Need to Burn Your Boats? Here's How I Unexpectedly Burned Mine {4.29.26}

The Goal Getter Guide with Jen Laffin | Air Date: 4.29.26

When I left teaching after nine years, I held a rummage sale in my classroom and sold everything I'd built -- laminated anchor charts, handmade manipulatives, carefully organized binders -- for fifty cents and a dollar apiece.

A janitor stopped and asked if I'd regret it someday when I wanted to come back.

I looked him in the eye and said, "I'm not coming back."

But his question stayed with me. 

I didn't doubt my decision, but I realized those boxes weren't just full of supplies. 

They were full of proof that I was good at something. Proof that I'd earned my place. Proof of an identity I'd spent nearly a decade building.

And selling it all for fifty cents felt like more than a transaction.

In this week's episode, I talk about what that rummage sale taught me about identity, the primal brain's grip on who we used to be, and why you can't fully step into who you're becoming while you're still holding onto who you were.

If you've ever caught yourself measuring your worth by old metrics, clinging to a title or career that no longer fits, or keeping a "just in case" plan in your back pocket -- this one is for you.

Ready to build momentum? The Momentum Room is where it's done. Learn more at https://www.jenlaffin.com/tmr

Jen Laffin is the Chief Momentum Officer for women entrepreneurs and the creator of Accountability Without the Angst™. She helps women business owners build consistent follow-through and self-trust through The Momentum Room and private coaching. Learn more about Jen at https://www.jenlaffin.com. 

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome back to the Goal Getter Guide podcast. I am Jen Laffin, and you may know that before I became a business owner, I taught fourth grade for nine years, and if you didn't know before, I guess you do now and today, I'd like to tell you about something that I did on my very last day of teaching that helped set me up for success in the business world. So picture this, it's the end of my teaching career, nine years of it, and I decide. That I'm going to have a rummage sale to sell all of my teaching supplies, and I'm loading up the folding tables with everything that I have built over time. I did not wanna take anything home to store in the corner of my basement, so you would find laminated anchor charts and color coded binders and manipulatives that I had made from scratch at 10 o'clock on a Sunday night. All of it. All of it priced for like 50 cents or a dollar. And then the school janitor walked by and he watched me for a minute and he said something that I will never forget. He said totally casually," Aren't you going to regret getting rid of this stuff when you want to come back to teaching someday? And I stopped and I stood up and I looked him in the eye and I said, I'm not coming back. And that question that he asked followed me around for the rest of the afternoon and it settled in my body near my chest, and it just stayed there. And I couldn't figure out why, because I wasn't sad about leaving education. I had made a decision to start my own business and I was excited. So what was that unsettled feeling? Well. It took me a while to name it the boxes of supplies that I was selling. They weren't just full of lesson plans and memories. They were full of proof. Proof that I was good at something, proof that I had earned my place, proof of who I had been for a very long time, and I was selling it all for 50 cents a piece. And I've come to understand something about that feeling and about the entrepreneurs that I work with who also carry a version of it too. We don't just hold onto things. We hold on to identities and those identities hold us back from becoming our next level. Those materials I was selling, they represented years. Of being labeled a highly effective teacher. They were tied to the science units that I designed where my students built roller coasters in the hallways using plastic tubing and. Bbs, they held the math lessons where we turned our classroom into a fraction field. The Teacher of the Year award that told me that I was doing something right, the boxes weren't just sentimental. They were evidence that I was successful and as long as I had them. I could still point to that version of myself, but that day I made an important decision. I could not fully step into who I was becoming while I was still carrying around what I had finished being. And I mean this both literally and figuratively, because while I still held onto that identity of being a teacher and all of the mementos and memories that went along with it, I wasn't fully stepping into my identity of being a business owner. I couldn't see myself in two places at once, and my primal brain would naturally default to what was most comfortable, and that meant. Keeping me in my past, and this is where it gets sneaky, my friends, because the gap between who you were. And who you're becoming. That is where your primal brain has a lot of opinions. Now, remember, your primal brain is that part of your mind designed to keep you safe, and it does not know the difference between a threat to your physical safety and a threat to your identity to it. They both register the same way into your primal brain. Change feels really dangerous, and so it does what it was built to do. It tries to keep you in your comfort cave, but it's smart about it. It doesn't say stay small. It says things that sound completely reasonable. It says things like, oh, I'll just hold onto this binder just in case. Someday I might need this. Or it'll say, I worked really hard on this, I should keep it. And those things can be true for sure, but they can also be your primal brain wrapping, avoidance, and practicality, and making your hesitation feel safe. I see this all the time in the women business owners I coach. They were high performers in a previous career and now. They're building something brand new, but they're still measuring themselves by old metrics. By the hours they work, by the tasks they completed, whether someone else told them they did a good job, they're still waiting for external proof of their value In a world where they now have to create their own, the identity hasn't caught up to the decision, the real cost. Is not the stuff you're holding onto my friends. It's holding onto that old version of yourself that that stuff represents, that creates your drag, it slows down the new version from taking root. So what actually happened after that rummage sale in my classroom? Well, I looked around my empty classroom when the last table was cleared and I felt. So much lighter than I had in years. I was certainly still nervous about what was ahead, don't get me wrong, but I felt a lot lighter because I had just made a major deposit in my self-trust bank. I made it impossible for me to go back to a career in teaching. I decided then and there that my future was as an entrepreneur and there was no looking back. That rummage sale was just a clean break. It was a declaration. There was no backup plan folded up in a box in my basement, and I have to say my husband was rather happy about that. I was committed to my success, not just in my head, but in my actions, and I know something now that I didn't know. Then everything that actually made me a great teacher, it wasn't in those boxes and in those supplies, it was inside of me. It was in the way that I listen, the way that I build structure, the way that I meet people exactly where they are. None of that got sold for 50 cents. What I left behind was the need for my past to be my safety net, a plan B, a lifeboat that I could swim to if plant A didn't work. What I gained was a space to trust and believe in what was coming next. So I want to ask you something. What are you still carrying, literally or figuratively? You don't have to hold a rummage sale, but most of us are holding onto something, a title, a definition of success that's defined by others, a version of ourselves we've already outgrown, and sometimes even a box of mementos in the corner in the basement, and we're letting it sit in the corner of our mind taking up space. What would it feel like? To put all of that into a sail pile, not to erase who you've been. Not to pretend that it didn't matter because it did, but to stop letting it be the reason why you are not fully showing up and doing what you need to do to get to where you want to go. The next version of you doesn't need you to have everything figured out first. It just needs you to set down what you've already finished. Carrying that, my friends, is where the momentum starts. Thank you so much for listening again this week to the Goal Getter Guide podcast. If this episode landed for you, I would love to hear about it. Come find me on LinkedIn or on Substack, and tell me what you are putting in the sale pile. I want to celebrate with you, and if you're ready to stop curing the weight of who you used to be and actually build momentum as who you're becoming. The momentum room is now. Open the link. Is in the show notes, check it out and come join us. So until next time, my friends, keep your eyes forward because that is the way that you are headed.