Episode 383: The Freedom to Pivot & Letting Go of Achievement | Becca Pearce | Author & Leadership Coach

Actor / ComedianEntrepreneurshipWomen in Business

Sep 30

What if success had less to do with what you achieve and more to do with how you feel about your life? Author and leadership coach Becca Pearce joins Kara Duffy to explore what it means to redefine success, let go of external expectations, and create a life that reflects what truly matters.

After losing her job publicly and facing a brain tumor diagnosis, Becca began questioning everything she once believed about achievement, money, and career. Together, they explore the power of choosing yourself, identifying your values, and recognizing that you don't have to sacrifice your happiness or relationships to build a meaningful life.

“I have this vision where success is measured by happiness and satisfaction, rather than title or money or power.”

— Becca Pearce

Governor Martin O'Malley
You Don't Have to Achieve to Be Loved
Raising Daughters
383_Becca Pearce
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[00:00:00]
Kara Duffy: Welcome to the Powerful Ladies podcast. I'm Kara Duffy, and today's guest is Becca Pierce, author of You Don't Have to Achieve to Be Loved. Don't we all need to hear that message and read that book? After two major life events, including a brain tumor, Becca determined it was time to reprioritize her life.
Once she saw and experienced the freedom her new life orientation gave her, Becca knew she had to share it with as many people as possible. In this episode, we talk about how to identify your values, how you can choose yourself even when it feels like you're just trying to survive, And how prioritizing what makes you thrive gives others the courage to do the same.
Let's begin by telling everybody where you are, what you're up to, and your name
Becca Pearce: Hi. I am Becca Pierce, and I am based in Baltimore, Maryland, I was born and raised [00:01:00] here and never left
Kara Duffy: I almost moved there before coming to California. I was being recruited by Under Armour for a while.
Becca Pearce: Really?
Kara Duffy: Yeah, my past life was in footwear and apparel in the sporting goods world.
Becca Pearce: Would've been the place to be.
Kara Duffy: What is your favorite thing about Baltimore?
Becca Pearce: that it is so close to the bay, that it is so close to the ocean, and That it's pretty close to mountains. that it's like just right in the middle of everything
Kara Duffy: Yeah. I think that's what's great about so many places on the East
Coast. Well, you have had quite the journey, which has led you to your powerful place today. Where would you like to begin? Should we talk about corporate life? Should we talk about a brain tumor? What's, what's pulling on your heart today to start from?
Becca Pearce: I would actually love to not start with the journey right this
Kara Duffy: Perfect.
Becca Pearce: and actually talk about what the journey taught me.
and I think the, when I think about what the journey taught me. And what I think about in life and the change that I would love to see, right? I have this vision [00:02:00] where success is measured by happiness and satisfaction rather than title or money or power or anything along those lines.
And it just is this place in this world now where I want everybody to understand that I get that you got on that success train. I understand that that felt good does not need to be your life anymore, and it's okay. You can figure out how to pivot. There is life beyond that title. There is life beyond that path that you set yourself on, and you can do it and still have the security and safety that you need in your life
Kara Duffy: I remember hearing on another podcast, they were talking about AI taking everyone's jobs, and they said, "If they take our jobs, how will we have purpose?"
And it broke my heart a little bit. So how would you answer that? If there are no jobs for us to measure success against, how do we find our purpose?
Becca Pearce: I mean, I think the, first of all, the most important thing that I learned, And, and my book is titled You Don't Have to Achieve to be Loved because [00:03:00] of this realization, that I lived so much of my life believing that I had to achieve for people to love me, and people love you just because. If you think about it, you don't love your friends more because they have a certain title or because they make a certain amount of money, and you don't, you don't love your brother or sister less because they're insert whatever their job is, right?
And so first and foremost, just this recognition that it just doesn't matter what you do to define yourself. And in finding purpose, there are so many ways to find purpose. If you really think about what you wanna do and, and what you wanna leave behind and what your your mark is on the world, it's through children, it's through friendship, through listening to others, it's through making an impact to other people just by being you. It has nothing to do with job or title or what you achieve
Kara Duffy: When you were in the, past mindset of chasing that and you were very successful at chasing [00:04:00] it what did you think that you were missing? Did you know you were missing out on things at the time or only after did you realize what you might have been missing out on?
Becca Pearce: I think I didn't realize it until after. I think, thinking 'cause, so wh- when I worked for the state, when I was the Exchange, and I worked all the time, and I remember thinking um, didn't take my daughter to school for two years. There were so many things that I didn't do that I didn't realize I was missing at the time because I was so 100% focused on the deliverable and making sure that that was a success that I, I totally missed, that I was missing that part of my life, and now it's one of my biggest regrets
Kara Duffy: I think there's a evolution happening in our relationship to how we generate money or our job or career, and I think that there's been so many shifts of why we are pursuing career. Everyone needs money of some capacity to function in how our society is currently set up. [00:05:00] And I know that for my generation, there's a lot of conversations around are you following your passion?
Find your passion, make money that way. And it was in contrast to seeing, past generations who were just doing jobs and doing it and getting spit out and, maybe they had pensions, maybe they had good benefits, but they weren't really doing things that lit them up.
And now I see people who are struggling just to get a job or to break out of the freelance market and into... they would love a corporate experience. They would love a W-2 'cause they've never had one yet, and they've been in the workforce for 10, 15 years. And so I've been trying to talk to some people about just kind of redefining at what point do we separate our identity from what we're doing for a living and take a job that we are relatively good at, it pays us, [00:06:00] and we don't need to take it home? How are you seeing things change, and how would you recommend people who are stuck in that place rethink kinda how they're kinda defining the career part of their lives?
Becca Pearce: Yeah, that's interesting because I see a, a lot of people say to me "Okay, but I Like the W-2 offers that stability, And so how do I let g- that go? And so here is your generation asking for that stability, and I think that there is space when I work with people, there's a lot of discussion about you don't necessarily need to find that passion.
You don't need to find the thing that feeds you inside work, right? means to an end. It can be a means to an end, and so, as long as you have that something that feeds you outside of that, you can just take a job. And as long as it's doing something that you don't hate, like you're doing, entry when really you're a person, that's gonna be a problem. But as long as you enough to, to give you a paycheck, then if you can find something outside of that, then that's [00:07:00] okay
Kara Duffy: Yeah, I think that there's been, especially with the influencer whole world getting created and what people are doing, we're seeing a lot of lives taking over media spaces that I don't think are ordinary. And so
Becca Pearce: I, would agree with that
Kara Duffy: I think there's a big skew happening of... It's, I think the same thing's actually happening to personal relationships, too where the job and the relationship needs to be dynamic and needs to involve travel and there's all these things that were never on the wish list for a relationship or a job before that are because of versions of life that we've been exposed to. I'm usually the one as a business coach, like, getting people to quit their corporate job and do something
Becca Pearce: Yes. Right.
Kara Duffy: And so for me, it's, it's interesting to hear people wanting to go the other way. But I do think there's room for a reset, and I was even having a conversation with a friend recently about I don't think enough people know how to be poor and be comfortable being poor
Becca Pearce: [00:08:00] Interesting
Kara Duffy: and w- to explain that a little bit more and I'll let you respond to it is I I think that there are ways to live minimally and keep expenses low and be in that kind of hustle where you're a little bit hungry to be driving more. Like I don't want people in poverty, right? To clarify. but there's, there's how do we live below our means and still enjoy life and still have fun and, and get creative in that space and be okay with less? Because to me that's an access point to freedom. And I'm, a lot of what y- you are doing on a regular basis to me feels like you're begging people to choose freedom as well.
Becca Pearce: Yes, right. Well, and I think that's really interesting too because I think, my daughter is 19 and she's a really good consumer. quite frankly social media teaches you to be a really good consumer, right? All of the sudden she's like, "Well, I've gotta go get this hair product."
I'm like, "Well, where did you find out about it?" "Well, TikTok." Right? what happened to finesse? What happened to buying it?" at the Acme? [00:09:00] So, I think there definitely is room there, and, not feeling like you need to always be in this place of that, like you said, this creating this sort of fake world
Kara Duffy: Well, and even when we look at how many pieces of clothing people had different generations ago I read something that women in the '50s had a total of 60 items in their wardrobe from shoes, jackets, accessories, everything. And today we have 600 which we just don't need, right? Like everyone I know has things in their closet they're not wearing.
Becca Pearce: Right. Yes
Kara Duffy: And so that's what I mean when I'm talking about like we don't really know how to be poor. Like we don't know how to live a minimalist financial life such that we're not caught in that. We're, like you become so, so dependent on the good job, which I think is what scares a lot of people who are calling you and being like, "Help me get out of here."
Becca Pearce: Yes. Well, and I think that that's really interesting. That tends to be the, the... If you're in [00:10:00] this process of where do I wanna change, right? Oftentimes it is a financial discussion, and it's a very simple. It's how much money do you make, how much money do you need, how much money do you spend, and how much money do you save, right?
Because I think we as humans inadvertently begin to live up to our means, right? Just like you're saying. Very rarely do people live consciously below their means. But if you really look at your numbers, if you really look at what you make versus what you really need to be spending, 100% of the time when I do this with a client, they are shocked to realize that they could be saving money
Kara Duffy: I, live in Orange County, California, which has the biggest income disparity in any county in the US. There are billionaires and there are people below the poverty line all in the same space. Like we have as many-- Our population's the same size as Connecticut, and we're like a third of the size.
So, I remember when they were giving out the COVID checks and they said, "You'll... If you make up to 120K, you'll get [00:11:00] this relief." And I sat around looking, going, "I know people who are making four times that who are living paycheck to paycheck."
Becca Pearce: Wow
Kara Duffy: I do-- It like you just-- There's this thing, right? Like you, your income goes up and your spending goes up and we're not, we're not managing it. I've been hired by people here to help them with their budgets 'cause they've never had one before.
Becca Pearce: Right. Right
Kara Duffy: Good for you and maybe bad for you because you wasted so much money. So but I think what's so interesting about the work that you do and what seems to be your, your renewed mission in life is like helping people realize that we don't need all the things, like all the titles, all the other stuff.
You obviously had some major life moments that kind of forced you into seeing that for yourself. Do you still slide back into the old way of thinking sometimes? And how do you keep present to what you know to be [00:12:00] more truthful?
Becca Pearce: Yeah, so it's interesting. So, just to give your listeners my, story quickly. So, I grew up in health insurance. I worked for the Blues, I worked for Kaiser Permanente. And then in 2011, I was appointed by Governor O'Malley to run Obamacare for the state of Maryland. That did not turn on the way it was supposed to on day one, and I lost my job quite publicly, I mean, on the news, 5:00, 6:00, and 11:00, the whole bit. Fortunately, I landed on my feet. I had three job offers within three weeks, which is a really big deal. When we're talking about women, right, powerful ladies, oftentimes when women fall off that pedestal, they never come back. But fortunately, the people that were around me, and this is part of the thing that helped realize that it...
I was the scapegoat, right? Somebody had to lose their job. I get that should I have lost my job? Yeah, I was responsible for it. I was responsible for get it. So all of that to say I landed on my feet, but I had lost my job, I was diagnosed with [00:13:00] a brain tumor, and the beauty of that is it was benign and operable, and those are the two best words you can hear after you hear the term brain tumor.
Also, it's still a really big deal. I spent 2015 learning to walk again. My face was paralyzed for a year. I, I have significant problems going on still to this day from it, and that was the realization that allowed me to change my life, right? It was the combination of those two and that realization that time is the only freaking thing that matters in life.
When you get that diagnosis, and the only thing that flashes in front of you is, "How am I gonna get more time with my family? How am I gonna get more time in, on this earth to do what I wanna do?" That is the wake-up call for you to be able to say, "Oh," and for me to be able to say, "Oh," my God, it was all a lie," right?
The title didn't matter. The money didn't matter. The power didn't matter. None of that mattered. So what am I doing pushing myself here along that path? [00:14:00] So I had this epiphany, right? I was able to move forward. And your question was, do I ever lean back? Yes, absolutely. Right? There was at one point that I did get a job offer within a couple years to move out to California to run a huge thing in California a billion-dollar business in California, and I was like all in.
I was like, "Yes, do it." And my husband looked at me, he's like, "I don't know why we would do that." Right? "We're gonna lose you again. You're gonna move the two of us across the country, and we're never gonna see you. Like, the only reason that I can see us doing this is greed." and I was like, "Oh. Oh, right." And so, it helps to have people around me to remind you know, that that was part of the old me, and I don't need that anymore. And so that's gonna rear its head every once in a while, but that's not in my heart who I am anymore
Kara Duffy: Yeah. There's even moments when I'm proud of having built a life where I have more freedom, I have, authority over how I [00:15:00] spend my days and with whom, and there are still moments when I get that shiny object. And it's not even a s- where it's a really interesting problem or challenge or the job description sounds great.
I'm like, "Ooh, that'd be fun." And it's like, "Yes, but for how long?"
Becca Pearce: Yep. I, I think for, for me every once in a while I'm like, "Yeah." And then I imagine myself walking into the building for the job interview. I'm like, "That's a terrible idea."
Kara Duffy: Yeah. Well, and I, I, I also, once you're on your own, you or outside of the corporate space, you forget how much of your day was spent doing a bunch of nonsense.
Becca Pearce: Yes, right
Kara Duffy: And, when people are like, "How do you get so much done and not be working 40 hours a week?" I'm like, "I don't go to any dumb meetings."
When, like, when did you decide "I see this now. I can't unsee it. I need to show other people how to access this too"?
Becca Pearce: In about 2000... Where are we now? We're in [00:16:00] 2026. So in 2024, I was doing a couple speaking engagements, and that year it had been nine years since my surgery. And since, since 2013, people have been saying, "Oh my gosh, you need to write a book. You need to do this." And it wasn't until 2024 that I started to listen to people.
And as people were saying like, "Listen, you need to understand that I changed my life because I, I heard your story." And I was like, "Oh, I really do have something to say." And when I began to do the research for my book, what I realized is there is a change process that everybody goes through, regardless of whether you decide that you're gonna go to the gym on, on, it's your New Year's resolution, all the way to I've decided that I'm gonna change 180 degrees and change my career.
And so that research allowed me to be like, "Okay, yes, there is something here." And that's when I wrote the book. And so that book's been out since October of '25
Kara Duffy: And what a huge accomplishment to get the book done and out.
Becca Pearce: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah,
Kara Duffy: [00:17:00] It's a really big deal. People think books just magically appear, and
especially when it's your story and your wisdom you're putting onto the page. Like, how much were you wrestling with just the, the writing of the book process?
Becca Pearce: It was, until I found a publisher, because I kept thinking to myself, "Well, nobody reads a memoir unless you're famous." So I knew that there wasn't a memoir, but at the same time, my story needed to be in it. So how... It was that balance that I really had a diffi- a lot of difficulty with until my publisher really sat down with me and was like, "You can write it."
And what we decided is that my story's in there, but only in so much that it helps you understand where you fit in that story, right? And so that process, but the process of actually writing, I mean, there were days in there that I was like, I, I wrote something and I was like, "I did not know that that was true until it just came out on the paper." Right? And so there is also value in waiting 10 [00:18:00] years from something. You can't write it right when you're in the middle of it. It, I needed that perspective to be able to write it
Kara Duffy: With these pivots that have happened in your life and your newfound perspectives, are-- do you find yourself more woo-woo and spiritual than you were before or same?
Becca Pearce: That's I get that question a lot and no different whatsoever. And I think that's the funny thing is that when I talk about my coaching, when I was the CEO, I was like, "Drop your emotion. We got stuff to do," right? "Just don't bring it to work," right? And I'm very logical and very just right down the center, right?
There is no... When I came off that table, that surgery table, I was like, "Thank God I'm alive. Can we sing, all sing Kumbaya together," right? The, like birds in air and, but my coaching is right? down middle between those two. There are times that I recognize talking about your emotion, and we know, know that emotions are what actually drive decisions.
But the other half of the time I'm like, "What's that doing to your bottom line? Like, why are we even having this discussion," right? And so that never [00:19:00] changed. My my faith, My woo woo, like nothing ever changed about that really in the long run
Kara Duffy: What made me think of it was you talking about how things were coming out of you when you wrote them that you never processed yourself. And I find that when we're doing work we're supposed to, or we're in our zone of genius, it's things kinda come through you that it, it's... I think people get surprised at how easy it can feel to make a living
Becca Pearce: Yeah.
Kara Duffy: And sometimes I hear things come out of my mouth when I'm coaching people and I'm like, "Love that. I need to hear that. I'll take that back to myself, thank you." But there is, there's there's really a
place where you can do what you are, are naturally gifted at, and earning a living does not have to be pushing a rock up a hill.
It does not have to be labor in the verb version of it. And I think that's hard for people to kinda [00:20:00] grasp. When you're looking, working with clients and they're like, "But I need to earn this much money, but I need..." There's a lot of this clinging feeling I think people have. How are you able to break people free from these deep-rooted money stories or performance-based needs?
Becca Pearce: I think there's two things, and the first one is if it comes easily to you, if you are in a meeting or you're somewhere and you think to yourself, "I c- I can't believe everybody else didn't just think that," that is your jo- zone of genius, right? It, it comes so easily to you that you look around and go, "How come you couldn't also do that?" because their zone of genius is something completely different than yours, and that's where you need to begin to listen and say, "Oh, okay, well, how do I monetize that?" Right? And so it, I often talk about kind of giving that inner voice, Another way to think about it is if you think to yourself, I just wish," insert whatever it is and then the next thought "Well, who would pay me for that?"
That means that that also is the thing that's in your zone of genius, right? So [00:21:00] being able- ... to identify those things and then do the tactical things where do you find that in the workplace, right? Which means, by the way, going into LinkedIn, looking at jobs, seeing where you find those specific things. That's the type of tactical work that you can do to begin to get yourself away from those preconceived notions that you have.
Kara Duffy: Part of why I created this podcast was to show women other ways women are going through life and designing their lives, businesses, et cetera. 'Cause I know that so many of my careers I never knew existed until I kinda stumbled into it.
Becca Pearce: Right, right
Kara Duffy: And I have a whole saves folder on my Instagram of ways, like ridiculous ways that you can earn a living. Because I think people need these examples, right? And so there's a gal in LA who her whole job is birthday parties for dogs. If you can earn a living throwing birthday parties for animals, I'm pretty sure [00:22:00] we can find your thing too.
Becca Pearce: Exactly.
Kara Duffy: Do you feel like in the current times that people are, since you've started, I guess, in your space, are you seeing people shifting towards being hungry for this type of change? Or are you seeing there be more resistance with based on just how the world is today?
Becca Pearce: Very much so. I see people actually aching for it. You know, one of the things that is interesting is, and you probably know this as a coach, is you end up coaching yourself, right? And so I intend to coach, small business owners who are trying to figure out how to grow their business or exit their business, and also women who have done everything they're supposed to do, right?
They took care of their kids. They have the job they're supposed to have. They took care of their parents. They took care of the dog. They're taking care of their spouse. All of the above, and then They're waking up and going, "Oh, I'm not really sure I'm actually happy." Right? And so those are the people that in my mind, I, for a while I was calling it the women's midlife crisis, but I think it's [00:23:00] happening everywhere, right?
It's not just 50 to 55-year-old women. It's, it's, I've got a millennial who's doing the exact same thing. I'm, I, it's, it's not generational. It's across the board, for sure
Kara Duffy: Things are sh- shifting so quickly. Whether it's technology, whether it's, geopolitics, all of the things that It feels to me and the people that are in my kind of friend circle in particular, that any assumptions we had on how things are gonna go have been thrown out the window probably since it maybe first started around 9/11, but then again, like 2020, like just kind of, right, I think put that, dug that pile into, permanently into the ground.
And it's interesting as I'm an elder millennial, and so, like my grandparents, my parents, everyone kind of had generations where things were getting better, like over the span of their lifetimes. And I feel like there's a lot of people younger than myself who are like, "Things have not been getting better in my lifetime."
So [00:24:00] how do we create better in our own bubble if that's the only choice we have?
Becca Pearce: Right
Kara Duffy: How important is it to you that like, your, your personal bubble is moving in the right direction, and how do you maintain that?
Becca Pearce: Yeah, I I sometimes have difficulty watching the news, and I have found it's because I end up in existential crisis. And so I have found this space where I say, "Yes, my personal bubble, how do I help other people in this space?" I may not be able to help myself, but I can help you, right?
I can help you, listening to you, and by helping you figure out how to make your the best. That's actually making my space the best because that's what feeds me. And so I am so focused on kind of what I can do for myself. In fact, this week I'm actually staying... we have a house on the bay, so I'm at my bay house this week.
Just trying figure out, like, how to create the the for myself to do what I need to do is [00:25:00] paramount, everything I do every day
Kara Duffy: I feel really lucky that the corporate jobs I had were with collaborators who didn't have access to things and had to kind of build things from scratch, and also believed things were-- anything was possible. Like, when I was at a skateboarding brand, we were, like, having some guy jump over the Wall of China, right?
So it's like, if you believe it, if you snap your fingers, we can make it happen. And I always have a list of if I had a magic wand, here's what I'd wish people just got instantly. And this idea that you can have your all, I feel like we have to take the building, take all the bricks apart, and then decide how we're putting them back together.
'Cause you mentioned, "Oh, I have this second house at the bay." And I think people are like, "That sounds great, but how do I choose myself and give up the corporate job and have two houses too?" And I'm like, "Well, there's, of course, there's still a
way."
Becca Pearce: Right. And I think that's the thing. Also, like, why wait? I run into a lot of, [00:26:00] "Well, I'll do it when..."
Kara Duffy: Yes
Becca Pearce: Here's the thing, right? I understand it's cliche. I understand you're gonna say, "Oh," everybody's like, "Oh, we're not promised tomorrow," but we were really not fucking promised tomorrow, right? So, like, why wait?
Why, why take yourself into that corporate job one more day
if you just wanna gouge your eyes out? Find another way
Kara Duffy: We might be guaranteed more days, but I don't know if it's with the people we have. I don't know if it's with the health that we have. I don't know if it's with the energy that we currently have.
Becca Pearce: Yeah
Kara Duffy: It's, There's a lot that ch- can change where you're still here, but it's not the same. It's not, not with the same tools and resources
Becca Pearce: Yep, absolutely
Kara Duffy: what are you most proud of when you're working with a client?
Becca Pearce: I am most proud, like quite frankly, like my favorite moment when I'm working with a client is when they go quiet. They just go completely quiet, right? Like that means that they are thinking, [00:27:00] that some neuron just shifted in their brain and they're like, "Oh." And sometimes, like I have a client this one client of mine and like, in 10 minutes of working together, he like, "You know what, Becca, F you." and I was like "Wait, And he's like, "No, you need to understand, nobody gets me to think that way. F you for getting me to think that way." Like that was pretty awesome.
Kara Duffy: No, I lo- I think that's, that's fabulous. There's...
you're you're t- speaking of the moment when they can't go back.
Becca Pearce: exactly
Kara Duffy: When you think about the choices that you've made and how you're helping other people, how are you translating this wisdom to your kids?
Becca Pearce: Interestingly, I just did a podcast with my daughter recently called Raising Daughters, and her college essay was about my leaving corporate America and choosing myself and my family over over work, and how much she respected that and how much she thought that made a strong woman. and I was like,
Kara Duffy: Did you lose it? [00:28:00]
I
Becca Pearce: totally lost it, and I was like, "My work is done." Yeah. I hope that I am instilling that in her. At the same time, she did say something really powerful to me the other day, which was, she feels like she has to want the corporate job are so many people who are trying to take away women's rights, that she believes that because there were so many women who fought for it, she
has to fight for it.
And I was like, "Wow, that's a lot to carry."
Kara Duffy: I think that a lot of young women are carrying a lot of that weight.
Becca Pearce: Yeah
Kara Duffy: Even with this podcast, you know, we've gone back and forth, should it be Powerful Ladies, should it be Powerful Humans? And we're always like, no matter... Sure, California, there might be more rights for women than other states, but there's so many things that are being taken away that have disappeared in other places.
And it's a little bit like it hurts my head to think about how [00:29:00] much work there is still to do when there doesn't need to be, and I didn't think there was when I was younger.
Becca Pearce: Right? I, I would agree with that. And, and I would say this, just I go to a therapist for my neck, And, she's 75, and I asked her, "Is life better than it was before?" And she said, "You know what? I divorced my husband in 1972, And I could not get a credit card." and I was- She's like, "So things are horrible, but they're still better than they were in the '50s and the '60s."
I'm like, "Okay." Okay, that at least gave me a little bit of hope to say we're, we're, we haven't, like... You know, I keep saying, "Why are we going back to 18-something?" But, at least things are still
moving forward.
Kara Duffy: Yeah, we
I had a group of women on who are running nonprofits in different countries around the world. Some of them were like, "Oh, if, if I-- if we get bombed during this recording, I'll just jump back on." I was like, "No, please just go handle what you need to handle." That's so not [00:30:00] important. And it was so interesting to hear their perspectives because they're living under regime changes.
They're like every, different days. One day their group is accepted, the next day they're being hunted and criminalized. It was really shocking to think about how quickly things can change. And I was asking them like, " how do you keep going? Because one day the work you're doing is legal, the next day it's not."
Becca Pearce: Yeah, right
Kara Duffy: And they're like, "Well, throughout time, this is what women have always done. Women have a- always cared about other people. Women have always created spaces to protect other people. Women have always educated other people." They're like, "It doesn't matter if it's legal or not, women know it's the right thing to do."
Becca Pearce: Wow
Kara Duffy: it it was such a reassuring perspective to get.
Becca Pearce: Yeah, right
Kara Duffy: also I think in America we're having a little cult-like shock that it's happening here. But from a global perspective, women are like, "We [00:31:00] just keep going.
Becca Pearce: Yeah,
we
Kara Duffy: nothing else to do."
Becca Pearce: and we get up and do what we need to do when the husbands all lay in bed for three days.
Kara Duffy: Yeah, exactly. Do you see a difference between your like clients? Like, Do you see themes of who's more open and willing to change fast, or who hangs on to the silly things that they're just gripping onto and don't need at all?
Becca Pearce: For me, it really is personal. It really is and it's the identity work of, of prying people's away from that identity. And I find that the themes that I actually find is that it's easy to hide behind certain things. It's easy to hide behind, "Oh, I need to make that money," when really you're scared to death of who you're gonna be if you don't, if you're doing something different, right?
And so the themes are, the things that people hide behind are, all sort of similar, but it's very individual terms of what they need to let go of
Kara Duffy: If someone is,
making, let's just say 60 to [00:32:00] $70,000 a year, which in most places is like barely surviving today and they are really craving the things that you're saying to like pivot and change, how can they do that without maybe disrupting just the basic things they have to provide for?
Becca Pearce: The most tactical thing that I could tell somebody in that s- state to do is look at everything that you do from your job perspective, see what your transferable skills are. So let's use... I'm gonna use a, a, a stay-at-home mom for one second, right? And you think about... You think, "Oh, I don't even have transferable skills."
Are you kidding me? You organized everybody in the family. You are a logistics whiz, right? All of those things that go into managing a household could go into managing an office, right? So no matter what job you have, there are going to be transferable skills that I guarantee you, you are right now thinking to yourself, "Those aren't transferable.
It's so specific to [00:33:00] my industry." Well, I'm gonna guarantee you it's probably not. Put a different lens on and say to yourself, "Okay, what of these skills are transferable to something else?" To give yourself the freedom to begin thinking outside of where you are today
Kara Duffy: And I think also to add to that it's okay to let some things go that are on your to-do list that you're not being
paid for.
Becca Pearce: By far, that's a given. Get rid of those things.
Kara Duffy: We're so programmed,
right? Even I find myself, like I have to tidy the house up before I go to sleep, otherwise I'm like, "The day is not done." And I'm like, "Do I?" The house isn't a disaster. And so I've even been finding myself and I'm looking at these things that you, they're in your blind spot space, right?
And so when you- I even see myself doing things that I don't need to do or even care about. I've been trying to test myself and be like, "We're just going to bed." And I'm in bed, like stressing out about it. I'm like, "Just let it go. Let it go."
Becca Pearce: And what happens the next morning? The world is still turning
Kara Duffy: Yeah. Nothing. [00:34:00] Nothing else happened. It took me five minutes to tidy up the kitchen while I made breakfast versus waiting to, to do it last night. What is next for you? What does the rest of your year look like, and what are you excited about?
Becca Pearce: I am super excited that I am actually taking a speaking program. So I do a, a lot of speaking around the country already. The speaking program that I'm taking is going to enhance my speaking. So I'm super excited to be able to do... stand up and do keynotes across the country in a new way. And so that's where I'm focused this year, in the, the talk. So rewriting the talk that I already give about redefining success and doing it in a way that's going to challenge people immediately as soon as they're in the room
Kara Duffy: When I think about redefining what I value as success, like I just jumped from the kinda type A plan I used to have, and then the extreme end of it is "I'm just a glowing ball of light. What do I do with my light?" And I think the glowing ball of [00:35:00] light still needs to, have some structure, and needs to eat, and needs to, pay some bills. How do we find balance between the I'm just a loving ball of light to I'm, type A plus, plus, plus, plus?
Becca Pearce: First and foremost, like I wrote my own definition of success. and my own definition of success is tied a little bit to my business because I was writing it in a business mode, but it's to make a kickass living doing what I love and changing people's lives. I have a personal mission to change 10,000 people's lives by g- sharing one tidbit of information that changes the way they think, right?
Just one piece. If you, people take one thing away from here today, just, identify what it is. And you don't have to take all of it away, but maybe one piece. And the next part of that definition of success is my values, right? And my values are my family 100% comes first.
If my daughter were to call right now, in between classes, I might be like, I gotta go take a call so making sure that everything that "I do is within those values. But [00:36:00] that's, that doesn't mean I'm anti-achievement. That doesn't mean that you can't want to be able to achieve in work, as long as it just for me is not defined by that
Kara Duffy: I think even there's people who really struggle to identify what their values are. Like, you say that and their head-- Their, I can see their eyes cross, their head gets all swirly. You can Google different tests to what are my values? 'Cause I don't know that people actually know. My coach had me take one... She had a sheet, basically. You kept picking them and narrowing them down.
And I had a real guilty moment when I realized that family as a value didn't make my top five because I replaced it with deep connections, and I felt so guilty about it. And through lens that we were looking at it was, what are things you kinda need daily, weekly to make sure your cup is feeling full?
It's like that's one way to look at how she was having me choose values. And my family, we've lived all over the place from each other. We [00:37:00] haven't lived in the same place for a long time. We've moved my entire life, and I've continued to as an adult. And so for me, it was like, oh I do love my family, but every week, every day, I need a deep connection with somebody who's in my circle to feel like I'm doing things the right way. It could be family members. It could be friends. It could even be a client that day. But the deep connection matter to feel grounded.
Becca Pearce: Right.
Kara Duffy: Are there favorite resources you have for people to be able to identify their values?
Becca Pearce: Yeah, So two things. I wanna actually respond to yours for one second because I think that's really important for people to hear. The list of words that you're gonna choose from, any place that you find them, and by the way, my favorite is on my website, morebeccapearce.com. Right in front right on the book page there is a link to my values exercise. But every single one of those words is gonna be an amazing word that you feel really bad crossing off, right? There's not gonna be any bad words on there. And I think it's really [00:38:00] important to have that deep of a conversation to be able to say, "Okay, it actually isn't family." To the point where I was working with one of my clients one time and he was working, 70, 80 hours a week, and he's like, "Family's one of my values."
I was like, "Really?" I was like, "How, how is that showing up for you?" Because I understand w- and his definition was, "Well, I've gotta work all that time to give the money to my family." And it was, like, "Okay, "Well, then maybe your value there really isn't family, maybe it's security."
Kara Duffy: Mm-hmm. Or providing.
Becca Pearce: or providing, something like that, so that you really have somebody to challenge you on your thinking is the way to get through that and really choose the ones that are the right ones
Kara Duffy: And that's why it's so complicated, right? I think that's why people get a little swirly. Are you... They'll list things off that, that they've heard someone else say that they're like, "Yeah, those matter to me." But yeah, it can be some scary deep waters when you're crossing them off the list. The other part that I know for me helped free me up to look at things [00:39:00] differently was really doing that committed versus attached conversation. And, like, how can you be responsible for what matters to you, kinda different than your values, but not have to be the one who does it? I'm a typical eldest, firstborn, very independent, and I have a list of things that matter to me.
Is my daughter eating the right food? Is it organic? Is it prepared? Is she loved? Is she learning? All these things. And going through the exercise of, like, how can I be responsible for something and keep it in integrity but not have to do it myself was also really interesting to kinda open up space to be like, oh, well, I can set kind of the brief, but if the nanny makes the food who cares? I don't have to. And even if, organicbaby.com makes the food, great.
Becca Pearce: Well, and I think that that's really interesting for women. We don't think... You know, I often say to women. "If you're redoing your [00:40:00] laundry room, you have a delegation problem."
Kara Duffy: Yeah.
Becca Pearce: Right? If you're making it pretty for you, then you have a delegation problem. This is no different than leadership. Somehow women can delegate at work, but they have a difficulty delegating at home, and it really becomes that, like you said commitment versus attachment. It doesn't need to be you, just like it doesn't need to be you emptying the trash at work because that's not your job anymore. it doesn't need to be you making the food. It doesn't mean you love her any less.
Kara Duffy: No? Mm-mm.
Becca Pearce: It's just figuring out the greatest and best use of your time valuing yourself that much to be able to say, "Hey, I can do more with my time if I do s- this slightly differently."
Kara Duffy: It makes me so happy that you are doing this for women in particular, but all people to be thinking about this differently. It's
Seeing other women who are holding up their little piece of the world and, and just really putting our heads back on correctly. Because I feel like [00:41:00] between all the changes in technology and media and storytelling and what's going on, I do feel like we're spinning around sometimes and we're all feeling dizzy and we don't totally know why. So to have people like you who can be an anchor to bring us back down to our own reality, I really appreciate that you exist, you're doing the work. I love how aligned we are in how we're trying to help people. And yeah, just I just wanna say thank you for what you're doing.
Becca Pearce: thank you. You too
Kara Duffy: What is something that we can help you with, e- either as the Powerful Lady Collective or even myself
Becca Pearce: I would love to be speaking more nationally. I do a lot of speaking on the East Coast, but if you have a group of women who need to hear some version of this, I would love to come speak
Kara Duffy: Okay, amazing. Um, I have some things I'll email you some options that are always looking for some speakers too. So I'll-- It might not happen this week, but you will be on the in the queue. For everybody who is hungry to get your [00:42:00] book, work with you where can they find, follow, and support you?
Becca Pearce: The best place to go is morebeccapearce.com, and Pearce is P-E-A-R-C-E. And there you can find all sorts of information about me. But the most important things, you can find my book there, which is of course gonna take you to Amazon, but you can find my book there. The book's called You Don't Have to Achieve to be Loved. And the way that I wrote the book, it's actually part workbook. it's got a lot of journaling questions in there for you. And what I've heard from a lot of people who have read it, who they say they read it first and then they go back and pick the chapters that speak to them the most. So, that's really what you're gonna find there, I think is the best. And you can sign up for my newsletter. I send a newsletter only once a month, and it is very short
Kara Duffy: I imagine that it must be so fun if people are sending you snapshots of your book, like all written in, that they've been doing the work
Becca Pearce: I have gotten some of those.
Kara Duffy: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for your time today, especially taking away from, time at the beach. But thank you so much for your time and the [00:43:00] work that you're doing.
Becca Pearce: Thank you so much for having me. I was glad to be here

Kara Duffy: Thanks for listening to the Powerful Ladies Podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe, leave us a review, or share it with a friend. Head to thepowerfulladies.com where you can find all the links to connect with today's guest, show notes, discover like episodes, enjoy bonus content, and more.
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