Episode 1: Introducing The Career Chronicles podcast

Foreign welcome to the Career Chronicles Podcast.

Hosted by me, Emma Nayla. Each week we'll be interviewing people from.

All walks of life and uncovering the.

Challenges, successes and insights that come from.

Forging your own path.

Whether you're looking for inspiration to pursue your own unconventional career or simply curious.

About the stories of those who have.

Done so, this podcast is for you. So join us as we explore the world of unconventional careers and the amazing people who have turned them into a reality. Sit back, relax, and let's dive into these incredible stories together.

Welcome to the first episode of the Career Chronicles. I'm your host, Emma Nada, and I'm so excited to be back recording another podcast episode. It feels like forever since I've recorded one. If you've been here since the start, you will have seen the podcast grow from all is wellness to you can have it all. And now, the Career Chronicles. I wanted to start the new season and relaunch by sharing my story. How I went from struggling at school, partying, binge drinking, and having no clear directional plan in life to being super focused, driven and creating the most fulfilling career. So let's start from the beginning. Growing up, I was always that person that friends and family would come to for advice. Whether it was about school, relationships, or, you know, the next step that they were looking to take, I always seemed to have the answer or be able to provide at least a little bit of guidance. That was all the way up. Even until now, however my own life was going on, I was always able to support others. As I said, I couldn't seem to follow any of my own advice though. My life was very chaotic, full of ups and downs, lots of partying, lots of drinking, and lots of very, very unpredictable behavior. So during school I really, really struggled with authority. I really struggled with being told what to do and that I had to take a clear path that someone else had planned for me. I was so rebellious, much to the despair of my parents and my teachers, and I constantly remember being pulled in by the headmistresses and pulled into lots of the teachers classrooms, saying that if I applied myself, I would be successful. If I looked back at any of my old school reports, that's exactly what it said. It wasn't until I went to university and I got to choose the path that I wanted to take. So I graduated, graduated from Regents University in London with a degree in Global Business and marketing back in 2014. From there I started my career in sales. I absolutely knew I was going to be in sales. I absolutely loved people. I was Very, very focused on making a difference, making an impact and speaking to as many people as I could. So specifically, I started my career in the real estate industry which I absolutely, absolutely loved. I'd always had an interest in real estate and I sort of knew that that was an interesting path for me to go down. And actually I met my now fiance, soon to be husband. So I always feel that that first job straight out of university really, really holds such a special place in my heart. From there I moved into the finance things, finance sort of side of the real estate industry and found that I actually loved it. Although the narrative I had told myself for such a long time was that I, I'm not good at numbers, you'd hate being in numbers, and that you wouldn't succeed in it. The age of 24, I was headhunted by a global mortgage brokerage to grow and scale a sales team. And when I tell you the imposter syndrome that I felt, it was something that I'd never experienced before and it was absolutely imposter syndrome. For the first time, as I said, I grew and I and I scaled a sales team, a really important function within the business. It was also the first time that I'd really experienced any sort of burnout. I was working very long hours, I was putting a lot of pressure on myself. I was the only sort of young female in the leadership team and I really felt that I had a lot to prove. Unfortunately, that was at the expense of completely burning out. And this is to the point where my drinking, drug taking and behavior overall really became very, very chaotic. And at this point I actually knew that something needed to change. This was the real sort of turning point in my story when I decided to get sober. And following that, I actually took six months off to travel to volunteer. I just knew that I needed a little bit of space to really digest the changes that were going on in my own life, within my career, but also in my personal life with actually making this huge decision to stop drinking. But more on that later. Following a six month stint of traveling and volunteering, I went to work for a very, very small company in the real est industry in 2018. Absolutely loved it. I was the seventh hire for the business and I worked very closely with our CEO and founders to grow the business's headcount, focus on the operations and the strategy side of things. And this was really my first sort of experience into the sort of startup smaller business field and I absolutely loved it. So to continue sort of learning in that area away from my full time job, I started to take on some small side projects alongside my full time role. And actually this was before sort of side hustles were sort of socially acceptable or spoken about or actually a lot of people were worried that they wouldn't be able to sort of take on a side hustle away from their full time job. So this was very much sort of before its time. I would say eventually sort of working on a few side projects actually transitioned into consulting full time for six months. Absolutely loved it. It was an incredible experience to really get into the nitty gritty and work as a consultant for very, very small businesses. However, there was something within me, and now I know what it was, that knew I needed to go back into a corporate business. I wasn't quite ready. I had gone into the consulting sort of with my eyes very much shut with the blinkers on, not realizing actually until I did the inner work on myself, I was really, really going to struggle with actually running my own business. So I went and got a job at IBM in 2019, right before COVID 19 actually hit. So I feel very thankful that consulting wasn't quite the right time and actually managed to go back into a full time role. However, I quickly realized that IBM, a corporate fit was actually not the right fit for me. But I sort of know I had someone looking over me as such and we were in the process of buying a sort of house. So I stayed put. However, deep down inside I knew that I wanted to be a part of something growing and exciting. So I was able to see this full time role as a stepping stone to buying my home. And actually once that had gone through, I was able to leave. For me, the really, really big part of this journey is even if you are in a role that is not serving you fully, it's about understanding what that role can give to you until you can find the next step. I decided that after our house went through that I would take a little bit more of a risk and go back to a startup. This was in the midst of a pandemic. It was a small company at the time. It was an electric car leasing company, which I thought was very interesting and very aligned with my values in terms of looking after the environment and making those sort of decisions. I was brought on board to be part of the growth journey, training and coaching and managing a sales team which was both massively exhilarating because it really hit all of the things that I absolutely loved, but at the same time massively out of my comfort zone. I worked here for nearly a Year, which I absolutely loved. It was an incredible experience, as I said before, really took me out of my comfort zone. It challenged me in ways that I hadn't been challenged before. However, in March 2021, I decided to pursue my passion really for helping people, both in sort of a business way and also a personal way, by helping helping startups grow. You know, really knowing that I actually wanted to go into the coaching industry, whether that be the business coaching, the life coaching. I didn't have clarity on this. But one thing I knew was that I absolutely loved helping people and helping others grow in their own journey. Whether that be a business journey, whether that be a personal journey, whatever it may be. I knew that my passion and my skill set was going to allow me to take people, businesses from A to B. I started by investing in myself, getting some qualifications, investing in some coaches, some programs, some courses. And I was very, very, you know, lucky at this time because the world was in lockdown. I had so much time. I had an abundance of time. I also had a little bit more disposable income. The fact that we weren't going out, that all of those luxuries were really sort of taken away. Fast forward to June 2021. I had quit my full time job. I had started my own coaching and consultancy business. And to be perfectly honest, I haven't looked back since. That is my journey in 10 minutes. And it's really interesting because every time I sit down and I go through this journey, I always shock myself with actually having how much I have done in what seems like such a short amount of time from going from someone who struggled at school, who struggled with grades, struggled with authority, to being someone who actually younger me would have been so proud of. It's incredible to actually watch that journey and have been able to reflect on that journey. Because often I find that when you're on that journey on your own, it's really hard to actually take that time for reflection, to see how far you've come, until you actually sit down and think about, wow, I can't believe I have made this happen. In this first episode, I wanted to share three things that if I could go back to March 2021, before I started my business, what would I have done differently? So for me, the first one, and this is gonna sound like such a simple thing to do, and I know it's easy from a place where I am right now because I don't feel any of this, but I remember looking back at that girl in 2021 a few years ago, and the first one is not giving a shit what people think about you. I remember when I first started doing my coaching qualifications and started wanting to be a coach, I didn't share any of it on social media, I didn't share any of it on my LinkedIn. I didn't share any of it with friends, family, no one. I was so worried what other people would think that I stayed small and I didn't want anyone else to know about what I was doing. Now, the irony of that is, as a coach and as a consultant, you need to be seen. Most businesses, if you are running your own business, you need to be seen. If you're applying for jobs and want to go for something that's completely out of your comfort zone, if you're looking for a career change, you need to be seen. You need to be having those conversations and showing your CV and putting yourself out there. So whether you're looking at starting a business or making a full career change, the first thing is just to stop giving a shit what other people think about you, because it's not going to get you anywhere. The second thing is I wish I had sorted out my finances a little bit better. As I said first time around when I went into consulting, I definitely went in a little bit blind and a little bit naive. The second time around I went in with my eyes wide open. However, I do feel that I should have sat down a little bit more. And to caveat that I'm very good at my finances now, running a business, but I definitely wish I had sat down and gone through my finances a little bit more to get a clearer understanding of how long I could survive before I could make money, how long I needed to keep going until I actually said to myself, right, let's pivot. Did I need to get a part time job? Did I need to start consulting sooner? How long would it take me to get my first client? And if I did reach that, what would then happen? So really having that clear understanding of how your finances look is going to allow you to stop feeling that overwhelming level of anxiety and not just be focusing on the business for money, but actually be able to focus on the business for what it is and how you want to serve your clients, or if it is that you're looking to change careers, are you able to take a pay cut to go into a different industry? Are you able to pivot in order to get where you need to get to in the long run? The final piece, and I believe that this is something that I'm continuously doing and continuing to understand and evolve is to be okay with the growth. And what I mean by that is every time we grow and every time we level up, we do go through this feeling of mourning. We go through this feeling of should I have done that? Is this the right decision? We go through this feeling of imposter syndrome. Often I speak to people, especially when I'm coaching one to one clients, and they often say, I thought this imposter syndrome only happened when I didn't know what I was doing. So many of these people that I speak to on multiple six figure salaries who are very, very high up at corporate businesses say they will still sit in boardroom meetings with their CEO, with other directors, with their managing director, and they will question time and time again why they are sat in that room and why they are worthy of being in that room. I promise you the journey of growth is not a linear one and it's not an easy one. But if you can take a step back and start enjoying the journey and not just try and get to the end goal of managing director, position director, position six figure business owner. Whatever it is that your goals are in your career, it's really important to embrace the growth, embrace the change, accept the highs and the lows for what they are and try not to bypass them. Those three things for me as something I wish I had absolutely done. I know. First of all, as I said, if I had not cared what people thought about, I would have started my business, my coaching and consultancy business, far, far sooner. Second of all, if I got my finances in order, even first time round with consulting, I believe I would have just been able to continue because I would have been in control, not the other way around. And the final one, I believe if I had been able to enjoy the journey a little bit more, it would taken off the pressure. Now I'm not saying that I need to go back and change any of these things because I feel very thankful for the journey that I've been on and I have built a successful coaching and consultancy business. However, it has been at the detriment and I won't lie at the cost of time, my mental health, sometimes, my physical health, sometimes I'm really creating this burnout environment and it's something that I continuously have to watch. However, I'm able to look back at those three things at the beginning of every quarter and be able to say to myself, am I caring what people are thinking about me and if I am, why? And challenge myself on that. Second of all, going through my finances at the end of every quarter and the start of every quarter and understanding where I'm at and what things are looking like. And the final thing is really being able to not wish time away. And I'm actually able to be a lot more present in the journey that's going on. The podcast is going to be such an exciting journey and I'm going to share with you all the highs and all the lows of running a business, as well as making massive career changes, as well as completely pivoting your direction in life. So whatever it is that you're looking to do, this podcast is going to give you the tools, the tricks, the tips, the advice from the other experts, the people who have absolutely been in your shoes and are out the other end. To show you how possible it is. I wanted to make this first episode a short and easy to listen to, to welcome all my listeners back and I'm so, so excited to be back in the chair recording these incredible podcasts. I've got an amazing episode with an incredible friend of mine for episode two and I am so excited to share with you next week. I hope you all have an incredible rest of your week and we will see you in the next episode.

Thank you for joining us on this week's episode.

We really hope that you've gained valuable.

Insights into what it takes to carve.

Your own career path. Remember, whether you're an artist, an entrepreneur.

Or anything in between, there is always a way to pursue your dreams and.

Create a fulfilling career for yourself. The key is to stay true to.

Your passions, be persistent, and never give up on your goals. As always, we want to thank you, our listeners, for joining us on this incredible journey.

We look forward to bringing you more.

Inspiring stories in the future, so stay tuned for our next episode. Until then, keep pushing the boundaries, chasing your dreams, and living your most unconventional life. Thanks for listening.