Kerry Thomas / Shift Profile

When you don’t know who you are, nothing else matters
Kerry Thomas, Owner Conquer the Chaos

Kerry Thomas, Owner, Conquer the Chaos

Kerry Thomas knows clutter. In fact, as the CEO of Conquer the Chaos, she helps overwhelmed people organize their environments for productivity and peace of mind.

Needing to clear some clutter in her own life, she joined a coaching program to take her business up a notch and introduced her to Marissa Q. Paine.

On their very first appointment, Kerry was running late. Navigating traffic on a rainy afternoon she pulls over to the side of the road to make the call.

“It was our first time meeting, I was expecting an easy call,” she says.
After the pleasantries of getting acquainted, Marissa asks, “Tell me about yourself.”

Kerry tells Marissa all about her business — how long she’s been in business, her goals for the future, her elevator speech — all of it. Kerry was a pretty successful CEO and she was proud of all she had accomplished.

When she was done, Marissa paused and says, “That’s great, now tell me about you.”

There in the awkward space of silence, Kerry didn’t have an answer. She couldn’t put together a thought that was not business-related. That revelation frightened her. Her face filling with tears mimicking the rain beating against her window.

“I knew if I couldn’t answer the question. I couldn’t do anything else in life,” she says.

Through their time together, Marissa coached Kerry on stepping into her identity as a person and as a woman. She helped her see that by leading through the world as her business, she was cutting off opportunities to lean into her full being. Kerry needed a mindset adjustment because her image of herself was cluttering up how grand she could actually be — thus not moving her business forward.

“Marissa forced me to stop circling the problem. I’ve never met anywho who can do this so quickly or intuitively,” she concludes.

The Shift: You have to stop hiding behind your business and doing what’s easy and go inside to find your true being– that’s where the good stuff is. That’s where the success is.