Work In Progress Podcast
Work In Progress Podcast
WIPp 022 Neha O’Rourke: From Advertising to Coaching
Resources
- Contact us at workinprogressblogs@gmail.com
- Interview summary
- Find Neha here: instagram, site
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Neha did well in her advertising career - in the 4.5 years working there, she rose through the ranks and became a manager quickly. Her ambition fueled with a "can-do" attitude and "never say no" work ethic led her to excelling at the company of her dream and an eventual burnout.
In here own words, she was "burnt to a crisp."
Neha ignored all the warning signs from her body and mental health until her hair started falling out and she quit her job cold turkey. She didn't know what she wanted to do next, but she knew that it couldn't go on any longer. Neha took the next year to get back in touch with herself and in that process, learned what made her "Neha". And she knew that she wanted to help others find what makes them unique and help them pursue that life - both professionally and personally.
Neha said that she will not just help clients find the best career for them, she emphasizes that both career and personal life should be the pursuit.
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It was the most relieving feeling when I quit. But it was also the scariest feeling. Because up until now, life had a plan. And on that first day where, you know, I wasn't going into work, that was terrifying. And it what was really scary was I, I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know what mattered to me. I didn't know what cared. I felt like I had my whole identity was wrapped in my advertising career. And I had nowhere to go from here.
Dana :All right, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Welcome back to the working progress podcast. Today we're talking to Neha and she has a very interesting career story. She switched from advertising to now a business owner. She is currently a career and energy coach. And these words individually makes sense to me. But together, they are new terms. For me, I don't know I'm not sure exactly what energy coaches that is so interesting, and that's why we're here today. We're here to learn about you, Neha, about your experience, your career change experience and your story. So thank you so much for joining us today. And I was wondering if you could give us a little bit of introduction about yourself and we'll take it from there to learn about your career change experience.
Neha :Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me. I'm so inspired what the two of you are up to and this podcast. So yeah, a little bit about myself. So my name is Neha O'Rourke and I live in Chicago. I am the founder and career and energy coach, like you mentioned at somewhere in between coaching, where I help women who are burnt out or unfulfilled design a career in life that they love. So that is my passion. And as you might have heard from my name, as well, I am a multicultural individual. I'm a first generation Indian American, and I'm married to an Irish Italian. So culture and identity is also something that really interests me. And then what else on the weekend you can find me when we're allowed to walk around Chicago, do that and grab some iced coffees and I love exploring the city.
Dana :Great. Yeah, I'm really interested in actually the somewhere in between part. You know, I was reading a little bit about it on your website the other day and I'm really drawn to your, the part of you that's, you know, that kind of focus is on somewhere in between. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that.
Neha :Yeah, absolutely. So, this notion of being somewhere in between this something that I have felt my entire life, right. I'm a multicultural individual. I've gone through career changes, and I always felt like I didn't fit in the box. And you know, it's funny when people ask me Neha, what's your spirit animal? My answers a platypus because I've always just been a hodgepodge of things. And, you know, in this in this journey, I realized that actually most of us are somewhere in between, you know, a lot of times when we can't fit into a box or you know, we're in between certain situations. We're labeled as confused, in crisis, or an outsider. And I really wanted to change that stigma because most of life is spent somewhere in between. We are constantly, you know, working through life. And so, it and life happens not in the moments where we reached reached the destination, but rather in those moments, somewhere in between those moments are where we learn, where we grow, and where we really experienced life's magic. So, for me, somewhere in between relates to to that specifically helping people really enjoy the journey of life, like enjoy the process of growth, enjoy the process of learning. And it also has to do with identity, right? Whether that be in your career, in your personal life, rather than trying to fit yourself in certain boxes, I love the idea of being able to be somewhere in between - curating that identity, curating that career, curating that personal life. And I think it's very empowering and life becomes something that you enjoy versus something that you are surviving when you're allowed to thrive in that somewhere in between.
Dana :Absolutely. And by curating What do you mean? Exactly?
Neha :Yeah. Um, so, you know, a lot of times there are traditional hard and fast definitions of what a whether we're talking about career or you're talking about your identity. So for instance, many times we're taught that we have to do certain things in our career. But what if we thought about it from the standpoint of first understanding what we need and curating the role of it to what we need so for instance, when you're applying to a job having the conversation of maybe certain roles in there aren't serving you or you can't serve the company and that and so What if you brought that up conversation in the forefront of your interview process? How much better would that be not only for your energy but for the company, right? And that's the process of curation. Leaving a little bit of room up for creativity and same thing goes with identity, right? For instance, for me, and I curate my identity as a first generation Indian American because I hold the values of Indian culture that have generosity, non violence, harmony. But for me, I also curate, like pick and choose the values of, you know, independence, entrepreneurship, open mindedness that that the American culture holds. So that's my curation of identity. And we all have our own definitions of how we want to show up to life.
Dana :So tell me about your career changing experience. What were you you were in advertising before and what was your life back then?
Neha :Yeah. Gosh, I would love to say that my career change journey was just this beautiful experience. But the truth was that it stemmed from a place of a lot of hardship. So take a step back and to answer your question, my life in advertising was incredible. I, you know, back in the day I went to school for journalism, and specifically with an emphasis in strategic communications was which was the advertising PR track. And so right out of what I even from being in college, I knew I wanted to go into advertising agencies and work in the client services and strategy sector and so, you know, I got into the agency my dream agency that I wanted to work at, I worked on some of my most favorite clients and and got some really an incredible opportunities. And so on paper, you would see that I was doing really well. rose from the ranks really quickly brought in new business. And so from the outside looking in, it looked like I had everything in my career. But what you didn't know is I was breaking from death by 1000 cuts internally, because I had adopted the mindset to take on everything. So I never said no, I was always available. I was always proving myself I was always taking on the channel challenge with a yes can do attitude. Which, in the process of that I lost myself and I absolutely put myself on the back burner. And I would love to be able to tell you that I just woke up one day and and had a breakdown, but I did it. Throughout my career. I had little signs and nuances that showed me that hey, something's not right here. My energy was trying to tell me something Write the days that, you know, I was just so exhausted and it might have served me to just take a break versus just powering through making times for meals versus just working through the lunch hour. Going to bed versus answering the late night, early morning email, right. I had a lot of these signs, but I said, You know, I just push them to the back. And so that snowballed. And I had a quite literal, physical, mental emotional breakdown from stress, right? I hit the peak of burnout. I was burnt to a crisp and to the point where I had chunks of hair falling out. I wasn't sleeping at night. It was it was it my body had, you know, had the symptoms of severe burnout and my husband, my fiance at the time now husband told me point blank, he said, You know, they have this cute continue, you can't keep living like this. And, you know, it was not an opportune time for me to quit my job. We were planning our multicultural wedding. Those were thing right and so I kind of Yeah, it was the most relieving feeling when I quit. But it was also the scariest feeling to because, up, up until now, life had a plan. And on that first day where, you know, I wasn't going into work, that was terrifying. And it what was really scary was I, I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know what mattered to me, I didn't know what cared, I felt like I had my whole identity was wrapped in my advertising career. And I had nowhere to go from here. But I had had so many experiences in life that taught me, you know, life is too short to be doing things that aren't serving you that that you know, that you don't enjoy. And so I made it my mission from there to figure out how to design a career and life around the things that you love. And the first step in that understanding, you know, what are the things that make you you What is your purpose on this planet? And how can you fulfill that? both personally and professionally. So I spent over A year, cracking that code, lots of research went into that trial and error. And I cracked it. And I was extremely excited, I realized I wanted to become a coach. And from there, you know, got trained and started my company, somewhere in between coaching where I get to help women, both personally and professionally thrive in their purpose and living a fulfilled life.
Dana :Wow, that's amazing. that's a that's a really great story. But I want to dive in a little deeper. So how long were you in your previous advertising career before you before you started to experience the burnout?
Neha :Yeah, I was in it for four and a half years.
Dana :Yeah, that's a good solid chunk of time. And how long did that burn out period last for you. It was it? Was it? Like Did you hit it pretty quick or was it kind of a slow, too slow to start burnout and then it just kind of, you know, peaked really quick. Quickly.
Neha :Yeah, you know, the interesting thing with burnout is the severity levels can vary, right? So, like I said, I had signals while I was working that something was in misalignment with my energetic needs, yet I suppressed that. So you could probably say the burn started slow in the beginning and the more that I suppress, suppress, suppress that snowballs and that becomes larger. So you know, I probably had been burned out for maybe at least like severely for a year before I had to like, have chunks of hair falling out to tell me Okay, maybe you should do something differently. Right. So yeah,
Dana :I imagine that must be really horrifying scene to, to experience that. I talked to a lot of people who, you know, have burnouts but not a, I think a lot of people don't experience it that badly, or they probably did something or the They probably experience burnout in different ways. What was it like back then? What? Were your hours really, really long? And did you work on the weekends too?
Neha :Oh, yeah, they're like 12 to 15 hour days working the weekends, and it was nonstop. You know, the interesting thing about burnout and the conversation around burnout is, you know, recently it's become more kosher to talk about it. But most people aren't sharing the fact that they're feeling burnt out. It's not something that for a long time, was socially acceptable to talk about. And I especially I think, as, as women, we very often put a lot of pressure on ourselves. I've seen this with tons of my clients and different women that I do events with. We try to do it all and we try to maintain it all and, you know, that's an unrealistic expectation to have of ourselves. So, you know, I'm so happy that the conversation about burnout is becoming more prevalent now. Because, you know, it is important to listen to your energy and do the things that serve you. And so everyone's experience may be different, and I, and I hope to god that moving forward, we provide people with a tool so that they don't have to reach whether it's my point level of burnout or someone else's level of burnout. You don't have to reach a point where it's so severe that you feel like you're breaking before you realize something needs to change. And that's part of my mission, but somewhere in between, I don't want you to have to reach your breaking point before you realize that things need to change in your life.
Dana :And I think that's very powerful coming from someone who experienced that before firsthand and to I'm sure you know it very intimately and I think that gives you a lot of credibility when it comes to helping people you know, preventing them reaching that burnout point and tell them What was it like reaching the decision that you knew that you had to quit?
Neha :It was terrifying. And something that I really did not want to do. Because in my mind if I had to quit, that's where what I call in my coaching, experience Gremlin messages, right? I had these messages in my head of like, Oh my gosh, if I quit, I'm a failure. Or, you know, what will people think when I quit? Or, you know, where am I gonna go from here like that? So many fears came in the way of that. But, you know, like I said, my, I had gotten to such a severe point that I knew deep down inside, I couldn't keep doing what I was doing. And so the the idea of relief on the other end was what ultimately made me pull the trigger but it was not an easy decision for my ego, by no means
Dana :did you have to think about the finances or it was too painful that you just decided I'm just gonna quit and figure it out.
Neha :For me at that point it was I'm going to quit and figure it out. And so, you know, it was not again, not an easy decision. We were planning a multicultural wedding. So, you know, not only Yeah, exactly. And so, while I was very grateful to have support from my fiance at that time, but you know, I also did, I was in my time off, I was marketing consulting, because bills are a thing and doing things otherwise. But yeah, I mean, there's many women who have that journey where they have enough self awareness and lead time to say, you know what, I know I need to take some time off and they start saving I wish I was had more self awareness at that time and prioritize myself to kind of have that Some foresight to see, okay, you know, I want to do this. Mine really came from a place of crisis to be honest.
Dana :Yeah, I think that, that also just show goes to show how, how burnt out you were. And I think that most people can manage, you know, if necessary to take up a side job or to do something else for a while and to you know, that will be a good break, actually, from what you what was stressing you out before as well. So I'm so sorry to hear that.
Neha :No, I'm a firm believer that every experience happens for a reason. And so I'm actually extremely grateful for that. How long were you in that, I guess, somewhere in between stage. How long did that take you between, you know, quitting and then finding that you wanted to become a coach and starting your own business. So that process for me lasted over a year and I was extremely intentional and thorough and the ways that I was researching and understanding and attending seminars to figure out really take an in depth look on how do you understand what your purpose is? And how what are the things that we as human beings need to have in our lives to be happy, both personally and professionally. You know, I actually hate the term work life balance because it's a total a representation that's unfair, because it isn't a one to one ratio. And so for me, it was how can you get ahead of that? How do you get to a point where you don't have to balance but your life is made for you both personally and professionally. So you know, that took a lot of work and time and research. So, you know, your personal life isn't an afterthought, but it's baked into the design as much as the professional goals so that your career or something that is both personally professionally fulfilling and time stainable and so, um, you know, I took a lot of time to figure that out. And once I cracked that code, what's really cool is, you know, it took me over a year to figure that out for myself. But the program that I use with my clients now, to get the same exact results from all the research and information that I kind of distilled down, now I'm able to take clients through that in a 12 week journey. So it's been really cool to see how you know, I needed to go through that longer period of time really do my due diligence, and from from that experience from being trained as a coach, and through my experience with my clients, I've refined that and so now the benefit in working with me to figure out Hey, how do I design my career in life around the things that I love, you don't have to spend over a year of your life. You can have the exact inputs and get very efficiently within that 12 week process. And that's something that's really exciting to not only me, but my clients.
Dana :That's amazing. Tell me more about it. What what goes on in these 12 weeks sessions? What are they like,
Neha :when I work with my clients? It's really important to me that we move at the cadence that they're wanting to move out. So I have some clients who were extremely burnt out like I was, and so we pace at at once a week, for the 12 weeks. Whereas, you know, I have other clients who, who tell me, they're so excited. They're like, Neha I wanted to figure this out yesterday. And so we'll move quicker and we'll meet multiple times a week, it's really up to how quickly or slowly the client wants to move, but, you know, counter intuitively we work together over the phone, versus in person or on video chat because I, I've learned that when you don't have someone's face in front of you. You are able to more freely speak without making judgments or assumptions, which allows us to get to the root of the issues quicker. So I do the coaching via via the phone. And so how the how that program works is first, like I had mentioned, we talked about the things that make us off, no one in your life has likely asked you, hey, Dana, what matters for you at the end of the day? What is the meaning of your life? What impacted? Do you want to have, you know, here on this earth, right, what is your What are your North Stars? So we spent so much life understanding all of the external factors and we don't really know the internal and most of us have a self awareness of you know, I hold certain values or like certain things, but we haven't really dug into those key indicators of what's going to lead to our fulfillment. So you know, we do a deep dive on the the internal portion and then we Do the external. So the design portion and the design portion relates to both personal and professional. And so we'll get into certain elements that are key to designing career in life that they love. And so at the output of the program, my clients have a clear blueprint of exactly what they need to be doing both personally and professionally, in order to achieve their goals and to feel that peace and happiness and fulfillment and in all aspects of their lives.
Dana :I see. So it's not just about the professional side of things. It's also about the personal side of things as well.
Neha :Absolutely. I tell people you know, when when you come to me for coaching, if you want to talk to you about your career, I'm happy to help you to design that career. But if you only want to talk about career, I'm not the person for you because, to me, it's so important to take in your personal goals and needs into account because You're not one person at work and one person at home, you're one person. And so, you know, like I mentioned earlier, your personal goals need to be baked into your career goals.
Dana :I see. That is so interesting. And I think I don't I don't hear that a lot, honestly, when I talk to coaches, especially career coaches, I mean, obviously, they're career coaches. So they focus on careers, but I think I couldn't agree with you more that it's not just about career or just about personal because you are made, like, you know, 24 hours a day is divided into both career and personal. So it's very important that you take care of both. And tell me about the energy part.
Neha :Energy is so interesting. So, you know, the word energy has so many different meanings. You could think of it from anything from Reiki healing, too. You can think about it from physics. And so what I mean by Energy is understanding how your thoughts your feelings and your actions drive your life. And so when when I talk about being an energy coach, that's about understanding, getting in tune with your own signals internally write those thoughts, those emotions, those feelings, to understand what you need, because in coaching the philosophy is that you are the expert on your life. So when you engage with a coach, they will never tell you what to do, because that takes the expertise out of out of you and into the coach's hands. And so we never want to do that. And so by understanding your energy, you're able to kind of pull the answers out of yourself, right? So for instance, you know, when we're feeling when we're feeling kind of tired or uninspired, we generally associate If that was like a negative connotation, right, something's going bad. But the really important thing to understand about your energy and your feelings and your thoughts and your emotions is, those things can are neither good nor bad. They are, they just are. They're just signals from your body, trying to inform you of something. So you can think of it like this, a stoplight. If you have the red, the red lights, not bad, it's just telling you to stop. The red lights are bad if you wanted to be somewhere 20 minutes before and you're sitting at the red light, right? It's when we're associating it to the outcome. And so it's I love you know, help energy coaching because it gives us the tools to understand our own answers. Our own needs our own desire, so that we can move throughout life with so much more ease.
Dana :Wow, this is completely new to me. But this is actually quite intuitive when you explain it or the way you explain it. So if Somebody is listening to this and they're experiencing some stress or, you know, anxiety or burnout, even from work. How do you think they can use this principle to help them decide, help them assess what's actually causing the stress? if let's say they don't know what's causing their stress, yet?
Neha :That's a great question. So the first thing I would tell them is to allow themselves to feel the feeling, but don't live there. So we're not going to judge what you're feeling you are allowed, and very much validated in the feeling that you're feeling right. There's a reason that you're feeling what you're feeling. So a lot of times when we're stressed or we're burned out or anxious, we we try to be like, Oh, I shouldn't feel this way. But, but here again, it's just a signal from your body. So first, allow yourself to feel what you're feeling. When you're strong enough, then ask yourself, where might this feeling be coming? From so you can look at what's going on in your life and ask yourself, where are the energy stocks or drains in my life when I'm doing something? Am I doing it because I feel like I have to I should, I must, or am I feeling like I'm doing it because I want to write that right there doing something because you want to versus doing something because you feel like you're obligated to. There's a heavier energy associated with the obligation. And so that's when we're doing things that are in misalignment with things we want to do. That's where we can start getting some indicators on where is this stress coming from? Where's this burnout coming from? So that's a way to identify where that might be starting.
Dana :Tell me about coaching. How did you decide on coaching, what was it about the seminars and the research that you were doing help you decide that this is what you want to do?
Neha :That's a great question. So, you know, what's really funny is, I have always known that I wanted to do coaching, I just didn't know it was an industry. So what I mean by that is when I, you know, when I was managing people in my advertising career, I would look at the way that companies have managers or how you're supposed to kind of train someone. And I would always think, gosh, each person has something really incredible to contribute. I believe that we're all smart. We all have strengths, we all have something really valuable to contribute. But in many settings, we are not given the tools to flourish in the way that we need to. So as a manager, I would always want to say, How can we build on your strengths? How can we support you in a way versus having someone else's idea under here, how can we support you because, you know, when, when a human being is supported in their fullest capability and, and give them that safe space, they will flourish. And so that was something that was always in the back of my mind. And I knew that I started asking myself, you know, maybe is it therapy that I want to do? Is it counseling that I wanted to do? And I realized it wasn't so much about where you know, therapy, we'll look at your past and dig into why does this happen? What's associated with that? While those are absolutely important practices, my kind of energy lied more into how how do we understand the things that are getting in your way and how do we remove them to help you move forward, and that's exactly what coaching does. And so, you know, through the programs that I take my clients through, I actually took myself through that, and that's how I figured it out. So that was a really fun exploration for me and journey and that that aha moment was like, the most epic moment ever. And I hear my clients when they hit that moment. It's been described as euphoria, ecstasy. It's been described as kind of finally feeling awake. It's like something clicks. And you realize that you can get paid for your life purpose. And I think that's a pretty cool moment.
Dana :Tell me about the first couple of weeks or months when you first started working as a career or Life Coach, what were they like, and how did you find your first clients?
Neha :Yeah, that's a great question. So I definitely want to share the part of before I launch because I think that's really important. So for three months, prior to me launching, I had everything ready to go. I had my business registered. I had my name, I knew my programs. I had everything set up. Like I could have pressed go three months prior. And for three months, I was absolutely just panicking in my own spin. I thought, Oh my God, I've been in advertising. I went to school for that. Now I'm about to change. I've never done this before. What are people going to think? Like, I could just picture people, my, my old co workers, friends and family being like, what are you doing? Or Who does she think she is? Right? I could hear that chatter in there. And, and that was really scary because this was the really vulnerable moment I'm going to totally change what I'm up to pursue something that is me to my absolute core, and then I'm gonna announce it and and try to build a business off of it that's really vulnerable. And so I let my fear stop me for three months in starting that's three months that I could have been making money living in my purpose, learning something, and I and I let fear Stop me. And, you know, finally on the day that I decided to press go, I just said screw it, I can't let other people's opinions stop me from doing what I love and what I want to because ultimately I want to help people and letting their opinions will stop me from supporting someone else in their growth, their movement and their fulfillment. So I was very fortunate that, you know, on the day that I launched, I actually received multiple clients on my first day of launch. And yeah, what was interesting was, prior to me pressing launch, I actually had started cultivating a community, through Instagram, through my friends and family, going to events and different networking places so that when I launched my business, I had an audience that knew me and trusted me. And I think that's, I think that's a really exciting way in for people. who are interested in starting a business is? How can you start with a community already cultivated so that day one when you want you're not just done trying to find people who will? Who will want your services. And so what was really cool is on day one, the people who started with me weren't any of my like, I didn't, they weren't friends and family. They were strangers who had gotten to know me on the internet. Right and so that's, that's as creepy as that sounds. That's pretty powerful that someone who doesn't know you is willing to trust buy in and put their, their their goals and life in your hands is pretty incredible.
Dana :Awesome. That's incredible. And that's what a good way to launch I feel like sometimes people launch and then they kind of wait and then there there's a lull and you know, it doesn't go right away, but it's not like that for you. And that's I'm very happy for that. What are the networking events and the community that you were building. Tell me Tell me more about that. How did you manage to do that?
Neha :You know, while I was in that, you know, over a year of researching and figuring out kind of cracking this code, I started somewhere in between as a blog where I blogged about women who had had career transitions, women who had made changes. I also blogged about multicultural topics that's very important to me, and still a part of my company today. But I had started just talking about the things that matter to me the things that were in my philosophy, things I wanted to learn about from others. I didn't have all the answers. So I was, you know, listening to other people's experiences, hearing other people all we all have something really incredible that we can contribute. And so I wanted to showcase other people's journeys and also called the community for for this type of conversation because like I had mentioned, it wasn't really a space that people were talking about. It was this, it was kind of those more vulnerable subjects. So I wanted to shine a really bright spotlight on the fact that, you know, we're not alone in this. There's resources out there, we all have felt somewhere in between. And so, for me, it was starting that community with through my blog through Instagram, sharing these things, you know, what was what I think also caught people's attention is in a time where LinkedIn was used to just share your wins. I was sharing my losses on LinkedIn. Which which was counterintuitive, and I think that gives other people permission to share theirs as well. So that was how I started cultivating community and you know, I'm based in Chicago, which is really an incredible place for entrepreneurs, creators, anyone who has an idea and wants to run with it. The community here is so welcoming. And it's something that I'm very grateful that I had in my journey to starting my business and even beyond.
Dana :And so the blog that you were mentioning is still on your website today, right? It's the, that's where you, you keep your entries.
Neha :Yeah, and to be honest, I've done such a terrible job with maintaining it. So it used to be the whole my whole website used to be a blog and I kept up with it much more and so now the blog is one lover of my business, but you know, I also have other other avenues that I you know, share my message and thought leadership and so that's that's one way in whereas that used to be the singular plan. Got it.
Dana :Okay. And what are the some other avenues like facebook, facebook groups or something?
Neha :Yeah, so I'm, I'm very active with my Instagram community. I love I love that platform. From The you know, from the capability of stories where you get to see people's every day and where to the feed where you know, you can have more thought out conversation and I love that, you know, as creepy as sliding to someone's dm sound. You know, I've had I've had really great relationships whether that be, you know, the client relationships, friendships, partners, people I've been inspired by, you know, I think people are a lot more accessible through social media now than they have ever been. And, you know, I think it can feel scary or daunting or creepy sometimes if you're reaching out to someone, but remembering like, it's just a conversation just as much as you would grab caught ask someone to grab coffee with you. Same thing goes via social media. So I love to use Instagram, LinkedIn. I do a lot of workshops and partner with Other other brands and companies and to do workshops and events so I love that what used to be in person and number tool component of, of kind of getting to know other people and other communities.
Dana :You were mentioning that when you're launching you're really afraid of what your coworkers or friends would think. What was it like breaking the news to them? Or did you keep close contact with them after you left? Is that why you're nervous? Or is it just because they're gonna hear about you starting this completely new career and you feel like you would be judged?
Neha :It was all the above right? It was the the friends and family that I knew it was the people you know, I love the people that I work with. I was I was very fortunate to work with some brilliant people. And so I have nothing but respect for my coworkers and friends that I worked with in advertising but it was the fear of judgment. It was the fear of failure, right? What if I start this whole thing? And it fails. And so what I had to reframe was what is failure: failure to me was continuing to live a life that wasn't in alignment with what I needed due to other people's opinions, right if I would have just kept on doing what I was doing because I was scared of other people's opinions, versus doing something that felt scary and vulnerable and but that was in alignment with my purpose and what I needed out of life because guess what, no one else is living my life but me and so I need to be okay with that. Right. And so, what's really funny is it's come really full circle, there were people who are supportive, there's absolutely conversations that happened and and there were people who judged and there will always be people who judge and there will always be people who criticize and remembering that other people's reactions have nothing to do with you and everything you do. do with them. And I think that perspective is really important. We tend to make other people's judgments or opinions about ourselves. And people's reactions are based on their own perspective, their own experience, and sometimes out of the place of their own lack. And so what's been really cool to see is my old co workers, my friends or family, more than more than not have been extremely supportive. And even so we're some have now become clients. So, total full circle, but just knowing that you're not going to be for me, a big thing to learn was I'm not going to be able to please everyone. And the most important person to please is myself.
Dana :That's absolutely true. And I think it's brilliant, how you reframe failure. I think that's, to me, that's a really new idea to kind of look at it differently and it's absolutely true that you are the one that's Doing something you don't like. That's more of a, you know, affiliate than to start something venture out, start something new and see what happens. Right. I think that's a very, very good point to, to bring up and, and I really, really love that. So I think that might be all my questions are the last one I wanted to ask you is where can people find you online?
Neha :You can find me via my website. It's s i B as in boy career coaching comm I actually offer free consultations so we can jump on the phone for 30 minutes and talk about what your goals are and give you some direction whether that be working with me or giving you the tools to do it yourself, whatever that is. I'm there to support you. So you can get that via my website. And I'm also active on social media. So across most platforms now handle is somewhere in between coach. And I'm probably most active on Instagram. And I also have a LinkedIn page. You can follow me somewhere in between coaching.
Dana :All right. Thank you so much. I'm actually I have one more I forgot. Usually this is this is the question that I like to ask people kind of a fun thought exercise, but so you were. So you were in advertising before and now you're a career in life coach or energy coach. You've now started your own business. What do you think your career could look like in the next five or 10 years?
Neha :That's a great question.
Dana :Would you be doing something different or you'd be doing something the same, but you know, you know, with slight changes, what would that look like for you?
Neha :Yeah, no, I love that question. So for me, I would absolutely the fundamental would be saying I am absolutely in my purpose right now. Doing what fulfills me and I know that This is my life's work. So I would absolutely continue to do what I'm doing. But for me, you know, and this is especially not only for myself, but the coaching that I do with my clients is understanding where what matters to you in life and where you want to go. So for me, it's really important that for me that I have a family one day and so I'm actually building towards a business model that will allow me to be present in the ways that I want to both in my family and in my business. So building towards that model will look like different services, different ways to engage with me. So working towards that as that's my my ultimate design, right that when we talk about career in life that you love, and so I love kind of being able to look forward and see that but I'm sure you know, I'm going to learn a lot along the way and learn and grow. So I'll be excited to see where things go in five years from now, but I think the really important thing here that I want to share is Success to me doesn't look like I'm not trying to be the next Rachel Hollis or Tony Robbins, right. Success to me is being able to be present with my family and my business. And so, on that note, you know, I just it's really important for me to share the message that success looks different for everyone. And making sure that you're working towards a your own version of success.
Dana :I guess. I'm just curious, has this pandemic affected your, your business at all? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Does it? does it bring you more clients?
Neha :Yeah, it's a mix of both, right. It's, it's more clients but also, there's also been times where people were wanting to move forward at the at the beginning of this pandemic and the news about the economy has stopped people as well, too. So it's been, it's totally about the mindset, there are some people right now who are living in such fear that, you know, it's hard to move forward. And there's other people who are viewing this time as something that they want to really dig in internally, and so they're gung ho. And so it really depends on people's mindset. But I would be absolutely lying if I said, This pandemic has not, has not affected my business. And, you know, due to the circumstances we're in, I'm actually pivoting some of my services. You know, I've had a lot of in person components. And since we can't have that, as a business owner, having to kind of quickly move and be agile and serving my community and serving my clients in the way that's best for them in this moment in time is has been important.
Dana :I see. Okay. Well, thank you so much for your time today. Thanks for sharing all your experiences and your stories and I really love your your wisdom. Just your energy. Thank you so much for bringing a different perspective to me and I'm sure to my audience. So thanks so much and we will be in touch.
Neha :Thank you. Yeah, thank you for having me.
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