Let’s Be Friends & Why Start A Podcast
Hey there! Before we jump into what the Life Edit Podcast is all about I'm going to take a quick minute and introduce myself so that we can start out as friends and you can know what qualifies me to speak on the topics I'll be covering.
My name is Tabatha Perry, and I live outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota (side note, when we moved here, I still wasn't 100% confident where Minnesota was on a map). I live here with my husband Steven and two daughters, Lily & liberty.
I'm an only child and was born and raised in Juneau, Alaska! Fun fact about my hometown, it's actually a temperate rain forest and you can't drive in or out of it. You can only fly or take a boat. Thankfully my dad worked for Alaska Airlines and my step dad was a pilot, so I got to get out and experience the world a lot! Although I lived in one town my first 18 years of life, the last 18 years of my life, I've moved over 20 times. I don't actually enjoy moving and change...well, I used to think that, but the evidence of my life would reflect otherwise, right?
I graduated from the University of Alaska Anchorage with a Bachelors degree in Justice and started working at a Juvenile Detention Center in Boulder, Colorado and then at the Denver Country Jail in the Women's Mental Health Unit as a Case Manager. I absolutely loved these jobs because I got to spend time with the most interesting people! Listen, I believe God created every.single.person with value, so I loved working with the hardest, most difficult people, and making them feel valued and that they mattered, even if they were incarcerated. I eventually got my Masters Degree in Social Work because I thought I wanted to be a counselor and have more tools to help those that were struggling, then I got a job as a counselor and realized that wasn't my jam at all. Don't get me wrong, I love counselors and therapy. I've benefited from it, but the idea of continually focusing on the problem drained me of energy. I wanted to focus on the future and all the value they could offer the world, but I soon realized that many (myself included) must heal first. This is the main reason I became a Life Coach! I view therapy and life coaching on a spectrum from -10 to +10. Therapy helps you get to the baseline of 0 and then once you're healthy and healed from past trauma, Life Coaching will take you to positive 10!
But it took 7 years for me to figure out that Life Coaching was what I actually wanted to do! I never grew up thinking I was entrepreneurial, I never had a lemonade stand or tried selling things. When I had to sell Girl Scout cookies and Wrapping paper with my class, I just asked my parents to ask their friends. I was soo uncomfortable with asking people to buy something from me. I knew I wanted to help people, so I'd grow up and just work for the state, get married, and then stay home with my kids. That was going to be my life...
Well, let me tell you what. When you realize you only had goals up until you had kids and then realized you didn't want to be a stay at home mom...it can leave you feeling really lost and confused as to what your purpose is...yes, I wanted to raise my girls and be a good mom, but I knew God made me capable enough to handle that AND helping others...I just didn't know how initially .
Within a few weeks of quitting my job to be a stay at home mom, I was actively looking for volunteer work. I could not see myself just staying home and cooking and cleaning. I found organizations that worked with Teen Moms so that I could bring my kids and mentor to young moms, so it was a win/win! The reason I chose this avenue to volunteer in is because of my own past and how I could have been a teen mom. I'll go more into that story on another episode.
Some other fun facts about me, is that I learned that although I love deep sea fishing, I don't like to be on the OPEN ocean. That is terrifying. Where I grew up, there's 100s of islands, so you're constantly protected from those large rolling waves that make you instantly sick. I would also play outside with all the neighborhood boys and we'd build forts in the forest and play basketball until late at night in the summer, since it didn't get dark until midnight! Remember, I grew up in Alaska, so the winters had short days and the summers had long days! I also LOVED to organize and rearrange my rooms. Organization and creating order became a theme in my life at a young age.
My parents got divorced when I was 7, which is crazy to think about, because my daughter is 7 at the time I'm recording this and she's just so little! Anyhow, since I had two rooms, I got to decorate them and rearrange to my heart's content, which was a perk to the divorce, you know, plus the classic getting two Christmas' and birthdays. I was a tomboy, but still loved to be girly. I had mostly guy friends but my girlfriends were super awesome. I've actually had one friend since we were 3 and another since we were in Kindergarten...and I haven't even lived in the same town as them for the majority of our friendship!
Fast forward to my high school days, I worked and studied. I had a boyfriend my freshman year but after we broke up, I was never asked to a dance or on a date. I wasn't popular, but I'd like to think that most people knew me and liked me.
Since Alaska only has around 600,000 people they want students to stay, so they give out great scholarships for college. I happened to earn one for being in the top 10% of my class, so in college, that qualified me for the Honors Program at the University of Alaska Anchorage, which meant I also got housing in the Nerd Wing, oh I mean the Honors Wing...now before you start thinking, she must be really smart and had it easy in school , I'd like to add that I don't consider myself naturally book smart, I've always had to work hard, with hours of studying, getting extra help, and always doing the extra credit. My husband on the other hand, fully lived by "just getting by" and "a C is a degree'. Each to their own!
Okay,
So, here I am now in my 30s with two kids and I know I'm not going to have any more biological kids. I'm volunteering, I'm involved in bible studies, I go to the gym, I cook, I'm doing all the things guys....and I just was not happy. I literally had the perfect life, and wasn't content. Have you ever been in that place where everything on paper looks perfect, but you feel like there's more? Now, I've done lots of personal work on entitlement and expectations, and I knew that I wasn't depressed, I just felt like God had More for me, ya know?
Now, at this point I had become proactive at getting answers, I read "Living Forward" by Michael Hyatt, I was listening to podcasts, journaling, in therapy, and being intentional with spending time with women who seemed to have working and being a mom figured out. It was a conversation, or really a handful of conversations I had with my friend Lauren about Life Coaching. She was telling me all about her own personal transformations because of it. I was super skeptical because I had actually heard about life coaching years before, but was appalled that people could call themselves a life coach and not have any formal training! I was in grad school when I was referred to a life coach and realized they worked for themselves and could charge however much they wanted. Looking back, I now realize I was more jealous than anything else. Anyhow, then I start hearing about life coaching everywhere...on the podcasts, in the books, from other people and I finally decided the best way to figure this out is for me to take a class. I love to learn! So, I found a Christian based Life Coaching school and took the class. I loved it. I knew that it was exactly what I wanted to do...however, I have no business background at all, so the self-limiting beliefs, mom-guilt, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism all kicked into HIGH GEAR and I questioned myself!!! Thankfully with enough prayer, encouragement from my family and hiring a business coach, I jumped in!!! I had a friend that I was helping and decided to ask if she'd like to be my first client. She said yes, and that helped boost my confidence. Having a Masters in social work, being a therapist, and all my life experience completely qualifies me to be a Life Coach, but wanting to stay small and safe was holding me back...I say "was", but it still truly does slow me down now. I have to regularly fight, literally fight, against the loud voices in my head that say I'm not good enough and I should just stick to raising kids, encouraging people for free, and keeping my house organized.
So, all of that has led me to where I am now. I am passionate about helping people create order in their life and helping them step into their fullest God-Given potential! All of our journeys to step into our potential look different and I love validating that when I hear people's stories! When I first started my business, my goal was to work with stay-at-home-moms and help them figure out what it is they really want out of life if they're feeling like there's more out there. Bu then, My passion grew for entrepreneurs, as I was navigating that lonely road of being a solo-peneur, so now I've expanded who I help to people who don't have the traditional 9-5 job and are their own boss, the non 9-5er!
What do all non 9-5ers have in common, an entire day that they must structure themselves and figure out how to get it all done! Some of the challenges that I had becoming a stay at home mom was that I had an entire day with no due dates or deadlines and no boss to keep me accountable! You would think that would be awesome, but I have always lived a super structured life, so all the freedom honestly freaked me out and made me anxious, because I also felt like nothing was ever done!! These are things that non 9-5ers struggle with- no outside structure, never feeling like you're done, no separation between work hours and personal hours, have a hard time delegating tasks, maintain focus when you're doing it all on your own, and differentiate between URGENT and IMPORTANT tasks. All these struggles can lead to people feeling stuck and I get really passionate when I can sense that someone is stuck in life and is settling for less than they deserve, or desire.
Trust me, if you talk to any of my friends, anytime they tell me they’re not happy with their life, I tend to ask a bunch of questions and then give them pointers on how to move forward, so they don't feel stuck anymore. I'm very much a momentum driven person and want to take people along the journey with me! Since I've improved my emotional intelligence and realized that not everyone is wants to change or get unstuck, I've had to start asking, "Would you like me to just listen or would you like some advice", also, FYI this is a great marriage hack too.
So, since I had been coaching people pretty much my whole life, starting Tabatha Perry, Life Coach was the next logical step! I helped my first client create morning and evening routines that she consistently stuck to for the first time in her life. I helped clients identify the activities and side-hustles that were draining them and helped them be okay with ending that season. Several of my clients have actually become Life Coaches themselves because of the transformation in their lives- from feeling stuck and in a chaotic cycle of disappointment, to realizing they had great potential and wanted to help others reach theirs.
So, with all that being said, I started a podcast to encourage and help others create order in their lives by organizing, strategizing, and optimizing their daily life so they step into their fullest God-Given potential.
On The Life Edit with Tabatha Perry, I'm going to teach on productivity hacks, mindset, and all topics related to living an intentional life. I'm going to introduce you to my friends, bring on guest speakers, and also show up, real and raw for you. I hope you walk away from each show with a practical tool you can use and encouraged to live out your God-given potential.
Make sure to tune in each week for new episodes on Apple and Spotify.