Hi, everyone. So thanks for coming. This is Beyond the c suite, designing a meaningful second act without losing yourself. I'm Sarah Smith, and we have Kim Groshik today.Kim, do you wanna introduce yourself, say a little bit more?

Sure. I, well, I, basically, I have transitioned out of corporate after five years in thirty five years in business. And right now, I help leaders turn decision overload into clear strategy and focused movement. I published over 60 books. Several of them are international best selling. I'm a host of the podcast. I run a lot of events and host a lot of events, and I go into companies and I help people, I teach people about decision making because with AI coming into the mix, I really encourage people to actually keep decision making in on in your on your plate, not in AI, and let AI give you some ideas, but you actually are the ultimate decision maker and you it stays that way.

So that's what I do. And, Sarah, I'm gonna, ask you to share a little bit about you.

Great. Thanks. So I'm the chief innovation officer at Iconoclasts Innovations, and I help people de junkify their ops so that they can retain more of their revenue, but also get ready for those inflection points. Like, they might be ready to raise a round. They might be looking for scaling and growing their organization. For example, one company I just worked with, they know that they're gonna have an acquisition come up soon, their VC backed firm. And so they knew that they would not be able to stand that very well if they did not have all this, their ops in place. Right? Their operations actually working. So I help, organizations do that. I do a lot with, like, procedures, policies, just general process, muckification. So that is me.

And, so, Kim, before we get too far into this, I wanna ask you, what does what does this mean to you beyond the c suite when you're thinking about your second act? Tell me more about what you what you think about that.

Yeah. So let me bring you back about five years ago. I made a decision that looked irrational from a lot of people because I was that go to person that really you know, when Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall and he broke into all different pieces, I was the one that bring brought all those people together, international corporations, to actually come back together and streamline.

Right? And, there's not many people like me that can actually do it. In fact, you know, it just was a just kind of a niche I had. But after those years, it was thirty five years in my own owning my own business. Right? And as a consultant, I I I should have felt secure, but, you know, because I had built relationships, and that's one of my superpowers, credibility, experience, and a career that most people spend their lives chasing. I knew how to lead rooms, and I knew how to build systems, and I knew how to survive pressure. But underneath all of that, something was changing. It was there was this major shift that was happening. And I started to notice that I was no longer energized by performing success and being that doer. I was exhausted by how how many how many leaders were carrying invisible pressure without pretending everything was fine.

And here's the thing, you know, and I was I was like, you know, I think we all are. We cover our shell up, and we're kinda like, in, Alice and what Noah in, The Wizard of Oz, and you've got the Tin Man, and we're you know, we cover our hearts. And so I started to realize that I didn't wanna do that anymore. The conversations behind the closed doors became more important to me than the stages, titles, or the extra wins. And I watched founders and executives and high level leaders silently unravel under the weight of constant decisions, endless expectations, and identities that no longer fully were fully recognized. And if I was honest, I was feeling that part too, and it wasn't really burnout. It was more like a question realization.

I could keep building a life that looked successful from the outside or I could build one that actually felt aligned with my purpose. And that transition was it wasn't dramatic. There it there wasn't a big announcement, and it wasn't perfectly mapped out as a second act. And it was no overnight reinvention. It took step by step for me to kinda peel the layers of that onion. Right? And it looked it looked more like long walks, hard conversations with myself, and letting the certainty certain identities that I had die, and then saying no no more often. Like, I'd say no instead of saying yes when people come to me and say, can you help me in corporations? And, you know, it's like learning how to stop performing certain certainty when I was still discovering what mattered next.

So for years, my identity had been tied to being the one who could hold everything together, perform, and get her done. But, eventually, I realized strength without alignment becomes emotional debt, and I began rebuilding differently. And I started focusing less on chasing more and more and more, meaningful contribution. And I wasn't proving as much, and there was much more clarity about why I'm here. Less on carrying everyone else's expectations and more on designing a life and business that could actually sustain me. And spent so that I could spend time with my family, friends, and do what I love. So that season changed the way I I lead, and it's from, the framework like Undecision, decision integrity, human OS, and that's where that all was born from doing market research in the industry to see really where are the gaps.

It's not from theory. It's from lived transition, from me experiencing it step by step and all and seeing all the patterns from understanding what happens when successful people outgrow the version of themselves that built the first chapter. And now when I speak today about beyond the c suite, I'm not talking about walking away from your ambition or leaving all your wonderful capabilities and skills behind. A second act is where wisdom matters more than performance, and clarity matters more than the constant motion, where leadership becomes less about carrying everything and more about making the decisions that finally let you breathe again.

I love that. And I'll I'll just say when I think about designing a meaningful second act, it's less it's even for me, like, beyond the c suite, meaning I was I think the highest level I had in corporate America was a VP. And so when I think about this, it's making that transition into what you're doing. You don't have to do a linear pathway. Right? It's something where you can you can evolve and move into something that suits you better because you're in a different season of life, for example. So I love that. And now, Kim, I love that your title is decision strategist, and I wanna ask you more. You have some of the some of the frameworks that you talked about, but one of them is decision integrity. Can you tell me more about that?

Yeah. I did wanna tell you about that, but there is a question in the chat that actually adds on to what you just said. So I'm gonna say yes, and. And then, I think it was Ameris asked, what did you mainly change in everyday life to really follow what you love? And this is a very good question. You know, I didn't know that it was gonna happen. Right? I got done so I owned my own company for thirty five years, and I would have contracts with companies. And I'd be in long term contracts or short term, setting up a board of directors for six months or really implementing large teams for two years. Right? Well, what happened was my husband had retired about three years before, and I decided not to get the next contract and just sit in that space.

And then a, well, of course, COVID happened. Right? But that wasn't really what it was. I had an opportunity. I was certified in yoga. I also was certified as a teacher of yoga because I love to just get certified and get training because I'm a life lifelong learner, really. And yoga is my place to get grounded. And what happened was because it was starting to this whole COVID thing started happening, the yoga instructor in the Milwaukee area, it was in the city, She needed a yoga instructor. And I said, okay. I would love to teach, you know, maybe one or two times a week early morning. And instead of getting a contract, I said, okay. I'm gonna volunteer to teach. Well, of course, that didn't last long. And she said, I can't do this. You have to pay you.

She started adding all these classes, and it turned out to be a two year full time

Oh my gosh.

Career. Right? And then that became work again. And so it it's the journey. Right? And I uncovered that I love to teach. I love to, be mindful, and then the pause came out of that, PAUSE, because, Cornell University asked me to speak on the TEDx stage. And I had to practice and figure out what is my topic. Right? And because I have cognitive science, computer science background, I started talking about pausing from technology, and everyone just said, oh my goodness. That's a great talk. Right? And so then I started talking on a 130 stages. So this is an evolution. So where did I how did this happen? It's you hear the step by step. And it was the listening that happened for me, the listening to the signals in our bodies. Right? The whole body, the whole experience of listening.

And because we are and because I was walking around like the Tin Man, Tin Woman, where everything was not really felt other than going to yoga and experiencing it or meditating, right, having that time to do that, I, started to realize I started to kinda peel the the metal off.

And after two years of teaching yoga, I said, okay. This this is becoming work. I'm not gonna do this anymore because I had to drive an hour in and it was, like, all day and it not I love yoga. It just became work. Right? And so I was sitting on the deck. This is there's an end to this. I was sitting in the deck, and this is the part where listening and pausing is so important that I said, okay. I've done everything. You know, I've run my half marathons, 50 states. I've, you know, done my Ironman. You know, there's always more to do. My daughter is successful. My husband is very independent. Everyone is doing great. And all of a sudden, I got this signal that said, Kim, you're not done yet.

You've been trained your entire life to do what you're gonna do now, which is to teach those executives that I would actually come in and be the parallel person, right, and actually get things done for them because they were overwhelmed, and get that bigger the bigger teams transformed.

I was teach would teach them what I knew because many times they would say to me, Kim, I don't know what you're doing, but keep doing it. The secret sauce. Right? You always keep your secret sauce kind of under wraps. And so that's actually where that started to show up is that, you know, I purposely my goal is to leave a legacy long after I'm gone. I've got 60 books to show for it, and it's putting my brain in the books, right, and getting the message out there on stage. And I teach others to do the same, help people uncover their purpose, and then build out the infrastructure ecosystem so that they not at the people that work with me are basically very, very, very smart. It's not that they don't know. It's that they don't see or they just need the accountability. Right?

They don't see what they don't see because their teams have done it their entire life. Right? Their corporations have done it their entire life. And many of the pieces and parts of it, they might not know. And so it that's how it evolved. And there's more to it, but that's the evolution. It's about being, you know, pausing to be aware, pausing to take the time to take that walk, and just getting inside of yourself and get getting present to the feelings of your whole body and your connection to who you are and what your purpose is.

And I will add on to that, for Ameris who, you know, you you asked that question, right, of, you know, what has to change. So one thing that I did and or was done to me, I guess, when I went into my own business, I was it was the third time I had been laid off, and that that's not an uncommon story. Right? Especially now, especially after COVID, especially all of that. But it's yeah. How you know, I was laid off for the third time, and I was kind of like, I'm done. I'm gonna take these skills I have and take them on the road. And I just started talking to a lot of people. Like, hey. I really think you could do this. Like, come do leadership coaching for my team. You know, and I started getting that, you know, some more exposure there.

And I was like, wow. This is actually viable. Now I will say things that made it easier for me to do this. I had had, I'd had one baby and had really bad postpartum depression and anxiety. And so, like, my my husband, one thing that helped was that he had our he still has our insurance. So, like, in The United States, that's always a barrier to from what I hear with with anybody is that's a barrier to entry for entrepreneurship because that you know, they need help in terms of their job. Those things aren't portable. Right? So that's one thing that I I've had in my life and I've been very lucky to have. So you can also do that through, like you can find insurance pathways through different ways, like, through your chambers of commerce or different groups that you're in.

Keep that in mind.

Yeah. And and just to add on, so you asked me about the integrity, and we're not gonna have a lot of time to go through this, but I do have it's introduced in the Undecision book out. It's out there, so you can actually read more about it or connect with me, at kimgrochek dot com. The the five pillars of the decision integrity are and just write this down or, you know, just kinda take this in. Listen to the recording again. The five pillars are integrity, ownership and agreement and decisions. So I'll say that again. Ownership and agreements and decisions, communication, action, and mindful pause. I'm gonna say that one more time. There's five. And why I'm saying it after I say this is there are reasons why this is here. Integrity is number one.

Two is ownership agreements and decisions. Ultimately, your decision is is the ultimate. Communication, action, and mindful pause. And the reason why this is so important is because this is this is important in culture. This is important in shifting your transition. This is important in everything because when you do change your identity, you need to understand it by pausing. Right? You need to, get inside yourself. You need to communicate to yourself what that new identity is. Communicate to others who that new new identity is. Agree with that. Take ownership of it, and make a decision about it. Right? And then communicate to everyone else that decision, and then take action on that decision so it all aligns into integrity, which is what you're talking of those five things are happening.

When one is out of alignment, you lose the decision integrity you're you're in. And I can go more into this, but, you know, I know we have, you know, short time. So, Sarah?

We we do have a question in the chat that I wanna pivot to. So it says, how can you make sure to listen to your body, especially being in a corporate fast paced AI work and being in a site a society where consumption and being efficient is very important. How do you do that?

Yeah. So it is taking those small little breaks reminding yourself. That's why I say pause because it's just a word to help. It's a modality to help you do it. When you catch yourself, you're in the middle of it, you're in it, you're in the weeds, you say, I need to pause for a minute, and you can actually just take three deep breaths and count, you know, up to six, then breathe out to five. You know, do that yoga kind of thing, your meditation thing. That's one simple way, but you can also pause. Put pauses in your schedule during the day, prompt yourself. There's a lot of apps out there that do that to say, okay. You need to get up and walk around the hallway or walk outside or something. Just take a break for five minutes. There's more, but that's just a good start where you can leave and start practicing it.

Yeah. And I try and make sure that I build in, rest into my day. Like so it's really important for me to read, like, fun books, business books, whatever it is. So I read every night before I go to bed. I also, like, make sure I take baths probably once a week and, like, get real you know, just, like, enjoy just breaking for a minute. I have two small kids, a husband that I love, but he also, like, travels a lot. So it can get kind of chaotic. So how do I mute some of that chaos? And I just wanna say we do have about, ninety seconds until we close. So, so, Kim, is there anything that you wanna make sure actually, here we go.

What advice did you give when your identity is involved, but the people around you almost refuse to see the change? I love that question.

Yeah. So it is really about communication in short. There's much more to this one, but it is about you. Are we still here?

Mhmm.

Oh, something popped up. But it's about communicating and and helping people see it. It's not just one and done. It's, you know, constantly explaining and describing and telling stories and helping people see the action and also by doing, which is taking the action so they start seeing the difference.

Yeah. I always talk about it as, you know, I got I'll I'll share this. I got sober almost eleven years ago, and one of the people that I had a really hard time thank you. With that, with how my behavior changed. Right? Because I was really good at just, like, killing all of my relationships. Right? And so, it's something that it's vastly different. Right? And one person in my life had an extremely hard time balancing that. And so it was, okay. How do I I just keep showing up. I just keep being that person I wanna be and doing estimable and and acceptable helpful acts. Right? Eventually, it will come through. Right? But when you're evolving your identity, you've just gotta you've gotta be stalwart in it. Right?

Like, you're gonna take them along with you, and some people aren't gonna love it. And that's on them. Yep. We are finishing up. Any last thoughts to leave our our folks with?

Yeah. So just take a moment to pause, maybe build that into your day. That's the first step in all of this. Just do it simply. You know, just stopping and taking a breath. That's the simplest way to start applying this.

I love that, and I could not agree more. Thank you all for joining us. I hope you all enjoy the rest of your conference experience with women in tech, and we appreciate all of you. Thank you for joining.