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Inspiring Career Changes

So this is just my story, my true story of my career change and what it took to get there, and I hope you heard loud and clear how long it took me to get there. This is not something that happens overnight, and I won't say that all that two years and seven months is everyone's timeline, I've had clients that have taken longer than that. I got clients that really accelerated things and have left their job six months, so I want to shine a spotlight on ten of my former clients who all gave me permission to share these stories with you. I'm not breaking any confidentiality laws, so don't send me the life coaching jail of these are clients who finally had enough, and they had their own breaking point, and they brought me on to help them and create their own dream careers. So the first client I love her, it's stephanie, you could see her working old town suds dot com, but she came to me when she was in the nonprofit management world, and she thought she wanted to parlay it into, like a freel...

ance entrepreneurial speaking career. Speaking to that market and had the tail end of our sessions, she got sick, and it turned out that she had to have brain surgery, and it was crazy and traumatic and so. Scary. And that actually led her to begin experimenting with ways that you could cut back on chemicals in her condo, and that led to her being more cautious of the items she was using in her environment. And that led her to create her own soap and household cleaners and things that were free of toxins, because she figured, if she was making it herself, then that's the only way she's going to know what's in the products and that lead to old town suds. So what I love about her journey is that there was a defining moment in her life that made such a dish a such a difference for her that ignited such a passion and such a spark that it led to oldtown suds. And I look she's, been doing all town said on the side for a few years now, she's, projecting that twenty fifteen is the year that she's going to be able to transition full time, and I love to that within that time, she got a job is a marketing manager, which fits a lot better now with the things that she's now interested in doing, and it complements her old town suds work so well, so she was able tto be in a day job, change her day job to something that she likes more, and from what I remember, she doesn't have any professional experience in marketing, but she was able to talk herself up enough and disclose her old town studs business uh she didn't hide it with I think a lot of us kind of do when we think we need to go into a traditional job, we hide our passions or what we're working on in the side she put it all out in the open and they loved it and loved her and she got this great di job. Sarah carbo I love sarah she was one of my very first clients she came to me as a virtual assistant and she e mailed me and said I'm a virtual assistant I need coaching do you need virtual assistants let's strike a deal, which is a great way to get a guinea pig or work with the client you could barter for things my pay forest if you're telling yourself I don't have enough money to launch that business um you don't need it. I bartered actually for my first professional website I bartered for the virtual assistant work I don't really bart porter anymore, but it's a great great wayto launch yourself so it was interesting because when she sent me that email, I clipped over to our site and I found the juror iast website ever was stock photos of like women and great business crossing their arms and you know, people at desks typing like that other stock it makes that I had and I kind of went like, well, I'll get on the phone with her but like she does not seem like my people I got on the phone with her and I found this vivacious, enthusiastic, funny always laughing one and that I was like, oh my god should be a joy to work with and I just you know, we ended up making this exchange right away so what we worked together on was changing her whole business and I'm so well I was so proud and excited for her she renamed her business china was a big pain, but she renamed it to your creative ally she made the site purple and she had this great cute cartoon logo that represented her and she called out the fact that she was a creative working with other creatives and that was huge uh, and then I was proud and excited for her when she realized a few years later that that wasn't her priority anymore she didn't want to do that sort of work anymore she wanted to homeschool her daughter and stay home, so for those of you here or at home, you might actually decide to let go of something that you've been doing for a while teo just stay home with the kids and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that and now she blocks to she gets out her creativity and her love of writing she's at creating purple fire dot com and she blog's about all things nerdy slash crafty slash mommy on it's really create raids she's fantastic lauren rousseau she is a creativity coach who helps rebels without a cause and recovering overachievers unleashed their creative power to increase their impact as the leaders and visionaries and her tagline is let's get weird which I love you know right away who your talking tio who she works best with on dh for those of you who are in your dream clears already but maybe not quite feeling so authentic about it or want to bring yourself into your job more you're in the right place and you could find lauren at lauren de rousseau dot com as me weighing she was one of my first clients also she came to me right after she got her emma and creative writing and uh she wanted to be a novelist but she also wanted like status uh she was very much like I can't tell people that I'm working on a novel because they're going to think that I'm you know lazy or dumb or something she also wanted some structure for her writing so for her she knew the way that she would write best is to actually have another a place to go so she just didn't have wide open days to fill with writing and that structure really works well for some people. So your dream career my consist of you doing your passionate creative you know crafty thing in certain hours and having a part time job in retail or at a restaurant or something that gives you the social interaction that you need s o she ended up right for last session landing a copy writing job at a fashion startup was such a great fit for her and now if you go to ask me weighing dot com she's just a gorgeous writer she's so vulnerable she's parlaying this into a speaking career as well as being a writer she's been seen in the new yorker, the new york times jezebel she just gave a talk in front of three thousand people she's she's owning her truth and really putting it out there being very vulnerable with her own stories in her work writing seems to be something that the chat rooms of a ll saying they wanted to pursue and that they were discouraged on comedy gumball machine was saying that they're saying that in the nineteen nineties when they were older and they actually took a career sort of test if you like it said that writing really should have been the thing they've been assumed that they'd be so discouraged earlier in their life they haven't done a comedy grandfather's she just spent his comedy I love it I mean that's a tagline right use that used that I love hearing that and you need to stay tuned because it actually we're goingto have interviews with six of my former clients two of them who came to me with just that that passionate that drive to right they didn't know what that would look like and they didn't know where they would end up with that and they didn't I know how that could translate into a career so we're going to talk to them about how they made this into a habit and how they stayed true to want to be a writer and that's really something I hear a lot from my clients is that I always ask them whenever someone signs up it's a one on one client with me they got a five page questionnaire and I asked like what's your inkling as to what you're going to do next and a lot of them say I want to write I want to write I've been feeling the need to write I'm not letting myself right I don't know why and we were able to tap into that and then that usually leads us just by doing the work that leads us into seeing the type of things that they're writing about in the style that they're writing in and then that leads to the business that they want to start so this is april name and april may came to me when everything little missed her stationery line was like just really an etsy shop where you could buy some cards and do like some custom invitations, and that was kind of at and now she has built this up for her. Her stationery line is now so expansive, she's branched out into doing accessories and tote bags on dh she's, doing all these wholesale accounts and what I love, especially about her story, and you should go to everything little ms dot com to see all of her cute stuff that at the beginning of the year, april began doing some design work for her printing shop. So for two days each week, she works from their office on client design projects and also works with her husband to come up with marketing plans for the print shop. And she's thrilled because her and her husband have always wanted to work together. So this is a way for her to still work on and be true to and grow everything little miss, but also get to work with her husband and spend time with their. I think one year old son, so great just get nicols, came to me with every excuse in the book as to why she cannot be a professional photographer. Michelle, I have no training, I have no degree. My camera is too inexpensive, I do not have a professional camera and therefore people don't take me seriously unless my camera costs a couple of thousand dollars. I'm never really been hired to do professional work like suri's shot some weddings but every single excuses to why should be a photographer now she's licenced her work, she's dealt with a corporate infringement case she's filled many walls and iphones with her work she's done some client work, including photographing an artist book that's coming out in twenty fifteen she's at sweet, even tied dot com and she is I love how she said that now I'm a photographer with a capital pay yes, I love it face cornwall is someone who, when we work together she crafted her mission statement and that has led her on her career journey over the last, I think three s years or so since we worked together, she was able to pinpoint that she wanted to help women get in touch with their bodies through dance and touch and feel that has led her to being a massage therapist. Ah, yoga teacher and now she just launched the site called yaks giuliani dot com and the tag line is, when it hurts down there, come over here elevating woman with their pelvic pain and obviously a really fun great way, so when we do all of this work together, and then we come together for the last segment and we talk about our mission statements no, that that could be such a great compass, that you might not be someone who comes out with here's, the here's, the goals that I have every step I'm going to take on the timeline, you might just have this mission statement that that's gonna be able to guide you on your journey, just a cz much of anything else, nicoletta uh, came to me as a lawyer, she's still a lawyer, but she reports she's a happier lawyer. She came to me because she don't want to get out of law, but like comedy, comedy, gumball machine and a lot of my clients, she said, michelle, I've been wanting to start a block for years. I don't know what's wrong with me? Why can't I just start this stupid block? But it represented so much more for her, so I'm thrilled to say that she's that scribbled voice dot square space dot com and there might be some of you in here and out there that wind up realizing, oh, I actually don't have to change careers like, yes, I might be in the wrong environment. But I'm actually not in the wrong job, and if I stayed true to my own creative passions and my passion projects and I make that a habit and bring it into my life on a consistent basis, I'm gonna wake up each day much happier with my daily activities and what I have to dio so I think she's a great representation of that, okay? And I have to read this whole side because I think she just makes such great points. So anna wang is at the distillery dot com, and she wrote, I had already quit my job and was ready to go full on is a freelancer, but I realized I had prematurely let go of my real dream and that it could all be very possible if I was open patient and willing to work for it. Growing up doesn't have to mean settling or confirming since then, I got a job that I actually really like, and it wasn't the end of the world and I'm now happily and busily working on a fashion lines for launch next year. One important thing working with michelle has taught me is that patients with ourselves and with life really matters when it comes to achieving what we want, all of those baby steps and even just the passing of time well spent shapes what we do and who we are and are grown up careers love, love, love, death and have had a few clients that have gone on this path where they come to me saying, michelle, this is what I want to dio and this is this is this is what we're focused on. And then halfway through our sessions ago oh, that's actually an excuse for me not to do the thing that I've been dreaming about since I was ten oh, I have to listen to the thing that I wanted to do when I was ten and I love and its journey because it's not about doing it tomorrow, it's not about, you know, quitting and going full time and getting into dead. And she knows her path and what she needs to do to make this work. She got herself a day job that's going to make her happier while she does it. Ollie gray. She is a locomotive that hallie grey um, she words with me as an office minion. She came to me as an office minion on we tried, I want to say like, three or four different possible career ideas for her that she came up with. And we tried out and we tweaked and discarded, and we finally kind of settled on marketing strategy for her. And she was able to quit her job and under a year, and she says, and now she this wasn't the case with her business when she quit her job, by the way, but now she's had her first twelve thousand dollar month she's booked out for six months, she says, every time I open my in box, it's like a party's going on and what I love about hallie who's at evolve in sixty dot com is that she's so transparent about her business and she's so no b s that she'll tell you about the twelve thousand dollar month and she'll tell you about the one thousand dollars want to so she's not hiding behind a veil of isn't my business the best and everything is brambles and flowers and unicorns she's giving you the rial deal so if you want marketing health around your business, halles, the person to go to and holly to is one of those people that when you talk to her and you're just out with her for lunch, the conversation will go towards marketing like, oh, she can't help herself for you guys here you could think about where do you always put the conversation, what do you always wind up talking about that's a really great insight into knowing your sweet spot for her, too? Uh, this could be another another thing we could steal. She kind of didn't think about marketing as a real thing for her because it came so easily for her and because she didn't have that professional experience on dh, so she was just like, no, this is too easy like everyone, everyone knows this stuff, right? And I'm like no, not everyone knows this stuff, and so a lot of times we discount the things that we know really well because we wouldn't pay to go to someone for those things and it's because we know it like that is huge and honing in on our dream careers. Now we're moving on to introduce you guys to my former clients who are going to spend time with us throughout our three sessions together in a google hangout are in person capacity for for some interviews, and the first one talk about is megan collins. We're going to talk to her after lunch today and the external glute clues to your dream career segment. She is the founder and face of men's lifestyles site style girlfriends dot com, and when she came to me, she was in marketing just totally unhappy. She was someone who felt the urge to write and how she became the style girlfriend was that one of her friends asked her to write an article about men's fashion front from a female perspective and that ended up getting syndicated, and that ended up turning into a block, and now she has corporate sponsors, and she does red carpet interviews and commentary and it's, like unbelievable how this business has grown so she's basically a unicorn because she's, a professional blogger but she's starting her business into so much more than that. So we're really going to talk about listening to what other people want from you on what they ask free from you is going to leave you too. What you need to be doing, polly jenkins, she'll be with us here in studio tomorrow morning during the feel your career fear and do it anyway. Segment she is the excuse buster in my book. When she came to me just less than a year ago, I think she had, like, a three hour commute to work every day and shed a toddler at home and me being, you know, I'm supposed to be the, you know, life coach with the web, I was like making excuses for her before we even started doing our work together, I was like there was no way that she's going to have enough time to do that she has community, has this kid and, like I have to be you know, really lenient with her and she would come to every session with her homework done and then some so she's going to like give us her secrets as teo how she did that how she actually has just found a new job a few months ago that's a much better fit for her she has the sight she's the post on my block if you go to when I grow up coach dot com slash vlog she talks about having four jobs in four years and what she did to get there and now she has plans to be a certified life coach she starts her training in january molly quigley she's she exemplifies discovering your truth and that's segment we're going to talk to her in session to um she is someone where she had so many ideas of the things she wanted to dio and we honed in on okay, what would people pay you for it tomorrow to dio that's another great question to get some insight what would someone pay you one hundred dollars to do for them tomorrow and one of her ideas with that she wanted to do copy writing for people's online dating profiles and as she said, I think she's the funniest person as she said I found both of my husbands through online dating and it was such an enjoyable process which I've never heard anyone say about online dating ever I said I think I could help people not only make sure that they're they're authentic cells in their profile but they could attract the right people to them and I could ask some questions and do this work for them she did the easiest like guinea pig experiment and she just went on facebook and said, hey anyone want me to write their online dating profile? I'm just looking to do it for fun and she had not one not two but I think three or four people that raised their hand and then she realized a business is born because she loved doing it it came so easily for her there was obviously a need for it and she's just launched a business in the last few months and I think as right now she's eighty percent booked up for the month and she's only been doing this for like six months less um so she's on fire she's fantastic jeanette gorney is another one of those people that came to me saying I want to write I want to write I want to write I want to write she's a travel in light dot com she's gonna be joining us from bali we feel really terrible for her but she was able to leave her job and her long term relationship that wasn't exactly working out for her and make this big transition and embark on this huge travel opportunity I think through asia at this point um but it came from starting to listen to the voice that told her to write, write, write, write and and that to me is the importance of play that's a segment we're going to talk to her and during our last session on the importance of play so for her for us writing was just a fun thing that she knew she felt called to dio when she started listening to it that led her to make this a business that combined her passions which are travel, photography, writing and spirituality we're talking to leslie de santis who you will know why we're talking to her when you read all of her titles she's a model which she came too late in life she's only been doing it for a few years and she's I think just about to be thirty this thirty she's an artist that one guinea pigs fly dot com oh my goodness gracious she draws and paints guinea pigs as like historical figures and other star wars characters and it's the cute it's business ever she just became a certified polarity therapist and she's assumed to be certified massage therapist so we're going to talk to her about like how do you do all the things without your head exploding so that people could take you seriously and we're gonna find her tricks but next up we have the one and only alexandra frandsen who was one of my very first clients and I love her dearly I'm so excited she's gonna be with us right now when I'm done with this introduction but alexander came to me in january of twenty ten and uh she had given her dream career what she thought was her dream career in public radio for months notice she wanted to quit spinning entrepreneur and she called me and she said hi I just quit I just gave notice to quit my job in four months to be an entrepreneur and I have no idea what I'm going to dio or what that looks like can you help me and I had only been the when I grow up still in my day job um I had been there when I grow coach for, you know about two years and I said I think I could help you that was like deadline and pressure, right? So she ended up landing on a business where she started branding and copy writing for the creative job seeker. So if you wanted a professionally designed resume and a lie logo on a cover letter but you were more of a creative type of person you go to her and she put everything together for you and this big package on dh that helped her make her money to her thing and after she did that for a while she said, oh, actually you know I'm a good graphic designer but I don't really like it I really like the copyrighting but not for resumes so let's just kind of transition into copyrighting started copyrighting for small businesses and for solo preneurs and she came up with the most genius offering ever where for a thousand dollars eventually you would get one day off her time so she would talk to you in the morning about your business and what you needed and she would go off for the whole rest of the day and essentially write your website in one day and at the end of the day should say here's your website copy there you go and she was booked out at her peak I think she's booked out for six months eight months she did eight of these sessions I think a month and like amazing so she's now transitions out of that work to being an author columnist communications expert speaker she's a teacher she's just if you go to alexandra france and dotcom don't say I didn't warn you what you're just going to go into the black hole of amaze balls, posts and wisdom and she's one of the only e mail that newsletters that I still keep in my inbox she comes from questions actually wait get alexandra this actually came from one of our facebook users and nine people voted this is a question they'd like an answer to that I want to start my own business the only problem is that I have so many interests and ideas I just don't know what well I don't know which to focus on and producer where do I start on all of these ladies you've been talking about sounds to me they have the same challenge yes oh thank you for that question and let's just get it out of the way right early right because the hell by multi passionate says segment is coming and session three where we're really digging into it so if this question applies to you make sure you were there for that segment but what I could say right now is that focuses the f word in my book the s word is should I think that's the worst way for us to really like put ourselves in jail and throw away the key as creative people as multi passionate people and I'm one I would say ninety seven percent of the people that I work with resonate with being a multi passionate renaissance soul someone with a lot of different interests we need to be able to embrace that and build that into our careers so I talk about focusing focusing see there's that word I call myself say again we need to think of the and instead of the or what ties these things together and we could end up doing something like me right? I have a really sneaky multi passionate, renaissance old career because I tie it up in a little bow and say, I'm the one I grew up coach I'm a creative career coach and that is just one title that I could neatly give to someone but I added this up a few months ago it's like, how many hats do I actually wear as the one I grew up coach and I counted fifteen, fifteen hats that all kind of change and flow, depending on my own interest in what I'm doing, so I'm always gonna be coaching probably always gonna be writing now I'm so speaking a lot more I also obviously every stole a preneurs gonna have to be their own copywriter, their accountant there marketer would do brainstorming stuff, but I could decide tomorrow that I'm going to start a podcast, which I might actually do next year and all of a sudden I'm a podcast host and maybe then I'm going to stop maybe doing video stuff on my block, and so I'm gonna drop the hats for a while or forever that are mean making an editing videos. So I think it's about really finding the common threads and either getting what some people call an umbrella career what kind of encompasses everything that'll allow you to stay true to your renaissance soul without coming office flaky you're making your head explode or you could be someone like leslie who ebbs and flows with her own interests and she's been at you know, when guinea pigs fly dot com and doing that art for years but the modeling is new and now she's got an interest in massage therapy so you know we'll talk to her more about this, but I can imagine that she's gonna end up sometimes like not focusing on the guinea pigs stuff maybe she's just filling orders and then other times during the year probably right before the holidays she knows it's her big time and she knows like october november december she's in guinea pig mode and the rest of the year she's doing her modeling stuff and everything else so there is a way to kind of balance it even though I think balance doesn't exist. We got questions about balance coming about one yes, this one because this this actually resonates with being three people in the line of voting for this question it comes from green to bet they're saying I feel like my life is in a big mess and has little teo or I'm sorry I feel that my life is in a big mess and I'm too old to start a new career seriously, I'd love to hear from michelle how you address the concern about people have about their age uh uh let's get this on the table right it's an excuse like let's just lay it out it's an excuse I think that it's been really interesting because the more I've been doing this work the older my clients have gotten both the people that I work with one on one and the people that join my group program, which is called career camp and we it's an online program and yet people are sneaking in and there late forties early fifties, their late fifties I've been noticing this trend and I think that you know, if it gets to the point you were looking down the tunnel for the rest of your career until retirement if you are lucky enough to retire and you know that is ten or fifteen years away if you want to make yourself miserable for ten or fifteen years because you're telling yourself you're too old to change then my heart goes out tio but you don't have to take that and I think there's really power and positivity and being able to embrace your age and number one no one ever says hi I'm a shell word I mean thirty six year olds creative career like no one now you know my age but no one's going to know that so if you are able tio really talk up all the experience that you've had and how maybe you've seen the industry change and now what you want to be focusing on it's all in how you spin it, but the age thing, especially if you have, you know more than I would say five years until you retire sometimes, then it's just worth hanging on and really trying to figure out your personal life and what's going to make you feel passionate and fulfilled in your personal life. But there's anything more than that? Um oh, my gosh, like, don't make yourself miserable just just don't just don't you could do this for two way have some more coming in trenton's asking, how do you handle all of it? And if you have people helping you, how do you deal with get letting go and letting go of that control? Oh, so when you bring on people to help you and you start delegating, I think it's hard, right it's so interesting, I think is creative people, we got a really bad rep that were really, like, disorganized and were unfocused and, you know, we're lazy and I find just the absolute opposite all the time on, because where in careers that were so passionate about, I think it makes it extra hard for us to delegate. But I've been working with freelancers now almost since the time that I quit my job back in twenty ten, and I think it's actually about starting from a small space and taking a baby step and I I'm a big proponent of baby steps like a big huge I think that they're just the easiest way to get where you you need to be, but you could think, okay, what's the smallest thing that I have to do now that I don't want to do any more for me, it's like loading my block posts and like finding an image from my block post and loading my social media updates like I don't need to do that so you could start from the place of what's going on, not like doing anymore. And what is it that I don't have to dio I have to coach my clients, I have to write my copy and my block post, I have to stand on the space, the teacher I couldn't send in someone else I wouldn't want to thankfully, but that's where you could start and you could start really, really small there's actually an amazing sight that I heard about recently called desert jewel like virtual with this easy on dh, you could buy a package there of just like I think one offs you know you want an hour of support, I think it's like twenty five, thirty dollars on then they have bigger packages from there they're vetting the people they're bringing on people who are qualified and you're able to say to them like, oh, I want this block post loaded in this newsletter loaded here's thirty dollars to do it and I think that's a really good place to start baby steps baby steps another great question I work in a day job in a corporate office and I don't know how to make the time to build my dream career while I'm in this office situation I think that's resonating three people voted on that I think you experienced that was a big help big time well, you know, as you heard before, I got myself out of my day job not only for the verbally abusive manager that made me I feel horrible, but because I wasn't left with any time or energy, so I think that's the first place to look and we are going to talk about this a lot in the field, the career fear and do it anyway segment first thing in tomorrow's session but I think that you need to a if you're in a situation like I was in just get yourself out of that situation sometimes it's the very first thing I work with my clients on it is getting them out of that job that is so sucking and energy draining on and get them into something that's just going to be better suited to their needs, if not a great fat but like polly jenkins, she had a three hour commute. Now she has a thirty minute commute. It's all about giving yourself the tools too. Do this work and I think there's a wonderful book called the artists in the office it's out of print. But if you go to amazon, you could still order use coffees. It should be your bible. I talked about the artist in the office a few times in this workbook. If you have an office job it's gonna make it a lot more fun. It's going to make it a lot more purposeful. It's going to make it a lot more intentional. Andi, I think you need teo, take your lunch breaks on. I think you need to wake up maybe fifteen minutes earlier in the morning and like, go right, that black poster make that hillary or whatever it is you need or know that after dinner and after the dishes are done, you're not gonna watch that marathon of dance moms even though it's so good you're going tio do your work for forty five minutes. I love the timer truck. I read that scientifically science has proven that forty five minute time is enough time for you to a trick yourself. It's being like oh, it's only forty five minutes I could do anything for forty five minutes and enough time to actually get work done so encouraged my clients a lot to go find that time of day that you could try to make consistent I know it's sometimes hard set a timer for forty five minutes do your work and at the end of those forty five minutes if you're not in the flow and you really want to stop, you have full permission to stop guilt free and sometimes you're gonna be like, oh, I can't I'm so excited that this timer went off let's go watch dance moms and sometimes you're gonna be like, oh, the timer went off, I didn't it seem like it was ten minutes let's set it again, eh? So that's a really great way to start building some time, but I also have to say I think you know, if it's an excuse so sometimes they here I don't have time, I don't have energy and, like really it's a really good excuse to not to your work. So if you're the type of person that knows this is a less valid excuse and you're using it as an excuse, just own up to it and be like, okay, it's, time to do my work