Why you need Glennon Doyle and a Touch Tree in your life (and your career)

Glennon Doyle is in a word, extraordinary. She is a New York Times bestseller, multiple times over, she is a speaker, podcast guest, thought provoker, a fighter for all things equal and just, a mother, a wife, and an all-around warrior for women to drop the bullshit and live the lives we were meant to live: untamed.

I can’t begin to remember how I stumbled upon Glennon’s teachings. It may have been Instagram, a perfectly placed ad on my Facebook or hell an actual birdie may have told me. However it is that I found her, I’m pretty darn glad about it. As she says, hell as she PREACHES: “When we quit abandoning ourselves and instead abandon the world’s expectations of us, we become women who can finally look at our lives and recognize: There She Is.“

I have been listening to her latest book, Untamed, on my long car rides, and in between sips of iced coffee, a splash of half and half, I am wiping the tears away that just won’t stop falling from my eyes. Not because I’m sad, but because Glennon is desperately shaking our shoulders through her words, and her writing, demanding that we break out of our cages that society as placed us in at a young age and begging us to join her in the world without a leash, untamed.

I feel like when I’m listening to Glennon’s words and her memoir that she just gets it. She gets what it’s like to be a woman in the world. A wife, a mom, a friend, a complex human being, and more. From surviving an eating disorder, alcoholism, and an addiction to pills all to numb the pain, she abandoned who she knew she was deep inside just to fit the mold that is placed on women at such a young age. There’s nothing this fierce lady hasn’t seen. She’s seen it, she’s lived it and she’s pushed through it and is ready to help YOU do the same. Glennon is always reminding us: We can do hard things.

I have been preaching her latest book to every woman that I have come across because honestly, it’s more important than those pamphlets we got in 6th grade telling us “You’re gonna be a woman!” In fact, it was a load of BS and what they should have been doing is handing us Glennon’s books saying “Hey sis, I know it’s gonna suck at times, but man you’re going to live your best, most beautiful life if you listen to the voice deep within your soul.”

I will say there’s a passage that I’m clearly, incredibly biased to titled “Erika’s” and yes, with a K! You know my litmus test on ‘coolness’ is whether or not people spell my name with a K and Glennon has clearly passed the test. Ok, jokes aside the real story I want to bring to your attention is her talk about ‘Touch Trees’.

What’s a Touch Tree? A Touch Tree is used in wilderness survival techniques. If you are lost in the forest experts suggest that you very quickly find yourself a ‘Touch Tree’ or a home base to keep coming back to. You’re headed out to find water and berries to survive the day? Return to the Touch Tree at night. Running to the river for that daily bath (just because we’re lost doesn’t mean we give up on hygiene!) well, don’t forget to come back to your ‘home’. Your Touch Tree is the place that is keeping you going and guiding you.

I started to think about Touch Trees and how so often they are used in the workplace and our careers but we have no idea that we’re doing it. For example, I can be happy and productive at almost any job as long as I get to flex some kind of communication muscle. Am I writing a post for the company blog about our new technology? Am I getting to create a cool 4-page deck for high-level executives? Yes? Then, let’s do it! I’m happy and fulfilled when I continue to make sure that my career and my jobs all come back to my Touch Tree: Communication.

As Glennon shares “You are your own Touch Tree. Everything you need is inside of you.” You know what drives you, what makes you tick, and ultimately what makes you happy. Touch Trees can be found all through our lives even in personal relationships such as saying ‘yes’ to a date with someone you know in your gut is not your person. We must be aware of our Touch Tree at all times so we aren’t saying yes to the wrong person or the wrong job.

Life, including our careers, will be a game of chutes and ladders. You will not climb from one rung to the next ascending higher and higher. The game is not that easy. You will go across five rungs only to maybe go down one but ultimately climb five because you were following your gut, your instinct, your Touch Tree, and your innate happiness.

When you think about your career or read over your resume can you find a common thread? Are you always working in coding in some way shape or form? Are you seeing the constant theme that you love working with Guests always popping up? Do numbers seem to drive you and your work forward even if your title has nothing to do with finance or statistics? I believe without us even knowing it we are always trying to return home to our Touch Tree, to ourselves. This is the key to happiness in our 9-5 life, or heck maybe your noon-9 p.m. life: Touch Trees.

Whatever it is, find your Touch Tree. Know your Touch Tree and be able to understand the how’s and why’s of your Touch Tree so you never lose sight of it, no matter how far you veer off of the path. And make sure when you’re out there foraging for berries along your career path, that you take Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed with you so you never get lost again.