The choices Jennie Tranter made in her early career days had a feeling of randomness. But after getting coaching and learning to look for the underlying values, she realized he had always been seeking beauty and ways to help and connect deeply with others. Find out how making that realization and grounding decisions in values can lead to where you need to be, at least for the moment.
Guest Jennie Tranter decided to try on a new persona in college and be more outgoing and social than she’d been previously. Academically, having desired to be a doctor, she loaded on the science classes. She took a religion course to fill a distributive requirement and was completely taken by the idea that, unlike in science, there may not be just one right answer and she may have to become more comfortable with uncertainty. She became a religion major and, after a study abroad program in Europe, doubled down on her German studies with her eye on getting back to Europe after graduation. Despite a heap of uncertainty, she ultimately found a way to do that, but kept coming back to the U.S. and trying new things.
Eventually, she leaned into the international lifestyle and worked at the intersection of finance and international relations—where she thought she’d be happy. While elements of her life were fulfilling, she sought something different and ultimately worked with a coach to bring more clarity to things. She uncovered that the values that she prized were beauty—particularly being out and about in nature—and excellence. When she took some time to figure out what that meant, she took on a volunteer opportunity that made her remember her early desires to help people. Combining the elements she knew were vital to her transformation, she began coaching others in liminal circumstances and pursued a career in psychotherapy.
In this episode, find out from Jennie how uncovering the many elements of who you are and grounding decisions in values can lead you to where you need to be…on ROADS TAKEN...with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode's Guest
Jennie Tranter has an established private practice, supporting individuals’ journeys of transition and transformation after having navigated many of her own. She is a registered associate marriage and family therapist, a registered associate professional clinical counselor in the state of California, and an accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy therapist, as well as an internationally certified Integral coach. You can find out more at jennietranter.com.
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Jennie Tranter: I'd never looked at really like, what are my values? Like what are driving all these decisions that seems so random. And so got really clear on what my values were and how I was pursuing them in the world. Like in some cases, skillfully, in some cases, less skillfully kind of thinking through how I might make some more meaningful choices for me.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: The choices Jennie Tranter made in her early career days had a feeling of randomness. But after getting coaching and learning to look for the underlying values, she realized he had always been seeking beauty and ways to help and connect deeply with others. Find out how making that realization and grounding decisions in values can lead to where you need to be, at least for the moment....on today's Roads Taken, with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley.
Today, I'm here with Jennie Tranter and we are going to talk about hopping and skipping and stumbling into what wholeness looks like I think. And so it is lovely to see you, Jennie. Thanks so much for being here.
JT: Oh, so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
LJR: So Jennie, I start these conversations with the same two questions every time. And they are: When we were in college, who were you? And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you would become?
JT: Such rich questions and what a way to take us all down memory lane and like feel into how much has happened and changed. Who was I in college? Well, I think I arrived at Dartmouth having been a pretty shy academic kid and kind of decided that I was going to be really social and outgoing and try kind of on a new persona. And I did and really, really loved getting to know so many people. I feel very fortunate that I did kind of make that change. And I think I was kind of a wild child, at least for the first couple of years. I mean, I definitely was like out a lot. And for the first time was prioritizing social over academics. I came in thinking I was pre-med. I remember I started off as like a bio major and then environmental studies. I had always been a real science person. And then my dear friend, Sharon Spatz, who was an engine's major, recommended religion one as a humanities class to take…
LJR: The distribution whatever, yeah…
JT: Yeah. And I remember I took that and was like blown away because for the first time in my academic or intellectual life and career, I was kind of given this idea of like no absolute truth. Like, oh, they're just so many different philosophies and there may be some overlaps for how to see the world, but suddenly it wasn't kind of the certainty that I always felt like science had for me had, had, and kept going with religion and feel like I really at Dartmouth, like embraced that new part of my personality, too, of like sitting in the, not knowing or not being sure anymore and really kind of learning how to balance kind of always that curiosity and questioning and still moving kind of with some certainty through the world.
LJR: Did you recognize that as such at that point, did you know that's, what's making this seem like the major I want to pursue? And did it have that kind of impact?
JT: I think at the beginning, I thought I was going to sort of scientifically get to some more certainty. Like I took a class with professor Nancy Frankenberry—who I actually have stayed in touch with all these years; she's retired now—but called modern religious and anti-religious thinkers. And we would read one work that would sort of be like, kind of prove the existence of God. And I was like, well, of course there's some sort of God-like entity out there and then we'd read something by like Marx or, you know, some other philosopher where it's like, well, no, or Freud, like God is really just this thing in our heads where, you know, ego, super ego father figure. And so I just kind of was like bouncing back and forth, like of course, and then not, and then sort of had this like, just moment of like, oh my God, maybe there's never going to be any certainty. And I feel like that made a big shift for me about how I like finished Dartmouth. Because I stopped after a pretty abysmal performance in organic chemistry; decided I wasn't pre-med. And suddenly there I was in the unknown of like, I don't know what I'm going to be when I leave here. Everyone was starting to do corporate recruiting. And I had an opportunity to be a UGA senior year, but also then had gone off and fallen in love with Europe on my FSP to Edinburgh for religion and realized I wanted to become fluent in German because I'd also done so abysmally traveling Euro railing with Erica Meitner and Sharon Spatz before we went on our fall junior year abroad. And ended up also having the opportunity to do an FSP senior year, like got special permission to leave that winner and go pursue that and kind of head off into the adventure and the unknown and kind of more uncertainty. And so that's what I did and fell in love. Fell in love with Berlin, where I was; fell in love with a German guy.
LJR: That helps the German language.
JT: It certainly helped the German language and the love of the country and culture and all that. Realized that I wanted to get back to Europe and keep exploring. Like, I think that's kind of where I'd always been intellectually curious, but suddenly I was like, my God, there's like so much to know in the world about like, you know, what is this whole world about? And I do think studying religion put me in that place of curiosity, I'm like, I may never get all the answers, but there's so much to know. And so much about the people that inhabit the world and like what motivates them. And, you know, religion and politics is such a big rich, intertwined subject area. So. Yeah. I ended up coming back and had all my friends kind of headed off to New York or, you know, for i-banking consulting, advertising, like everybody was heading kind of off there to grad school or medical school law school, what everybody does.
And I had no idea what I was doing. And my German professor gave me an opportunity to apply for a scholarship to go back to Germany, which is what I wanted to do. And so I ended up, I applied to go to school and Munich to another year of university and was placed in Munich and had a great year there, but kind of couldn't figure out like, kind of just was like, oh, this was my year out of college and now I'll go figure out what I want to do. And came back to the U.S. My dear friend, John peoples had been at Columbia university doing a post-bacc pre-med program in New York City. And I thought that sounded like a great idea to try to become a doctor again. And all my friends, my dear friends, my Dartmouth friends were there. So I went to New York. Did that for one semester. Then I was like, Nope, Nope, this isn't it. And ended up going into finance, like so many to stay in New York and then really was not super happy with that. I was like, Nope, this isn't it either. So applied for a teaching Fulbright and ended up to go back to Berlin, to the guy, to the city, whatever, and was sent to Hamburg, Germany. And headed off there after a couple of years of New York. And after that year, which was incredible. I just thought, you know, I don't have to keep coming back to the U.S. like, how do I stay here and find a job? And I did in Frankfurt, so never really got back to Berlin. But ended up in Frankfurt for a year and a half during the first kind of.com bubble here as well. And when it burst, I lost my job. I was working at a third party recruiter, recruiting company that recruited for finance companies, startups, and all the VCs PEs over there from all the top MBA programs. So I've been kind of traveling around and meeting all sorts of interesting people and bringing them back to Europe and Germany and, and then lost that job.
And had my placement company placed me finally, up in Berlin at a German government agency that I'd been eyeing and was back in Berlin and absolutely loved being back there. I was doing foreign direct investment in the former Eastern German states for a German government agency. I think I've I'm realizing I'm getting pretty far away from like your questions and just kind of jumping…Like with your questions. I think I'm still cobbling together. Like what is my narrative of everything that's gone on? So just kind of catching myself in that and realizing that I'm still like working on kind of making sense out of everything. But yeah, I ended up in Berlin loving it, but was there during 9/11 and that made me feel very far away from family and friends. And so came back to the us in late 2002, back to New York.
Anyway, I like played around for a couple of years in New York, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I was a bilingual executive assistant, essentially chief of staff, but more executive assistant to be honest, at a German telecom company for the CEO of the Americas and was having a lot of fun in New York. But again, it was like, wow, is this where I was going to end up doing as well? But that's when I was like, you know, I've bounced back and forth between Europe and the U.S. I've worked for like German government stuff. I've done finance of, I mean, I felt like I had been teaching and I was like, how do I tie this all together?
And looked into randomly going to hotel schools in Switzerland, cause that sounded like fun and then thought, well, that's not really serious and grown up enough. So I also looked at MBA programs and masters in international affairs and public policy, and ended up going to Johns Hopkins school of advanced international studies in 2004. A lot of it, it was a great school, but a lot of it was that the first year was in bologna. And got me back to Europe and I loved what I studied there. I met such interesting people with just such a huge variety of international backgrounds. When people from all over the world were in my program and ended up taking time off to go work, do consulting in London, spent some time there and then came back and went to Washington DC to finish that master's and…
Anyway. I mean, I kind of fell out of that program thinking I was going to be working for an international think tank, but ended up at the federal reserve after realizing that I had a huge interest, after I did an internship at the world bank, on financial regulations and how it really shaped international economics and economies and thought, okay, well, why don't I go work at the place that drives a lot of the economic policy in the U.S. to understand that more and joined there in August of ’07, which is just when the whole financial crisis kicked off.
Yeah. And worked there for five years in the New York Fed, ending up doing some, working with some really bright people on, you know, the whole financial was like everything that kind of fed into the Dodd-Frank act and then how to implement it. So it was a really great experience intellectually, but I wasn't really happy on like a soul level. I was working within the chief of staff's like kind of this policy office for the president of the New York Fed. And it was like, well, this should be…like, like, where else could I be doing this kind of crazy work? And I should be so happy this, this looks like, kind of on my resume, like where I like, where else would I go after this? And just realized I needed to make a big change. So I hired for the first time a coach.
I’d never looked at really like, what are my values? Like what are driving all these decisions? It seems so random. And so got really clear on what my values were and how I was pursuing them in the world. Like in some cases, skillfully, in some cases, less skillfully and kind of thinking through how I might make some more meaningful or better choices for myself.
LJR: Can you share what some of those values were?
JT: Sure. I mean, I mean, one that I think sounds it could sound trite, but is so important for me is beauty. And by that it's like natural beauty. I mean just the aesthetic beauty and living in New York city and Manhattan. I mean, you can't get a place with better art museums. And I was enjoying that, but I realized that for me, that's nature and like connecting to nature was also like spirituality was another one that came up, like needing to be connected to something bigger than myself and realizing again, nature. And so just was thinking, where can I go? You know, I think I need to be living in a place where I can connect more regularly and more easily to beautiful scenery making a distinction between I thought I was, you know, being at Dartmouth, like I thought I was a real achiever. Like I thought achievement was important for me, but I realized I don't really care. What other people think like, cause I feel like achievement. Yeah. There can be a component of like, kind of looking around
LJR: Recognition…
JT: Like yeah, not necessarily. Yeah, not always, but for me, and like making a discernment between achievement and excellence. And for me, I realized the important distinction between the two was I focused on excellence, which to me is like a very personal thing. And like, Like it doesn't matter. I actually prefer if people aren't focused on me or kind of looking, looking to see what I'm up to, it's really just like this internal feeling of like, I've really mastered something. And I feel like I've achieved a level of excellence and competency in it. And I think in that, there's from, I remember from some English class at Dartmouth, kind of the idea of all great stories are sort of man versus nature, man versus man, or man versus himself and being like, oh my God, I'm all about like woman versus herself. And it's sort of like what I'm setting up to accomplish and gtting there and feeling like, again, just like achieving some excellence in what I'm doing, where I feel some personal pride.
LJR: Yeah. So I'm sure at that point you were like, you were doing the dissection of, okay all these choices I've made in the past, like which of those checks, which of these boxes were they good decisions in hindsight, bad decisions or not, not aligned, not bad decisions, but not aligned decisions. And all of that is useful, but it really is the prospective what's next. Yeah. [JT: Right.] So what's, what's the process there. And does your experience having had to have a coach get you there? Couldn't it inform your next steps?
JT: Yeah, I think definitely having the coach helped then started making me think maybe that's what I want it to be like help other people do that, because that was such an interesting undertaking and process to go through. And I think was the first time I realized, like, I felt like most of my life I've been focused on the outer world, like exploring, like all my curiosity was about like adventuring and exploring and having experiences. And this was the first time it was introspective and really exploring and being curious about my own inner world and kind of realizing how vast that is, and then realizing how vast it is for everyone. And kind of just feeling like, kind of that slow pivot of like, huh, like where can I go with that? And honestly, that value of beauty, though, kind of the idea of being in nature, trumped at all. I just was feeling so closed in by concrete. So ended up out here at the San Francisco Fed. Like that was something that just popped up during that coaching process. And I jumped to get out here and knew within the first year that it was. You know, still not it. And knew I wanted to stay in San Francisco cause I was out hiking, backpacking, I mean, just out cycling. I mean, I was hitting the outdoors as often and as hard as possible and exploring the state. And then just realized, you know, I think a lot for me too, is like connecting with people, like needing to feel really deeply connected with people was another value. So kind of like this deep, emotional connection—depth rather than kind of like the, kind of the lighter social connections, you know, like quality over quantity. And turned 40, walked out of the Fed, within a couple of weeks, like as a month after my birthday, I walked out with no plans of what I was going to do, just knowing I couldn't be there anymore. And was interviewing like FinTech companies and kind of all the stuff that was just becoming prevalent here and ended up taking singing lessons. Like I was like, I'm going to follow…I have six months about of savings…I'm going to follow. Threads of interests that I've had for a long time and never pursued. And one of them was singing lessons and still no one would ever want to hear me sing. Like maybe people who love me dearly would let me, like tolerate it, but it was so…something about like finding my voice in there, I think.
But I met a wonderful PhD psychologist in my class who happens to now be my supervisor in private practice, seven, eight years later, who had lost her husband to a brain tumor, had three young sons and had decided to set up a nonprofit to support families going through the same situation and really create community and have these family camps. And when she found out I'd done a lot of program and project management asked if I might in my free time, since I wasn't working, want to help her set up and run her first family camp. And that was in fall, was like summer and fall of 2014. And I did that and I thought this would be like a meaningful—and that was another thing: I was on the quest for meaning, which now I know like Carl Young, Victor Frankel, like everybody says, you have like the midlife kind of pivot, search for meaning and turning inward. And ended up doing that with her and for her and ran the camp and looked around at all these, you know, doctors, nurses, therapists, artists, and massage therapists. Like all these people we got to—musicians—to hold these families for this weekend, make them feel so less isolated and alone and their experiences. And I was like, God, these are, these are my people. Like I'm still, like, it might not be kind of doctor healthcare, but like I'm a helper and how do I do this?
And I still had, I still had a lot of debt from my first masters. I knew that I wanted to go back to school, be done as quickly as possible. And I also had my eye on a very specific two and a half year program, that was a private school that I ended up going to and knew I needed to do a little more finance to make that work.
So ended up at…Wells Fargo came calling with a job. And so I took that for about four years. And while I did that, dipped my toe into the world of sort of helping people. I got certified as a coach and launched a little coaching business that I've had going while I went back to school. And loved that, but realized I also wanted to go really deep with people.
I think there's something so important and helping people figure out their careers and sort of issues that they've identified in their lives to move through. But I really love going deep with people. And so ended up going back to school. Just graduated in April of this year. Yeah. Ended up setting up private practice under my, this woman that I helped set up her non-profit was not expected, not planned, but when I reached out to look for opportunities, she said, call me. And so kind of synchronistically, everything has fallen into place slowly but surely. And. I do feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be like for now, for sure.
LJR: Yeah. Yeah. And that's a good perspective I think you've had, since you have had so many leaps and jumps and being willing to just walk out without a plan or go to a different continent and then not really know how you're going to get the job. You know that it's not forever. And again, sitting with that idea of—not impermanent, you didn't say inpermanence, but kind of along with the [JT: yeah.] Along with that, you know, being okay with the unknown is this kind of stuff. Nothing's forever. It doesn't need to be at least so that's great. Now, now having done that work with, you know, on your own, or maybe with others to say I'm a helper, I want to connect deeply with people. Can you now go back to some of those other choices that we've made and go, oh, now I see why that wasn't quite right with this additional lens? Or there were always elements of the help and that's why I stayed longer than maybe I should have, ‘cause it didn't have the beauty. I mean, are you able to just kind of rank everything in these new lenses?
JT: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think like, I almost feel like there was some self-forgetting. Like I think there was the idea of feeling like a helper. I knew since I was a little kid, I thought I wanted to be a doctor. And then there was something about choosing to go to Berlin senior year instead of becoming a UGA sort of like the responsible Helper position versus the Explorer thing that…And I don't think it's like, I don't think it's either, or I think it's like, I'm both, but it was just tilted more in the Explorer trajectory for a couple of decades, I guess. [LJR: Right.] And so coming, it's almost like a homecoming it's like coming back to myself and looking at what I did and like integrating it all. I think rather than feeling like anything was wrong or I would have done anything differently. Because I am still an Explorer and I'm very curious about, you know, people in the world and how, how people in the world work. And I think that's like where I'm kind of deepening now just in a more micro way, like person by person, rather than feeling like I need to kind of launch myself somewhere entirely different.
Yeah. I don't, I don't really regret any of, of those decisions. And I think what has always driven me even more, I mean, really it's not, for most of the time it really wasn't about like being in a different country and land and kind of everything being foreign. It was always all about like how, what can I understand about people and the culture? And really, I mean, I have deep abiding friendships with people from every place I've been. And that to me is much more important than like, you know, how many Octoberfests that I’ve gone to, or, you know, crazy stories I have from there. And granted, there are some great stories with great friends, but yeah, I really think it's about not making different choices, but like how did everything cumulatively get me here? Because I don't think I would've ended up here had I not made all those choices. And there's, I think I've heard somebody say before, like you, you fail forw- like failing forward and kind of was going to like, say that or feel like that was a theme. And I'm like, but none of it's failure, like…
LJR: Right. Well, something early that you said Jennie was that when you even got to college, you decided to try on a new persona, but it wasn't a false persona. It was just a persona that you hadn't had the ability maybe in high school to wear, you know, in front. And so I feel like when you were making decisions, it wasn't that any of them were wrong. It was who am I going to put out there, out front now or lean into, or, and then none of the decisions were, well, this is wrong. It was what else? What's next? What other aspects can I, you know, give life to and let unleashed into the world, you know? And I think that's likely what you're doing with your clients now. Right? Is allowing them to figure out we're, we're just accumulation of all of these persona…personae, and which one is more appropriate for now? Who do you need more? But they're all there.
JT: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think most importantly, like how do we accept all of them? Like how do we sort of embrace and integrate all of them? And you know, realize that sort of, there's a whole theory of internal family systems of parts that were all made up of different parts. And like they've all been trying to help us kind of survive and thrive and some have been more successful than others, but they're all these parts that are, you know, that we're made up of and just making space to hold them all sort of with compassion, if not love.
LJR: Yeah. And I think you were probably very well-served with all of those religion classes where, you know, there's no absolute truth. We're making our truths as we go along.
And it sounds like you had done that. You're a great role model for those of us who are maybe holding too tightly to one truth or another. But it's lovely to have heard this part of your path and how it’s wound through various times and spaces. So much for sharing.
JT: Yeah. Thank you so much for allowing me to share. I feel like your kind of summary and reflections of what I've been up to are helpful. I'm like, oh, is that what it's been for? Like, by like the way that sounds?
LJR: Well, it should sound good.
JT: Yeah.
LJR: That was Jennie Tranter, who is leaning into the calling of supporting individuals’ journeys of transition and transformation after having navigated many of her own. She is a registered associate marriage and family therapist, a registered associate professional clinical counselor in the state of California, and a therapist of accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy, as well as an internationally certified integral coach. You can find out more at jennietranter.com. And, as always, you can find more guests' transformational stories at RoadsTakenShow.com or wherever you find your podcasts. Thanks so much for listening, following, rating and reviewing so that others can find us those guests and me, Leslie Jennings Rowley, on future episodes of Roads Taken.