Discovering what you’re meant to do

Episode Transcript

Julianna: Welcome to the daring to succeed podcast joining me today is Laura Allen, a career transformation and business coach. Laura helps professionals get excited about their careers again by discovering their dream career or pursuing a side hustle. Thank you so much for joining me, Laura.

Laura: Thank you for having me. This is very exciting. This is my first ever LinkedIn audio and I’m just, yeah, excited

Julianna: And we get to record it forever! So I like to start with a fun question first. Do you consider yourself more introverted extroverted or bit of both?

Laura: I think is definitely a bit of both. I am very good in social situations like networking going out and sort of I can go and do that, but it takes a lot out of me and then I have to retreat back to my my home for like a month and nobody talk to me.

Laura: I think I’ve come to learn over the years as I’ve grown up and matured, I guess, that sometimes it’s okay is to sit in the room and not say anything and just be a bit introverted and just take it in. I always felt when I was younger that I had to talk a lot and really contribute to everything and now I’ve realized that actually I don’t and I’m quite happy just taking things in and kind of being that quiet person so, yeah, I would say definitely a bit of both. I can hold my own if I need to but I’m also quite happy to just be quiet.

Julianna: Yeah, and I’ve heard that from a lot of both introverts and amniverts, but there is a lot of societal expectation to speak more or behave in a certain way that’s more extroverted. So I’m glad to hear that you’re better with being introverted and feeling comfortable with that.

Laura: Yeah. I always used to like when I go to like a training event.

Laura: Something I’d always feel like I needed to contribute an answer. But what I realized was that by meal ways contributing I was taking away opportunity for other people to contribute. So I’d really just leave it until if nobody said anything and fill the awkward silence with a joke or something actually contribute. But yeah quite happy just sitting back.

Julianna: Nice. So when we last chatted we talked about how you’re point A and I’m point B of someone’s career change journey. I love that so much because I can’t do what you do, which is help people discover what they really should be doing if they’re apathetic about their career right now. Can you tell us a little bit about who you work with and how you help them?

Laura: Yeah. So yeah, I’m point A to point B. Essentially I haven’t niched to a point where I only work with males or females or people in their 30s or 40s, whatever I will work with anybody who’s feeling really like say apathetic unfulfilled doesn’t really know what to do. Perhaps they’ve tried multiple avenues. They tried looking for different things and kind of hit a dead end or maybe they tried different jobs and just not getting that job satisfaction.

Laura: The reason I do what I do is because I found myself in that position and I didn’t really know what to do and I spent months and months and months sort of essentially asking the universe for some guidance. I was like “Please, Universe tell me what to do!” and I realized that there is there is a process of sort of self-discovery that you can go through to really help you understand what it is that you want to do for your career and it takes into account a lot different factors.

Laura: So it’s not just about the job. You’ve got to take into account, you know, your lifestyle who you, are your personality. Are you an introvert or are you an extrovert? Do you want to do something that’s face-to-face or are you quite comfortable working from home and sitting behind a desk? Do you want to have high earnings are actually are you quite comfortable and in a middle middle salary and having more flexibility? Like there’s there’s so many different factors and sometimes we only just look at I need a salary and then you can have to ask yourself like well, why do you need that?

Laura: What is that helping you in your life and just really dig deep into it and I think it’s hard to do that on your own and people have busy lives. So how often do people really sit down with a pen and paper and go “I’m going to really dive deep into this.”? They don’t, they absolutely don’t which is why as a coach you hold space for people to give them that time to to kind of answer all of those questions. So, yeah, I don’t I don’t work with I don’t not work with anybody. I work with anybody who’s looking for that kind of clarity and then also the confidence to then start taking that information and putting it into action.

Julianna: Nice. And I think it is so important to have a coach help you through that because I mean, I’m sure you found through your own journey, there’s so many things to consider that probably some of them you don’t even know to ask…or you know, I’ve worked with a coach before myself on my career like my corporate career before where there’s some very uncomfortable things you need to kind of work through and sometimes you do need that coach a kind of prod you through that process.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. And I think… I certainly found that when I was going through my journey and I didn’t have that support and then when I went into starting my own business there was so much to consider that I hadn’t even thought about and I didn’t really know where to go for that kind of help and support.

Laura: So I spent, again, months researching going to different types of people having to invest lots of different like lots of money into like different things and you know that’s really spurred me on to create something for people that’s more of a One-Stop shop. Like you don’t have to go looking everywhere because I’ve already done it and I’ve already pulled it into one place for you and I want to share it with you. So, yeah, I think it’s really important to have people on your side to help support you with whatever your goal is.

Julianna: Absolutely and for all of our introverted listeners out there, is there any piece of advice that you would give them if they’re they’re not really satisfied with their careers anymore, but not sure what to do?

Laura: Yeah. So first of all just know that you’re not alone. The majority of the workforce issei seems to feel like that in some way shape or form… I think being introverted you’ll probably less likely to reach out to somebody for support maybe, but I would encourage that you do and it’s just about finding that right person for you and you know, Julianna, you specialize in helping introverts like how much better person can usually find you know, because essentially you want to find someone who’s going to be able to bring out the best in you and not drain you so, you know, there are loads of very amazing people out there to support you, but they might be really super high energy. And actually that’s just not what’s going to work for you to just keep looking for somebody that can support you.

Laura: And I really like what you do Juliana with Part B of the process and helping introverts with their kind of job search and things like that because I think again, it can feel really overwhelming that you don’t know if you’re going to be able to get out of the comfort zone of the career that you’re in, because although you’re unhappy it’s easy, you know it, you haven’t got to go anywhere that whole taking the jump can be really really scary and I think learning about you know, who you are.

Laura: What your skills are what you can bring to the table and being able to sell yourself is really really important. So please just seek help don’t sit and suffer in silence because you were not born to go to work and be miserable all of your life. That’s just not why we’re here.

Julianna: No, absolutely not and they think both of us are in that position where we’ve decided not to be miserable anymore.

Laura: Oh, yeah.

Julianna: It’s a good feeling to leave that behind.

Laura: Definitely. It really really really is. There is there is hope and a brighter future rather. You just got to go and find

Julianna: Absolutely. Well, thanks Laura. And I think you also have a free ebook that you’re offering to our audience for overcoming limiting beliefs. So I will drop that link in the show notes for everyone and I think that’s it for today.

Laura: Yeah. I was just saying that one quickly that it’s a really good exercise because it does get you to sit and ask yourself some questions. So I think it’s a very reflective exercise. It will help you uncover what it is that is holding you back from changing careers or to be honest, you can apply it to any area of your life. Once you understand it. But as part of that I then teach you how to use EFT tapping which is emotional Freedom technique, which is an incredible tool that you can use to really reprogram your brain and give you that confidence to move forward. So yeah, once you’ve learned how to do that with anything like you can provide any of your life, so it’s it’s really really good tool.

Julianna: Awesome. Well, thanks again Laura. This is, it’s been a lot of fun.

Laura: Thank you, I enjoyed it.