Carol:
Welcome to The Midlife Career Rebel, the podcast created for high achieving professional women to gain the clarity, confidence, and courage they need to go after and get the life and career they want. I'm your host, Dr. Carol Parker Walsh, lawyer, social scientist, brand strategist, executive coach, entrepreneur and midlife career rebel. Each week, you'll learn strategies to manage your mind, navigate the challenges of midlife and take control of your career so you can thrive doing the work you love. So if you're ready to tear up that rule book and create your own, you're in the right place and I can't wait to show you how.
Carol:
Hey, hey, rebels. Welcome back to The Midlife Career Rebel podcast. I am so happy that you decided to join me today. We have been having so much fun, having wonderful conversations with amazing game-changing women, women I consider to be career rebels, and today we are talking with an amazing woman who I've had the privilege of doing work with, who is doing some amazing work in the world. I am so looking forward to meeting her and having our conversation together. So with that, let's just get started. Julia, I'm just so happy you decided to take a moment and be with me today. I would love for you to do a little bit of an intro and let the people know who you are.
Julia:
Sure. I'm happy to see you again, Dr. Carol. It's just awesome and I didn't realize I was a rebel until I met you so thank you so much. I'll wear that crown proudly. So I've been such a busy bee since I made my career pivot and I am just so thrilled at the fact that I can sit here with you today to talk about the move that I made, a major decision in 2019, and where I am today.
Carol:
Yeah. Tell me a little bit about what were you doing and how you pivoted to what you're doing today?
Julia:
Sure. Well, I've had a long career in pharmaceutical sales, 28 years to be exact. So when I let go of those pharmaceutical sales hand bars, [crosstalk 00:02:32], I decided to make that decision to really concentrate on where I wanted to be and where I wanted to be was in the health equity space. I've always had a passion for patients, making a difference, creating access, educating patients and health equity was the space that I wanted to be in to help with reducing health disparities. So currently I'm working for a small firm in D.C. that is a healthcare policy advocacy and engagement group and I work on the engagement side.
Carol:
Wow.
Julia:
So here I am today.
Carol:
That's so exciting. I love that you had an idea and a vision of what it is that you wanted to do. I'm curious. In terms of the process to go from 28 years in an industry, in a particular field doing that type of work, how did you get the confidence even to make the transition? What was it about you that made you feel like "Okay. I've done that, but that doesn't limit me and I can do something else, something that I'm more excited about, more aligned to"?
Julia:
Well, I always knew that I wanted to make a change by a certain age, that midlife career rebel stage. So that was already in my plan, but I just needed to just really start to focus in and discover what I really wanted to do. So I had the timeframe already in mind and one of the leading factors for me being able to let go and to make that shift was the fact that I was in a place with a college age son. I had certain financial goals in mind and I could not let go until I met those personal financial goals with a child in college. So I was able to let go, concentrate on where I wanted to go in my life and make that move. So there were some things in place already. Also my first vision board that I did, you introduced me to my vision board. I had heard about them, but I had never done one and I cannot begin to tell you how much that helped me to be able to see my vision, not just think about it or just write about it in my journal. But that vision board really helped to guide me and to give me some confidence about what it is that I wanted to do and so much on that vision board came true and retirement was dead center of vision board.
Carol:
That is so amazing. I love that you talked about that you had it as an idea of what you wanted to do, but you wanted to get some things into place, like financial things and getting your son situated for college. I think so many women struggle with this idea that they can do something different. And midlife, I think you probably agree with me, I think it's even more challenging because there's so many more responsibilities that women have as we move into the stage in life with family, with aging parents, with household expenses, with retirement and retirement income and so many things that are like that.
Carol:
But what do you think, would you say, are some of the challenges that may keep women from stepping into their next iteration, particularly if maybe they are worried about finances and all of these other type of things that are going on? I know you put a plan into place to move in that direction in a way that made sense for you, but I'm just curious if you even had any slight bits of struggles or what you would say would be some of the biggest challenges of stepping out into something new and different.
Julia:
For me, one of the biggest challenges was letting go of a very comfortable identity, changing hats. My identity been so associated with my career. Julia, the pharmaceutical salesperson, and letting go of that identity and still, I revert back because that's where I spent the majority of my career. When I talk to people now about where am I am from, "Well, I'm from the pharmaceutical industry," but that was very challenging. And what was also very challenging was the fact that, I learned this concept from you, limiting beliefs. Not only can you have your own limiting beliefs, but you're surrounded by people who love you, support you, with limiting beliefs. And what I found so many times is that although your friends and your family, they love you, they're concerned about you, they have a tendency without knowing that they're doing this is projecting their fears onto you.
Julia:
The fear of any gaps in employment. I had never had a gap in employment in my entire career until I decided to leave a company, pause, regroup, reset, and move forward. So limiting beliefs, that's tied into fear, fear of the unknown.
Carol:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Julia:
One thing that really helped me was the fact that, "If not now, then when?" When you're at a midlife point in your life, when am I going to do this? 10 years from now? 15 years from now? I don't know how much time I have left-
Carol:
Rotate.
Julia:
... to make a change so, "If not now, then when?" was a question I asked myself, which allowed me to let go, because if I don't do it, who's going to make this move for me?
Carol:
Yeah. That is so powerful. That is so true. That's definitely been my experience, is this fear of, "What's on the other side?" And I always say that people can't see beyond their own limitations so when you start working outside of what people think is possible for themselves, and you start going beyond that, it does make them a little bit fearful and try to pull you back into what they think you should be doing. And so this fear of stepping into something different, this idea that you talked about of releasing this identity around Julia, the salesperson, what was that like? How did you really do the work on your mindset, on getting over limiting beliefs, on your idea of, "This is who I am," to embrace a bigger idea of who you were to be able to step into what you're doing now.
Julia:
What helped me to just make that pivot mentally, from that identity, was the fact that I always knew I was much more than my job. I had more to offer. I had more talent. I had more skills to develop. I had more challenges to face and what gave me courage as well was the fact that I look back on my life as a divorced parent... I got through a divorce. I got through many different company acquisitions and mergers, never being unemployed and I just thought about all the challenges I was able to face and I thought, "I'm going to be okay, because you know what? I've already met challenges. I've already had the stamina withstand some hardships." Right?
Carol:
Yeah.
Julia:
[inaudible 00:10:18] life. So that helped me mentally to be prepared to say, "You know what? If I could do that back then, I can handle this right now," and so I just really envisioned myself, literally, I jumped off a cliff with my parachute.
Carol:
Yeah. I love that. That is so powerful because I think as women, we don't lean into looking at the successes that we've had, the things that we've overcome, the challenges that we made it through to the other side and see those as evidence of what's possible for the future. I think we're just so used to looking one step ahead that we forget to look back to say, "Look at all that I've done. Look at all that I've gone through and achieved. Of course I can step into something different and new because I've already done it before." I think that is so powerful. Do you still use that as a way to support you and new and exciting things coming your way?
Julia:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I have to look within myself for the power that I need to make decisions and I realize that. And I think this is what happens to a lot of folks who may get stuck in that fear. They're waiting for permission from someone, something, somewhere. You don't have to wait for anyone's permission. I didn't need my family's permission. I didn't need my friend's permission because it's my life.
Carol:
Yeah.
Julia:
It's my train and if I don't have any other passengers, that's okay.
Carol:
She's like, "Because the train's going to keep on going."
Julia:
Absolutely.
Carol:
All aboard or not. So, women who are sitting on the fence, who are trying to make that decision, are struggling with, "Should I make that leap? I'm in midlife. I have all these things going on. I have family and friends who are telling me, 'Oh no. Look how amazing you have it. Why would you want to make a difference or a change or things of that nature?'" Women who are just wondering about that next best move for them. What advice, if any, would you give to them to keep moving that train along?
Julia:
I would say, at some point you have to stop, pause, if you're on a hamster wheel, get off of it. So you can stop, pause, think, listen to yourself, try to eliminate a lot of outside noise and again, some of that outside noise can be limiting beliefs coming from other people. So I think it's really important to really take a pause, to really do some soul searching to say, "What do I want for myself? Why do I want to change? Do I need a change?" and feel confident. Just even looking back and you mentioned this to me, look at your body of work. We talk about resumes. Look at your entire body of work, not just in the workplace, but maybe outside of the workplace. Organizations, managing a family, all those kinds of things so I would say, "Pause to hear yourself so that you can really think through what it is that you truly want for yourself because you can fool everybody else, but you can't fool yourself."
Carol:
Ooh. Yeah. There's some truth. There are some truth right there. Hashtag nuggets right there. That is so true. That's the one person you can't fool. You talk a lot about those limiting beliefs and what family, friends and people around you who may be naysayers or haters or whatever the case may be. How did you negotiate that if that was the case for you and what gave you the strength to, like you said, listen to yourself and not listen to all the other voices around you?
Julia:
That was really tough because I knew that my friends loved me. They were concerned. I have friends in the pharma industry. I would get leads for more sales jobs and I'm thinking, "You're not hearing me. I'm not trying to go back in that direction."
Carol:
Was it tempting?
Julia:
Sure. I just tried to manage the relationships and to realize that my friends, that they really were concerned, I think, because it was something new. No one... You don't hear about people leaving a pharmaceutical job without having another job lined up. You just don't hear that but the interesting thing is I got a lot of calls to say, "How are you doing? How did you...?" Even today, "What are you doing? How did you do it?"
Carol:
Ah. She made it. Now I want to know the secret.
Julia:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:15:09] didn't crash and burn.
Carol:
Yes.
Julia:
You know what? If I crashed and burned, one thing I do know how to do and that is to get up, to dust myself off and get up and restart. So I think, in saying that, we can't allow ourselves to be so stifled in fear where we can't make any moves because time is not waiting for any of us. And I think we can all see that, especially now during this pandemic. I think a lot of people are soul searching about what it is that they truly want. So I would encourage anyone to pursue what it is that you truly want. What makes you happy?
Carol:
Yeah. I think what you said was so powerful in that even if I did crash and burn, I would still be able to pick myself up and go and I think that level of self knowledge is so powerful and I think that contributes to the fear of the unknown is that for some reason, our idea of the unknown is that, "Oh my God. We're going to die, lose our home and lose everything we have," because the fear, it magnifies this false narrative in our minds that if we go after something, that everything we've built for is going to be gone.
Carol:
But I think what you said is so powerful, that if you can tap back into the truth which is, "No matter what happens, I'm going to pick myself up and not be homeless and poor. I'm not going to let myself get to that place." I think it opens up the possibility of what you can do when you can really think truthfully about who you are and the possibilities or the capabilities you have to be able to always pick yourself up and continue to move forward. I love when you shared that.
Julia:
Yeah. I don't believe in self inflicting wounds. I'm not just going to shoot myself in the foot and just be in pain and hurt myself. I knew that I could handle it. I knew I could handle it financially because I had worked so much, so hard, so diligently and I deserved a change. I deserved it.
Carol:
Yeah.
Julia:
And no one else could do it for me. So I definitely, definitely would encourage folks to just really do some soul searching, not necessarily over another year or two. Time does not wait for you but to really spend some quality time with yourself and your own thoughts. Have a vision. I definitely think having that vision board and having guidance on that was so powerful because you can see yourself. It's not thoughts just floating around in your head. You can actually see what you're thinking, what you're planning, what you desire, to help you move off of that stump into a position of movement and growth. One of my favorite quotes has to do with a tire, "Attitude is like a flat tire. You have to change it in order to move," and so I just really think that sometimes we can be our own worst enemy by what we tell ourselves.
Carol:
Yeah. That is so good. So good. I love that. And I love giving yourself permission. I think there's a definite correlation between... I always call it our belief levels and our deserve levels and when we think we deserve more, then we open ourselves up to go get more but sometimes I think people's deserve levels are pretty low, that they wonder "Are they worth it?" And I love, from what you're telling me, is that you knew, straight up, flat out, bottom line, you were definitely worth it and I think that's part of that whole mindset and belief system, which I think is amazing. So you and I worked together and I would love for you to talk a little bit about what that was like for you, to work with you, to have me as your coach and to support you along this process. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Julia:
I'm so happy to share [inaudible 00:19:32], because Carol, I'm telling you, you don't know what you don't know. You just don't know what you don't know until you open your mind, until you open yourself to new experiences. And I had never heard of the concept really of limiting beliefs and it comes up all the time. Not my own limiting beliefs, but when I hear other folks and I think, "Oh, that's a limiting belief." But also, learning the whole concept of zone of genius, "Are you operating in your zone of genius? Are you just kind of flying by with what you know how to do well? Are you stretching yourself?" Those sorts of things. So it's just been an amazing experience connecting with you and learning about things that I just did not realize.
Carol:
Yeah.
Julia:
It just really helped me to be more confident in my decisions moving forward and also knowing that I don't have to stop here. My plan is for my train to keep moving, moving in some direction of growth and I realize also through painful points, there's a lot of growth. So a pain point doesn't have to be anything negative. There's a lot of growth and you can explore and learn new things and that's what I'm doing in my current job. I'm having conversations I have never had in the pharmaceutical space.
Julia:
I'm talking about equity. I'm talking health disparities. How to make a difference in a different way, which I love.
Carol:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I love that. What made you decide to go ahead and hire a coach and get a coach? Because I think a lot of people struggle with the idea of it. I think women struggle with... We've been socialized to not ask for help. We've been socialized to think that if we do ask for help, it is some type of signal that we don't know what we're doing, or we're not far as we are. It's like a sign a weakness or something and particularly women in midlife may remember that when people did get coaching, it usually was in reference to a performance plan or some type of deficiency that needed to be improved. I know that's changed dramatically over the years, in terms of how people are using and connecting with coaches but what made you to make you make the decision to say, "You know what? I am going to seek out somebody to support me on my journey"?
Julia:
Well, I realized is that I can't do it by myself because I really needed to collect myself, collect my thoughts and when you put together a collective group of women, that was one of the small collective group of amazing women, I learned so much from just having the collective conversation.
Carol:
Yeah.
Julia:
We have to learn how to, I think, lean into the unknown in a different way of approaching life. And for me, having a professional coach was something totally new, like the vision board was totally new. Connecting with you and this collective group was new and it was just so beneficial. I think we have to decide, "What do we value? Are you going out shopping more?" Come on, we're all working in a remote space now. I'm wondering why I have all this stuff hanging up in my closet. So what I'm saying is that you really have to be honest with yourself and really think about what it is that you value because we invest in the things that we value. [crosstalk 00:23:38].
Julia:
Invest in something new. What would be new, perhaps for some people, would be tapping into the experience of a professional coach like yourself, being exposed to other women who are going down the same path, same experiences, same feelings, same fears, all those kinds of things. It's amazing what you can learn by just taking a leap of faith and doing something new for yourself, for your own self development.
Carol:
I love that. I love it. It's so true. You do invest in what you value and I think that's a really poignant point to take a look around and see, "Where are you putting your money?" And like you said, with the pandemic, all those things that we've maybe once thought were valuable, aren't. The one thing that you can always rely on, the greatest return on investment, I think, is always when you invest in yourself. So I love that and it's been a minute since we've worked together so the time that we worked together, do you still find that helping you even today? You're still remembering or getting nuggets from or relying on the things that we talked about before and worked together with?
Julia:
I absolutely am. One thing is realizing that when you make a decision to pivot, for instance, it doesn't have to be limited to one pivot. It's a continuous growth. Just because you arrive at one spot doesn't mean that you have to stay there for another 100 years.
Carol:
Yes.
Julia:
You know what I mean?
Carol:
Yes.
Julia:
So I say that I realize is that the growth in the space that I'm currently in, because I'm definitely stretching myself, I'm being stretched, I'm learning new things, that you don't have to just stop there and say, "Oh, okay. I made this one move and now I'm good to go forever." No. Continue growing. It's okay and that's one thing that I've been thinking about recently as I take on more responsibility, et cetera.
Carol:
Yeah. Listen, if you're not growing you aren't alive. I think it's always a journey. The lifespan brings so many beautiful opportunities. Who we were at 20 is different at 40 and will be different moving on and our interests will and the more that we gather information and knowledge and learn more about ourselves and take on more responsibilities, the more it's going to expand us to new and amazing opportunities and so I love that. I love the continual journey and growth that you talked about. So, my last question is, and I ask people this, "What does it mean to be a career rebel, to you?"
Julia:
Being a career rebel, and I'm so glad again to wear that hat, it means stepping into your truth, being honest with yourself, being confident in your decisions and not being apologetic for it. You don't owe anyone anything but I think owing yourself your best life is something worth pursuing, so that's what being a career rebel means to me.
Carol:
Wow. That's a mic drop moment. I love that. I love that. Well, listen, Julia, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to be with me on this podcast. It was so amazing to connect with you again and to hear all of your wisdom that you are providing for all of the listeners who are tuning in to hear what you have to say.
Julia:
Thank you so much, Carol. It's just been an amazing journey and I'm still on the journey and still learning and thank you for having me today.
Carol:
Absolutely. Living that career rebel life. I am loving it. All right. You all, that's all I have for you today. Thank you so much for joining us and be sure to continue to tune in as we hear from other amazing women who are just stepping into their power, glory and significance. Don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast with other people who you know will benefit from it and until next time, have an amazingly rebellious week. Thanks for joining me and see you next time.
Carol:
Hey, if you're loving what you're learning on the podcast, then you've got to come check out the Career Rebel Academy. It's where you'll get the individual help and support you need, applying the concepts of strategies you're learning here and so much more. You'll be joined by a community of other rebels, just like you and I'll be there as your guide every step of the way. If you're genuinely looking to change the course of your life and career, I promise you, this is the place you'll want to be. Just go to www.carolparkerwalsh.com/career-rebel-academy. I can't wait to see you there.
