graduate and you get this job, job for. My mum used to say, oh, it’s a job for life. It’s a job for life. And of course, that narrative is what people our age, what our parents grew up with.
So, so many people, I’m gonna say in, like, late millennials, early Gen Xes, like me or. No, late Gen Xes, early millennials, have that struggle because you want to do something different, but you’re like, oh, but I should be grateful, like you say, because that’s been passed down from parents.
Meg Trucano: Yes. But also regarding that mentality of the 50s and the 60s, people also had, like, social structures to support them. Right. That weren’t related to their jobs. They went to church, they had bridge club. They had, like, social networks that could support them for their kind of, like, social development.
And then they had other, like, hobbies. You know, again, I hate that word, but, like, they had hobbies and they had a rich home life and they enjoyed their weekends, et cetera. And then somewhere along the line, we got into the current quagmire, which is, like, work should be absolutely everything for you.
And so, yeah, straddling that line between be grateful for the fact that you have a lifetime job and you’ll get a pension and whatever, to what it is now, which is like, your work is your family and, like, you know, that kind of thing. So, yes, yes, that is the narrative that I grew up with, certainly is like, be grateful that you have a job. And if you don’t like it, suck it up. And to the extent that you feel uncomfortable with that, that’s your problem. And you need to deal with that emotionally because that’s. You have nothing to complain about.
Emma-Louise Parkes: Yeah, it’s so true. And I just find it fascinating that it’s still, that narrative is still so strong now. And of course like you just touched on the 80s kind of Gordon Gecko narrative of you should be married to your work. And yes. So they’re kind of the person that comes in first and leaves last day is the most successful, is hanging around kind of 30 years later.
Meg Trucano: Yeah. And that’s one of those things that keeps coming up in my work with clients too is this idea of work as worth. And that is such a hard, hard one to crack because those messages are still very, very rooted in our popular understanding of worksace within a human’s life.
Emma-Louise Parkes: So I have a wonderful client who is also a coach and discussions that we’ve had many times are ah, about her guilt for charging for a coaching package over X number of months rather than charging by the hour because in her entire work working life it has been hourly. And that was a huge shift for her to see. Someone’s paying me for my expertise. They’re paying me because I have X number of decades experience in this field and I have a coaching certification and they care less actually about how much time we spend together. If they could get the same answers and transformation and results in a 30 minute session as a 60, they would probably prefer that because they’re not sat looking at the clock going, well, I’ve paid you for an hour. So we’re gonna sit here for an hour. And I know that for her has been a huge shift rather than I’m defined by how many hours I work is. Oh, the value is in the outcome and the transformation.
Meg Trucano: You and I have had this same conversation also and like the value of transformation as being the thing is in coaching. But yeah, the charging by the hour and I came from federal contracting. You had to literally charge minutes to projects. Right. To kind of track your time. And that’s how, that’s how the money would get allocated is time. And so yeah, breaking free from that mindset of amount of time that you work on something, even to this day I am still working on this, cracking through this mindset.
I am an early riser and I will work through till about noon and then I just my energy tanks, I’m kind of done thinking heavily for the day. Client calls are different because you have an Interaction and that gives me energy. Kind of like you. I think we’re the same in that way. But yeah, I get more high quality work done in the morning between the hours of 7:30 and 10:30 than I would in a whole work day trying toash it all, squash it all in and whatnot. So, yeah, it’s a hard one to break.
Emma-Louise Parkes: And, we’ve talked about that in your coaching about the guilt of should I be doing a full day? And actually I was like, so what’s the problem with this if you’re getting everything done? But it’s that conditioning of, oh, it should be 9 to 5, it should be this. And it’s very interesting because my clients that are entrepreneurs quite often fall into a 9 to 5 mindset.
They’ll say they start their business for the freedom and to be able to work whenever they like, and then they find themselves falling into what they did before or feeling like they, quote, unquote, should do what they did before.
Meg Trucano: Yes, yes. And I fell into that trap too, until working with you. That’s how I did it and that’s why it was. I think that was kind of one of the reasons that led me to work with you is because I just didn’t feel like my business was giving me the energy that I knew I had a zone of genius. I knew I loved working with my clients, but the business part of it, creating the business, sucked my energy, but it was because I was engaging with it in the wrong way. I was not respecting my own natural, energetic cycles. Because, yeah, it takes so much effort to break through those socially conditioned narratives and patterns that we’ve had since we were small.
Emma-Louise Parkes: When you described the type of people that you work with earlier, and you said, they’re really highly ambitious, but they’re very cerebral, they’re in their head. I thought, this sounds like Meg about six months ago.
And like you just touched on where you had become very cognitive about the business and the strategy and lost that connection with, what do I actually enjoy here? What do I wanna do? What’s the, not bigger purpose of this, but it’s quite easy to slip into the weeds and be very much like marketing strategy, sales.
And, yet those things are important and they needed. But you were doing so much as well. You were running Instagram as well and doing all these other things. And we stripped so much back. And almost instantly you started getting people apply to work with you.
Meg Trucano: Yeah, it was insane. It was insane. And it was all around expectations of what I thought I had to do. I love coaching. I love coaching clients. I love getting to. I, don’t want to even want to say help them, but like show them that they are the powerful beings that can do this big thing. And I wanted more of that. I wanted to have more people to do that with. And so to do that you have to market and to do that you have to sell.
And. And I was just. I thought I had to do Instagram, I thought I had to do TikTok, I thought I had to do a funnel, which, yeah, that’s great. But also I could be a great coach and have incredible clients without doing any of that. And so I think your tack was like, let’s strip it back to what feels manageable but also lights you up.
And for me, that was LinkedIn and really kind of focusing on LinkedIn. I will cross post to Instagram every now and again.
But my focus is like, because that’s where firstly my people are, but also it’s where I feel like there’s an actual exchange of ideas rather than commodification. So it’s worked a charm. It’s been amazing. The business is so much simpler and I know with precision what I’m doing with every piece of content that I generate. And I’m so grateful for that.
Emma-Louise Parkes: You started a podcast. I started a podcast, which I think we talked about in the first month or so of working together. And that was always gonna be a wonderful avenue for you because of your energy and because you’re so articulate and you got it up in kind of breakneck speed. And it’s been out as we’re recording this out for what, just over a month and people are loving it. I love it. And I was a guest on it, which was amazingk you.
Meg Trucano: Yeah, you’my first guest. Yeah.
Emma-Louise Parkes: But something that’s been really interesting for that, that I just wanna share for other introverts is there was a hesitation where you were like, oh my God, I’m gonna be exhausted from recording or meeting these people or having these coffee connections to scope out potential guests. And, as I highlighted to you, every time you come out of slack and you go, I just met so and so, and she was amazing. And I’m like so fired up is this belief as introverts that we’ve gotta be almost isolated ourselves and that people are going to drain us. And as I said to you, no, the right people don’t drain us. The right people give us energy.
Meg Trucano: Yes. And I can’t believe how true that is. And I remember having that conversation with you, I’m like oh I have two recordings in the same day. Like am I going to need to like I don’t know if I can, if I can handle this and whatever. And it’s like I have so much energy after that first one that I’m just like a lit flame through the second one. But again the right guest, right. The right person with the right kind of energy but also kind of breaking through that story that I’m telling myself that I’m not able to handle these like high energy tasks. You can, you just have to, have to do it with the right people. Yeah.
Emma-Louise Parkes: And I think that is so huge. It’s so huge and it’s something that isn’t probably talked about enough in the introvert space.
And so people withdraw or they feel like I really need to limit my interaction with people. I have another client and she’ll messaged to me and she’ll say o I did all this stuff at the weekend but I feel great.
I’m like yeah, because you sounds like you’re doing stuff that you loved with people you really like spending with time with. Soeah of course we need time alone. I know you’re very good with that in your mornings with having your spaciousness and obviously you’ve got small kids and all of that. But we can go too far the other way.
I think some introverts go too far in oh I’m avoiding people because they exhaust me and they miss out on that nourishing kind of deep connection.
Meg Trucano: Oh my gosh. Completely agree. And that I think is why I originally like for my entire life I thought it was an extrovert because when I would get in a meeting or something where I was really engaged, I would be on fire.
Right. I would have this. And it was only honestly it was after I started listening to your podcast that I realised that I was an introvert and then I kind of started to reframe my understanding of regeneraating energy. And it’s not about how you show up, it’s not about having being unable to speak up in a meeting.
That’s not it at all. It’s about how you recharge your energy. And for me, yep, that is my non negotiable pre children morning time. But it’s also these amazing conversations that I get to have with people about shit that I love to talk about. Like I just, I love having conversations with people who know their shit, who can offer value to people who are going through something and I think that that is, that’s everything to me. I love it.
Emma-Louise Parkes: Oh, I love that. I think that’s the perfect place to wrap up. Obviously everyone go and check out Dr. Meg. Check out the Changeologyg podcast because it is amazing. Thank you so much for joining me on the ambitious introvert. How did it feel to be on this end of the show rather than listening?
Meg Trucano: You know what, I was really nervous but you’re fantastic interviewer so I was. It was awesome. I loved it.
Emma-Louise Parkes: I love it. Right before I let you go, I’m gonna ask you one question to give value to the listeners. Share with them, please. As a busy mum, as a busy business owner, as someone who by your own admission can get into your own head, what is one non negotiable practise that really helps you to stay grounded and really own your energy?
Meg Trucano: I’m gonna totally cheat and give to one is you is having a coach, having someone who can hold space for me when I have my, oh shit, I’m spiralling in my cognitive space, but also that morning routine. And for me that just looks like getting up before anybody in the household is up, going down in the pitch black and lighting some candles, having my coffee. And sometimes I journal, sometimes I just stare off into space. But It’s a good 30 to 45 minutes before my kids get up and go to school. That is just for me. So that, that’s mine.
Emma-Louise Parkes: What time do you get up?
Meg Trucano: 5:30 ish.
Emma-Louise Parkes: Do you wait naturally or do you set an alarm?
Meg Trucano: I set an alarm. And honestly, since this most recent time change, it’s been very rough.
Emma-Louise Parkes: Oh yeah. Cause you’re already on daylight savings. We’re not quite there. Yeah, I’m asking that because I think the early morning thing is very interesting because some people see it as a chore, like, oh no, I’ve got toa get up early. Whenever you talk about it, it feels very luxurious. It feels like, you know, I go down the stairs and it’s pitch black and I light a candle and it’s silennt and you know, I mean, I’m sold on it. I’m an early riser anyway. But you know, just for anyone listening into who’s thinking, oh, you know, I really need my sleep, I do not want to get up any earlier. But you credit that to helping your energy throughout the day.
Meg Trucano: Yeah, absolutely. And the days that I don’t do that are the days that I’m like discombobulated and I don’t get as much done. But I think also I know you have said in the past that, you know, morning routines are awesome if they work for you, but there’s also a lot of emphasis in popular culture on like what’s your morning routine? And it’s like your ten step skincare routine and that’s great if, if that’s what speaks to you. But like for me it’s the quiet and the silence of not having to attend to anybody else’s needs. As a mom of twin toddlers. Like that is the rest of my day, right? So I love it.
Emma-Louise Parkes: Thank you for sharing. Thank you for on coming on the podcast. Thank you for having me so much. Oh you’re so welcome. I’m going toa put all of your links in the show notes so everyone can come and connect with you. and I’ll talk to you soon.
Meg Trucano: Hury Sounds great. Thank you.
Emma-Louise Parkes: Thank you for tuning in into this week’s episode. I hope that you’re feeling expanded to what’s possible for you, motivated to take action and inspired about how you can start to, own your energy. I share even more tools and resources on my Introverts Only email newsletter. By signing up, you not only get early access to the ambitious introvert products and services, but you also get brand new podcast episodes delivered straight to your inbox every Monday, meaning you’ll never miss your weekly dose of introvert friendly inspiration.
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