Career Reinvention From Cubicle To Coach with Julie Oden

FN Intro/Outro: Welcome to the Freedom Nation podcast with Jeff Kikel. On this show, Jeff shares his expertise in financial and retirement planning from a different perspective. Planning for Your Freedom Day, which is the first day that you wake up and have enough income or assets and do not have to go to work that day. Learn how to calculate what you need, how to generate income sources, and listen to interviews from others who've done it themselves, get ready to experience your own Freedom Day.

Hello Freedom Nation, it's Jeff here once again, and we are on the freedom nation podcast, where we share stories, we share our freedom, and we share our strategies to get there. So today's show I have Julie Frey Oden. Julie was a cubicle warrior like many of us were, for many years, worked her way up the ladder until she realized that the top of the ladder wasn't that exciting. And she decided to jump off and try something different. And we're going to learn a little bit about her story. So Julie, welcome to the show day.

Thank you so much, Jeff. I'm so excited to be here.

I'm so glad to have you on. I'm looking forward to hearing more about and we'll start off with your story. So tell us what, where you came from and how you got to where you're at today?

Sure. Well, first of all, I am a proud Canadian, who has just moved down to the US. And I'm living in Miami, Florida. So really, really exciting about this new chapter in my own life,

Winters will be a little different for you. Totally different,

Totally different. I am the proud mother of two amazing and very busy kids, and the wife of a really, incredibly supportive husband. So I am sitting in front of you as a coach today. And I also have a deep level of experience branding, that has allowed me to champion individuals to not only get clear on what they want in their careers, but also probably more importantly get out of their own way so they can achieve those goals. Absolutely. So if you want to give me air for you'd like me to kind of give you a little bit of a summary of of how I got to this.

Let's get to that first. And what was that jumping off point that you had to get?

Yeah, I love that. I love the ways you call it a cubicle warriors. I love that

warriors. Yes. Love that work and die just a little bit every day.

Yes, quiet. Quitting is a very well known term these days. So, you know, I consider myself a bit of a late bloomer. I've got a story that in today's day and age could be perceived as one that isn't all that unique. But maybe one that's a bit more unique. And the fact that one day I woke up and I saw my default future and decided I had to do something to change it. And so I did my narratives, like many, many people's is, is sort of buried and grounded in my career. My identity, how good I was was tied directly my work success. Sure. And I worked really hard in corporate and the corporate world in Canada for I would say, I guess was like 28 to 30 years, and I did all the things. I climb the proverbial ladders, I earn great titles, and, you know, proudly wore a lovely set of golden handcuffs. On paper, I did all the things that a lot of people would deem successful. But like so many others over the past year, success wasn't all that it was necessarily cracked up to be. And I am one of those people who burned out. And that burnout came coincided directly with COVID. Yeah, I'm one of those people that always had a little voice inside of my head that, you know, always kind of wonder if I was meant for more, if this was in fact, the path I was supposed to be taking. And that really, that really got amplified with COVID. You know, during that time with a mother of two young children and a very busy husband, I hit a point where I wasn't successful in any elements in my life. The possibilities of where I could go from that point were really scary. And what I ended up doing was doing something that scared me more than anything, and I asked for an upset. Yeah. So for those of you that have done exits, you know, transition is hard and isolating and quite scary. There's been a lot of people talking about sort of finding your purpose. So we've always had that sort of rolling around in my head is what I meant to be doing. Could I be doing more I don't really feel like I'm driving impact. I'm not excited to leap out of bed in the morning. But I didn't have that clarity. So it wasn't really sure or how to take the leap. You know, some people you know, my reality was, I didn't think I could afford it. I wasn't experienced enough in another field. What if I fail, a lot of people are so afraid of that. And then I discovered coaching. So I started off the path of going out on the road and leveraging what I knew. So I am a marketing brand expert by training I've been doing it for many, many, many years. So I started off by going off and doing that, in the bigger, broader world. And then somewhere along the way, I decided to do a bit of a side hustle and bring together other women that were coming together and having similar conversations about being stuck, having a desire to pivot not knowing where to start. And I joined forces with a friend and fellow coach of mine, and we tried a weekend retreat for for women that were in that position. And I fell in love. It was most impactful work that I've ever done. And I was on the sidelines of it, I hadn't even been trained formally as a coach at that point. But I knew experience I branding, I knew all of the pieces, I knew how to navigate boardroom, and all the politics that come with that. So it was through that experience that I was able to take the past experience of who I used to be, and come to come to kind of better serve that type of person, as they're navigating a step out into either becoming an entrepreneur, coach in my particular case, or even just trying to figure out how to take the next step forward in their own career and dream bigger. And so did I give you a good sense of sort of my path? Well, now,

you know, let's step into the the coaching side. So you went to the retreat? You kind of got your your feet wet, a little bit there. What did you do from the standpoint of okay, well, I'm going to take the knowledge that I have, and I'm going to gain a little bit more knowledge on the coaching side. What was some of that training that you went through on the coaching side?

Yeah, I'll be I'll be honest with you just maybe just stepping back from that I hadn't allowed myself to think about coaching, I thought there were a lot of coaches out there. I hadn't seen a lot of types of coaching that I liked, or had even experienced myself. So the the puzzle were a bit more organic. For me, it wasn't just like, one day I woke up and everything was clear, I had to think through what impact I wanted to have on the world, how I wanted to best serve people. And it took me some time to realize that the best way I could do that was to bring my own lived experience to the table. Yeah. After participating in the retreat, this partner of mine, who was experienced coach brought me through to made me aware of a business called the meta Performance Institute. And I ended up training with them and getting my foundation and understanding coaching rhythms and patterns and foundations. And really, meta performance is all about helping you stretch what you want. And because so many of us like kind of sandbag our dreams, we aim small. So meta performance is really about like really stretching beyond and getting a pair having huge goals, and really stretching yourself and trying to get around the barriers that you'd normally throw in your own way to protect yourself in case you fail. So that coaching was so powerful for me, I was living at myself, I was getting coached, and I was coaching at the same time. I also learned through that experience that every great coach has a coach and there's you just need to keep expanding yourself.

Sure. Well, and you don't always have the same coach, you have different coaches for different purposes. And, you know, you have coaches and mentors and everybody else, you know, when you started to do this, so you know, was this one of those things that you kind of felt like an old comfortable shoe? Or was it okay, I had to work out a little bit to get it to where it was comfortable for me.

There were some new new vessels I needed to explore doing this you know, from a where a world where many of us do those those warriors you talk about where we are, rear, we roar rewarded for what we give out into the world, whether it's presentations or whatever, whatever you are, you are pushing out into the world. As a coach, your greatest skill is your ability to be neutral, and to listen and help the the folks that you're working with see things for themselves that maybe they hadn't seen before, and stretch. So there was some new muscles I needed to initiate in terms of knowing whether it was right for me. I fell in love in such a big way. So quickly. It was like the thing I've been waiting for since I was a teenage girl and sitting in front of a guidance counselor. I just knew I knew instantly. It just felt like a perfectly fitted gloves. I also knew that I needed to get good at it. And I needed to practice and I will need to continue to do that because it's only going to make me better. Yeah.

So you know for somebody that is the three or four years ago, Julie, and is sitting there in their cubicle. How would you recommend? Yeah, I felt like I was that person. That coaching might be the cool thing for what would you recommend is kind of that first step to see if you even like it

To being coached. or to becoming a coach

To becoming a coach.

I think I mean, I talk to my clients about who are going through career pivots and a lot of cases about this all the time, I think about encouraging the person to think about what they really want to do from an impact perspective. Right? What do you want to put out into the world? What types of organizations and roles are interesting to you? And then I encourage I've said this a few times, now my clients will laugh. If they hear this, I encourage them to almost like build a little shokudo reboard and sample things. And I largely encourage that through networking, right. So if you're interested in coaching, meet a coach, have a coffee, find out what they're really doing day in and day out, find out why they love it, find out why they don't like it. And then do the same for companies that you're attracted to roles you're attracted to try to get the reality of what a day in the life a week in the life that sort of thing is, is for those types of rules in order to get a sense of whether or not you'd like to try them on or not. Okay, I think that's sort of the best way and the fastest way to kind of get at things.

So were you to do it all over again. Is there anything that you regret? Or you would have done differently?

Yeah, I, I love that question. And I'll tell you for the first little while, I, I wish so deeply that I had found this work earlier in my life forever. I think I'm a better coach, because I lived experiences that my clients are living every day. And I had to do this logging, and I had to manage the politics, and I had to navigate the boardroom. I have yet to find who said this, but my very favorite quote is your best setup to serve the person you used to be. And that resonates with me so much. I think the reason I'm I'm good at and strong at what I do is because I've loved it myself.

Yeah, absolutely. No regret. No regrets. I love that. What's the future for you? I mean, what do you continue to do from this point going forward?

There's a lot of different things I'm playing with right now, to be honest, I am launching an intimate group coaching program for kind of intimate by design, you know, five to 10, folks in a room at the same time, virtually, that are all going through that career pivot, I find like there's so much value in part of a community and not feeling alone. So I've done a couple of those. But we're launching a proper program, myself with another coach in January. So I'm excited about that. I'm working towards an international accreditation for coaching, because it matters to me, and I want to continue to expand and grow and continue to learn. And it gets to that point, I'm always reading and learning and leaning into hard things by telling you offline just before we joined that I, again, just like made a massive move with my family and we're acclimating to a whole new world. Not an easy transition, right? Like, it is the continued leaning into hard things that reap great rewards. That can seem really scary at the beginning.

You trade more seasons for two seasons, hot, hotter.

Exactly. I'm also working to build out a community of other coaches. So we've got each other support and trade secrets and just help boost each other up. I think like working on your own can super isolating. And I think you need to look for those way to find like minded people to support each other. And yeah, those are the kind of like the big things that are new and on my horizon.

And I would say I mean, you know, even if you're somebody that is like, to your point before about networking, it's a great opportunity to start building that community even before you launch out. Because it's really lonely at the very beginning when you're getting started. And, you know, you think you're just a massive failure, and you get around a bunch of people. They're like, Oh, yeah, I remember that. I remember those days. I mean, I saw this, you know, this year, especially going from selling my business, to starting another business again, and realizing how bad it sucks at the beginning. You know, I know what it looks like towards the, towards the middle and end. But yeah, that first few years is just ugly, and you need people around you that can share.

Yeah, absolutely. And being part of a community of any sort can just really help with that for sure. Yeah,

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, cool. So, you know, now that you are working with some of these people, what do you what do you think is the common trend of your kind of ideal client? What's the common thing that they're feeling? I know you we've talked a little bit about that at the beginning.

Yeah, yeah. So I think, you know, we spend a lot of time working with leaders, individuals, sometimes teams who are moving into a either moving into or living through a season of transformation in some way, shape or form. I, I personally believe that anyone can benefit from working with a coach, but you need to be ready, right, you need to be ready to do the work and lift the weight. You know, I I'll work with somebody who is sort of next in line for a leadership position and really wants to kind of accelerate their promotion more quickly, in order to drive bigger impact in sort of one hand, sometimes I'm working with people are at a crossroads where they've achieved the goals that they had on paper, and then are like, kind of what's what's next.

Yeah. Or they get there and realize this is all it is. It's this

Exactly, exactly. Where they're no longer feeling inspired by the work that they're doing kind of we're going down a path, but it doesn't really make sense anymore. Really anybody that's like in the middle of or ready to embrace a big pivot, or in my case, we're actually jump from kind of the safety net. And I do say, use that with quotes, air quotes. CNET have a corporate job to going off and doing today. It's a big leap. And you do hear you hear success stories, but you hear a lot of stories that are scary, too. Nobody's really written a book on this one yet, and I'm not sure why. But it's a journey and it can be the most rewarding and you know, to to the point of your, your podcast, it can be the most freeing thing you've ever done.

Already have the title for the book. It's been in the back of my head for a long time embracing the suck. Oh, I love it. I love it. I call the months 12 through 24 Is the sock. So it stops being fun. And it's not new anymore. And now it's just annoying. And I make no money. Yeah, so yeah, that's, that's embracing the sock. So that's my upcoming book at some point.

Oh, exciting. Well, I'll be I'll be on the list it and enjoy that.

All right. Well, let's transition to the Fast Five questions. Now. You're ready. Okay. Yeah. All right. So the first one you wake up in the morning business is totally gone. You have all the knowledge in your head, you have a laptop computer, 500 bucks in your pocket a place to stay? What are you going to do first.

So I'm going to assume in this scenario that my family is safe and supported. And I'm going to make it more business focused. So it sounds like a little bit of a cop out. But this is what I would do with every client that I'm in. This is what I do with every client I made. I start by developing a vision for what I want. Okay. So you know, I would sit down, I would probably bring another coach in to help me work through it and get really, really, really specific. But I want to think through who do I want to serve? Why? Why does it matter to me? What is the hack I want to have? So that I can develop a very crisp vision from scratch, in order to really figure out how I'm going to make that happen. Because without the detailed clarity of what I truly wanted, I'd risk the spin. Yeah, I make my book might be about the spin, the spinner the stuck, the stuck versus the stuck anyway. Yeah. And so many people are caught in inaction, because they don't actually have that level of clarity. What is my vision in a year, I want to own a business, I want to employ four other coaches, I want to make X amount of money, I want to help this many people, I want X amount of them to be referrals, that sort of thing. I want to be a physical in person versus outside, I want the I want the freedom to be able to take a vacation with my kids, etc, etc, etc. Really, vision. That is the starting point I have for everything that I do personally and with my clients.

Beautiful. What's the biggest business mistake you've ever made?

I've stayed too long in a future that wasn't right for me. It didn't listen to the voice in my head. It hurt me, I hurt my confidence. It hurt my happiness. I let fear win. That would be the biggest mistake is just not listening to that little voice.

Sometimes you got to listen to that gut feeling. And you Yeah, that voice is usually not always the little devil on your shoulder.

Exactly, exactly.

What's a good book that you'd recommend for our audience?

I love that question. I think I have a couple of different books I would recommend depending on the stage you're at. Okay. So in my early days, they're not going to be standard. I don't think they're going to be totally standard ones. In my early days, when I just needed the inspiration to consider a leap, a change a big change. I actually read a book by Do you know, do you know Shonda Rhimes

I know the name? Yeah, I've not I'll pick up or anything of hers. But

She is a writer and producer of some of the biggest TV shows that are out there like Grey's Anatomy.

Yeah, Grey's Anatomy in the firefighter show and all that. Yeah, got it.

She's a beautiful writer. And she wrote a book called year of my year of Yes. And all about this by all of the success that she had, she would say no to things because it made her uncomfortable. And so she detailed out her year of standing down and leaning into what made her feel uncomfortable and saying yes to everything. Love. It's beautiful. It's so inspiring. So that would be like my inspiration starter. When I knew I wanted to make a change, but didn't quite know where to start. I liked Marie Forleo everything is figure routable. I'm sure you get that. Hold on. Okay, then some people

Were saying, I love her to death. And this first time I think anybody's ever mentioned it on the show. It's hilarious.

There you go. Yeah, she's got to weigh about her. But like, that was a really good, okay, I'm gonna start just sort my thoughts and think about where then when it came down to sort of like business planning, action tactical, like really getting into it. Amy Porterfield Two Weeks Notice, those would be three kind of key stages, because then she's giving Amy's giving you that blueprint for you could literally use her book. Have you been through that book? The two weeks notice book? Yeah, it's beautiful. Like he's literally

A blueprint for exiting your job. Starting a new life,

When she starts that way. And I love that. And I've used that with my clients many times, like, yeah, pick your quit date, pick your quit date. And we're going to aim towards that. But then she'll walk you through your, you know, some of the stuff that I do. And I've learned over the years, it's a lot of brand work. And it's a lot of like thinking through how you're going to communicate, how do you build an audience? How do you set up a website? How do you start to build and productize packaging? And it's awesome. So those are my three?

Yeah, fantastic. Good choices, too. We got the bonus plan with you today. What's the tool you use in your business every day that you would recommend?

I've got a couple for different purposes. One, I use a CR like kind of customer or client relationship tool called HoneyBook. I'm not sure I think it's a couple of years new, good technology all in one solution, I can book I can manage invoicing, I can you know, keep on top of all of my communications, my pipeline, everything all in one place. It's awesome. Nice. So that's sort of like a very functional thing. And then the second one is called Blinkist. Are you familiar with Blinkist? So like Blinkist, because I don't know about you. But I have a mountain of books always beside my bedside table. And I can only get to so many at once. So I use blankest for bite sized summaries, both audio and print of the business books that it just can't read fast enough.

Yeah. Sometimes I'll read them just upfront to kind of get an idea of this is something that, you know, I know, I'm going to read the book, but sometimes it's not the right time to read the book. And so that gives me that bite sized chunk, like you said, so that I can all right now I know. Yeah, this is one I really want to read. Yes, it timing for me. Yeah, I love it. Last question. What is your definition of freedom?

So I think for me, it's a couple of things. It's flexibility and schedule. It's being your own boss. And driving towards the future. You want I want and having the confidence to get there.

Beautiful. Oh, love it. Well, if someone wants to get a hold of you what's the best way?

Best way to get a hold of me, it's through my website, I have put together a business called the chrysalis collective collective, because I knew that I intuitively would never work completely on my own. And I really loved the idea of working arm and arm with other people with different superpowers that we're all kind of bound by a common desire to help others. So chrysalis Collective is me. I've got a few other coaches that I work with. And then I work with people like designers and what have you, but all again the kind of bound by that common common goal. My website is www chrysalis. co.ca spelled ch R EY s, a L is co.ca.

Awesome. So we will make sure we put that in the show notes so people can find it. Thank you, Julie, for being on. You are a pleasure to have on I love your story. You give hope to those people that are the cubicle warriors sitting there. Yes, thinking about their exit and you gave them some really good tools to do that with. So folks, we do these for you every week, twice a week. So make sure that you mark your calendars make sure that you subscribe to the show. And if you like this, make sure you hit a little up arrow on there or five star and let us know that you're out there and that you enjoy having people like Julianne. So thanks a lot and we will see you guys back here the very next time.

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