When I was five, I knew I was supposed to be a writer.
I’ll never forget walking up to the microphone onstage at my preschool graduation after the principal encouraged each of us kids to tell the audience “what we want to be when we grow up.”
Loaded question for a five-year-old, right?
So there I was, waiting my turn, listening to all the answers you’d expect: a fireman, police officer, astronaut, doctor, singer, athlete … None of them fit the blueprint of who I wanted to become.
I took the microphone out of the principal’s hand and squinted into the bright stage lights.
“I am going to be a mom, an author … and a poet,” I stated.
I don’t know what I was expecting. Loud cheers or clapping from the audience, maybe? But all I heard was silence. Deafening silence. Not really knowing what to do, I raised the microphone and spoke into the black void: “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”
My voice echoed as I walked offstage.
Ladies and gentlemen… Who did I think I was?
I’ll tell you exactly who: a five-year-old girl who got kicked out of preschool for headbutting, that’s who. I’m not joking. For whatever reason, I’d walk up to little kids on the playground, appearing as though I were going to hug them, and then bang my head into theirs.
I’ve always felt like my body didn’t have enough space to hold all my energy, all my creativity, or all my thoughts about the future. That energy needed to go somewhere. Some people expel their energy through expressing certain emotions, such as laughter or anger. Others perhaps expel their energy through physical activity, such as exercise, art, or dance. I chose to write.
This book is a place for me to release my failures, understand my successes, and use them to support you in finding your chosen career path. So welcome to my You Turn … and yours as well.
What’s a You Turn? It’s that critical moment of transformation when you become honest with yourself about some core area of your life that isn’t working. It’s that moment where you realize the only thing worse than stepping into the unknown is staying stuck where you are. This could be in any area of your life, be it love, work, or friendships, to name a few. More than anything, it’s that moment when you finally stop letting fear drive you, and you suddenly choose to listen to that quiet yet wise voice inside of you that’s begging to be heard. For once, instead of muffling it, you honor it. You surrender to all the inconveniences this could bring into your life, and you decide—decide—to make a change, jumping off the road you’ve been traveling and going in a new, unknown direction. In doing so, your whole life is about to become better, but often that doesn’t come until you’ve allowed it to unravel. Instead of making a U-Turn and going back to where you may have started, or questioning yourself when the drive feels rough on the roads of life, why not instead get more intentional and see that lack of alignment as an opportunity to go deeper and connect to your heart, making it more of a You Turn?
I know this all too well because I’ve stepped into the unknown more times than I can count. In fact, the loneliest places I’ve ever been were at the tip-top of my successes and the rock bottom of my failures.
I am writing this book as a career coach, keynote speaker, and CEO of my own company with hundreds of thousands of email subscribers, a successful podcast, thousands of clients, a snazzy book deal, and all that jazz. To say I’m not scared would be a lie. The truth is, I’m terrified and don’t really feel like I know what I’m doing. Nonetheless, I’ve learned over the years to make friends with this fear and embrace it because I know it’s just the mind trying to play tricks on me.
This book is written in twelve chapters and segmented into four parts. Each chapter (except the final one) will come with an action step you can take in my Eleven-Step You Turn Formula, which is designed to help you discover your dream career path. This means a career aligned with your most innate skill set, your core values, and your purpose in the world.
To get started, here’s an outline of my Eleven-Step You Turn Formula. We’ll explore one step in each chapter.
1. Know your CORE NATURE.
2. Discover your CORE SKILL SET.
3. Unlock your MONEY BLUEPRINT.
4. Determine your CORE VALUES.
5. Learn how to BEFRIEND YOUR BLOCKS.
6. Be sure to ASSESS YOUR CORE INTERESTS.
7. Learn how to TURN CONVERSATIONS INTO OPPORTUNITIES.
8. Discover how to CRAFT THE PERFECT ELEVATOR PITCH.
9. STOP APPLYING FOR JOBS, AND START NETWORKING.
10. Take steps to CREATE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND.
11. Know your primary and secondary CORE MOTIVATORS.
PART I is called The You Turn, the act one must choose to make that lies at the heart of this book. Chapters one and two will cover the biggest You Turn I ever made in my career: quitting my “dream job” in counterterrorism for the Pentagon in Washington, DC. This part of the book is focused on helping you answer the age-old question of when to stay in your career path or job versus when to go. It will help you understand what I like to call your CORE NATURE, based on how people experience you, and it will help you discover your CORE SKILL SET, which is key for clarifying your best job options. By understanding these two aspects of yourself, your most ideal career path becomes clear.
PART II is called TURN SIGNALS. Here, in chapters three through six, we’ll look at the moments in your life when you may not have been paying attention to your TURN SIGNALS, instinctual or experiential indicators letting you know that you may be off course from the kind of career you actually want. We’ll discuss your mindset about money and how to upgrade the belief system you picked up as a child. We’ll also unlock your top five CORE VALUES, the primary principles rooted in the core of who you really are. Part of this means looking at who you’re not, which is often a result of your limiting beliefs; we’ll look at healing those as well. A final career topic in this section covers the difference between pursuing a career you’re passionate about versus one you’re simply interested in. I don’t believe you should just “do what you love” when it comes to making a career decision; I believe you should do what you are.
PART III is called Rerouting. We can only reroute once we notice the TURN SIGNALS we’ve been ignoring in our lives and decide to come home to our true selves, the ultimate You Turn. Chapters seven through eleven are about committing to the career you were always meant for. Tools you’ll learn in this part of the book focus on taking action through networking, crafting an effective ELEVATOR PITCH, and BUILDING A PERSONAL BRAND. I’ll then walk you through the job-hunting formula I’ve taught thousands of my students in my flagship course, the Job Offer Academy. While all of these steps will take your career to the next level, none of it would be possible without exploring what motivates you at work, which I call your CORE MOTIVATOR.
PART IV is called The Highway to Happiness. Here, in chapter twelve, I’ll share my most recent, and most meaningful, You Turn: returning to the work my soul was meant to do after hitting rock bottom. If you’ve ever thought about reinventing yourself, or doing work that speaks to your heart, this chapter is for you. Since writing this chapter, I have stepped into an energetic harmony with the world around me, and I want that for you, too.
At the end of each chapter, we’ll do an even deeper dive into your world, applying the principles of the You Turn Formula to what’s going on in your career right now. So get your pen ready.
Along your journey through this book, remember this: fear is friendly. It’s an indicator that you’re pushing toward a personal edge and rising into a new level. The discomfort is a reminder that you’re going somewhere new—and new is good. Remember, too, that I’m just like you. The challenges we face are truly the same. My spiritual teacher, Ron Hulnick, inspired me to see life through a more neutral lens, often saying that “we’re all just souls, having a human experience.”
Have you ever considered what your past experiences have done to shape the person you are today? One reason I wrote this book was to ultimately help people sift through the noise of life and see who they really are. Not who they want to be. Not who they should be. But who they actually are. We all know the truth can hurt, but as the saying goes, the truth will also set you free. What I’ve come to notice about this whole “personal power” or “personal truth” thing, though, is that it’s always there … waiting for you to see it, realize it, and, if you’re truly inspired, embody it. Choosing not to look at the truth can energetically feel like trying to push a beach ball under the ocean. It might stay there for a little while, but sure as shit, it will explode back to the surface.
Facing the truth is like ripping off a Band-Aid. Yes, it’s going to hurt, but dreading the inevitable or denying it only prolongs your pain. So you get to decide: face the truth and cry over it this year, or face the truth next year, and cry then … This is why I have developed the inner muscles to “grip it and rip it.”
The lessons and mindsets I discuss will help you step into more power and purpose in your career. I’m so grateful my stories and lessons have supported thousands in getting clarity on their careers, developing their best skill sets, and harnessing those skills. I’m so grateful they will help you now, too. More than anything, I encourage my clients to stand in their worthiness, regardless of their present outside circumstances. This means connecting to who you can be, not necessarily who you are now, and trusting that vision even when your life hasn’t yet realized it.
That’s where my You Turn Formula comes in, and why I want to help you make a You Turn into your power. Before we do that, we need to take an honest look at your life. What’s working for you? What isn’t? Then we’ll look at how some of your decisions today are really motivated by the past.
My human experience has been a cocktail of joy and heartbreak, all of which have led me here, into your hands as you read this book. My journey may not be exactly like yours. I’ve been in some very unexpected roles in the workforce, and yet I’ve learned as a career coach that it doesn’t matter what our highs or lows look like, because a high or low feels the same to anyone going through one.
We’re going to look at what you’re avoiding in your life and career, so that we can help you see who you really are and what you actually want. We’re going to craft a life vision that lights you up and won’t burn you out.
Ultimately, this book will get you out of the trap of holding on to a career plan just for the sake of having one. That means you’ll start asking bigger life questions that take you out of autopilot, so you can courageously admit when it’s time to come home to yourself and make a You Turn. When you operate from this place of knowing, you will be able to lock into a career path and a life you can lean into and feel inspired by.
If you opt for denial, life is eventually going to respond by smacking you with a two-by-four to wake you up, be it through anxiety, divorce, illness, debt, dead-end jobs, low self-esteem, or a good old-fashioned midlife crisis. As you cultivate a willingness to lean into these moments, you will notice that they’re an opening—a spiritual awakening. After all, ignorance is not bliss. The state of ignorance is simply a state of hiding from the truth. The truth has taught me that happiness isn’t for the faint of heart. And happiness is for the spiritual warriors who are willing to look in the mirror and admit when something sucks or doesn’t work for them anymore. The truth is meant for those who are willing to look at any situation and muster the courage to step away from it, knowing that their future greatness is available only if they make the space for it.
By the end of this book, you will come to understand these truths deeply: You are not your parents. You are your own person with your own dreams, your own hopes, and your own organic abilities. You are not your circumstances or your appearances—from your bank account, to your job title, to the friends you associate with. Where you are in life on a random Friday can be totally different by Monday, but only if you choose for it to be.
You will also learn how catchphrases like “follow your passion” or “do what you love” are a one-way ticket to nowhere. If you aren’t sure about what to do with your career, you’ll realize that you don’t actually need clarity; you just need to connect to yourself and what’s true for you right now, what’s lighting you up here, in this moment.
It’s time we join together to trust that same intelligence that holds the stars in the sky at night. Thank you for being here with me. I’m honored. More importantly, thank you for learning how to be here with you. When you choose to be who you are, the sky smiles down on you. It’s painful to wake up, ask the big life questions, and dig inside of yourself more deeply for those answers. But you’ve got this. You’re a warrior.
As the previously-mentioned Ron Hulnick has said, a conscious world begins with conscious people.1
Cheers to your awakening.