Anna S. E. Lundberg

Coach, Speaker, Writer

Fearless Fridays: From investment banking to transformational coaching

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Fearless-Fridays-With-Gareth-Martin-2This month’s Fearless Fridays interview is with Gareth Martin, who I discovered thanks to his girlfriend Maressa over on Instagram. Gareth is South African, has been living in England for the last 20 years, I met him via his Brazilian girlfriend, and he’s about to move to Portugal later this year!

Watch the full interview below or read on to find out about how Gareth ‘tried’ to leave his investment banking job already back in 2013 but found himself back there before long; how the second time round he was much better prepared, putting in place a plan, learning new skills, and increasing his savings buffer; and how the reality of running your own business doesn’t always match your expectations…

Leaving a corporate job behind to follow your passion: From investment banking to transformational coaching

Gareth Martin was an investment banker for about 20 years and really loved his work. Deep down, however, he knew that it wasn’t what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He left two years ago, thinking he would do something with his long-standing passion of fitness and wellbeing. Today, he is a transformational coach, also running The Ridiculously Human Podcast, and really feels that he has ‘found his calling in life’.

1) At what moment did you decide it was time for a change?

I actually tried to leave… I think it was in 2013 the first time. I’d always had this thing inside me that I wanted to do something else. So, I left, and I went and did all these courses on learning how to build apps and do tech stuff and whatnot… but I didn’t really have a plan, to be honest with you. And, eventually, I came back into banking! I thought, “I’ll just come back briefly,” and it ended up being three years.

But when I went back, I realised, “Okay, I need to have a plan now,” so I made sure that within those three years, I used my time wisely, and I trained up as much as I could in terms of what I wanted to do; I also saved as much cash as I could.

Then, two years ago, I was said, “Cool, I’m ready to go. I know what I want to do, and it’s time to jump in at the deep end.”

When I left investment banking, I thought I was going to get into the health and wellness space. I trained many years ago to be a personal trainer, and in those last three years, I was training people on the side. I figured, “I’m definitely going to get into this and do some sort of high-end personal coaching.”

gareth-martin-buddha
Gareth trained to be a yoga instructor and meditation teacher in India.

At the same time, I felt like a one-trick pony, because I’d been doing banking for such a long time and I didn’t really have a tonne of other skills. So, I said, “Okay, I need a year to go and up-skill myself.” And I wanted to offer something quite boutique-y and unique, not just personal training – there’s so much more to being healthy than just hitting the gym.

I went to India for two or three months, and I trained to be a yoga instructor and meditation teacher; I then came back and studied to be a chef. Then, while I was finishing off my chef diploma, a friend of mine said, “Why don’t you come and do this executive coaching certification with me?”

There’s a real art and science to coaching people properly, and I thought, “I can learn this and apply it to the fitness side of things.” We did the course together and I realised, “Actually, I much prefer this!”

Once I’d finished that course, I thought, “This is definitely what I want to do.” And it was that executive coaching which really changed my trajectory towards the coaching that I’m doing now.

2) What was the biggest challenge you faced in making the change?

First of all, it takes much longer than you’ll ever imagine.

I think the picture that people have, that I had, for example, was that, “I’m just going to be at home and be able to do my own thing, and I’m going to have so much time!”

And the reality is that, actually, you’re going to work much harder than you probably ever worked in your corporate job, especially in the beginning. And by “the beginning”, I mean the first two to three, maybe even longer, years. It takes a lot to get a business going.

It’s also much lonelier than you think. Personally, I thrive around people, that’s where I feel like I’m in my element. And so, being at home is definitely lonely.

You need to really understand these things and get your mindset into the right place, to be happy with your own company. I’m so happy that I’ve been working on mindsets and trained yoga and meditation and all of these sorts of things, because you get to actually be a bit more comfortable within your own skin.

Also, your network changes. You’re going to have to be ready for some of your friends who don’t understand what you’re doing.

3) Where did you get the support you needed to make it happen?

I did a lot of courses, so I met a lot of people through that. There was another course I didn’t mention, as well, the altMBA, by Seth Godin – that was a real game-changer for me. It was online, but it was still an amazing network, and I’ve since met a lot of those people in person.

I think you have to put some rules and things into place in your life: you have to make an effort to get out of the house every single day; you have to make an effort to join groups; possibly go to a co-working space once or twice a week, just so that you can actually speak to people and see them.

4) What’s the best part of your lifestyle today?

Gareth loves seeing the transformation in people over just a few months of working together.

Like I said, I loved investment banking, but it feels very one-directional. You’re just there, you’re helping the bank earn more money, and you’re not really providing much value in the world. So, for me, there was this huge void. I thought, “Fine, I’m doing a good job, but I’m not actually providing something positive back into the world; I’m not helping people.” I knew I wanted to do that – and, now, I feel like I’m doing that. It’s amazing!

Every single week on our podcast, we speak to such interesting people, people who have done incredible things, and we really get to know these people in such a long-form podcast. We book in a two-hour slot and, for most of the time, we’re basically chatting to them about their life story; and you learn so much about people through their own stories. And for us, Craig and I who run it, it’s been beneficial, selfishly as individuals; but then the really cool thing is when you post an episode, and you have people who listen and who say, “I totally related to that, I found it so powerful.”

So you realise, “Okay, I’m doing something good. We are providing value; we’re helping other people.” And that, for me, nourishes the soul. If we can touch one person a week and help them out, then that is the best thing ever.

And then, on the coaching side, it’s the same thing. You see these transformations in people – people who have a bit of low confidence or low self-esteem, or who are confused and a little bit lost and don’t know how to get to the place that they want to get to – and over 12 weeks, their outlooks and their perspectives on the world have completely shifted. These sorts of things make such a big difference to my life now.

And also, just not having somebody to answer to every day! I feel fortunate that I had some great managers when I was working for the investment bank, but then at the same time, you also have the odd one who really makes your life a misery, and that was the case for one of my last roles for almost two years. Micromanaging for me is just not the way to do it; I’m not the type of person that needs to be micromanaged, and I really disliked that.

It’s just being in charge of your own day, and your own destiny. It’s such an amazing feeling, having autonomy in your life. And now I have a fully online business, so if we want to go somewhere – say, Maressa and I are going to go to Portugal later on this year to live – then we can! I’m not bound by where I need to be. And just having a little bit of that flexibility in your day to go and drop some keys off this afternoon, and have a cup of coffee with somebody, and I don’t have to ask anybody; I can plan my own day around that.

Those are some of the things that I really, really love.

5) What one piece of advice would you give to someone who is considering making a big career or lifestyle change?

I think everybody in this world has something amazing to share, and I think because of the way society is, it’s kind of ground out of us from a young age. We learn, “Okay, this is how the world works, this is what you must do, you must go and study, you must do this,” and blah, blah, blah.

And you forget to be creative, you stop being creative, and you actually almost forget who you are as a person. And so, you really need to do some inner work first: everything comes from inside you. You need to start understanding, and remembering, who you are, and that you do have something amazing to offer this world.

I think every single person in the world is different, and they’re going to need different things…  But I actually wish that I had had a coach, somebody who had done what I wanted to do. If you can get yourself a coach, that will expedite your journey and your path so much more than you can ever imagine – these people have done what you want to do, and know the pain, and know the struggles, and everything that you’re going to go through and experience.

At the same time, you also need to go and do work yourself: you need to go and join courses, read books. You need to just go and do things, go to events, and find out what is out there. You’ll have an idea of what you want to do, but that’s going to morph over time – it may even become something completely different.

Another thing that I think is super-important is that you need to speak to those people who are close to you. You need to tell them what your plans are so that you get their buy-in, to get them on board. You need to say, “Look, this is what I want to do, and it would mean the world to me if you could provide me with your support and your backing.”

Make sure that you saved double the amount of money that you think you need; and make sure you have a plan.

Find out more about Gareth’s transformational coaching on his website, and have a listen to his podcast, Ridiculously Human.

Fearless Fridays: From advertising to animal photography

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Fearless Fridays with Grace ChonThis month’s Fearless Fridays interview is with Grace Chon, who initially approached me to be on her podcast, Creativity School. When I heard her story, I immediately asked her to come on my interview series as well!

Watch the full interview below or read on to find out more about the two pivotal moments that made her realise that her work wasn’t working for her anymore, the fear and scarcity mindset that initially held her back in her business, and the ‘breadcrumbs’ that she followed towards creative work that felt meaningful for her.

Leaving a corporate job behind to follow your passion: From advertising to animal photography

Grace ChonWith a background in biology and parents who wanted her to go into medicine, Grace Chon worked hard to get into a creative role, as an art director in a large ad agency in Los Angeles. Although fun and glamorous, she found it to be stressful and a very male-dominated culture. Today, she’s a commercial and editorial animal photographer, and she has published two dog photography books.

 

1) At what moment did you decide it was time for a change?

There are two very interesting moments that I remember.

One of them was when I was working at Deutsch. Donny Deutsch came into the ad agency in Los Angeles one day to give us a motivational pep talk, and he said something so profound that it stuck with me: it was the idea that if you’re not as excited to come into work on Monday morning, and you’re more excited to leave on Friday afternoon, then you really need to rethink what you’re doing. And I thought, “Wow, okay, yeah I sort of dread Mondays at this point…”

I don’t even think I had the language then that I do now to explain why I felt so unsettled there. I can see now being so young, being female, a d being Asian American, it was a very toxic male culture.

And then I remember there was one night where my partner and I were at the agency until about 12 or 1 in the morning and I was driving home and I thought to myself, “If I got into a car accident right now, this wouldn’t be so bad. Not enough to kill me, but just enough where I don’t have to go to work…”

I realised, “This is not healthy. I cannot be in this work environment – it doesn’t matter how hard I worked to get here and what I overcame to do it – this is not a healthy mindset.” And I had to do something. And that something wasn’t even, “I need to get a new job”. It was, “I just need something to make me feel happy again. I can’t be this miserable and want to get in a car accident coming home from work!”

I’m a big believer in small steps. My whole thing was, “What can I do right now in this situation just to make myself a little bit happier? Because this is not working.”

Grace Chon Dogs
Grace had adopted her own dog and, as an art director, realised that she could use her skills to help out and, at the same time, find a little bit of happiness.

I decided to start taking head shots of homeless dogs to help them get adopted, and I did this as volunteer work on the weekend. As an art director, I recognised the power of really good imagery. I thought, “Hey, if I can take a really great photo of this dog, I believe people will want to come to a live adoption event, meet them, and then potentially adopt them.”

So, I put an ad out on Craigslist, and I said, “Hey, I’m an art director. I want to take photos for your rescue group. Please contact me.” I found a great group called the Dog Squad here in LA, and I started taking head shots of these little homeless dogs, and people started coming in from everywhere to meet them; those photos were really making a difference.

This was back in 2008. And people started asking me, “Hey, can you do this for my dog?” And I turned that into a side hustle pet photography business! So, while I was working my incredibly stressful job at the agency, I was working nights and weekends at my pet photography business, and it blew up faster than I could have imagined.

I realised, “Okay, I need to quit my job and see what would happen if I invested the time and the energy full time into this business!” And people thought I was nuts because this was during the great recession in the United States where everybody was losing their job. People were saying that about 50% of the people in the ad industry had been let go, and I had just received a raise at work because my partner and I had launched a series of TV commercials that went viral. I walked into my boss’s office and I said, “Hey, I’m quitting.” And I did it.

That was back in 2008, 2009. It was about nine months of side hustling, and then I said, “You know what? I have to do this.”

2) What was the biggest challenge you faced in making the change?

I think the hardest part about making the transition was the fear of not being able to make money and not knowing if I could do this. And that fear was valid, right? We were in a recession… It could be considered frivolous to spend money, hundreds of dollars, taking pictures of your pets.

I was very fortunate to not get pushback from my boyfriend, who is now my husband, at the time; he was incredibly supportive of what I was doing. But I had certain friends who just didn’t understand, and they weren’t interested in what I was doing. At that point, I thought, “Maybe you’re not really my friend if this sounds ridiculous to you and you can’t support me?”

But, for the most part, I think it was just the fear of what was going to happen. And it wasn’t even really that big of a fear, because I felt, “Well, I can always go back to advertising if this doesn’t work out – it’s not a big deal.”

For me, the bigger fear is regret. I would never want to look back on my life and say, “Why didn’t I just try? Why didn’t I just do this?”

What’s the big deal? If I don’t make money and I “fail” at it, there is no harm. Actually, I should be proud of myself because I took the initiative and tried. I think trying takes more courage than not doing anything at all.

3) Where did you get the support you needed to make it happen?

I don’t even think it was called this back then – or maybe it was, and I didn’t know – but it was mindset work; really digging deep.

I have a podcast now called Creativity School, and what I say is that you need to do the work on the inside to make sure you get the best work out on the outside. At the time, I had very organically stumbled into this work and realised that I needed to overcome this lack mentality, this poverty mindset, where I was feeling like there wasn’t enough. “Oh my God, this new pet photographer started, now there’s less business for me!” I think that was a really big thing that I had to learn to overcome, feeling like I was constantly in competition with people. I realised there is enough for everybody, and if a potential client goes to somebody else, it’s because they were meant to be their client. I used to take it so personally: “Why didn’t they choose me? There’s something wrong with me.”

Overcoming that kind of thinking and stepping into a place of abundance, realising there really is enough for everybody, and we’re not meant to get every client out there – I think that helped me so much.

4) What’s the best part of your lifestyle today?

The best part is that I get to make the work that I want to make, that is coming from my soul. In advertising, I was being creative and making things, but it wasn’t meaningful to me. Now, I get to create work that is meaningful to me, and I have such great intention behind it. I get to spread this energy through what I create, and have it impact somebody else out there. I think there is such great power in the fact that I get to be exactly who I am, channel that into my work, and have it impact other people – and I love that.

And, yes, the freedom is a great thing. I’m speaking to you at nine in the morning on a Monday and I’m not in an office! One of the reasons why I wanted to quit advertising was that it just felt like, “How do you possibly juggle a schedule like this with being a mum?” I wasn’t a mum at the time, but just thinking long term, I didn’t have any female role models in the ad industry. I had one actually, I was so fortunate: she was my boss, the creative director. She’s now off being the executive creative director at an amazing agency – but she had a stay-at-home husband to raise their two kids.

I knew my husband would not be a stay-at-home dad, and the thought of juggling that schedule with children… There is zero work-life balance in the ad industry. I would say it’s like being a doctor on call, but you’re not saving lives! To be free from that and to be able to make my own schedule, that is amazing.

But I think the greatest thing for me is that I truly get to make, and share, work that is meaningful.

5) What one piece of advice would you give to someone who is considering making a big career or lifestyle change?

I would say, really pay attention to what makes you happy. It’s like following breadcrumbs: it’s step by step, tiny little clues. As I shared, it wasn’t that I had this ‘aha’ moment and realised I had to jump from here to there. It was me listening to myself and realising what would make me happy: in this moment now, what can I do that will make me happy? And that little breadcrumb led me to taking photos as a volunteer; and then the next breadcrumb was, “Oh, hey, maybe this can be a business,” and the next… I just kept following each little breadcrumb.

Now, I’m not even doing what I started doing. I started as a family pet photographer and you could hire me for special occasions or just because you wanted lovely family photos. But I followed the breadcrumbs again and became a commercial and editorial photographer, focusing on creating work that’s meaningful to me; and that’s the work that I’ve shot that has gone viral, and that has been turned into dog photography books.

So, I want people to realise that it’s not about having these big ‘aha moment’ epiphanies and having to make giant leaps from point A to point Z. It’s about really going in and paying attention to what makes you happy, and just taking those little tiny steps – because you never know where that will lead you.

I shared how I’m a podcaster now… I never imagined in a million years that I would have my own show; I would never have imagined that back in 2008, when I first picked up my camera. And I think that is the beautiful thing about tapping into your creativity and paying attention to what you like, because it leads you down a path that you cannot even begin to imagine.

Check out Grace’s portfolio of animal photography on her website, and her Creativity School Podcast, where she is sharing people’s journeys towards their own personal creativity (including mine!).

Fearless Fridays: From PR to personal coaching

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This month’s Fearless Fridays interview is with Louise Colbridge. Her story is one of many steps, from moving to Singapore to taking some time off to have her children, to discovering NLP and coaching and then to finally making the decision to quit her job and set up her own business last year.

Watch the full interview below or read on to find out more about the different decision points along the way, the challenges she faced in particular when it came to her mindset and confidence, and how she has transformed her life and found a way to build a business that works perfectly for her young family and allows her to make an impact in the world as well.

Leaving a corporate job behind to follow your passion: From PR to personal coaching

louise colbridgeLouise quit her 9-to-5 job in August 2018, after more than 14 years working in communications and marketing. She had moved to Singapore because of her husband’s job, taken some time off to have her children, and then found when she returned to work that her priorities had shifted. Today, she’s a personal coach for people who are on the verge of embarking on “something big”, exciting clients who bring energy and enthusiasm and are ready for change.

 

1) At what moment did you decide it was time for a change?

I moved to Singapore ten years ago with my husband, so my career moved as well, and I carried on working in PR and marketing here. I had my children, had a bit of time off, and went back to work for four or five years after my youngest daughter was born. I noticed a shift in what I was passionate about and how my values had completely changed from being quite career-orientated and wanting an exciting job to needing something that was more in line with who I felt I was becoming. I don’t know whether it was a case of just getting a bit older and having children who were a bit older, but I felt a real shift in my life and in what I needed.

Coupled with that, I was going through a really stressful time in my job and I realised that whilst I loved the people and I loved being part of the team every day, the actual job just wasn’t ticking the boxes for me anymore. I was working really long hours, my children weren’t seeing me, I was really stressed, I wasn’t exercising, I was getting sick, and I thought there must be something more…

A friend put me in touch with a coach and I had just one conversation with her to start with and literally my whole mindset changed, and I realised that of course it was possible to do something different! But I struggled for about two years with finding out what that was. I knew I wanted to work for myself, I knew I needed more time at home with my family, I knew I needed more time for myself; but it took about two years.

I enrolled in an NLP course and I loved that, and I loved working one-to-one with people, but I didn’t want to fully jump into the world of NLP. So, I started looking at coaching courses and as time and fate would have it, I was talking to another mum who I’d known for four years. I enrolled on the same course that she had done because I was so inspired by her and what she was doing – and I haven’t looked back!

I made the decision to do the course and to set up my own business, but actually handing in my notice was still quite difficult. I spent a long time talking about it and not doing anything and then, again, things just kind of ‘happened’. My boss at the time wanted to change my hours, to extend them, and that was enough for me to say, “Actually, this is not going to work for me and there’s something else that’s calling me.” So, I handed in my notice.

2) What was the biggest challenge you faced in making the change?

I think it was gaining the confidence to accept that this was going to be my next move, and stepping into that. I’ve found that every step of the way the energy that I put out comes back. As soon as you open yourself up to the possibility of things happening, I think they start to happen; they were probably happening anyway, I just hadn’t been in the right place to acknowledge them. And that has been huge for me, just getting over those mindset blockages of what is and is not possible.

Moving into a new career and getting myself accredited and all of those things has been great and kind of a supported process. Then there’s the whole business bit and nobody tells you what you should be doing. In spite of my career in communications and marketing, I still wasn’t able to do any of that for myself – that was really difficult.

I have also kept quite quiet about everything that I’ve been doing, and I’ve been a bit scared in terms of putting myself out there, so I’m definitely still working on that.

3) Where did you get the support you needed to make it happen?

My husband. Knowing that I had somebody at home who said, “You go and do what you need to do.” That was a huge foundation for me to be able to go and explore – that was the biggest support for me.

I also found that doing the courses that I did, you suddenly build up a network of like-minded people who don’t know your history, don’t know your background, but know that you’re really excited about something. I’ve made friends here that I’ve only known for a year but we’re on this journey together and that’s been amazing.

4) What’s the best part of your lifestyle today?

louise colbridge
Louise has built a business that works with her personal and family life, and that allows her to make a real impact in people’s lives; it has been completely life changing.

I feel like my life has completely turned around! I mean, I have built a routine that is just perfect for me. I get to drop my kids at school, I exercise every day, I meet with really interesting people who inspire me so much to be better and learn more. And I just feel like I’m having a positive impact on the world in terms of my work.

I feel like my life and work have merged into one, which I guess could sound quite scary to some people; but I feel like I’m living and breathing it more. It’s no longer about work and home, it’s just: this is my life and this is how I’m choosing to live it.

So for me, the main driver was having an impact and being able to spend some quality time with my children and not be stressed, and busy, and sick and worrying about balancing everything. Achieving that has been life changing.

5) What one piece of advice would you give to someone who is considering making a big career or lifestyle change?

Give yourself permission to explore and be open to opportunities and realise that anyone can do it. I thought that setting up and running your own business you had to be an entrepreneur, or you had to be young or you had to be always coming up with new ideas – and I don’t think it’s about that. I think it’s about finding what passion you want and what you want your life to look like and then working backwards from that.

Somebody said to me, or I read somewhere as I was starting out, that you should “Start before you’re ready.” And I’ve used that a lot more recently. Previously, I would have always researched and made cases for and cases against. Actually, I think there’s a time and a place to just do it and then work it out… and if you put the energy and the effort in, it will all come together.

Find out more about Louise’s coaching on her website, We are Limitless.

Fearless Fridays: From government and academia to consulting

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Fearless-Fridays-With-Anita-PerkinsThis month’s Fearless Fridays interview is with Anita Perkins. Having recognised that she was reaching the point of burnout, she made the ‘brave’ decision (although she doesn’t relate to that word herself) to quit her government job and explore what else might be out there. She took a year off to travel, including a trip to Everest base camp, and ended up setting up her own consultancy, through which she does a wide variety of different projects.

Watch the full interview below or read on to find out more about the moment when she decided that she needed to make a change, how she worked with both a life coach and a business coach to get the support that she needed, and what she’s enjoying most about her new life as an independent consultant.

Leaving a corporate job behind to follow your passion: From government and academia to consulting

Anita Perkins comes from a background in academia, having completed a PhD in German literature. After she took up a role in government in Wellington, she spent the next six or seven years working in international relations as well as in environment and the arts. Last year, she started asking some important questions about what she was doing with her life, taking a year out to travel, hike to the Everest base camp, and talk to a lot of different people. As a result, she came up with the idea of becoming self-employed – and started Anita Perkins Consulting.

1) At what moment did you decide it was time for a change?

Adventure is out there! Travel played a big part in Anita’s transition from her government job to setting up her own consultancy.

I had a few different jobs in government, and the last permanent job that I was doing I really enjoyed, and I was quite passionate about the work – but I was doing the job of maybe four people. You just notice little things, like when people ask you, “How’s it going?” and you say, “Oh, quite busy and stressed,” and get a bit sick of the sound of your own story, and you’re just not sleeping as well… things like that. I think that’s where you get to the point of saying, “Oh, I need to make a change.”

There was actually one particular night where I just didn’t sleep and, in the morning, I rang my parents and said, “Something has to change this time. This is the definitive moment where I have to make a choice to step away from this.”

I guess I’ve always had various role models. Both of my parents were self-employed at different times – my dad was a musician, and my mum was a counselor, before they retired. And I think having done my PhD, I also got used to motivating myself to show up every day and do the work. I’ve always toyed with the idea, then looked into several things, and also worked with a life coach, and I felt, “I might as well give this a go – and I have the friends, family, and financial context that allows me to do that.” It’s easy to get wound up about it and worried sometimes but, at the end of the day, the worst that could happen is that I would go back to a normal job.

2) What was the biggest challenge you faced in making the change?

I think walking away from something, you feel a real sense of responsibility to the work area and the people that you’re working with. It feels hard to walk away from that and from what you know, and the security that comes with that.

In terms of becoming self-employed, a lot of it has been about simple things – even the question, “What do you do for your job?” can be difficult, trying to narrow it down…

Some of the challenges are also around being proud of myself and communicating what I’m good at, but in a really authentic way; especially in a cultural context in New Zealand, which you might also find in the UK, where people don’t really go around blowing their own trumpets. So, how can you really convey that stuff that you’re good at? How you can help people but still do it in a really genuine way so that you’re building relationships and hopefully adding value to what other people are after?

3) Where did you get the support you needed to make it happen?

Anita had come to a point where she knew that the path that she was on wasn’t right for her, and it was time to make a change.

When I first got a life coach, it was actually a suggestion from my mum! At the time, I had just moved from one job back to my old workplace and I started to doubt myself and my decisions, asking myself, “How did I end up in this situation?” I think I just needed someone to help me start building up that self-trust again, that confidence in my decision making and in the direction that I was heading.

That was when I started to make a few changes, introducing a light routine – when I get up in the morning, I do a bit of meditation, and at the end of the day, I’ll write a gratitude diary with three things that I’m grateful for, one thing where I’m proud of myself for that day, and one thing that I learned.

I’ve also worked with a business coach, which has been amazing – right from the practical things of “How do you write a proposal?” and “How much money do you charge?” through to “How do you identify your values?” and “What text do you put on your website?” That has really been invaluable.

One thing I think that’s interesting is that a lot of people are saying, “Oh, you’re very brave to make this move, to try out this path!” – but it doesn’t feel like that. “Brave” doesn’t seem like the right word. To me, I had a situation where I wasn’t living my best life or being my happiest self, and so I needed change that situation. It was almost a logical, rational decision in a way – but also a very emotional and personal one, because you don’t want to let people down or get a bad reputation.

I understand that I’m very privileged: the reality is that I don’t have to pay a mortgage, I don’t have children and some of those pressures that other people have; and I have a very supportive family and friends – so that makes it a very safe context for me. But I still think it can be about giving it a go and trying this out – and I think that’s where things are heading in the world anyway; it’s a good time to be trying these things.

4) What’s the best part of your lifestyle today?

There’s a lot of variety: I’ve cast the net wide and I’ve had a really big range of roles. I’ve been working halftime pretty much on government contracts and then spending the rest of my time building up the website and getting new work.

So far, my work has ranged from writing creative content for a restaurant to doing research for a woman I met on holiday in the Cook Islands last year, working on a land handover with aboriginal people; more recently, I’ve written some web content for Global Women about the gender pay gap. I’ve met some amazing people; one thing leads to another… and it’s really exciting! Biking around town to meet someone new for a bit of a chat about a potential work project, I’ve just got that feeling of, “Where’s this adventure going to take me?”

While I’m very lucky to be supported in a lot of ways, this is something that I’ve enabled for myself – and that’s a nice feeling. I might be writing an article and sending it away, or there was that moment of getting the website up and running, and then feeling, “Yeah, that’s great!”

There’s also so much learning going on.

5) What one piece of advice would you give to someone who is considering making a big career or lifestyle change?

I guess just really listen to that ‘thing’ you’re feeling. Life is too short, and there’s so much other stuff that you can do rather than keep going along that road. Even if a lot of people expect you to keep going, and it’s a well-trodden path, it’s not always the right thing for you, and you’re the one who has to live this life, every day.

I would also say, really open the door – get out there and ask other people who are doing what you might like to do, how they got there, and what lessons they learned. Listen to podcasts, read your book!

A lot of people want to have something very exact in terms of what they’re going to do next when they leave something, but as long as the practical side is there – you can still pay your rent and so on – then it really is worth the adventure of stepping out and taking that leap, and exploring what could work for you.

You can find out about Anita’s consulting on her website, connect with her on LinkedIn, or follower her on Facebook.

Fearless Fridays: From marketing agency to freelancing and lecturing

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Fearless-Fridays-With-joana-ferreiraThis month’s Fearless Fridays interview is with Joana Ferreira, who left her dual role in a digital marketing agency and a tech company to go freelance with her marketing and to become a part-time lecturer.

Joana’s is an interesting (though not unusual) case as she didn’t dislike the work she was doing – it was more the logistics around travelling back and forth, as well as the profile of the clients she was working with, that led her to take the leap. She talks about how it was other people’s concerns that led her to question herself, and how she found a supportive online freelancing community to both encourage her and exchange experiences and expertise.

Leaving a corporate job behind to follow your passion: From marketing agency to freelancing and lecturing

Joana Ferreira began a career in digital marketing in 2011, securing a junior role at a digital marketing agency. Within five years, she had climbed into senior management, running a very busy team, working across two locations, re-branding the company, and working alongside the head of agency to make decisions on the company’s future. By the end of 2017, she realised that although she loved digital marketing, she was no longer happy working at that intensity, under so much stress and in the 9-to-5 corporate environment. She set up her own digital marketing consultancy for small businesses, as well as becoming a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Laura’s work today is not totally dissimilar to what she was doing before, but she is now using her marketing skills to work with small, independent businesses and she’s also doing more speaking and training.

1) At what moment did you decide it was time for a change?

I suppose the biggest motivator for me was having to travel from London to Manchester every week, so that I was spending three days in London, two days in Manchester. At the time, I was living in Stoke-on-Trent, so I was pretty much travelling across the country every single week, multiple times.

It was very tiring, and of course it means you can’t really have much of a social life, and even for things like planning when you’re going to go to the gym, you need a whole schedule just for that. So it was a case of life was work, and work was life, and that’s not really how I like to live my life.

Apart from that, it was also very a corporate environment, and very demanding, very long hours, a lot of long meetings, a lot of conversations before we actually made any real decisions.

And for my style of working, I just prefer to get stuck into things; do things, be creative. Especially because I work in digital marketing, I like to experiment, try different things, and see if it works, and that was something that I was missing a little bit.

And then of course when you work for an agency, the clients that you work with are bigger companies that can afford an agency. I always wanted in my heart to work with small businesses that need support but haven’t got the budget to hire an agency, and so that was in the back of my mind, eventually to be able to do that.

So I had been building up in my head that we were reaching that time when I wanted to go out on my own, but I hadn’t quite figured out when and how that was all going to work out.

And I think I’d just been having a really tough week. It was one of those weeks where I was in the office until late in the evening, and spending four hours in a meeting, and feeling like we still needed another meeting after that to finally get things going.

I was meant to be staying in a hotel and, when I went to check in, they’d overbooked me, so they had to move me to a different hotel… It was just one thing after another, and it was one evening after dinner when I just said, “Okay, this is it. I’m going in tomorrow and I’m going to  hand in my notice – and that was it!

It happened to be at the end of 2017, so I gave myself until the end of year and then I took a couple of months off to just clear my head, and travel, and then start my new business.

2) What was the biggest challenge you faced in making the change?

I think the first one that I came across was people. I wasn’t scared when I made that decision, and then suddenly people were scared for me, and I started thinking, “Should I be scared??? And then that’s when the worry started to creep in.

Then I decided in January in 2018 that I was going to do absolutely nothing – I needed to clear my head, I needed to give myself some time… And that was the biggest challenge for me, actually, because I had been moving at such a fast pace. I had been constantly busy for five, six years, travelling and having a million things to do every day. Suddenly I had nothing to do, and that was really challenging.

After that it was just about figuring out, “How am I going to find my new clients? How am I going to sell myself? How do I represent myself? What do I call myself now? What’s my job title?”

3) Where did you get the support you needed to make it happen?

When I started freelancing, I didn’t really know any other freelancers because I had been employed for many years and all my friends from work were also employed. So I thought, “Well, I’m a digital marketing person, social media is what I do!” and I went on social media and started looking for different communities – Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, and events as well in and around Manchester – where I could meet other people. Actually, I discovered that there was this whole world out there, a massive community of really supportive people who were also freelancing and were very supportive – it didn’t feel like a competitive world, it felt like a community.

So I signed up to loads of Facebook groups, and I attended a couple of events, and I just got to know a few people… and then I just asked loads of questions. “How do you do this?” “How do you do that?”

And everyone I came across was really open and willing to share their experiences, good and bad, willing to give advice without asking for anything in return. This was an eye opener in a very, very positive way and I still keep in touch with even the people that I met at the very beginning. I’ve ended up working with some of them or recommending them when I’m not the right fit, or they’ve recommended me when they’re not the right fit.

And I think that’s probably what helped me the most in terms of figuring out how to go about being self-employed.

Apart from that, friends and family have all been super supportive to the point where I’m even surprised at how supportive they are! I thought they would have been thinking that I was crazy, but actually a lot of them said, “Yes, you can do this,” and very proud and very, very positive.

4) What’s the best part of your lifestyle today?

Joana discovered her love of teaching and, thanks to her new freelancing status, has been able to make time for lecturing at a university.

One of the things I love the most is the freedom to choose what I work on. Obviously we have to be realistic in that we have to have enough work coming in so that we can pay the bills, but generally speaking, I’ve been able to work on projects that I really enjoy, and for clients where I really feel that we create almost a friendship rather than a client-supplier relationship.

Apart from that, I had had in the back of my mind that I loved training. In my previous role I was a manager, and I got to work with graduates and apprentices and really nurture them from the very beginning of their career and watch them grow. That was something that I really enjoyed, and I had always thought, “Could I get into training or teaching or something like that?” And, now that I’m a freelancer, I’ve actually got the time and the freedom to be able to try and see if this works, which you can’t do when you’ve got a full-time job.

Now, I’m almost 50/50 teaching and freelancing.

5) What one piece of advice would you give to someone who is considering making a big career or lifestyle change?

I always follow my gut. If it doesn’t feel right, then I try to fix it; and if it feels like it is the right thing for me, then I always go with it. I try not to listen too much to the people who might be doubting it.

So my advice is always follow your gut, follow your instincts – because they are usually right.

I was very lucky that I had some savings so that I could afford to leave my job without having an immediate client and be able to take a couple of months off. Obviously, not everyone is in that position, so of course I wouldn’t say, “Leave your job tomorrow!” if you haven’t got enough savings.

Everyone is different, so if you feel it’s right for you, then you don’t need to listen to anyone who’s doubting you.

You can find Joana’s marketing consultancy on her website for JVF Marketing, or connect with her on LinkedInand Twitter