Welcome new folks! Many of you are here because you signed up for my career strategy workshop: Rebuild and Rebrand with Aliza Licht, and many of you are here because I met you in Connecticut this weekend after I spoke at the CTREIA conference. I'm so glad you're here.

In case you missed it, my TEDx talk is finally live! This is for you if you’re dealing with any self-doubt, or if there are people in your life who keep making you feel like you need to “prove your value” to them. The talk walks you through the phases of The Setback Cycle while showing you how to find a counter narrative to combat that self-doubt.

Speaking of self-doubt, I’m hearing from so many of you that you feel your career is currently at a standstill, whether you’ve been in the same role for awhile or you’re actively looking for your next one. A lot of you fall into one of three categories: 1 - You feel like you’ve plateaued in your career and can’t find a way forward, 2 - You know it’s time to make a move but you have no idea how to start that process, or 3 - You’ve been actively trying to change your role or find a new one, but keep running into roadblocks.

You’re stuck.

A recent study by Oracle showed that “76 percent of people feel stuck” in their personal and professional lives, leading to anxiety, loneliness and a sense of aimlessness.

Feeling stuck usually manifests in a few ways:

• A sense of dread, dissatisfaction and/or demoralization in your current role
• A lack of purpose, vision or clarity when it comes to your professional growth or next steps
• Overwhelmed, overworked and apathetic towards change

I had the idea to write this newsletter because of the conversations we’ve all been having around this topic, and as I opened my laptop to jot down my thoughts, I became actually, physically, logistically stuck. I began to draft this while sitting in New York’s Moynihan Station, waiting to board a delayed Amtrak train so I could get up to Hartford, Connecticut where I was scheduled to host a setback workshop for 200 real estate investors the next morning. As I sat there, I felt the physical stress stiffening my entire body. When are they going to announce our actual departure time? What track will we be on? Will I get enough sleep once I get to the hotel? How many times can I refresh the Amtrak app wondering if it’ll give me information nanoseconds before the board in front of me that I’m staring right at as I drive myself insane?

I hate being stuck! I hate feeling a lack of control or direction. Like many of you, I am a textbook Type A and crave as much advanced planning as possible. I want to know exactly when this train is leaving and I want to be on it, settled into my seat and on my way. I always want to feel like I’m on my way somewhere. That’s why feeling stuck is so incredibly frustrating.

Here’s the advice I’d give someone in my situation. Look around. See the things you'd never otherwise notice in a train station full of people coming and going. Just sit, relax your shoulders, be still and try to experience something other than anxiety. Try one of these new restaurants. Treat yourself to a glass of wine.

Honestly though, in this moment I had absolutely no desire to enjoy myself. This delay was putting me in a bad mood.

I didn't want to take my own advice.

I don’t feel like enjoying the journey right now. Right now I’m just a steaming pile of angry, sweaty rage and I just want to go home or get on this train so I can reach my destination.

This is pretty much how folks are feeling about their careers right now. There's a lot of, "I tried. I did all the things. I applied to the jobs and got rejected by bots. I got to the last round of interviews and they went with the other candidate. I went through three rounds of restructuring and I don’t even recognize my team anymore, nor do I know what I’m supposed to be doing here."

You’re frequently wondering if this trip was worth it. If you should keep waiting for the train or get off because it feels like it's never going to leave the station.

Because I hate just complaining without offering anything actionable, here are a few things you can consider if you’re feeling stuck in your career or even in your relationships:

1. What parts of your day energize you? What gets you into a flow state?
2. What are your unique strengths/superpowers? What have people told you you’re amazing at? Why are you amazing at that? (Ask yourself "why" at least three times to get to the real answer here)
3. What would you need to have in place today so you could make a move tomorrow?

I’m finally sitting on the train and it’s moving. There’s a gorgeous sunset over Manhattan. I wouldn’t have seen this, from this exact vantage point, had I not been so delayed. If we hadn’t been riding over New York City’s iconic Hell Gate bridge at this exact moment, I never would have stared at this breathtaking view.

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I am finally enjoying the ride. Make your decision. Stay on the train or hop off. Either way you’ll end up somewhere, finding something unexpected and glorious, and even if the journey to get yourself here was suboptimal, you will end up exactly where you’re meant to be.

In the meantime, here’s what I’m:

​The Unbranding of Abercrombie. Never has a company done such a perfect turnaround in their product offerings, their overall branding and their nod to nostalgia while removing the problematic elements that went along with that nostalgia. “If Abercrombie once monetized our insecurities, now it profits from another mind-set: a pervasive fashion malaise. We want our jeans priced well and baggy enough to fit the trends, not to promise to turn us into different kinds of people. We all know sex sells, but, it turns out, so does boring. Perhaps each era gets the Abercrombie it deserves.”

Their marketing is absolutely working. I am here for the boring, and I especially love their bathing suits. I also just ordered this Fleetwood Mac tee while writing this. Someone send help (actually, don’t, I'm still going.)

​This article about pants that asks the hard questions like, why ARE pants so big again?

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The fact that I will bring my daughter to vote for a presidential candidate I’m actually excited about. To celebrate, I looked back on this interview I did with Hitha Palepu, the author of We’re Speaking: The Life Lessons of Kamala Harris. One of my favorite quotes from the piece was when Hitha said, “performance and delivery have trumped the truth but Kamala shows the math…As someone who has both a history and chemistry degree, I'm very big on going deep, understanding the nitty gritty details and fleshing out a perspective from there. I think it's important that we seek out perspectives that aren’t necessarily the ones we gravitate towards. That's what makes us more critical thinkers.”

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Here’s to embracing those critical thinking skills as we work through getting unstuck and look toward crafting our next chapters.

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