Transcript: Ängela: Hello and welcome to the What's Career Got to Do With It? podcast where we help to provide a space for honest conversation and information that encourages the listener to take the next steps in their career journey. Wherever you are in this process, we hope this episode will meet you with affirmation, guidance and maybe some laughs along the way. Rudi: On today's episode, we are joined by special guest QuiAnne Holmes, currently Assistant Director with DuWell and principal CEO and consultant of Heal. As we discuss an answer or many to the question, “what are boundaries?” Ängela: Dun dun dun... QuiAnne: Oh a loaded question but ready to break it down and hopefully enjoy what comes next. I would say boundaries are your understanding of what you need in the present moment and how you advocate for that to show up for others around you and then also an opportunity for you to explore, because sometimes a boundary that you set before might not be the same boundary and you might have to come back to that. Which is why I say the present moment, because it gives you a chance to focus on what you need right now and not necessarily always plan for the next best thing. Rudi: Yeah, I think boundaries are this like loaded word too, because there's like these firm boundaries. There's these soft boundaries. There's boundaries you can play around with. QuiAnne: Absolutely. Rudi: There's boundaries that you can see and there's boundaries that you can't QuiAnne: Right. And there's some boundaries that you never knew you had until you get in a situation where you realize… Ängela: Yes. QuiAnne: “Oh no, this is absolutely not going to work for me.” So no one, I feel like no one tells you, like there are certain things that you don't find out until you get put into those situations, because there are sometimes assumptions like, “oh, they're not going to do this, they're not going to say this, they're not going to treat me that way” until it happens. And then you're like, “Whoa, what do I do to address this?” Because this wasn't something that I was expecting. I think when we conversate about boundaries it’s typically delivered in a way of like set these boundaries, do these things, and you won't have to worry about it, but sometimes you can't be as proactive. There are things you can be proactive about because you know yourself. And then there are sometimes things that happen in the moment where you realize, “Oh, I didn't know this bothered me because I've never had to deal with this before. And now that I'm dealing with it now I know I don't like it. How do I move forward with that?” Rudi: Yeah, and I think that's something we see often with our student population. And I want them to know that it's not just a student thing. It's a…it's a lifelong thing. It's an everybody thing. There are boundaries that we have to think about as we enter the professional workforce. There's personal boundaries that you develop over time with a partner, with family, with children, with so many other things, hobbies, you name it. And so it's not just the context of what you're doing now as a student, what you're doing now as a professional. There's so many different ways to look at this. So, QuiAnne can you walk us through maybe some of the the work that you have done around boundaries, setting conversations, maybe that you have had in particular? QuiAnne: Yeah, I think it would be helpful for me to kind of start when I was a student. So, I had my undergraduate experience at North Carolina State University. I'm part of the Wolfpack, and I think the first boundary setting was with a roommate. That's the first conversation where you realize, “Hey, I live a certain way and I like to keep that, but now someone else is in my space.” How do you have conversations with someone to say, “I like the room this tempera
