The UX Consultants Lounge

Christine Perfetti - Blending UX Consulting with a Mission-Driven Passion Project

• Kyle Soucy • Episode 9

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In this episode of The UX Consulting Lounge, host Kyle Soucy reconnects with long-time friend and UX veteran Christine Perfetti for a deeply honest and inspiring conversation about career reinvention, self-worth, and the power of authentic connection.

After decades of success in the UX world—most recently through her consultancy, Perfetti Media—Christine found herself at a professional and personal crossroads. Instead of staying the course, she decided to explore something new: a passion project called Lift Up Connections, where she brings women together in small cohorts to help them navigate career and life inflection points with clarity, intention, and support.

Kyle and Christine talk about:

  • Why so many in the UX industry are questioning their career paths right now
  • Christine’s journey from high-profile consulting work to launching Lift Up Connections
  • The emotional challenges of tying self-worth to professional success
  • How connection, vulnerability, and community have become central to Christine’s work
  • The practical tools and exercises she uses to help women design their next chapters
  • Balancing a passion project with ongoing consulting work—and what she’s learned from both

Whether you’re a UX consultant, an in-house practitioner, or someone wondering what’s next, this episode will speak to anyone craving more meaning, alignment, and joy in their work.

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I can’t wait to have you back in the lounge for our next episode!

Kyle Soucy:

Welcome to the UX consultants lounge. I'm Kyle Soucy, founder of Usable Interface an independent UX research consultancy. You can find out more about my work and the services I offer at my website, usableinterface.com. I'll be your host here at the lounge where I'll be providing a place for UX consultants to gather, share stories, and learn more from one another. Today's episode is a special one for me, both personally and professionally. If you've been in the UX industry for a while, especially as a consultant, you may have found yourself asking some big questions lately. Questions like, is this still the work I wanna be doing, or am I still fulfilled by this path or is it time to pivot? These are not easy questions and they've been coming up more and more in our field, especially in the wake of industry shifts, layoffs, and a more uncertain market. That's exactly why I invited Christine Perfetti to join me on the show today. Christine and I go way back. 20 years, in fact. We've recently reconnected, and over the Past year, she's become someone I can talk to honestly about work, life, and everything in between. She's also someone who has been asking those same big questions and doing something really inspiring about it. While Christine continues to run her successful UX consultancy Perfetti Media, she's also launched a passion project that has completely lit her up. It's called Lift Up Connections. You can check it out at liftupconnections.com, and I really encourage you to do so. It is a program that helps women, especially those in tech and business, navigate those inflection points in life and career and reimagine what their next chapter might look like. In our conversation, we dive into why Christine started Lift Up Connections, how it evolved from a pilot group into a full-fledged offering. How she's managed to balance this new endeavor alongside her consulting work. She also shares what she's learning about herself, about purpose, and about redefining success. Christine also mentions that if it weren't for the current downturn in our industry, she might have never discovered this passion project, which I think is a great reminder for all of us that the tough struggles can lead us to good things. This episode is really about listening to those internal nudges that tell you something needs to shift, and finding the courage to take action. Even when the path ahead isn't fully clear, so if you're feeling a little lost, burned out, or just curious about what else might be possible, I think you're going to get a lot out of this conversation. Let's get into it. Please enjoy Christine Perfetti. Hi Christine. Welcome to the UX Consultants Lounge. I am so happy to finally have you on the show.

Christine Perfetti:

Hi, Kyle. I'm very excited and honored to be on with you. This should be fun.

Kyle Soucy:

To fill the listeners in a bit, Christine and I first met 20 years ago in 2005, which is so hard to believe. We fell out of touch for a while and then almost a year ago reconnected after Christine reached out. And we've been exploring a lot of interesting things that I'm excited to get into during this interview. And, when we first met, I was, just starting my business. And Christine, you were working at a well-known consultancy called UIE, user Interface Engineering. And I remember just being in awe of you.

Christine Perfetti:

Oh, thank you.

Kyle Soucy:

I'm gonna be completely vulnerable here, and I don't think I've told you this, but when we lost touch over the years, I never reached out to you because I didn't feel worthy. Like I, I told myself a story that I wasn't in your league and that you'd probably not be interested in reconnecting. And so I never did. And so when you actually reached out to me, I was just so happy. And over this past year, you know, you've become a person that I can have. Real conversations with, sharing my fears, being vulnerable, and you're just a great person and a friend and I'm just so glad that we reconnected and that I could have you on the show today.

Christine Perfetti:

Kyle, thank you so much. This introduction, it warms my heart and it's so interesting when you were mentioning that we met 20 years ago, what was going through my mind is, yes, we met, but we really connected over the last year and I'm so grateful for that. So to hear how you felt when I reached out, I felt the same way. Right back at you, I was reaching out to you and thinking, huh, will Kyle really remember me? Will we have something where she'll want to connect? And immediately you were saying, of course, let's talk, let's reconnect. So I feel exactly the same way. Thank you so much.

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah. And I would love if you could start us off by telling the listeners about your UX consultancy, Perfetti Media, and the services you offer.

Christine Perfetti:

Absolutely. Initially I started the company twice. I've had two engagements with Perfetti Media. So as you mentioned, Kyle, I started out my career at a consultancy called User Interface Engineering. And around the 2008 mark, right when, if you recall, the financial crisis was hitting, that's when I decided to go out on my own with Perfetti Media. at the time, this is now close to 20 years ago, at the time I was based in Boston, but I moved to the West Coast and Perfetti Media for the most part, was a research company, at the time focusing very much on usability testing. And contextual inquiry studies with companies in the Bay Area. So some of my clients were, WebEx at the time working with the consumer product. I also did quite a bit of work with Cooper, Allen Cooper's Company to, work on consulting projects and also teach on usability testing. now it's interesting, after going in-house, after my first Perfetti Media stint, I was running the UX teams in house at a couple of startups in Boston. So I was the head of user experience. Around 2015 was when I relaunched Perfetti Media again. And you know this Kyle, the reason behind the relaunch was I was also going through a life inflection point where I was planning to have. A kiddo and a baby on my own as a single mom by choice. So in 2015, I thought for my life, this would be a wonderful time now to relaunch the business. So your question, I'm getting around to it. So Perfetti Media, these days I've now been back on my own. It's a company of one, where I've been on my own now again for 10 years. And the majority of the work and offering that I provide for clients now is I describe it as fractional strategic research leadership. when I describe it that way, people say, what does that even mean?

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah. Yeah.

Christine Perfetti:

what is that? clients come to me. it's typically. Organizations that are around the scale upside. They've already found product market fit as a startup and they're looking to grow, but they haven't yet established a research practice, a qualitative research practice. So organizations will come to me to establish and build up that research competency. so it typically involves why fractional I'll be embedded with an organization for six to 12 months, sometimes longer to build up the competency for the entire organization. so a couple of my clients that I've worked with in long term embedded engagements have been GoFundMe, the crowdfunding, product. And as well as Tune in, which is, a consumer product for online radio, online music. And what is the outcome we're looking for? The outcome when I'm coming in beyond just creating a research program is giving the product team the insight they need to make decisions that both improve the product, but also the business.

Kyle Soucy:

And when you first started out, you had some heavy hitters there. I mean, some great clients, you know, WebEx, working with Cooper, that's, amazing. I think that's everybody's dream when they start consulting. They're gonna have these, you know, these big clients. And, and how did that happen? How were you able to land those out of the gate?

Christine Perfetti:

Thank you for asking that. I was reflecting Kyle before we were having a discussion where. Initially I thought, oh, this is luck. And I can't tell you how many consultants I hear that, that, oh, it's just luck. The clients came to me when I reflected on it. It's, it's not luck. And you know this, that when clients are coming to you, it's through the relationships you've built. What happened for me when I initially went out on my own, what I thought was luck when the Coopers of the world or the WebEx came to me was actually based on the work came from foundational work I had put in place for 10 years previously. And what I mean by that, working at user interface engineering with Jared Spool, I was. On the road traveling at least 10 weeks out of the year. And by traveling it was going to conferences, connecting with people, speaking at events, teaching courses within organizations. And I feel so fortunate for that opportunity. It was a lot of time on the road, but starting out my career, it enabled me to form so many connections and relationships with people. So, for launching my business, I had put in the groundwork for close to a decade so that I could find those clients.

Kyle Soucy:

And, and that's what's so key, right? Putting in that groundwork and that's where you shine. I remember going to, one of your training courses at a UIE conference and you just owned the room you could tell that's where you felt comfortable just teaching training people. And I'm curious how that experience working for a UX consulting firm before you opened your own, how that helped, shape how you run your business.

Christine Perfetti:

I've thought a lot about this. I'm honored, Kyle, when you say that you've been impressed with my public speaking and teaching because when I started, public speaking, if you were to ask me the thing I was most afraid of in the world to do it was speaking in public. even,

Kyle Soucy:

Same! Yep. Mm-hmm.

Christine Perfetti:

even sitting down in a meeting with 10 people, I was terrified. And the first time I went up on stage, it was in the role as a teacher and public speaker. I was hired for this role at User Interface Engineering to be a teacher. I was terrified, so I went up on stage voice quivering. But you know what I found out immediately? If you know your stuff and you know your content, people don't care

Kyle Soucy:

Mm-hmm.

Christine Perfetti:

about everything else. So you're asking what I learned for my business. a couple of things. The first thing was know my stuff, know my content, but second, and what I learned very early on in my career was to be authentic. So when I'm going up on stage and presenting to designers or product managers, I present my story and my beliefs and what I've learned through my career and putting out that authentic self has made such a difference. so that's been huge for me. So with my business now, something that I've really learned, and this took me a while, Kyle, was that when prospects are now coming to me initially looking for work, I was thinking with the mindset of how do I get hired for this project. Now I've flipped the switch quite a bit, and when I'm talking with prospects, it's much less about. How do I get hired for this project? And it's more about, can I have a conversation with these prospects, understand their needs, see what problems they need to solve, and see if I could authentically come to them and solve those problems. So now it's more about how do I find a fit with work where I am the authentic right person to solve those problems, if that makes sense.

Kyle Soucy:

Oh yeah. No, and that's so helpful to hear. When you first, decided to start Perfetti Media, what was the catalyst for that? Why did you wanna go out on your own?

Christine Perfetti:

I, I am really appreciating these questions. No one's ever asked me I mentioned I first went out on my own in 2008, and the reason for that was I started at user interface engineering. In 2000, I was a kid. I was, on a leave of absence from graduate school where I had my master's degree in social psychology. But I was taking a leave to see the world, see what would be out there. And that leave is still going on today, 25 plus years later. I never went back. But the story behind going out on my own, I had spent eight years at user interface engineering. I moved up from being a course instructor, junior consultant to managing director, running the day-to-day operations of the business, and I hit this point. Where it was either I was going to spend my entire career there, which would've been lovely and it's great path to take, or I was going to make a leap and try something on my own. And I hit this point where, you know, early thirties at the time, about a decade into my career, I wanted to see what I could do on my own. So it was my first opportunity. It was terrifying. very scary to go out on my own, but it was my first opportunity for real, real growth in my career. So I left UIE I gave a year's notice, which I think is unheard of

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah,

Christine Perfetti:

leaving a company. I moved from Boston to the West coast and I established my business all at the same time. And I think it was, you know, I. I thought, this is the time in my life to take a really big swing. And I did.

Kyle Soucy:

you

Christine Perfetti:

And it worked out. It worked out well. It was terrifying, but I'm glad I did it.

Kyle Soucy:

So courageous to to leave something where you're so comfortable, where you feel secure and to just say, you know what, I want more and I'm gonna try. That's huge.

Christine Perfetti:

Thank you, thank you. It's funny, and I'd be curious your take, Kyle. I, I think having that courage is something that I'm continuing to try to cultivate in my life. As I've aged and as I've gotten farther in my career, I have to remind myself that those leaps are what lead to the most growth and most excitement. As I've advanced in my career, I sometimes hesitate a little bit more. over the past couple of years, I've tried to, you know, go back to that adventurous spirit a little bit.

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah. I, I personally need those reminders all the time. I, I do. And I want to talk more about these, pivotal moments in your career. I know, in 2023, not so long ago, you had another big one that led up to a passion project of yours right now. lift up connections, the work you're doing. can you tell us more about this?

Christine Perfetti:

I can. Early 2023 was when I really started thinking about. What is coming up next? And there's a bit of a backstory behind this. I mentioned the fractional research leadership roles that I've, I've had over the last few years. At the beginning of 2023, I was just wrapping up an engagement with GoFundMe. I had spent two and a half years embedded at GoFundMe, running research with donors, but also running so much research with people who are organizing fundraisers on GoFundMe and Kyle. I'm sure you can imagine thinking about GoFundMe, the people who are creating fundraisers, they're going through a lot. I talked with people who are just trying to raise funds to, to pay their bills, to support their children. I talked to people who had disasters, you know, house fires and needed to rebuild. I was talking with people on a day-to-day basis who we're going to create fundraisers on GoFundMe, in essence, for a social safety net. They were in dire straits and they needed help. And after years of talking with people in this position, I really started thinking more about how can I use my skillset, whether it's UX strategy, product strategy or research, but how do I use my skillset for good? And so I was really thinking through that in 2023. And at the same time, around that time was when, you know, the market has not been great. That's an understatement. So right around when I was pondering what was next for me, the market started, taking a downturn. So most of 2023, I was in an a fortunate position where I could explore. So I really started thinking about how do I take. My research skills, my strategy skills and try to use those for social good. So I started running research studies with mothers in the United States, independent research studies to learn more about the challenges moms are having, not knowing where that work would go, but wanting to understand more about the problem space for mothers in the country. I also started working with some nonprofits in the political space to try to bring qualitative research to, you know, polling is a mess. I wanted to see if we could bring qualitative research to provide insight, and it was just this stage of exploration. And you asked about lift up. In 2023, I was trying to figure out how those projects could lead to my next act and my next career, and I just wasn't yet cracking that nut. And what I realized, you talked about Kyle, and we were talking about when we reconnected during this period. I also started putting myself out there a bit more than I had in years and years. And by putting myself out there, it meant reaching out to previous connections. Like you, I was posting, again, I hadn't even logged into LinkedIn for I don't know how long, but I started posting consistently. And what I found, and this was so interesting, as a researcher, you're always trying to see what resonates with people. So I posted on LinkedIn in a couple of areas. One area was I'm going to share my strategic research leadership and product leadership with the world because those CPOs are going to get so excited about what I have to say. So I was posting a bunch about product strategy and user research, but then about once or twice a week, I was posting about. Being a working mom, running a business, feeling like now that my son was getting older, I was moving from survival mode to an expansive mode again, and I can't even tell you, Kyle, the post where I was talking about my brilliance was strategic user research. Nothing, no response. And I'm joking a little bit, some people were responding. But what I really noticed was my posts where I was talking about balancing work in life and not fully feeling satisfied. Right now with the work I was doing, people started coming out, they'd be responding to my posts. Most people started, responding behind the scenes, sending me messages first saying, Hey, it's nice to see you again.

Kyle Soucy:

Right. Yeah.

Christine Perfetti:

I, I can't even tell you when we talk about who our target audience is and our market, I mentioned to you, I was trying. To, entice chief product officers. Not happening, but the people who were, my message was resonating with were typically powerhouse women, who were either mid-level or senior level women in UX or tech or the business world rallying around me and saying, Hey, it's so nice to hear from you. I'm feeling the same way. And it really struck me. These were just posts where I was authentically saying what was on my mind that day, but so many other women were feeling that way, and that's where Lift Up came from. If you recall, Kyle, I reached out to you last spring and I reached out to four other women who I had reconnected with, some who I had known for 20 years, some I had known for a few months, and I asked you all, could we come together for a pilot? We called it the Lift Up Pilot, and I believe when I invited you, I basically said, I don't know what this will end up being, but would you be willing to experiment with me?

Kyle Soucy:

Yep. Exactly. Yeah.

Christine Perfetti:

And you said yes.

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah. Yeah, it sounded great. And I remember when you came back on LinkedIn strong, I was like, wow. I was like, oh man, I really need to be doing what Christine does.'cause you, you put yourself out there in a way, like a lot. and I, I think that's needed now more than ever. Sadly. There's just so much noise out there. You have to be consistent. You have to be, posting all the time. And every time I would see a post, I'm like, oh, she's doing it right. She's this is what you should do. so I'm glad that you got back out there again because. I think everybody needs to hear what you're talking about, number one. but this lift up connections. for anybody who's not following Christine on LinkedIn, if you start following her, you will start seeing such great clips from all the wonderful conversations she's having with a lot of people. if you wouldn't mind just telling a little bit more about this idea of the lift up connections and how you're helping people find, possibly a new career path

Christine Perfetti:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and Kyle also, thank you. Thank you for the compliment about putting myself out there. we could talk about this later, but one, one of the lessons I've learned about putting myself out on LinkedIn was that there was something powerful about getting my message out there a little bit. but the lesson I also have learned is that, and this ties into lift up connections, I describe what I was doing on LinkedIn for a good year as broadcasting where it was, here's my idea world. I'm going to put it out on a post and da da. It's here. What I'm finding now, over the last several months, close to a year now since. I started Lift Up is while broadcasting is great to, you know, for awareness, the in-depth connection and the personal relationships are really where the power comes from in everything we do. And it's been something that's taken me a long time to realize and Lift Up has helped me with that. So the story behind Lift Up Connections was, it initially started organically as a small pilot with you and, four other women where I had recently reread Designing Your Life. I'm trying to think about, who the author was.

Kyle Soucy:

Oh, I have that here. Oh, bill Burnett and Dave, Evans.

Christine Perfetti:

Thank you. Thanks Kyle. And going through that process when I invited you and the other women to participate in a. Biweekly council, we were meeting every other week for a couple of hours. I asked you all, Hey, can you, can you read this book? I've just reread it again, and my goal out of this pilot is first just. To get to know each other better and connect, but also think about how we can work together to think through what's happening in our next chapters. And designing Your life is an excellent resource and book for thinking through what your, your values are, what your life mission is, what your career mission is, but also to start thinking about designing the vision for your life and career. And through this pilot, we primarily worked with the exercises In that book, what really struck me, I thought this would be a one-off pilot. I had no aspiration to create a program for re-imagining your life. But at the end of the 10 weeks together, there's something that really special that happened where we went through some of the exercises. But when we finished this experiment where I brought us all together on the last day. All of the women, and you may recall this, Kyle said, can we keep meeting?

Kyle Soucy:

Keep meeting. Yeah.

Christine Perfetti:

And I was like, that's interesting. That wasn't the plan. But yes, I'd like to keep meeting too. And what I realized was there was power behind the exercises. We went through envisioning our future lives and thinking about our values. But I think the, I'd love to hear your thought. The big power. I think the reason the ladies wanted to stay together was the level of connection we formed and the degree to which we could share with each other. And I had never had an experience with that where it was 10 meetings, but by that point, I really felt like we built strong friendships and support.

Kyle Soucy:

Absolutely. I love our connection council and I agree that there, there is something magical about working with the peer group, rather than a one-on-one coach. Everyone in that group has. Unique perspectives, experience, challenges, and we're helping each other just talk those through and work on them. I mentioned to you the other day that, as I go through my day, I'm always hearing the other women in my head, you know, Diana, Mary, like I know what they would say in this moment. And it's helpful and it's special. and I think everybody should have that.

Christine Perfetti:

Yeah, I do too. That meeting, our last meeting where we continued on, but our officially planned last meeting where we were all saying, there's something special here. It is where I started thinking about how do we bottle this up and give other people and women this experience. And so we continued on with our connection council, but at the same time, researcher research mode in me. I started spending a lot of time thinking about. How I could build out a program to help cultivate connection for women, but also help them think through what the next chapter is. Not just in their career, that's a big component of it, but what their next chapter will be in all facets of their life, career, life, family, relationships, all of that. So I spent a lot of time reading,

Kyle Soucy:

Mm-hmm.

Christine Perfetti:

hearing what other people were thinking about, mapping out your long-term vision and back to thinking about our careers. I, I mentioned, when I first started exploring in 2023, I was trying to figure out how to use my unique skillset. To do good. part of my unique skillset and part of the consulting work I've done in addition to research, I've also spent so much of my career helping product teams come together to map out a long-term vision for the product experience. And I've spent so much time facilitating with cross-functional teams how to bring out the brilliance of those team members to come to a long-term vision. And what I realized. Is, there's not much difference between what I'm doing in the product world to help bring people together, to map out a vision, and bringing women together in a connection council to ideate and co-create and map out a vision. It's a vision for their life and career, not a product vision, but it's taking the same skills that I've cultivated over two decades of my career. So, long story short, I was seeing what others experts were doing in this space, and I also took what I've learned over 20 years of product discovery and research and visioning to put together a lift up program, which was a modified version of the Connection Council that we started with Kyle. It's a six week program, but it's still very intimate. We bring five women together for our cohort to discover where they'd like to go next. And I'd say it's not all of the work I do now. I still have, I'm still consulting quite a bit in the UX world, but I have to say it's the most fulfilling work that I've done to date in my career now 20 years in. It's been fantastic for me.

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah. And you light up, when you talk about it, when we were initially discussing topics for this episode, I asked you if you were interested in chatting about selling, and you initially agreed, but then you came back and said, you know what? I could talk about the process of selling UX consulting services, but I wouldn't be being authentic. You know, lift up is where my passion is now. And I thought that was so wonderful that you were one able to recognize, what your passion is. And two, have the courage to course correct and stay authentic to yourself by saying that you'd rather talk about this. And really, I think it's so great that we're talking about this because so many of us. Whether we're UX consultants or actually just in the UX field are at that point where, everything's crappy right now. So many layoffs and so many things going on, and a lot of us are reevaluating like, is this what I want? You mentioned that it's not just career, it's also life goals, like. What do you want out of this life and what do you want your work to? What values do you want, to have in your work? And is it aligned? All of this is so important right now, so I'm so glad that we are talking about this. and I wanna get into the details more about, the course. but just a side note to the listeners, if, selling UX consulting services is a topic that you're interested in, the next episode will be all about that. But you mentioned, Christine, that this started with, doing some exercises with some other books, and some other programs and you've really turned it into something of your own, which is so great. can you tell us a little bit more about that? Reimagine your career course.

Christine Perfetti:

Yeah, absolutely Kyle. And thank you also for just acknowledging that it is a really messy, rough time. I've been thinking a lot about this too, where it's a reframe a bit, but I have gotten, my mindset has not always been in the best place when the market took a turn and I did just wanna share as a field, as a UX field, I do think we're in this inflection point. And one reframe I've thought a lot about is that if the market had just stayed as it was, if there was just a wealth of abundance, there wouldn't be a lift up.

Kyle Soucy:

Mm.

Christine Perfetti:

And I've thought a lot about this, that sometimes with the challenges and the pain, it can help us wake up. And you mentioned this, that we're all thinking a lot about how do we design a career in life that aligns with us. It, it is a bit of a reframe. I know it's such a tough, tough time for many of us out there, but it's also a time where we get to rethink and reframe where we go at the next stage. And that's why in a lot of ways it's not fun at all going through the mess, but it does lead to some interesting, exciting places. And so thank you for mentioning that. with Lift Up, you're right, it has evolved quite a bit over time. the first thing with Lift Up was I didn't even know if this would become a program initially, but the first step I had to take, and it's part of the fundamental principle behind what we talk about in the connection councils for reimagining your career in life is the importance of taking action. Little action. It's so easy just to think about taking action and with these cohorts that I'm running, initially when we got through our pilot, you may recall I was talking about running a cohort with other women, but I waited several months and finally I just took the leap. I published a cohort announcement on Maven, the learning platform. I opened it up to the public and I just did it. I took action and guess what? People signed up. And when people were signing up for my course, it really was great motivation to think through what would be the best program for these attendees. And so the process behind Lift Up the End Goal, a couple of outcomes we'd like to achieve. One is to give women the opportunity to reimagine what would be next, what will their next chapter be. But just as importantly, by the end of the Connection Council and the cohort, we'd like the participants to take some action towards that. We can all have a vision for what the future can be, but if we're not taking those incremental actions, it's not going to come to be. So.

Kyle Soucy:

that's scary, right? To take that action, and you need support when you're going to do that.

Christine Perfetti:

In our pilot, the magic was the support, the friendship, the accountability to each other. as we were re-imagining and putting together our plan for our next act and what our vision was, the feedback we gave each other on the long-term vision, it's so huge. And so part of the council, it's about getting to the long-term vision and taking action, but a big, big consideration. My biggest consideration as the instructor and facilitator was how every single time we're meeting do I help cultivate the trust and the support and the connection with the women in this group, because that's everything, coming into a safe. Group to share where you're thinking you'd like to go, and just as importantly, sharing your fears and getting support. That's what enabled the women to take action is having that support system along the way and the accountability.

Kyle Soucy:

Absolutely. And I got so much out of it. my own experience going through this cohort, it allowed me to, to look at things more deeply. And you mentioned that it is work. you're, you're signing up. It's not like a, oh, I'm just gonna have a laid back experience. No, you have to be an active participant. Really go through the exercises and it takes time to reflect and to think about what you want, what you've done in your life, what your views on things are. And doing that work helped me to realize. Some things in my life that are lacking that I knew, but I was doing a great job, actively avoiding, you know? We did what was called the Health Work Play Love dashboard. That was from the Designing Your Life book. And I realized after doing that exercise how my level, of play is just pathetically low. I don't, I don't do much for pure enjoyment and I wanna have more hobbies and. I wanna learn how to play pickleball and read more and do go to more concerts. I wanna dance more. I wanna just enjoy things more. And that's totally separate from work. and kind of going through that exercise, it really helped. And actually I do need to be pushed to do those things. and also finding out where there's conflict. Right. there was a compass exercise too that we did that I, thought was so helpful. you talk to us about where do our views on work and life compliment each other and where are they at odds. And, I've talked about on this podcast before that, the work I do, it's very fulfilling. And it seems, especially after going through the exercise with you that. It's aligned. Like I feel good about being in this industry, but you know, sometimes having to sell my services and do self-promotion, it conflicts with my life views, which really goes all against, you know, being shallow or superficial. So it forces me to come at it from a different angle now, knowing that, helping people, not looking at it from that lens of selling people. And, I think that it helps me now, when I, when I look at my notes from what we did in that period of time, I can reflect on that and it forces me to actually pay special attention to those moments that bring me joy, whether it's in work or life. And I wasn't actively doing that before I.

Christine Perfetti:

Yeah. That's so interesting, Kyle, and it's a shared theme from other participants as well. You mentioned something about in the Designing Your Life book, we did go through the exercise of really rating where we are on a scale of how we're thinking about our work career, our personal life, our relationships, our health, and it really struck me. It struck you and other participants that they're all intertwined, that we can't just think of our work as separate from our personal life or our health. That all of those areas need to be in abundance and be doing well for us to thrive. And it's something that I try to remind myself of as well. what had evolved, and you, I think you'll appreciate this as well. In the cohorts today, people are surprised that we don't even get to a discussion of reimagining our career until about five weeks

Kyle Soucy:

Oh wow.

Christine Perfetti:

into the session because it's a lot of reflection and thought going into where we want to get to. So one place we start, and this came from my research background, was that all of the participants go out and they run, in essence a listening tour. So one thing that I asked them to do is think back in their career and think back and list several people who have supported you at some point in your career or taught you at some point in your career. In essence, these are people who helped build you up in your career, and I suggested and recommended that even before thinking about what's next. Interview a couple of those people so it wasn't large scale research study. It was reaching out to a handful of people from their past lives and career and ask them specifically. What they saw as their strengths, giving them honest feedback about their strengths in their work, the areas that they could have improved, where this person thinks that they could go in their career given what they saw. And the participants who had gone through these cohorts have said this was one of the most valuable exercises for them. Because first it let them take a step back and think back to other periods in their career, but they got to hear a perspective that wasn't their own. And oftentimes these were trusted people they worked with that it gave them insight into some of their skills and zones of genius that they weren't even considering anymore. So doing discovery work was one of the starting points in the co cohort, and participants were getting quite a bit out of it.

Kyle Soucy:

Oh, I imagine, and I actually have a little bit of fear in doing that. I think about that exercise and it's oh, I have to ask some, you know, not only what they thought, but like, you know, how could I be improved? And everybody needs to know that. That's good stuff to know, and we need to be open to hearing that, but it's scary right. To go and learn that.

Christine Perfetti:

Yeah, it's scary. And that's why where we started was going to people that were, people that lifted you up in your career, in essence, are very safe people. And what also came out of this, Kyle, like back to, there's a theme through our entire discussion today, and it's. About connection. many of the participants have gone back to people who were mentors and role models ear at earlier stages in their career. So in these conversations, they did in essence interview these folks, but they also had an opportunity to thank these people

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah.

Christine Perfetti:

and share why they were specifically reaching out to them. And several, one participant I can remember in our most recent connection council came back. She was lit up because she had reconnected with a former manager she hadn't spoken to in 10 years. And they were planning on getting together because it wasn't just about an interview, you know, it was about thanking this former manager and a level of connection that they could bring to the conversation. It was very safe. She learned from the conversation, but she also could give back and share with someone how much they meant to them. It was huge. So it's, it's an opportunity to learn about yourself and it's an opportunity to reconnect, which is hugely powerful, especially right now in these times, you know?

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah, it's a wonderful way to practice gratitude.

Christine Perfetti:

Absolutely. another area where we've explored quite a bit, and you'll see these aspects of the UX process and everything. We're doing another exercise the participants went through that they loved, and I actually went through this exercise. I was testing and piloting everything out was mapping out, I call it the career inventory, but it's mapping out your career journey today. So we basically drew out a journey map and you mapped out all of the roles you've had in your career to date, and you mapped out what was working well, what went well, what energized you, and what went poorly, and what depleted you. And you started seeing the journey of your career. And what I learned from that is just by going through the exercise and taking that time to go back before you start re-imagining what your future could be, it's so valuable you remember things that may not even have occurred to you. Just going back and thinking about what skills and expertise you cultivated and what lit you up at the time. The key point has been the more we can look back and take a pause before we start visioning all the better, it gives us the time to reflect.

Kyle Soucy:

I love that you're bringing the UX methods into this, lift up community. That's awesome.

Christine Perfetti:

Thank you. Well, I'm still admittedly in the messy middle of figuring out what the next act is and every activity with lift up. Right now I'm thinking about how do I bring. My expertise in skillset to lift up, to help others and to serve others. So one thing that I've learned is that when we're thinking about our next act for career, some people will tell you, just chase your passion. And it's great to be thinking about what you're passionate about and what you're energized about. What I'm seeing from the women in the cohorts and from my experience is passion matters. Having work that aligns with your values also matters, but you also have to think through what skills and expertise have I cultivated over the last. You know, 20 plus years that I can bring to my work. an example is, I love Bar would I love to be a bar instructor next week? Yeah, sure. Of course I would. Of course I would. I'm passionate about it. But have I built up a career where I'm the expert and the person, who people would go to for a bar studio? No, not yet. That is not the skills and expertise I've cultivated. I've spent 20 plus years in the product and UX community. So yes, I wanna follow my passions, but how do I build upon what I've built in my career? It's described as career capital. How do I build on that to follow my passions?

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah. And your product visioning experience, and you mentioned too before that, you, you are incorporating doing collaging now too, which, you know, I love, that's, a UX method that is not widely used that I think should be used more.

Christine Perfetti:

And not only that you love that you've brought to the attention to almost all of us in the UX space. I can't thank you enough, Kyle. So yes, I have integrated collaging into, the cohort and the backstory here. You had mentioned that I'm running interviews with powerhouse women in tech and UX in product. one of the women I most recently interviewed is Jen McGinn, who's a UX leader in our space. She was going through a life inflection point and deciding what was next in her career. And she brought up your work with collaging and how she had seen you speak on the approach, uh, to a conference. And she thought. This is mind blowing what Kyle is doing. And she said she was taking your collaging approach and taking it to start mapping out and envisioning and visualizing what her future life and career could be. And it was just, it was so interesting. We were already participating in our pilot together and then Jen McGinn is saying, you should really see what Kyle Soucy is doing.

Kyle Soucy:

so funny. Yeah.

Christine Perfetti:

It was amazing. So, I was watching your presentations on the topic. when we went through the pilot, part of the visioning exercise was asking people. To write out a story of what their future life and career will look like in five years. I, in subsequent cohorts, asked people to write their story, but also to put together a collage with images some of the folks who are clipping from magazines. other people were looking for imagery online. but guess what? For all of the participants who went through the visioning, they started with the collaging.

Kyle Soucy:

Oh, that's it.

Christine Perfetti:

There's just something powerful there.

Kyle Soucy:

It's great. And for anybody that's not aware. so with UX research, using collaging is really just, in its simplest form, it's really asking participants to, think about or reflect on their experience with the product and then pick out pictures that represent how they, the experience that they want. Or it could be reflecting on the experience they currently have, which is really eyeopening. but the collage is interesting because we're not asking those predefined questions, right? putting them on the spot. If it's a sensitive topic. Sometimes it's hard to talk about. The collage is the, the instrument for really expressing your needs, your frustrations, really the needs that exist, kind of beneath that. Level of awareness of conscious awareness. So I've always, always loved it and I've always sworn it is one of those things that I have to do is talk and, and write more about using projective techniques in UX research.'cause I do love it. so I'm so glad to hear that it resonated with Jen, that she mentioned it to you and that you're incorporating it into this work. I think that's great

Christine Perfetti:

I am, and I'm waiting for your book on the topic. I'll be the first one to buy it because it, it's, you're absolutely right in terms of the things we were learning. So when we were going through the exercise and the participants were bringing back the imagery, there's something communicated and conveyed through the images they chose the photos, just it, it could not be articulated in words, and we could just feel where they were trying to get to. And, and the women in the cohorts were saying it's also a level of inspiration. They now have those vision boards on their walls so they can remind themselves of, you know, what they feel and where they're hoping to get to. There's just something really powerful there. So thank you for your work in this space. I, I did wanna touch upon something that I was curious your take on, because. From the visioning exercises and talking about the connection councils and what they bring to the conversation and what power they bring, the cohorts. We actually have participants map out two futures. one is in five years, if everything keeps going the way it is and you continue on your path, but you're moving into incrementally improving over the next five years, what will your life look like? And people map that out. I then ask them. To put together their vision, their wildly audacious vision of the future. If no fears are in place, if you're not feeling the stress of responsibilities, if money were no issue, what would that future vision look like? And all of the participants are mapping out both. And they'll present both back to the group. What was a constant theme for the women? They, they present that first vision that's oh, if I keep going along this path. But the second one, they'd light up when they're talking about their widely audacious vision and they'd light up, get excited. But many of the women would say, no, no, this isn't realistic though. And what was interesting, what consistently happens, the connection council members who hear that second wildly audacious vision would say. this seems like there's pieces that are quite realistic and it helped the other participants realize that the wildly audacious vision is not as, you know, pie in the sky as they may be thinking that there's some realistic elements that they can start incorporating.

Kyle Soucy:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I remember being embarrassed to share what. That second life would be like if I could just do anything. And I remember very clearly the women being like, yeah, that's not so wild. And it was eyeopening. And I still think about that and I see connections. I can see how I can incorporate some of that into, you know, not totally upheaval of I'm not gonna be a UX consultant anymore. I'm gonna do this wild, crazy thing now. But you can have both, you can do a little bit of both. And there is a pathway to that possibly. And it's not just some, oh, if I had, won the lottery kind of thing.

Christine Perfetti:

Yeah, the one thing that I'm trying to figure out for next steps for the cohorts to evolve them, so I mentioned. What I'm finding in my experience and feedback from the other participants is when a cohort ends, that's when the tough part begins, like back to the taking action. You can have your collage on the wall, you can have the full story, you can know exactly what you wanna do. Yet there's oftentimes a hesitancy with the action and what I'm trying to figure out going forward, back to the power of having that support group and the accountability that matters, how to help people continuing along the line to take that incremental action. That's, I think for most people, and it's not just for people in my cohort in life, it's getting past the fear and resistance and making those movements. It's challenging. There's a lot holding people back and I'm trying to figure out how do I evolve the cohorts? I can't solve all problems, but I'm trying to crack that nut a little bit. How to provide people the support and accountability over time.

Kyle Soucy:

Oh, it's so good to hear what the challenges that you're working on now because that, that's huge. You're absolutely right. It's now what? You know, now we go back to our lives and that can be distracting and, you know, back to the treading water. And you need that active, well, I personally need reminders and need somebody possibly actively reminding me of what I'm looking for, what I'm going for. So I think that's really interesting and I'm so glad you're working on this'cause we all need it. I wanted to ask. What you've specifically learned from, just trying something new and stepping out from UX consulting and trying this, lift up connections and as, just a passion project. But before I do, I wanted to take a moment and talk about self-worth. You mentioned it before and I was thinking about it before our interview and I actually, looked up the definition. one of them was, self-worth is the internal sense of being good enough and worthy of love and belonging from others. And personally, I wish so much of my self-worth wasn't tied to work. You know, if my consulting work is slow and I'm struggling, then my self-worth is plummeting. like almost anyone else I know. It's just, it's hard. I think when you're out on your own as a consultant, it, really messes with you when things aren't going well,'cause. It's not like you have a guaranteed salary. but as we're learning now, nobody's really got job security much these days. but the hard truth is if you struggle with self worth, it often leads to others dictating your value, which is not at all good for, sales or, or any other kind of business that you're in. And I found that your course helped me to focus more on self-compassion, acknowledging my accomplishments, practicing gratitude, while also setting boundaries and engaging in fulfilling activities that align more with my values. And it's not to say that I still don't struggle with self-worth, but going through these exercises forced me to write out a lot that was in my head. And it's nice to be able to look back on those notes and just remind myself again if my values and check in that I'm on that right path. And I wanted to share a quote from that. Designing your Lifebook, that really resonated with me. you may not always know where you're going, but you'll know if you're going in the right direction. And, knowing your work view, your life view, it gives you your true north, your compass. So that stayed with me, and I'm so grateful again that you invited me to take part in that first cohort. I'm so glad to see how it's changing and I almost wanna go through it again after listening to all the new things that you're doing. Now. I'm sure these exercises are great, but I'd love to know what have you learned and really gotten out of doing this?

Christine Perfetti:

Yeah. Thank you Kyle. Thank you for sharing all of that. And thank you for talking about self-worth. It's something that I also wanted to address that I don't think I realized. I've been very fortunate in my career and I know I've been very privileged and we started this conversation where I said, oh, I went out on my own and WebEx was just there. So I, had a very privileged career and I can tell you the last two years were new and scary and it made me recognize when the market slowed. Admittedly, the last two years out of a 25 year career, these have been the two most challenging and it made me recognize. I, for a long time did think I had pretty high self-worth, but the last couple of years made me realize that it wasn't self-worth. It was, I was getting a whole lot of external validation from the world saying, you're rocking it, Christie. And, and that's where my worth was coming from. if we had connected in 2022, I did think I was rocking it where I am a single mom by choice. My son got through the childcare years business was thriving, and I thought I knew my stuff, but what I realized was when the external validation goes away, that my worth was also plummeting and it was a wake up call for me where like, how am I using that lesson learned in my work today, it's still a daily challenge where I remind myself that my worth is not correlated with what the external world and what the product world might tell me. Some days it's hard to remind myself of that, but it's been really, really important and I do think I've needed this wake up call. I've thought about the abundance I had in my career, and I touched upon this, Kyle, that if things had gone on 2022, 2023, 2024, I felt abundant with the client work. Did I feel abundant internally with the work I was doing and feeling fulfilled? And the answer is no. so one of my biggest lessons learned is that with lift up, I've never felt as internally abundant and aligned with the work I'm doing. is that yet translating to the same degree of external abundance that I've had in my UX and product career? No, not yet. But what I'm trying to reconcile for myself is this feels right. It's a culmination of the skills I've cultivated over years will lift up, stay in the exact same form it is now, I'm guessing not it's evolved over time, but that's something else I'm embracing. I'm viewing lift up in essence. As a lean experiment, putting things out there, taking action, seeing what the audience comes back and shares with me and evolve it over time. so I've learned that. Another thing that I wanna highlight for folks in the UX community, you won't be surprised a bunch of UXers are going through my program because it's been a challenging time and they're trying to figure out, yeah, it's been really rough and one of the real lessons learned, not one person coming out of my cohort has said, yep, done with ux, I'm off to something new. I'm writing my Great American novel. No one's said that yet. They may do that instead. When they've looked at their wildly audacious life, there's elements of that future vision that they're looking to incorporate in small ways and learn from it. So I tell UX folks, if you're struggling, if you're trying to figure out what's next, it doesn't mean you have to leave your UX career behind. It means can you start thinking about what would be true and authentic to you? What would be your wildly audacious life? And how do you start integrating little pieces of that to test it out and see what comes to be? that would be my message for folks. It doesn't mean you need to reinvent everything about your life. It means try to test things out and see where it takes you.

Kyle Soucy:

Invaluable. It really is. And one thing you mentioned too, to me, when you're going through this, experiment, with lift up connections and trying something new, is being okay with failing, which I think is such a good message.

Christine Perfetti:

I'd be curious, your take, I've also had to define what failure means

Kyle Soucy:

Mm, yeah.

Christine Perfetti:

to me. So lift up right now. the way I am thinking about it is, is it my one and only business bringing in the bulk of the revenue for my family, no. have many women come back to me and said that the work has helped improve their lives and helped them find a new direction. Absolutely. So, yeah, I've reframed what failure means. So right now I would like to crack the nut I see lift up as just one part of all of my work life. I would really like to figure out how to grow and scale this work more. For sure. It would be great to have a hugely abundant, thriving business, but I think the work matters and I think the work can help many people. And I'm trying to figure out how can I take this magic in the bottle and scale it out to help more people. So even though when I think about success and failure, now it's. My view of success will be, can I grow this to the point where I'm helping more and more women figure out what's next?

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah. I love looking at it in that framework that is a much better way to frame it. as I mentioned before, we were originally going to talk about sales, but decided not to. But I have to ask, what has it been like finding participants for your cohort? Have you found any similarities or differences to selling your UX consulting services?

Christine Perfetti:

It is really interesting, Kyle. I touched upon briefly that for my cohort, I launched on the Maven Learning Platform and going into the work. My hypothesis was by launching on Maven, I would generate so much awareness for the approach and the work I'm doing, that it would just bring in throws of participants. What I am finding back to connection mattering the most. Just like in my UX in product career, the women who have been going through my cohorts didn't just blindly find out about me because they went to Maven and they were searching for a career session. It's that they started hearing from friends and from their community about the program, or they learned of my work through someone else. It's been about the connections and relationships. A couple of people have reached out to me, Kyle, because you mentioned that you've gotten value from the cohort and they trust and respect you. So what I'd say is like the majority of the people going through the cohorts, it's still coming down to networking, cultivating really authentic relationships with people, and that's what brings them in the door. I would say about Maven, I mentioned that I thought, oh, this would lead to so many people signing up. What Maven has done really well. I think of it as an excellent platform for generating awareness for the work you're doing. So there's a couple of ways that I've used Maven. One is to run my paid cohorts for reimagining your career in the connection councils. The other way I've used Maven, which has been really invaluable. You can launch and publish free Lightning Talks on the Maven platform. And I've done that several times and I've been exposed to many other people. You know, hundreds of people sign up for the Lightning talks, and they're learning about my work. But the way I think about it is that it's a long game that I need to cultivate relationships with those people who are now aware of my work. So Maven has helped me at the top of the funnel generate awareness, but now it's my job to show value and develop connections with those folks who are now aware of my work.

Kyle Soucy:

I'm so glad you shared that.'cause I know a lot of consultants are considering like putting workshops out there, more doing courses, and I know Mavens a popular platform, so it's, I am sure, helpful to the listeners to know what you think of that. Is the experience good, with putting your course on there in terms of really just the tools that they offer.

Christine Perfetti:

I find for the infrastructure and the tools they offer. Absolutely. for independent consultants thinking about putting their courses out there, Maven is a one stop shop where you'll have a landing page for the course, the purchasing process is all set. so you don't have to deal with those logistics. Unfortunately, I'm hearing from a lot of in independent consultants, and I was one of them, that they hope that once they put their course on Maven throws of people are going to come out of the woodwork and sign up for their Maven course and pay for it right away. And that has not been my experience. And from talking with other folks who have gone on Maven, it still involves. The consultant, doing the work to find many of the people once you hit a tipping point, once you've been on Maven consistently for several months and you're getting some attendees, yes, over time you may build an audience on the Maven platform, but expecting to have huge numbers right away if you don't already have a built in audience. It's really, really tough. what's really appealing if you go to Maven, you'll see some of the product experts and product gurus getting hundreds of people signing up. that's not the experience for most of us when we first start using the platform. but in terms of tools available, I've loved it. I've loved that I can launch a course within a day. I have a landing page for my course. I don't need to deal with the e-commerce engine. There's email templates that I can go to. So if you're looking for the infrastructure for running a course and a platform for that, mavens been excellent. If you're looking to have a built-in audience immediately to buy your cohort, the work is going to be much more on your end initially.

Kyle Soucy:

So helpful. Oh, thank you for sharing that. So I wanted to wrap up with, some rapid fire questions here, and with all your years of experience, consulting, both as an internal, consultant working with UIE and then going out on your own for so many years, I would love to know for you, what do you think makes a consultant good?

Christine Perfetti:

Oh, excellent question, Kyle. My perspective has changed over the years.

Kyle Soucy:

Mm-hmm.

Christine Perfetti:

When I first went out on my own, I thought what made the best consultant is their knowledge of the practices being the best, best researcher, for example, or the best facilitator, and that still matters. I think what has made me a stronger consultant is really spending the time, not just thinking about the practices, but spending the time to get to know my prospects and my audience, spending the time understanding their problems, delving deeply. We touched upon this before that the clients who have worked with me the most and come back, they work with me because they know that I get them and understand them, know what challenges they're dealing with in their work, know what's keeping them up at night, and just as importantly know how I can help them and contribute to their work. And they trust me. You know, it's the element of trust. as well. I have clients who have come back that sometimes I have to say, you know what? I'm not the right person for you for this project because it's me knowing them so well and knowing where I can help them or not. So understanding the prospects and clients you're working with, understanding what keeps them up at night and, and solving their problems. that's huge.

Kyle Soucy:

And what's the best piece of business advice you've ever received?

Christine Perfetti:

I thought about this because it's so funny. We grow and change over time, Kyle. So again, I think about early in my career versus now. So one thing I heard when I first went out on my own, I went back to a coach and mentor because my client was frustrating me. The way I described it was they just don't get it.

Kyle Soucy:

Uhhuh.

Christine Perfetti:

They're not doing what I'd like. And the advice I got was first take a breath. But the second piece of advice was no matter how much you try, you can't stop people from sticking beans up their nose.

Kyle Soucy:

I know who said that. Yep. And it's so true. It's so

Christine Perfetti:

so, so true. The one thing I'd say, and it helped me so much, the take a breath. To remember that you can't stop people from sticking beans up their nose. someone who talks about this a lot lately, who I follow, I listen to her podcast, is Mel Robbins.

Kyle Soucy:

Oh, I love

Christine Perfetti:

just, I love her too. She just came out with a book called Let Them.

Kyle Soucy:

Mm-hmm.

Christine Perfetti:

Same Concept. You can't change people. You can't control them. If they wanna do something, let them do it. Let them see the consequences of their behavior. All of that is true, and I still live by that. There's an element of growth I've had since I first thought about beans and noses. there's this underlying assumption when we say, no matter how much you try, you can't stop people from sticking beans up their nose, that people are just wrong they don't have good intentions. And what I've shifted 20 years ago, I thought I knew it all and the client was wrong. Now I know that when people are sticking beans up their nose. There's some reason why, and it's not all just, these are flawed people. And the caveat I'd say, now I still think about beans and noses all the time, but I also try to think about how do I best try to understand these people and why they feel a need to stick a bean up their nose. Like that's, that's the yes. And you can't just be like, oh, they're wrong. Like you can think it, but the more we understand why the beans are up the nose, the better. So I think the one thing, and maybe it's having become a mother, I just show much more empathy and patience

Kyle Soucy:

Patience. Yep, for

Christine Perfetti:

people. So yeah, that was an excellent piece of advice early on.

Kyle Soucy:

So wise, and I hope everybody is taking notes because this only comes with a lot of experience I found.'cause I was just like, same 20 years ago, I, entered the room like, well why aren't they taking my advice? I should, they should trust me. Like I know everything. you know, it's, that is, you need those years to take that different perspective. I love that. And you mentioned Mel Robbins and her wonderful book, let them, any other consulting resources that have been most helpful for you?

Christine Perfetti:

You touched upon, we initially were going to have a conversation about sales and I thought about what consulting books have I read recently that were really instrumental and important to me. It's funny, I think of it as a consulting book, but it's not positioned as a consulting book. I have it with me. It's called The Big Leap. Conquer your hidden fear and take life to the next level by gay Hendrix. And the reason I think it's a wonderful book for consultants, especially consultants, out on their own, it really focuses on the mindset behind success. And to be an independent consultant, thriving and abundant, especially in a market like this, mindset is key. So what really struck me about this book, I first read it about five years ago, it's really all about thinking about what might be holding you back, what barriers you might have, whether it's fear or self-sabotage, or self-worth issues, and really bringing those to the forefront. So when you are in prospect calls and sales calls, you're bringing your best self to those conversations. I can't recommend it enough. It's less about the tactics of consulting and more about the importance of mindset and self-worth and really becoming conscious of those areas. It's not easy being an independent consultant, so the more resources we have to bring our best selves to the work, the better.

Kyle Soucy:

Oh, absolutely. I am definitely gonna check that out. Thank you for that recommendation, and thank you so much for spending your time with us today. And how can people get in touch with you if they're interested in and possibly participating in a cohort or for your consulting services?

Christine Perfetti:

Thank you for asking. So a couple of places, we've talked a lot about lift up connections, so if you'd like to see the work we're doing in that space, but the interviews I'm conducting with Powerhouse women to hear about their life inflection points as well as the cohorts. You can visit me at Lift Up Connections dot com. I'm still in the product and UX world like I was talking about. We don't necessarily just throw out our previous career. I still am doing much product UX consulting work, still loving much of it. You can find me at perfetti media dot com, and I'm on LinkedIn. I'd love for folks to connect with me there.

Kyle Soucy:

Awesome. Well, I'm gonna include links to everything in the show notes for anybody that, is interested. Any books that we mentioned. I'll throw a link to the collaging article video, as well. And Christine, thank you so much Again, this was really invaluable and I think really timely. So thank you for the time.

Christine Perfetti:

Thank you, Kyle. This was a lot of fun. I appreciate it. I'm honored to be on.

Kyle Soucy:

Oh good, and I'm so glad you had fun. I did too.

Christine Perfetti:

Thank you.

Kyle Soucy:

All right. Take care.

Christine Perfetti:

Bye.

Kyle Soucy:

Bye All right. That wraps up this episode. Thanks for joining me. So do you have a topic or a question that you would like us to explore on a future episode of the UX consultants lounge? Perhaps there's an anonymous consulting story you want to submit. If so, click on the link in the show notes to submit your story or question from the podcast website. Until next time, keep that consultancy going. I can't wait to have you back in the lounge for our next episode.

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Kyle Soucy

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