My story: Why I left a Multi-Million Corporate Career & decided to start over at 52! | 1
[00:00:00] I want to have discussions about how success can look different than what we've been conditioned to believe. Like seriously? Do we really need to hustle and grind our way to the top? I don't think so anymore. I used to think that, that's what I did, and I'm going to share that in my story, but I don't believe that anymore.
Imagine if you were invited to a room filled with a collection of the most diverse, interesting, authentic women in business leadership and entrepreneurship today. Sharing their stories of growth, courage, risk, and change, women who've declared enough is enough. These rules of success I've been asked to follow no longer work for me and frankly, who made them up anyway.
Well, there is such a room and my friend, you're here in it right now. Welcome to “According To Who?”. The go-to podcast for successful women who are ready to question the current status quo, do things differently, [00:01:00] and rewrite her next chapter.
I'm your host, Julie Cober, former C-Suite Corporate Executive turned Founder, CEO, and Peak Performance Mindset Coach to the female founder on a mission to build, grow, and scale on her own terms. If you're craving more freedom, wellbeing, and true fulfillment both in your work and your life, guess what? You're going to love being in this room.
Welcome, welcome. I'm so excited to be kicking off our very first episode of “According To Who?”, the podcast.
Hello everyone. I'm Julie Cober, and I am so very, very happy to have you join us. I'm going to share, I'm going to start off and share a little bit of my bio for anyone who's new to my energy. I know there'll be people here who know me, so you can skip through if you want to. For those of you that are new to me and my energy, first [00:02:00] off, before I get into the details of my professional bio, I definitely want to share that my most important role is mom.
And wife to my two children who are not children. They're young adults now Sydney, my daughter Sydney, and my son Owen, and I have been married to my soulmate. I am blessed for 31 plus years, my husband Daryl, and I am also a fur mom to my two and a half year old yellow lab named Finn. So those are my most important roles, but I've also spent in my professional life, I spent 28 years in corporate Canada.
25 of those as an executive leader. And at the end of 2019, I made probably one of the biggest decisions of my life, at least in the top three. And I retired from my corporate life. And I'm going to share more about that in my story today. So I'm going to share with you my bio, because what you're going to find [00:03:00] here at, according to who we're going to be, uh, having solo episodes with me, but we're also.
Going to be bringing on some amazing, amazing powerhouse women as our guests. And when I bring them on, I'm going to share their bio. So I'm going to read you this bio, so it's a little more of the my formal bio. So for those of you who don't know me, you can learn a little bit more about me, those of you who do, you can skip on forward.
Okay? So as I said, uh, my name is Julie Cober and I am a globally respected, sought after leadership expert, uh, business strategist, and a peak performance mindset coach for female executive leaders who are thinking about or have become female founders and are on a mission to build, grow, and scale from zero to a million in record time.
So I was, uh, as I said in corporate Canada, and I'm a former executive [00:04:00] and chief human resource officer, and I held that role for 25 plus years. And I bring to the table what I've been told is unmatched experience, wisdom, vision, financial acumen, and a proven success track record leading in some of the largest Fortune 100 companies in the world.
Today I hold the role of CEO and founder myself of the Legacy Leadership Academy for Women, and this is a global community of powerhouse women that come to dive into their leadership. Basically, where leaders come to rise and legends come to grow. So I have a degree, I have degrees in psychology, business and leadership, and I have lived a career, a long story career at the highest levels of corporate leadership.
And I've coached hundreds of women [00:05:00] to what I would say stop following success rules that we never agreed to in the first place. And frankly, we were, they were never built for us. And I coach them now to start building lives and legacies that they actually love, and I'll dive into that more. So my work is what I call a move.
I actually call it a movement. The work that we do here in the Legacy Leadership Academy is one that defines what it means to be successful, what it means to be a successful female founder, a leader. An executive and an owner on your terms. It is a movement that proves that women can have wealth and wellbeing.
We actually can have both of those, and it's a movement where one that starts with mastering your mindset, the mindset that's going to be required to lead and succeed at the highest levels. So inside the [00:06:00] Legacy Leadership Academy, I mentor high performing, high achieving, ambitious, purpose-driven women who are boldly disrupting industries, who are setting big audacious goals, and they're paving new paths and writing new chapters, and we're doing that all together.
So my mission is simple and it's powerful. My mission is to help women live, lead, and succeed on their own terms. One of the things we love to say in the academy is we help you design your seat at your table. So that's me. Uh, why did I start this podcast? I wanted to spend, before I jump into my story today, I wanted to spend a little bit of time just kind of explaining why I started this podcast and why I named it what I did.
So I started this podcast because I really wanted to start a rich, interesting discussion, a discussion that [00:07:00] maybe we don't often talk about. Or I know I didn't, or maybe we don't feel comfortable sharing. I started this podcast because I was concerned by the amount of women I've met along the way, myself included, that feels or has felt very alone in her success.
No matter where she's at in her journey, whether she's still in a corporate career, whether she has moved out into be a female founder and is doing, you know, move from employee to entrepreneur no matter where she's at in that journey, but especially also when that success is not aligned to who they really are.
Or who they want to be. And that was me. That was me, by the way. Right? We never talked about it. We just had this, this conditioning of the way success needed to look like we believed. Right? And I want to have a discussion around this. I actually want to pull this apart. I [00:08:00] want to have discussions about how success can look different than what we've been conditioned to believe.
Like seriously? Do we really need to hustle and grind our way to the top? I don't think so anymore. I used to think that, that's what I did, and I'm going to share that in my story, but I don't believe that anymore. I want to have discussions about what the path of changing your career, whatever that looks like for you.
Midlife could look like. I did it at 52. At the end of 2019 when I decided to leave. I was just about to turn 52. Completely changed my whole professional life and I'm bringing on women to this podcast that have done the same thing and we we're going to share our stories, right? I want to bring you the stories.
I want to bring you the behind the scenes, the play by play, the step-by-step, the how. This is the number one question I get when I meet women is, oh my gosh, Julie, you did it. [00:09:00] You left a C Suite executive position with, you know, multimillion dollar income packaging, right base salary, bonus, benefits, stocks, all the things.
How did you do it? I get, that's the number one question. How do I, how, how, how, so I want to bring you the how tos from myself. I'm going to share my story. There's going to be, like I said, a mixture of solo episodes and also guests. Of women who have gone before you, right? And have done it right. I want you to know what's possible if that's what's you know of interest to you.
I'm going to share stories from myself and from women who have made the decision to pivot, change, do something different. Here's the thing. This is what you're going to hear over and over in this podcast from me, and this is the basis. This is the foundation of this podcast 'cause I believe to my core, now we're going to have men and women listening to this podcast.
I [00:10:00] work only with women, but I believe to my core that every person is worthy of genuinely loving their life and having that be supported by work that they enjoy. It's the work that you enjoy and you're aligned to that helps you love your life. Not work that has is consuming you, right? Loving your life should be supported by work that you truly enjoy, not consumed by it.
And that's what this podcast is all about. Women who believe that too. That's who you're going to hear from. And again, we're going to share our stories. We're going to share our challenges. We're going to share what worked. We're going to share what didn't work. We're going to share our triumphs. We're going to share our failures.
We're going to try and show you the quicksand. If this is you and this is of interest to you, how you avoid the quicksand, we're going to share the plan and the paths we're going to take you behind the scenes of what it took to move. From [00:11:00] this feeling of being overwhelmed and stressed, and in my case, burnt out and feeling trapped and completely unaligned and in many, in many, many, many cases, you're going to hear how those feelings created us to feel unwell.
How those feelings, because we ignored them for so long, impacted our health. How we came back from that. We're going from that to being filled with excitement again, purpose, influence, impact, right? And we're now building and leaving our legacies is what matters to us most. So if that resonates from with you, that's what you're going to hear in this podcast.
So why did I name it “According To Who?” I've gotten so much amazing feedback on this name and this took a long time. So, and it shouldn't have actually when you hear why, but according to who. [00:12:00] This is a question I ask myself and my clients all the time. And when I was sitting getting ready to sort of name this podcast, I thought to myself, what do I say to my clients all the time?
What do I say to myself all the time? Anyone who knows me according to who, right? When I say something to myself or they, my clients say something about themself that is limiting. That is doubtful. That is fearful. That is uncertain, that is negative. My first question always is according to who? According to who, and we're going to ask that all the time here.
Who said that this is the way it has to be. Who said that success involves grinding and hustling and sacrificing and being a version of ourselves. We don't want to be Who said that? Who made that rule up? Who made the rules up a [00:13:00] way, the way we've been conditioned to succeed? Who made those up? Is it even true?
Right? Or if you're saying something about yourself negative, who says who? Who? Where did you get that from? Is it even true? Ask yourself, is this even true? Wow, that didn't serve me that thought, didn't serve me. That belief didn't serve me. That assumption didn't serve me. Where did that come from? Who made that up?
Is it even true? According to who? That's what this is about. It is time that we start questioning beliefs. That are not serving us because we get to believe whatever we want. Whatever you believe to be true will be your truth. So if you get to believe what you want, why would we believe something that's not serving us, not helping us move forward in our lives, not helping us genuinely love our lives, not allowing us to live right the way we want to live.
Why would we [00:14:00] believe those things? So that's what this podcast is all about. That's why I named it what I did. So again, welcome to this very powerful room with these very powerful discussions, these very powerful conversations. Grab your favorite drink. Whether it's a, depending on what time of day it is, it could be a coffee, a tea, a pop, a glass of wine.
Whatever your thing is, pull up your chair because we're going to be sharing some very, very juicy stories and very, very, very compelling information that will help you move to where you want to go. 'cause we're here to celebrate and empower you. That's what this podcast is about. We're here to share our journeys, like I said, our wisdom and the lessons we've learned because we do that in hopes that you can see yourself in us, that you can actually listen to me and listen to these stories of these powerful women that we're doing all the interviews right now, and you'll see yourself in us.
You'll know you're [00:15:00] not alone. Remember I said at the beginning, so many women feel so alone in their success or the change they want to make. You're not. We are so much more alike than we are different. We hope you can see yourself in us and know that you too can succeed differently. You can rewrite the rules of success for yourself.
Okay, so now I'm going to share my story. So this is a story that I have written in, uh, I co-authored. I have been a co-author in two books. This was one of the chapters, so I'm going to read it to you. 'cause if you haven't read that, that book, you likely don't know all of this about me. I know there's lots of people that'll be listening to this podcast that know me, but I'm going to share this chapter with you because I couldn't have put this in better words of sharing how I got to the point of.
Deciding that it was time to do something else [00:16:00] other than be a corporate executive. Okay? So we start with a quote, and the quote is, you can't spend it in the ICU. So I will never, ever forget those words, um, that were said to me by the person that I love the absolute most in the world. And that's my husband Daryl.
So I'm going to take you through a little bit of a journey and a story here. So it was actually September of 2010. I was traveling for business yet again, and I was actually being admitted to a hospital. 3000 miles away from where I live in my home. So I live in Canada. I live in the province of Ontario.
This hospital was on the way on the west coast, and Daryl had flown, uh, five hours. That's how long the flight was. Right after receiving radiation treatment to be with me for the heart surgery, the doctors [00:17:00] felt I needed. Okay, so what led to this day? So that was that day, and that's what he said to me on that day.
When he arrived in the hospital after flying five hours, after having radiation treatment, he said to me after, you know, a little bit of time, he said, you know, Julie, you can't spend your money in the ICU. So what led to this day was a year in my life that literally shook me to my core. It was, so I'm going to take you back now to a year prior.
So it was a cold, really cold morning in November of 2009, and Daryl and I were in our bathroom and we were getting ready for work or ready for a regular work day. And I was looking in the mirror, and honestly, if I was being totally honest right now, which I'm going to be in this story, I was literally thinking about having to drag myself to.
The job I held at the time as a vice president of human Resources that I honestly hated. There was no [00:18:00] job that I've held in my entire career. There was pieces of things I didn't like and all the things, but there was no one job that I hated except this one. It was the biggest career mistake I'd ever made going to work for this company.
And we all have them. We all have them. This was mine. So I'm staring in the mirror thinking, oh, I gotta drag myself to work one more day. And he was gingerly touching the side of Hi, the right side of his neck. He looked at me and he said, I have this lump on my neck that's not going away. And of course my heart dropped, right?
And that I will tell you was the morning. My life would change forever. I just didn't know it at the time. So fast forward, we spent the next four months visiting doctors, having tests, giving blood, having more tests, and finally with the decision, after seeing several different [00:19:00] doctors to have surgery to remove a lump in his neck that was now the size of a baseball.
So if you knew him, the jaw line of his neck was completely flush with his collar bone. That's how big in a few months, this four months, this, this thing had grown. So we had that removed through surgery and then we waited an excruciating 10 days to get confirmation that my husband, the love of my life, and it still gets me, had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
And he was 41 years old, so, still, okay. So he's fine today, 15 years later, it still gets me. Our next stop after this was our first visit with his oncologist, and her name was Dr. Luke, and we loved her. She was like this, no nonsense. Answered all our questions, [00:20:00] you know, really gave us a plan. We all, you know, we were, we were, I was in corporate.
I loved to plan, right. And she told us, um, that Daryl's cancer was very aggressive, and she saw that he was a young man with a young family, and she looked him in the eye and said, quote unquote, in your treatment, Daryl, we're going to take you as close to death as we can without killing you. We need to move fast.
So I'm sitting beside. My husband looked her in the eye and said, let's do this. He, I had never seen him like this. He was so laser focused, so in tune with what was going on. He would later tell me that not once did he ever think he was going to die, ever, never crossed his mind, but I can tell you that I remember feeling in that room completely lightheaded.
I might [00:21:00] pass out and or throw up. I wasn't sure which one. And I had this fear break out in me that I've never experienced before in my life. And it's a fear. That fear ended up cracking me wide open. I. But it was completely, incredibly necessary. I know that now, but I'm going to fast forward right now to December 4th, 2010.
So the, I want to take you a whole year. So this was when we first saw the lump. It was November. We went all the way to December 10 'cause I don't like to leave people hanging. So on our 17th wedding anniversary, so remember we've been married for 31 and a half years. On December 4th, 2010, our 17th wedding wedding anniversary, we got the news that we had been desperately waiting for.
So he finished his treatment in September and then we had to wait four more months to find out that he was actually cancer free. They got it all. So that was like probably the, like the most amazing day, [00:22:00] one of the top days of my life outside of the birth of my children and getting married. But anyway, I used to, I used to refer to 2010 all the time as the year from hell.
For me, that's how I used to refer to it and in because I'm going to share more that happened that year. This isn't the only thing, but in so many ways it was very, very challenging. We had outside of Daryl's illness, we had several life events that would take what my doctor said. Most people, if they had to deal with one, would be a major life event and could potentially take people, quote unquote, out at the knees if they just had to deal with one.
We dealt with several, and I'm going to share them in a minute, but I'll tell you before that the universe had been talking to me for a long time. Many years in fact, but I just wasn't listening, and this will mean make more sense in a minute, but [00:23:00] in 2010, that was the year I was forced to listen, so I could classify it as the year from hell.
But I now say it was the year that I was forced to listen. We faced battles of various kinds, so we had. You know, Daryl's very, very difficult fight through cancer, through chemotherapy, radiation, these constant, brutal treatments that he went through 'cause it was so aggressive both the cancer and the treatment.
I had to, and remember, I have the job from hell. The worst career mistake I've ever made is happening. At the same time, I was navigating the fear of my young children. That, you know, were were worried that their dad might die and they were nine and 12 at the time. Like I said, I changed my job and I made the biggest career mistake I've ever made.
So I resulting in me working within a extremely toxic executive leadership team. Who [00:24:00] really didn't care when Iota, what was going on in my personal life. We also dealt with the death of my best friend's dad. So our families are com. Our best friends, they have been, my friend and I have been friends since we were five.
Her dad died and he was like a second father to me, and he died from the same cancer that my husband Daryl was fighting. At the same time. So those were some of the big events. And then to top it all off, in September, we also had a flood in our house resulting in over $50,000 of damages in the middle of Daryl's treatment.
So those were the big ones, and there were some smaller ones as well. So you can imagine like there were so many times in the year where I thought like, what is happening? Am I, how am I being punished? All the things it was, it was, it was not a great state to be in. So it was. Extremely, extremely tough year.
But what happened next was nothing that I could have [00:25:00] predicted ever. Um, but looking back it was 100% absolutely necessary. So I'm going to take you fast forward now to early January, 2011. Okay. So we're, we now know that Daryl is cancer free. We just found that out in December. Went through the holiday season and in early January I woke up one morning and I couldn't feel one of my legs and I couldn't get out of bed.
And I felt these swells of fear and anxiety moving through me like I have never felt in my life before ever. And I didn't know what was happening. So what I did first is I sent a text to my assistant and I told her that I was ill and I wouldn't be coming in today. And I basically threw the covers over my head and I didn't get out of bed for the next three days.
I couldn't actually get out of bed [00:26:00] literally for the next three days. And so when I did get out a few days later, I struggled immensely for the next few weeks. Trying to make sense of what, like just trying to get through the each day and completely confused as to why I was feeling the way I did. I had a lot of guilt because I thought I should be happy right after all.
My husband was, well, he beat cancer. We got this great news in early December on our anniversary. He won his fight. He beat his cancer. There didn't seem to be any reason for me to have this overwhelming sadness that was starting to take over my whole being right. I kept asking myself, why do I now feel so heavy and sad and down?
And I went to the doctor after a while and I [00:27:00] asked her these questions, and she explained it to me like this. She said, Julie, think of running a marathon. Think of the people that run marathons, and sometimes they get to the end of the race and many drop to their knees and just crawl across the finish line.
And I said, yeah, I get that. And she said, that is what is happening to you. You have survived this year. You've had major, major life events that, like she said, one of them could take people out at the knees and when you got the no news that Daryl was okay, it was finally okay for you to not be okay.
Right. So she, you know, we envisioned myself crawling over the finish line in December. Then she gave me my official diagnosis, which was depression. So that's the story. Up until then, before 2010, before this year from how the year that cracked me open, however [00:28:00] I want to describe it, I think now it's the year that where my life really started.
I spent 20 years. Climbing the corporate mountain before that, right? And I made it. I made it to the top. I call it my summit, right? I did everything right. I did everything exactly as I felt was expected of me. I went to school. I got a great job, right? I got promoted, I got new jobs. I, I worked really hard.
I did all the things my parents said that I was supposed to do. I made it to the summit of my mountain in Human Resources when I accepted the position of Chief Human Resources Officer, right? I had made it to executive leadership. All the things I want, I thought I wanted, and I was in the role that I had set my sights on.
From the time I left, graduated from university, I had my eye on this all that time, and in the [00:29:00] beginning I loved my work. I loved the teams. I got to manage and lead. I loved the projects we were working on. I always knew right from a little girl that whatever I did, I would be in a job that's helping others in some way.
Like it's just who I am. So I was always very interested in business and leadership. My mom would tell you I was a leader since the day I was born. I'm the youngest of three children. I have two older brothers and. I just put them all together with my psychology degree and it went into human resources, and that's a way of helping people, right?
It's who I am. So the problem was the more senior I got, right, the more I was promoted, the closer I got to that summit of my mountain, which was this, you know, the top leadership job, the chief role, honestly, the less I liked the view and I was not honest with myself. The less I liked the view, the less [00:30:00] aligned I felt, right.
The more money I was making, though this level of success was not what I thought it would be, it was not what I expected. I. Being a senior level executive in the container of corporate. And don't get me wrong, I mean, like I said, corporate is fine. It's, it's, you know, lots of people have great jobs and there's good work and there's great leaders and, and, and there's some not as well.
And it's just, it was, it was a container that I was not aligned to with what was expected of me in these roles. Right. It didn't align. With the work I did, the more senior I got, it didn't align. It became further and further away from the work I did in the early parts of my career. Right. I was confused and I struggled and I was thinking, now what am I going to do?
Like, I felt completely trapped [00:31:00] at the top. 'cause we had built a whole life around my income, you know, for a part of our life. My husband stayed home with our kids by choice. We made that choice together. Then he was, um, back at work and then started his own business. But I was then the, so I was the sole income earner for part of it, and then I was the primary income earner.
What am I going to do? Like, we have bills to pay, right? We've, we've got all the stuff I felt so trapped. I had this incredible wealth and literally zero, wellbeing zero at that point. So I suffered from what I called the dreaded shoulds, right? I should be happy with where I'm at. I should, I'm making such great money, right?
I really worked hard for this. This is what I wanted, right? This is what I thought I wanted. I should be grateful that I can provide for my family that we have a beautiful [00:32:00] home and we live in a great neighborhood, and we go on amazing, expensive vacations often, right? I have a family cottage. All the things we had, all the material things right.
All those things that we think fulfill us, but what does any of those things matter? If you're not happy, what's the point? Right? If you feel stuck or trapped, if you're on what I call the hamster wheel of stress and overwhelm and burnt being burnt out and you don't know how to get off, and frankly, it's making you unwell.
Like, what's the point? That was me. Like, stress is a killer. We can't ignore it like I did. You can, but it, it, there's consequences, right? Like my husband said to me that day when I was sitting in this hospital room in Vancouver, [00:33:00] Canada, you can't spend it in the ICU Julie and I wasn't in the ICU, but he, you know, we had the doctors thought I had a heart condition, which by the way, I didn't.
It turned out that day was a massive, massive panic attack. I'd never had a panic attack before. I thought I was having a heart attack. They took some tests. They thought I needed an angiogram. I went and had the angiogram. Lo and behold, my heart was perfect. He, the doctor said to me first when he came to see me, he is like, Hmm, you're not my typical patient.
'cause I was whatever, 42 at the time. And then when he did the procedure, he's like, you do not have a speck of plaque in there. You are like. Whistle clean. It was a full-blown panic attack. But this is what he meant when he said, you can't spend it in the ICU. What's the point of having all this money if you have to throw the covers over your head for three days if you can't string a sentence together in a senior meeting?[00:34:00]
You're so stressed if you're sitting there, which happened to me, which I know this will be familiar for. A lot of you wondering at these very senior levels. I spent a huge amount of my time sitting in these big, beautiful offices wondering when are they going to figure out that I am not qualified to do this job?
I'm not smart enough. I'm not. I should not be here. That's what I used to think. That's imposter syndrome. But this is what he meant. What does it matter how much money we have if we're not well enough to enjoy it? Like what truly brings us happiness? We are meant to love our life, genuinely love it, and have work that supports that work.
We enjoy that, supports that. That's what we're meant to have happen. I was not aligned to this pressure that came along with my career path, the toxic [00:35:00] environments, right? I worked for seven CEOs. Two of them were amazing. They'll be my lifelong mentors, five of them, not so much, right? These toxic environments on some of these leadership teams that I was a part of.
The push for constant travel for being away from my family was breaking me. My kids, you know, I can't even list to you right now the sacrifices and the things I missed in their life because of my career. I was tired. I was tired of missing these important moments in my kids' lives. I was tired of them getting the rest of me, not the best of me.
I was tired of yelling them. 'cause I was so stressed having to go to work on Monday mornings when the Sunday night stress started. My poor little angels, they got the brunt of it. And I, I, you know, I have since reconciled. Believe me, if you're listening to this, I just got this question last week. They asked me, Julie, is it too late?
My children are 27 and 24 now. It's not too late. You can repair. You can [00:36:00] repair your relationships with them. I did. So why was I constantly pushing myself to fit into this current model of success, this hustle and grind culture, right to the point of jeopardizing my health? That's the question I sought out to answer.
Because deep in my soul, for years I knew I was on the wrong container and I called corporate a container. It was the wrong room, it was the wrong mountain. Whatever metaphor you want to use, I was on the wrong path and I just didn't know how to get off it. So for years, it was a whisper that I got really, really good at ignoring because like the money drowned out the whisper.
So I would describe it almost like the whisper was almost like a little pebble. You know when you drop a pebble and you have a few little rings in the water, this little pebble was tapping me on the head, telling me this is not the [00:37:00] climb I'm meant to make. Doesn't mean I'm not ambitious, doesn't mean I don't have massive goals.
I do. That's who I am. The pebble. That little pebble then became a stone. Then the stone became a rock, and then the rock ultimately became a boulder, which I unfortunately allowed. This is a hundred percent on me to roll right over me. That's when I couldn't get outta bed for three days. That's when I had a panic attack in Vancouver.
That's when I, I was so stressed and had so much anxiety and fear flowing through me. I let that boulder roll right over me and take me down this cliff. 'cause these were all my choices. Nothing was being done to me. I could have made changes, I could have put a plan in place. I could have left that job. I kept telling myself, I can't Daryl's in the middle of his cancer treatments.
We need benefits, all these things. I can't leave this job. I 100% could have left it. [00:38:00] So I knew as I started to heal that I was doing this for some reason, and if I wanted true change, I needed to figure this out. I became sick. I needed to make a change. I wasn't going to let this happen again. I needed, and I needed to do it immediately.
Like this was, I couldn't function anymore. So when I had the covers over my head and I kind of went back to work a little bit over the next two weeks, I went to see my doctor, and then I spent the next nine months on stress leave from work. I. I had let the stress get so bad that essentially, and this is even still hard for me to say it, I had a mental breakdown.
I, it's only been recently, this was 15 years ago, that I can actually physically say that I was completely depleted. My spirit was gone. 20 years of [00:39:00] grinding it out, climbing a mountain that I didn't really want to climb. Massive mom guilt for not being there the way I wanted to be for my family and for my kids.
All the while making sure everyone around me was convinced that I was fine. Eventually took its toll 'cause I wasn't fine. I called it the Martha Stewart Syndrome, right? I had this wall up so big that everything was fine and it just started to crumble in 2010. 'cause I wasn't fine. My healing journey began that morning that I threw the covers over my head.
I started doing deep interpersonal development work. I hired an amazing therapist who helped me unpack and unwind this debilitating stress that I was under and that I was in, and what I discovered changed my life forever. [00:40:00] And it's never hard, easy to discover these things, but when you do it, it's life changing.
So I uncovered. A handful of what I call core limiting beliefs that were the driver of my bus. Okay? That's what I call it to my clients. They were in the driver's seat for all these years. I was a passenger in my life, on my own journey in my life until I became aware of these beliefs. And so anyone who knows me knows, and you'll hear more about this on the podcast, that we all have one core, there's actually four core limiting beliefs, and we all, everybody on the planet fits into one of them.
That's a core, core, core. I call it your quarterback. Okay? It's the center of a belief and all the [00:41:00] negative beliefs come off of that. Okay, and mine was, I'm going to share mine with you today. Mine was, no matter how hard I try, it's never enough in the eyes of my father. No matter how hard I try, it's never going to be good enough in his eyes.
That was my quarterback. That was the core limiting belief I had. So you can imagine, right? Climbing a corporate mountain to the top, which I'm going to share a bit more in the MO in a minute. And then we have what I also call linebackers. So if you think of a football team, you have these linebackers, right, that are in front of the court quarterback.
What's the job of the linebackers? Their job is to protect the quarterback, right? So you have a handful, you have a core, and then there's three, four others, these linebackers that protect. So my co linebacker beliefs were, I'm not smart enough. AKA stupid. So can you imagine that there's where you see the [00:42:00] imposter syndrome that I just explained, I'm not pretty enough.
AKA ugly, I'm not skinny enough. See how they're all enoughs when my core is, no matter how hard, hard I try, it's not, it's never going to be good enough. And the eyes of my father, my linebackers are all forms of enough. I'm not skinny enough. AKA fat. I'm a general disappointment. Those were the beliefs that I held at my core.
So why am I sharing this vulnerability with you today? Because it is pretty vulnerable. Now, thankfully, I have changed those and I still work on it, but I'm sharing this with you today because it's important to share our stories. It's important because I know there's people that are listening to this that go, oh my gosh, that is me, right?
And I want you to see. You can get to the top of a mountain, the top of your game through grit and hustle and [00:43:00] grinding it out, and you can be successful by all external measures and be unhappy, unaligned and unfulfilled like I was. Right. And my favorite quote I'm going to share with you guys today is from Tony Robbins.
And he said years ago, the definition of failure. He believes the definition of failure is getting to the top of your game and being unfulfilled. And so you can imagine why that resonated with me because I was at the top of my game by all external measures. Every single human in my family and extended family thought I was basically a rock star because of the job I held, because of the promotions I got, because of the money I made.
But I was dying inside. I was not being me. I was completely unfulfilled. It was the wrong container. So what does having success and a core belief system like I had that I just [00:44:00] shared with you, that quarterback and those linebackers, what does that produce? That produces wealth with no wellbeing. That produces success with little to no satisfaction, with huge sacrifice and little satisfaction.
Success, quote unquote, that produces leadership void of all self love. I hated myself, you guys. I had no love for myself. I was doing things for other people. Like the biggest, the biggest awareness I uncovered through all this healing journey was by going on this journey to heal. Was, the more I succeeded in my career, the more validation, recognition and attention I received from my dad.
That's what I uncovered. The more money I made, [00:45:00] the more I finally felt loved and accepted by him. I no longer felt like a disappointment to him. But guess what? Guess who I was a disappointment to now because that linebacker, I'm a general disappointment didn't go away. So I got to the top of my game, made huge amounts of money, had huge quote unquote success, but still felt like a disappointment, just not to my dad, but guess who I was disappointing.
Now me. So now. Now I knew why. Now I knew why I was driven up that mountain. Now I knew what the second we call it, secondary gain was. Now I knew why I was doing what I was doing, what was motivating me to stay on that mountain all those years when it became a pebble, then a stone, then a boulder, and I felt so un unaligned for me personally.
Now [00:46:00] I had the answer. The awareness 'cause the awareness is always the answer. Now I understood fully what I believed, and for me, I believed money equals love. Money equals love. Of course, I wouldn't get off that mountain. I was finally feeling loved. But now it's a choice. Now I know once you know, you can't know.
I say that to my clients all the time. You can't unknow this when you peel back this onion in this work. You can't know. Now it's a choice moving forward. Right? And now I get to ask, according to who? So when that belief comes up, I'm not smart enough, according to who? I'm not pretty enough, according to who?
I'm a general disappointment, according to who? No matter how hard I try, it's never going to be good enough, according to who? I'm asking. Every [00:47:00] time it come, I feel it come up 'cause it still comes up. But what I learned and decided in my healing journey is I don't need to seek external validation from anyone anymore.
And nor do you. The only validation I need is from me. If I want love, it comes from me. I don't need it from anyone else, and I decided to change what I believe about myself. That quarterback and that linebacker. I fired that team. I brought in new team, the A team. I decided to choose this belief system.
This is what I believe today. I am enough exactly as I am right now today. I don't need to change a thing. Do I want to grow? Do I want to learn? Of course, I'm always growing. I'm always learning, but I don't have to. I want to. I believe today that I am wickedly smart with a beautiful, witty mind. I am [00:48:00] beautiful inside and out, and I love every inch of this body that has served me so well throughout my life.
This body got me through that mental breakdown. I thank it every single day. The children, it's birth, that all the things right, and I say I believe in my core that I am so proud of myself for all that I have accomplished and become aware of in my life. I have deep, deep wisdom and leadership, and I'm a role model for women all over the world.
I am so proud of that. I lead from the front. I take risks. I come on a podcast and share my story, so in hopes that it helps others. I'm not afraid to fail anymore. And to learn. And I, you know, I'm not perfect. I'm a recovering perfectionist. I'm a recovered perfectionist, and I'm on this earth to help others.
These are my gifts. [00:49:00] I am a gift, and there is nothing in this that is a disappointment. That's what I believe today. I figured out that old team. I rewired them and I brought in the new team. I. That's what we do to change. I started to learn what living a life on my own design really means on my own terms.
Nobody tells me now I don't do anything if it doesn't, if it's not something I want and it's in boundaries that I have set. I learned that the answers I seek, every single answer I seek is nothing outside of me. It's all within me. I created boundaries and balance in my life, and now I fully understand that I always have a choice.
I never feel trapped anymore. Never. I can make choices. I can do things differently. Something's not going my way. [00:50:00] Okay, let's reevaluate. The life I want to live is my responsibility to go get it. And through all this work I said goodbye. To this victim mentality that had been a part of me for so long. I learned it and it served me in my childhood and frankly into my young adulthood.
No more victim. So for me now, it feels safe. It feels safe for me to look you right now on this podcast and admit that I'm not fine. When I'm not fine, it's okay. And I focus equally now on who I want to be and what I want to do. And I live from that leadership model. Who do I need to be and what do I need to do to have what I want to have?
And I'm going to share much more on this model in episode three. So if you want to, if you want to binge, it's over there. This is a model that the top 5% of successful leaders in the world follow. So [00:51:00] 95% don't. But after making this decision to change my life, to heal, to get out from under the covers, putting a plan in place to bring this to my reality, the life I wanted to live, live, I did it.
I did this. I had to put in plan, a plan in place. I couldn't just leave. I had to figure out all the next steps, but I knew I couldn't continue living. And I did it at the end of 2019. So it took me some time still. I left the corporate world permanently. I call my, I say that I retired from corporate. I took the leap off the corporate mountain that I'd been climbing.
I started to climb, uh, or you know, many years ago. And now I'm climbing a new mountain. I'm climbing the mountain of entrepreneurship. Which is all the things, exciting, scary, fearful, frustrating, amazing, like all the emotions rolled up in one. But I [00:52:00] came back home to my roots and my happiness, right to the part of my career that I love the most.
Mentoring, coaching, guiding leaders, watching them soar, watching them grow. Achieve success, whatever that is for them. What, whatever that's meaningful to them on their own terms. Helping these women strive and thrive and soar and aligned who they really are, this most authentic version of themselves that equally loves their work and their lives.
'cause that's the way it's supposed to be. We're not supposed to hate our work like I did. I. So in 2020, I launched Julie Cober Coaching, and in 2022 I launched the Legacy Leadership Academy for Women an academy where now today ambitious, purpose-driven women, they're coming to build businesses, they're coming to soar in their [00:53:00] careers, making sure they, both businesses and careers are the, are ones that they love.
By challenging their beliefs, figuring out what's keeping them blocked. Unblocking that challenging their thinking. Figuring out what their quarterback is in their linebackers, right? They're coming to change, they're coming to pivot. They're coming to step into that next chapter. The next chapter in their, in their life and in their careers, in their professional and personal life, and write their new stories.
'cause you get to write your own story. What this beautiful and rocky journey of growth has taught me is that inner work never stops, and it's the only answer. By the way, the answers are within you. So if you feel like you have to listen to another podcast, haha, funny, you're on this podcast, or read another book, or get another certification, or take another course you can do all those things are amazing.
You don't need to to find an answer. You already have the [00:54:00] answers. They're within you. Right? Change in achieving success is an ongoing process. It's messy, it's scary. It can be really, really uncomfortable. We don't grow though when we're comfortable. And most importantly though, it's worth every damn minute of your time because the version of you that comes out on the other side.
Is full of light and happiness and abundance and fulfillment and purpose. And is willing and able to handle, handle the when life is going to life 'cause it will trust me. Life is always going to life and trust me, this is available for us all. It's not just me, it's not just the women that are going to be on this podcast.
It's available for us all. Living a life you truly love takes courage. It takes community, it takes commitment, it takes responsibility, it takes integrity. Showing up for yourself, [00:55:00] making different decisions, making different choices. Because one thing I also learned, which was kind of a hard learning for me was no one's coming to save me.
Like if I want something different in my life, if I, you know, under the covers and in that hospital bed, I realized this is all on me. I have to figure this out. And boy, I am so glad that I did, and today I shared my story with the hope that you listen to your whispers. If you have little pebbles pecking at you, maybe it's a stone right now.
Maybe it's a rock. Please don't ignore it because it will only get bigger. You can't outperform your body. That's another big lesson I learned. Find a community, a support system, friends, mentors, you know, whomever to help you make this change. What I wanted you to see most [00:56:00] today was what can happen when you pretend that all is fine like I did.
It can. It can take you out at the knees, ladies, and it's not worth it. I want you to remember you're a thousand percent worthy of living a life you genuinely love and having work that you enjoy, and when you start to question yourself. Or doubt yourself or be critical of yourself because you will. We all do.
It's human nature. No matter how self-aware you are, I want you to stop yourself in the moment and ask, according to who, ask yourself, according to who? All right, thank you so much. This was episode one. This is my story. You're going to hear more stories like this. Check back, we're going to be dropping them every two weeks is our plan.
Both solo shows and [00:57:00] guests that are really powerful and, um, yeah, hopefully you can see yourself in this. Hopefully, you know, now that you're not alone. Reach out and get help where you need it. Don't let this become a boulder and take you off the cliff like I did. Alright. Thank you guys for listening.
Thank you so much for choosing to spend your time with us. I hope today's insights have empowered you and given you ideas and tools to start to rewrite your rules of success. If you loved today's episode, please leave us a review. And be sure to share it with a friend. And if you'd like to hear more from these trailblazing women, be sure to hit the subscribe button so you never miss out on another powerful episode.
Don't forget to connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram for daily doses of motivation behind the scenes insight, and to keep the conversation going. For additional resources and strategies, visit juliecober.com. And subscribe to my [00:58:00] newsletter where you'll receive life-changing content delivered right to your inbox.
And always remember you have the ability to create any change you want in your life at any time. You are 100% worthy of living a life that you genuinely love, that's supported by work that you truly enjoy. Keep pushing the boundaries. Question your thoughts. Step into the elevated version of you, and until next time, always be asking yourself – “According To Who?”.
According To Who?
