Midlife Isn’t A Crisis ~ It’s A Calling! with Human Design Business Coach Julie Ciardi | 12
Julie Ciardi:
It wasn't until I found one coach, one process, one strategy, and I went all in and actually put blinders on to everything else that I went from making, really, I made 45K in that 18 months, all of that was already spent on business expenses, so made nothing – to creating 1.4 million in 18 months.
Julie Cober:
[00:00:30] 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, while there is such a room and my friend, you're here in it right now. [00:01:00] Welcome to “According To Who?”, the go-to podcast for successful women who are ready to question the current status quo, do things differently and rewrite her next chapter. I'm your host, Julie Cober, former C-Suite, corporate executive term 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 fulfilment both in your work and your life, [00:01:30] guess what? You're going to love being in this room.
Julie Cober:
All right. Hello. Hello, everyone. Welcome back. I cannot tell you how much gratitude my heart is bursting today. If you're listening and you can't see us for our guest today, and I cannot wait for you to hear her story. So we have the amazing Julie Ciardi here with us today on according to who. And [00:02:00] you know how you just meet people in life and you know that you were meant to meet them. That's the way I feel about this amazing woman. Our paths are almost the same. I'm just a few years older than her, but literally I feel like we've lived almost the same life. Julie was the very first coach I ever hired by myself. I had lots of coaches as an executive, but when I left corporate, I was walking around my neighbourhood listening to a podcast, which I'm sure she's going to talk about [00:02:30] today because that's other people's audience.
And I heard her speaking about online marketing and all the things, and I ran back to my desk, looked her up, joined a free masterclass she was hosting. And interesting enough, Julie, you, this is another serendipity moment. I looked back to when I joined that masterclass when I actually paid, guess what date it was September 29th, the year 2000. [00:03:00] Oh, so it's five years today that I went into her world. My life has never been the same since and full circle moment, she's now here on my podcast. So five years, can you believe it? Five years. September 29th. I shakingly gave you my credit card. And here's the thing. She's going to talk about this because one of this woman's amazing missions is to overdeliver, and I have that as well, but oh my gosh. So I went to this masterclass. [00:03:30] It was my first experience with a nine day big long masterclass.
And I remember thinking I paid on the Monday. It was a Monday as well. I remember thinking, if this woman gives this away for free, what on earth am I going to get if I pay her? I just knew it would be over the top, and it been, it continues to be, and the rest is history. So Julie taught me how to market online coming out of a C-suite executive [00:04:00] HR role after 28 years, I knew marketing boy, I knew marketing, but I did not know marketing online. And I knew after eight of the nine days in your masterclass that you could teach me this. So I'm just so excited that you're here. So I'm going to read your bio formally and then we're going to jump in. Okay? So the woman who rewrote the rules meet Julie Ciardi and the rise of the new human design.
Julie Ciardi isn't here to help you fit in. She's [00:04:30] here to help you stand out. A former VP of marketing at IBM Julie built a 20 plus year career inside one of the most iconic corporate machines in the world with an MBA and deep expertise leading marketing and sales team. She had the resume, the promotion, the prestige, and the paycheck, but what she didn't have was fulfilment or freedom or joy In her work, I was wildly successful on paper and completely disconnected from what I was here to do, what [00:05:00] I was called to do. I had followed the rules and realised they weren't designed for a woman like me. This is the whole reason we have this podcast. Julie walked away from her high paying corporate role in 2018 to answer the inner call. Since then, she's launched and scaled three businesses to multi six and seven figures.
Created a global movement through her podcast, ignite her, and the book 50 not finished, which we're going to talk about today, and has mentored thousands of women [00:05:30] who knew they were meant for more, myself included, and yet something deeper was always calling that something, create a movement to rewrite the rules of midlife. She believes in midlife creation, not midlife crisis, which a lot of our listeners are in. It's a midlife reinvention, not a midlife meltdown. Alright, my friend. Welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm so glad that you're here. So hopefully you guys can see or hear from [00:06:00] Julie's bio why I invited her to come on to, according to who, she's probably the first person who taught me this, and it took me a long time to come up with the name of this podcast, but it was some of your teachings and some of my time, both in the first round and this round in your organisation where I have learned to say according to who made up these rules, who said, we have to work this way, who said, this is the way success has to be.
It was Julie who was the first [00:06:30] one, and I knew this too, but she brought it to my attention who said, go to school, got a great job, get promoted, promoted, promoted, work for 40 years and retire, have a house picket fence, all the things. Why does it have to be that way? So you and I are on the same mission we are to rewrite these rules of success to show women there's a different way. So what I always love to do when I'm interviewing people here is can you walk us through your backstory? You walked away from this [00:07:00] hugely high paying corporate role. There's women out here now that are making the same money that we did multiple, multiple six figures, and with bonuses and all the things into the millions, you and I were both either primary or sole income earners providing for our families miserable line. So you walked away from all of that in 2018. So give us the backstory on that. What was your role? Why did you do it?
Julie Ciardi:
I would love to, and I want to also thank you for [00:07:30] the invite. And when you shared the name of your show, I was like, yes. I was like a full body. Yes, that's the name. Because, so the case, I feel like I've always tried to play the game according to the rules presented to me. And so that was probably my biggest growth of my life was to be like, wait a minute, according to who says that it has to be this way. And it's been one of my biggest life lessons. And the funny [00:08:00] thing is, even now, and I'll definitely get into my backstory, but even now, I continue with that same philosophy every
Julie Cober:
Day
Julie Ciardi:
In the online marketing space, in the online business space, in the coaching industry, in the human design industry. I mean everything. I feel like I'm bringing that very according to who I'm going to do this my way, this doesn't feel right. And we know when something is not right, but we're trying to play by the rules. We've been taught to play [00:08:30] by the rules. And let's be honest too, I mean, it still blows my mind that the year I was born, 1974 is the first year women had the right to actually get a credit card or a loan without a mail co-signer, in case anyone doesn't realise that that was only 51 years ago. And so if you think about it, when you collapse time, us trying to say according to who [00:09:00] and trying to rewrite the rules, we are still in the beginning of playing the game. Totally.
Julie Cober:
We're like on first base, not even just maybe at home plate still, right? Right. It's like we're still up at bat and
Julie Ciardi:
Yet, but I love us because we're like, yeah, we're just entering this game in the whole scheme of things, but we want to do it differently and we want to rewrite the rules because it's not working right? It's not working. And so for me, [00:09:30] the crazy thing is, is that I had the nudge, the push, the desire to do something more outside of a corporate career for decades. And I kept pushing it away. I know you know this, but for the listeners, I mean, my daughter's 22, I was pregnant with her. So obviously it was 22, 23 years ago. I was on the phone with two different companies to potentially franchise those businesses because I knew after I had her, I didn't want to go back to [00:10:00] IBM. I didn't want to go back to a corporate career. I really wanted to do my own thing.
And back then there was no social media, there was no online businesses, there was none of what exists today. We live in a very special time, and I literally was on the phone with these vice presidents of franchising, and it was just so expensive. I mean, the capital required one was a gym, some of them, right? Millions. One was a gym, the other one was a flower shop chain. It was called Ka Bloom. I still remember the name. [00:10:30] And I was desperate. I was like, I want to go do my own thing. And my husband at the time was like, that's a tonne of money. We're just getting started. I was 28 years old. I didn't have that capital to do that. But I share that because my soul knew even then that I was meant to actually do something of my own. And so after I had my first child and my second child, I continued to climb the corporate ladder because I am an overachiever.
I am an achiever. [00:11:00] If you're going to give me a goal line, I'm going to try to go past it. It's just how I operate. And so I was working my way up at IBM while having children, and at the same time, always knowing that I was meant to do something else. So I kept saying someday, someday I'd leave someday when the kids are older, someday I would do my own thing. And in the process, I ended up actually getting divorced from my older kid's dad. I got remarried. I had my [00:11:30] third child and married a wonderful man who was a police officer and amazing at what he, I mean, I'm very decorated police officer, detective became sergeant, all the things. We've since retired him and he's doing a whole plethora of other things now. But unfortunately, police officers, there's a cap on how much money they can make and all of the things. So it was a big deal that my career was exploding. [00:12:00] I actually became a manager, then a director, and then a vice president all within eight years or so. And I was already a director, well director and then vice president. And so my salary exploded. Bonuses as you were talking about stock options, all of these things. And also, IBM had this whole thing about working from home. You could work from home. So I was living the laptop life in 2004, 2005, before
Julie Cober:
It was [00:12:30] a thing.
Julie Ciardi:
Before it was a thing,
Julie Cober:
Which is big when you have young kids.
Julie Ciardi:
Huge. And so how do you leave, right? You talk about the frog being in the pot of water that's slowly being brought to the boil. I mean, I wasn't jumping out of that. I mean, it was great money. I live in New York, one of the most expensive states in the us and my husband could only make as much money as he could. And so our home and our vacations and all of those things, I mean, we were relying [00:13:00] on this huge salary, but it reached a boiling point. Eventually the water boiled and I knew I had to leave. What was starting to happen is that I was putting all of my happiness on my children, on my home life, on my marriage. And of course, anyone that has kids knows they're going to have tantrums, they're going to, they're not going to make you happy. Sometimes they're not going to make you happy. The ice cream flavour isn't the right one, and [00:13:30] they have a
Fit. They're just tired and they're having a meltdown. They're tired, whatever. And I had no patience. I not told the mom I was being because my expectations and your tank was empty, empty, empty. And so it just hit a point where I just knew I had to make a change. And of course, I started to listen to podcasts around this time, I don't even know how I got introduced to podcasts. I wish I could remember, but it changed my life, which is why I love doing podcasts, because listening [00:14:00] to a show, this is what changed my life of what was possible.
Julie Cober:
And
Julie Ciardi:
I started to hear about possibilities. And then I read a book by Jessica Herron, who was the CEO of Stella and Dot. And she was an executive at a competitor of IBM. Had two kids left and pursued her dream, and it was really hard and really scary. And I was on a plane reading that book, and I was flying for IBM, and I said, enough, if she can do it, why not me? Why can she do this? And I [00:14:30] can't do this. And I went home and I told my husband I really wanted to leave and start my own business. And I said, we're probably going to sell the house downsize. I have to make some sacrifices. Got to make some sacrifices on the way. And he was so gracious and supportive at that moment of that decision. And so I left all of that behind.
We sold the house, I left IBM. I know a lot of people try to build their business while they're working, [00:15:00] and that's a very smart and way to go. I knew myself. I knew I couldn't do that. I knew I needed to throw myself all in sink or swim. I had to do this. And so 18 months later where I still wasn't making money, really in the business, that gracious, supportive husband got so happy. We really hit a super low point in our marriage because it was in his mind is this [00:15:30] isn't working. So time to go Well, he was fearful, right? He was fearful. And as he should, I mean, I wasn't making money yet. I had some debt in the business at this point, and it was scary. But the craziest thing, Julie, is that I was not giving up on the dream though. So even in the hardest, darkest moments, I was like, but I'm still going because I know I can do this. I haven't figured it out yet, but I know I am more than [00:16:00] capable of this. This is going to happen. I will. This will be successful. I'm not going to give up. So you had belief. You had strong belief. You have to believe, even though I didn't know the how, I didn't know. I had plenty of evidence of it not working
Julie Cober:
At
Julie Ciardi:
This point, but I knew that I couldn't not give this everything that I had. And I even got to the point where, okay, if I need to go get a job, I will, and I'll work on this on the side,
Julie Cober:
But
Julie Ciardi:
I am not giving this up.
Julie Cober:
[00:16:30] Okay, so that's really important. I want to stop there for a second what you just said because well, we talk about belief. You have to have belief. You don't have belief. It's not happening. Full stop and the story. But do you see what she just said? So twice so far, she's told us of sacrifice. She sold her home. She sold her home. Also. She just said, if I have to go get another job or consult or whatever, I'll go do it. But it's not either or It's, and she was willing to do [00:17:00] and sell my house and build the business, have arguments with my husband and keep going. The last thing you just said is, oh my God, it just left me what you just said about
Julie Ciardi:
No money, the debt.
Julie Cober:
I'll get a job, I'll go get a job, and I'll go and consult and I'll continue to build the business on the side. That's what it takes in entrepreneurship. And I do. I have a lot of clients that are doing both. It's not easy to work and walk in both worlds, but it's [00:17:30] not more difficult than if you were full blown in it. Totally. It's just a different, it's a hard,
Julie Ciardi:
Different, hard.
Julie Cober:
They're
Julie Ciardi:
Both hard.
Julie Cober:
So you're now out on your own. You're making this work no matter what, which is what basically has to, that's the mindset we need to be in. Take us through those first years. So 18 months, no money. I know you always talk about your hockey stick, right? But what were you doing because you weren't doing what you're doing now, which is [00:18:00] another important point, right? Because where you start and where you end potentially, or when you take off, it's probably going to be fairly different.
Julie Ciardi:
Well, the fascinating thing was the premise was always the same.
Julie Cober:
Yeah, the core,
Julie Ciardi:
The premise was I wanted to help women do the work that they love and were meant to do. Right? Period. Always what I was going to do, how I was doing, it was a disaster in the beginning. It was like [00:18:30] I was trying everything, throwing spaghetti at every wall, every kind of pasta at the wall, just anything. And I was listening to way too many experts, gurus falling prey, if you will, to every ad, every thing I would hear on a podcast of this is the way you got to do this strategy and then it'll be successful. You got to do this. And so I fall prey to that. And I was trying all of these different [00:19:00] things and nothing was really working. And it wasn't until I found one coach, one process, one strategy, and I went all in and actually put blinders on to everything else that I went from making. Really? I made 40 5K in that 18 months. All of that was already spent on business expenses. So made nothing to revenue versus [00:19:30] profit. Yeah, revenue. Exactly. Revenue versus profit to creating 1.4 million in 18 months.
Julie Cober:
So the first 18 months, we've got 45,000 revenue, zero profit, doing the smart thing and investing it back in the business. And then 18 to 36, you make 1.4 million. Okay, so how did you do that? What were you doing?
Julie Ciardi:
And that's my point. That's the strategy. You're just talking about's all in on one thing. I think what happens is, and [00:20:00] it's not to say that that one coach one strategy was the only way, not at all. It's the point of going all in and not changing lanes a thousand times or shiny object syndrome and thinking or even expecting the overnight success that's promised with all of these programmes and coaches and all these things. And so to me, and it's funny because [00:20:30] I am of the belief that there isn't one strategy that works for everyone. And there isn't a hundred percent. There is not. But what I realised was I really wasn't treating my business like a business. I was actually treating it like an online marketing business, an online internet business, which is very different. So I'd be listening to these people who were, make money while you sleep and create this course that you can put in an evergreen funnel and quiz, never have to
Julie Cober:
Quiz. [00:21:00] Remember the quizzes,
Julie Ciardi:
Quizzes, all these things that basically we're eliminating the human from involving and getting involved with other humans is basically what all of those strategies were. And I would try them all, and I'm like, none of this is working. And then I tried a strategy which actually required me to actually be with people, live with people, giving an overdelivering, as you talked about at the beginning of this show, overdelivering for free [00:21:30] caring and offering a one thing, one programme that was like 12 months long instead of like, oh, a two week course or whatever.
Julie Cober:
And
Julie Ciardi:
Just actually get super committed to showing up, going all in, basically opposite V of what the internet was teaching of automated evergreen, passive income, make money while [00:22:00] you sleep. This was no, we're actually going to work and do work that we love
Julie Cober:
And connect as humans. Yes, we're still online, but thank goodness, I always say to people, thank God we have the online. Now we can go global.
Julie Ciardi:
Yes,
Julie Cober:
You and I would never have met if we weren't online. Never,
Julie Ciardi:
Right?
Julie Cober:
So don't bash the online. That's a great strategy. But yeah, a human, but you still have to
Julie Ciardi:
Connect, be a human, connect with other people over deliver care. That [00:22:30] to me was the game changer. And over time, basically that was just over five and half years ago and just over five and a half years ago, from that point to now, I've never not had the model that I have. It's the same model. I mean, gosh, I've gotten way better at what I do. My craft has gotten better, how I deliver, what I deliver has gotten better. All of those things as it should. I mean, you should always [00:23:00] be perfecting your craft. But I still have a 12 month programme I still launch where I want people to experience me for free
Julie Cober:
Deeply
Julie Ciardi:
Before ever paying me a dollar to make sure this is right for me. And so I just continued to follow that method. And I will tell you, there was one year, I think it was end of 2022 into the beginning of 2023, where I got [00:23:30] sucked up again with some other coaches that were like, well, this is great, but you've had success, but you should really be making sales while you sleep. You really should. And so it became this whole thing, and I'm like, well, maybe I should, and okay, maybe they're right. And I actually kind of went away again from what was working so well, thank God I never got rid of having my 12 month programmes, but I started trying some different marketing and sales tactics. [00:24:00] And let me tell you, they didn't work. They didn't, didn't work. They did not work. Not at all. And I wasted time, money, and then I went back to what was working and what worked so well. And I'm like, I'm not backing off of that. This is the path. This is what works. Have I made some tweaks and some enhancements and yeah, a hundred percent, because the market's changing. Continuously
Julie Cober:
Got to know your audience, got
Julie Ciardi:
To know your audience. You got to know what the barriers are for people and all the things. But [00:24:30] it's about not being distracted by all the shiny stuff out there. And actually going back to basic business principles instead of the shiny online strategy that worked for one person who has no business background and now is trying to teach and make millions off of the one strategy. And they're usually very successful, but that is very hard to replicate. And typically their people are not having results,
Julie Cober:
And then they're not getting referrals and all the things. So a couple of things I [00:25:00] want to say here. This is so perfect because what Julie's talking about is energy. So we both believe that every strategy works. It doesn't work for every person the same way the person is the differentiator. So I learned her method. I was in her programme, and interesting enough, so giving you an example around this, it has taken me a few years to get to the model I'm at now, which is a shortened [00:25:30] version of the nine day launch. Because what I learned in my data is the executive woman is not coming for nine days. She's just not. That's my person. So what works with my ideal client is a shorter version. So three, four days with consults after the only call to action is a consult, get on a call with me. And this is the human piece. I finally realised these women, these are high ticket coaching, one-on-one in group, and they have high expectations. [00:26:00] They're super busy. We know we are in those jobs, right?
Julie Ciardi:
A hundred percent.
Julie Cober:
They're not dropping their credit cards anymore because they have trust issues as they should with everything that's been going on in the industry. But I think I sat down one day and said, well, what would I want? There's no way I would go at that height of a ticket without having a conversation with the person that's going to help me get this transformation percent. And I was saying to Julie before we hopped on here that I was just the other day online, and I saw a very, very successful [00:26:30] money mindset coach online the other day telling her community that if you have to get on a consult and talk to someone live, your sales page isn't doing its job. Terrible. Now that's working for her. I don't know if that's the best advice out for everyone. I think we're coming in and Julie's going to talk about this, I'm sure, because I'm going to ask her a question about it. But we're coming into a new era, right? We're coming in, I find, and I am learning human design from Julie. Now this is so strong for me on the community side, of course it is. I'm [00:27:00] a four six, right? But what I wanted to say too, Julie, just so you know, I don't know if I've ever shared this with you, what you just shared. I felt it when you dipped, when you lost focus, and that's when I left.
And I didn't leave because you lost focus. I left because I felt like I was a little bird that was ready to fly nest, but I also felt like I was the smartest one in the room.
And I felt your energetic shift though, but I never stopped [00:27:30] following you, ever. Which we don't. And I love what you do always. And I'm like, Hmm, okay, now she's got some new stuff coming in here. And so I was just observing. But one thing I wanted to ask you about, you said a couple minutes ago, you used to say this all the time, and this was one of the, I dunno, what do you call them, light bulb moments or hit upside The head moment for me when you said one time in our programme, there's no such thing as an overnight success, only overnight breakthroughs.
Julie Ciardi:
[00:28:00] Yes.
Julie Cober:
That was like a Jesus come to Jesus moment for me. I was like, you very ambitious, high performing, high achieving success, defined me in all the wrong ways in my corporate career. And I lived for success. I lived for that. And I'm like, wait a minute. And I was struggling in the beginning of my business not having the, and I'd had over what I thought were overnight successes all through my career. So explain [00:28:30] to us what you mean by that.
Julie Ciardi:
Absolutely. And it's so exacerbated in the online space where I feel like in corporate, we kind of knew I wasn't going to get promoted to VP. When I'm a manager, I know I'm going to have to be a manager and get good ratings, and then I'm going to need to go into the director role. You knew the pathway, you were going to work really hard to get there, but I mean, you're not going to all of a sudden have [00:29:00] a multiple six figure launch or increase in your revenue in corporate. It just doesn't work like that. But when we get into the online space, I just think that there was a dream that was being sold way longer than it should have been sold. And it's because yes, when everything first happened in the online space, people were crushing it because it was so new, like 20 12, 20 13, 20 14, I'm [00:29:30] talking over 10 years ago.
Facebook was so new. Everything was so new that the organic reach and the newness of anything being sold online and any services being sold online was so new that the buyer was like, Ooh, what's this? And there was buyer curiosity. And so yes, sales pages would sell people on everything back then. And so it was very different. And some of those people became [00:30:00] very, very successful. Multimillion dollar businesses who many are still selling the same strategies right now, 10 plus years later, really don't work so well anymore. But that dream keeps being perpetuated. So what happens is that when, when the truth, what the truth is, is that it doesn't happen that fast that [00:30:30] you have to do the work. You have to roll up your sleeves, you're going to have failures before the success happens. There is no other way. And so what happens is that unfortunately, because that dream keeps being sold, people think they're doing something wrong. We didn't think we were doing something wrong in corporate that we didn't become a vice president in one year. In one year. Even worse in comparison to the online space, I would say in a month.
Julie Cober:
Yeah. Yeah,
Julie Ciardi:
Exactly. Not going to
Julie Cober:
Happen.
Julie Ciardi:
[00:31:00] We didn't have that expectation. We are coming into these kinds of businesses with this expectation, the promise being sold and marketed to us nonstop. So we begin to believe we're doing something wrong. So we're not as good as all these other people. Why can't I figure this out? I've been so successful in the past. Why can't I be successful at this? I mean, it felt terrible. Terrible. Felt
Julie Cober:
Terrible the first year of my business. Oh my God,
Julie Ciardi:
Terrible, terrible. I can remember being a pretty confident
Julie Cober:
[00:31:30] Person
Julie Ciardi:
In corporate and being levelled. Oh yeah. Out at the knees, took me out at the knees, took you out at the knees crying. What is happening? And it's because the expectation has been completely sold wrong.
And so that's why we feel this way, and that's why I like to say that we were sold overnight success. It's impossible. But what happens is if you don't give up, even when we're taking out it at the knees [00:32:00] and we're crying and a failed lunch or whatever, and all these things, if we don't stop and we keep going and literally don't give up, what happens is that the overnight breakthrough is still what looks like it was an overnight success on paper, like skyrocketing sales or whatever. I went from making no money to a six figure launch. It might seem like an overnight success. It was [00:32:30] two years in the making
Julie Cober:
Right of trial and error and identity shifting and all the things.
Julie Ciardi:
Totally to get to that. So that's the overnight breakthrough, the six figure launch feel. It felt like it happened overnight. It did. It happened over the course of nine days. And it was like, oh my God, it was so exciting. And all the things I'll never forget, it was April of 2020. It was amazing, but it was two years in the making
Julie Cober:
That's being sold. So that launch, [00:33:00] someone has it, let's say, and they're selling that. First of all, you've had success in this model, but I know lots of people who've had one good launch, three not so great, another good. It's up and down. It's not linear. So they're selling, oh, they had a six figure launch, so they now sell it. This is what I remember. Brendan Bouchard, I heard him say this once and it just stuck with me, especially in COVID, right? So 2020 we're into COVID now, and [00:33:30] he's been in the industry for years, right? He's like 20 years plus before I remember him saying, if you're in the online coaching space and you started in COVID, it's like the equivalent of starting on third base. You didn't have to go from home to first to second. So I think that was a bit of the problem too, because the whole world was home. The whole world was home. They were buying, they were wanting to change their life. They hated their jobs, they didn't want to commute all the things. And so there was a bit of a [00:34:00] blip there. I think that's exasperated this problem of the noise out in the market.
Julie Ciardi:
But
Julie Cober:
What Julie's saying, there's no way around hard work. And if you're sitting here listening and you're in a corporate job and you're an executive and you don't love it, you already know what hard work is. You're just doing it over here. Now, if you're hearing people that are telling you it's easy, overnight successes, all those things like hard stop, get discerning, ask for the right questions, [00:34:30] probably not hitching your waggon up there because it's not. And they didn't have it easy either. Nope. They're just not telling the truth in my opinion. They're telling the truth. They're not telling the truth. So you're starting to have this momentum. So your first one was April, 2020. I came in September. So I was probably your second or third. I think I was the third one if I remember correctly. You're starting to feel this momentum shift. Tell us, I really want to know, I know you talked a little bit about it here, but how [00:35:00] did you feel inside? You've had Rocky Road for however rough patch in the marriage, all the things, and listen, based on what Julie's told me about her husband and my husband, we probably have pretty understanding. Really. My husband has been amazing. But yeah, there's times he's like, oh my God, okay, I'm starting to get nervous. And I'm like, damn. Right. But tell me how you felt inside when your hockey stick [00:35:30] started to go up. Not great.
Julie Ciardi:
Where I think it's so important, to be honest. So when I was studying in the life coach school, Brooke Castillo would always say, there is not better than here. You think it is, right? And trust me, it does get better and better. But I will tell you that initial success, that first, that next 18 months where we had the 1.4 million flowing through the business, I'll tell you right now, [00:36:00] it's like when the lottery winner wins the lottery identity, right? There's still huge growth that needs to happen. And so what happened for me is having now deeply studied human design, I realised this is why the pressure
Julie Cober:
That
Julie Ciardi:
I was putting on myself, believing the lie, that my entire family's happiness, financial stability, everything was riding on my shoulders, [00:36:30] seeing that my relationship got better with my husband if the money was going up.
Julie Cober:
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Julie Ciardi:
It really rocked me in a deep, deep way. And I had to do some big time personal growth and development. I actually, I had the marketing and sales strategies that were working, the offer strategies that were working, but then I had to literally go and invest in deeper one-on-one [00:37:00] coaching. I worked with two different coaches. I had to go deeper and because I had some massive limiting beliefs that had to get punched through. And so yes, I had that success, but I had to do some big time work on me.
Julie Cober:
I say it all the time, it's like new level, new devil, right?
Julie Ciardi:
Totally. And I have it. It's happening now again, and I don't think it ever [00:37:30] stops.
Julie Cober:
No, it's your floors, your ceiling now, right?
Julie Ciardi:
A hundred percent. And so this year has been huge around, because our growth is through the charts this year. It's all been all about team. And the team that I started with at the beginning of the year, and the team that I have now is night and day, who I've needed to be as a leader, has had to change dramatically and is continuing to do so. So there's this whole other thing of personal growth and development that never stops [00:38:00] to every new level, as you were saying. And so it's like now that I've replicated and been able to have the longevity with the business for five and a half years now, really this is the first year that I was just saying to my team, before I got on here with you, I was giving them the priorities and what the focus is. And I said, honestly, ladies, I said, right now I feel like we are in the era of moving from being in startup [00:38:30] mode
Julie Cober:
To
Julie Ciardi:
Actually being a company. And it's very different,
Julie Cober:
Very
Julie Ciardi:
Different. So I'm very proud of that. And so you'd asked, how did I feel? How did I feel in my body and all of that. What's been so interesting is that the thing that I am most proud of in this whole process is who I've been becoming, and not just as a CEO, but in my marriage, in being a mom to the three kids that [00:39:00] I have who were still in diapers, middle school and high school, or just starting high school when I was leaving the job and the money and all those things. It's like what's transpired of who I am is that's what I really am. Not being cliche about it. That's the part I love the most, is who I'm being now
Julie Cober:
Versus
Julie Ciardi:
How I was being. Because listen, there's still [00:39:30] hard things in business. There's never not hard things in business. There's always hard things in business, especially if you're growing, always, always. And so it's not about the next strategy or the thing. It's literally like, am I equipped to handle this next thing and being in integrity with who I want to be and enjoying as much of this ride as I can along the way? Otherwise, what's the point? Otherwise as we'll, go back and get a paycheck. If you're not going to enjoy [00:40:00] it, it's fun. You can't have fun in every party of your business. You're going to. There's always going to be something that you don't love.
But if you predominantly love the work that you're doing and you're having fun doing it, that should be your guiding light when you're making decisions in your business and what you want to do and how you want to do it. And I know that this is so true for you as well. It's like how you have structured your business and your offer and who you work with and what you want to focus on, [00:40:30] all comes from the joy of what you really want to do and how you really want to help people. And I think that when it comes from that place, the noise of the online space dies away,
Julie Cober:
And
Julie Ciardi:
You're actually leading with the work you want to do in the world, not the latest strategy
Julie Cober:
That's
Julie Ciardi:
Going to get us to the next level of growth.
Julie Cober:
The other thing I think is so important that I just said too on the earlier podcast, I recorded today, don't throw the baby [00:41:00] out with the bath water. My Lord, women, we have so much expertise. When I first started my business, and I know this was your situation too, it's like we forgot who we were. I was 28 years. You were 20 plus years in executive roles, multimillion dollar budgets, multimillion dollar, Matt, mergers and acquisitions, huge teams. And I was over here as an entrepreneur going, I don't know what to do. And I was so consumed with the noise, and that's [00:41:30] it, what Julie said. I went, hang on, hang on. I was marketing before there was the internet. I was winning awards in HR for recruitment marketing. I know how to market. I know how to sell. I know how to do all these things.
So back, you said it earlier, back to simple, back to basics. And yes, the online space was a little bit different and we had to learn some nuances, but we're really smart women. We can do this. So always remember, if you're sitting here listening, you're an executive, you're like, [00:42:00] there's no way, dah, dah, dah, dah. Bring your expertise with you. You use it over here. And what Julie just said is as she's growing in her business, she's growing her ability to receive the personal development gives you the ability to receive the next level. You need to be a different person. If you're going from making, let's say a hundred thousand in your business to a million, that's a whole different ball game. You're not a solopreneur [00:42:30] anymore. You've got teams, you've got contractors, you've got technology, you've got,
Julie Ciardi:
Well, and by the way, you're going to make the wrong hires and have the wrong people in roles and how you handle that and you keep failing forward even. So, yeah, I mean, that's the thing you keep having to learn. And I just want to underline something that you said because it's so important, and I made this mistake, and I love to help people not make this mistake. And you said [00:43:00] it so beautifully, don't forget where you've come from and the experience that you have. I actually got amnesia and basically decided, and actually it was actual decision. I'm like, well, I'm not going to talk about the fact that I was at IBM and I was a marketing vice president, all that. I actually told myself, that's not relevant
Julie Cober:
Because
Julie Ciardi:
It's not the same. And you are a newbie on the scene of entrepreneurship, and that doesn't count.
Julie Cober:
Meanwhile, it's
Julie Ciardi:
Everything stupid [00:43:30] narrative in my brain. Whatt
Julie Cober:
Differentiates you
Julie Ciardi:
Until I started hearing women. And there's not a lot of 'em. No. But when I started hearing women who really have the business background, who really lean into the whole story and use it as the reason why they are good at what they do in the entrepreneurial space, I was like, of course I've been missing this. And now I lead with that. And I was just on stage on Thursday [00:44:00] on a panel in front of all these women, and when I was being introduced, I could feel in the room when the woman was like, she was a vice president of marketing and sales with teams of hundreds globally, blah, blah. And I'm like, I could see that. And I'm like, this mattered. And it adds a level of credibility, quite frankly, in a very wild, wild west online space. And so [00:44:30] please, if you're listening, take all your experience. I started to actually go back and harvest more of my story, more of the pieces of evidence, different projects, things that I was doing, and what hit me, it was so funny. I'll never forget, as I was doing a little of that inventory, one of the things that I realised in going back and just looking, I'm like, yeah, what were some of the things I was doing, some of the projects, one of the things we were doing is we were trying, I was managing an entire organisation [00:45:00] that was trying to help our inside seated sellers, so our sellers that weren't out in the field with their LinkedIn profiles to be social sellers, to be social sellers, and how to have a personal brand inside of a huge company like IBM. And I started laughing. I'm like, of course, exactly
Julie Cober:
What we do. That's
Julie Ciardi:
What I'm saying. This is what I do. And it's just so funny to me. You get amnesia and you forget these wonderful things, and they're [00:45:30] breadcrumbs. They're all breadcrumbs to show you what you're capable of. Or
Julie Cober:
Even for me, it was a bit of amnesia, but it was more P-T-S-D-I was, so I don't want anything to do with corporate and it's my fault. I always joke and say, when we hear the calling, there's a whisper, then a pebble, then a rock. Well, I needed a boulder to take me right off the cliff, and I share my story. In my first episode, I got very sick. I was on stress leave for nine months. That [00:46:00] was all my choice. I made choices. I felt like I was trapped, that I didn't have choice when I did all the things. I own it all now, but I had PTSD, I didn't want to talk about corporate, and I've only done it in the last year, and this is when my business has gone to another level because, and when women come to work with me now, they're like, two reasons I hired you. You're 58 and I'm going to talk about 50 in a second. And you have experience. You've walked in my shoes, and [00:46:30] they're starting to realise there's not many of us out here. So I share that. Yeah, she's right. Don't discount that alone will differentiate you. If you decide to go and leave corporate and go out on your own, your level of experience, that alone will differentiate you a hundred percent. So I want to talk about human design.
Julie Ciardi:
Yes.
Julie Cober:
So like I said, I never stop following you. I love you to death. I follow everything. And I'm [00:47:00] like, oh, this is kind of an interesting thing she's doing here. I'm going to go to this masterclass she's having in January of last year. This year, no, this year. And I've always been really interested in human design. I come from hr, personality testing, all of that. I don't love the regular personality tests. And I was always one that didn't want them in our system. But anyway, I couldn't understand it. I did a few tests. I got my profile. I'm what? And I was getting stressed. I couldn't [00:47:30] figure out what it was. And to be honest, and I think I've shared this with you before, I'm really your birth date, where you are and your time, and you're going to give me all this, but I'm like, okay, I have an open mind.
I love Julie. I'm going to go learn about this. So I go to your masterclass. I'm like, and I'm now back in the programme again because for the sheer purpose of just wanting to understand my own human design, because I'm like, okay, once you described it, and I started looking at this, and I'm [00:48:00] still just peeling back the onion just a little bit, but it's blowing me away. My life is changing. My relationship with my children, especially my daughter, a hundred percent changed, understanding her profile. Now, tell us about this. Where did you find it? Why are you incorporating in your business now? I want to know everything about why you're even doing this.
Julie Ciardi:
Well, it's so funny, Julie, because as a very logical [00:48:30] science-based gal over here, I mean, I'm spiritual, but I'm not. Woo,
Julie Cober:
Me too.
Julie Ciardi:
I'm just not. And I can remember reading a Gabrielle Bernstein book and going, I could not at all connect. And I was like, but I want to pierce the veil. I want to know I want what she's doing, but it just never connects for me. And I'm like, all right. I don't know. Manifestation, all the things. So this was the biggest plot twist in [00:49:00] my business I never saw coming. Could not have predicted what? So again, as a reminder, my mission has always been the same. I help women do the work that they were meant to do in this world, work that they love, work that they were literally designed to do, always been the case. That's never changed.
Julie Cober:
Which by the way, Julie's had the word design in her brand since the day I met her. So I met her, she was before me. So six years, whatever you've had design,
Julie Ciardi:
You got [00:49:30] it. So it's this inkling, it was a breadcrumb, right? Of all this stuff. And in that journey, like I said, I had an opportunity to work with Bob Proctor, and Bob would always say, the law of compensation is there's got to be a demand for what you do, but you've got to be mastering your craft. You've got to keep getting better and innovate. And my goal was I want everyone getting results.
And so what was happening is some people in [00:50:00] our programmes were getting results and others were not. And I'm like, interesting. Obviously I realised, well, that's because some people, there's paradigms, there's patterns, limiting beliefs, things are holding them back. The strategies work, but it's the individual people. It's not working for them. Then I went on a quest to figure out how do I help the individual? But I knew I didn't want to work one-on-one with people energetically, it doesn't work for me. I just felt this call. I knew the call that I had [00:50:30] was for hundreds of thousands of people. And so I also was trying to solution for, okay, whatever I'm going to do, it has to scale.
And I knew that becoming a master coach and doing that, that would be an amazing thing to do. But that's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to figure out how do I help more people get past their limiting beliefs, learn more about themselves without me? So that was the mission. So I looked at lots of things. I got certified with Bob Proctor [00:51:00] and his methods that didn't do it either. I even looked at tools like the Enneagram, but that wasn't doing it either. And so I was on the search, I was on the quest for this human design came before my eyes several times. I poo-pooed it, shoot it away. I thought it was ridiculous. To your point, I mean to the point where one of my best friends is, this is like eight, nine years ago. She's like, oh, you got to do your human design. I'm like, all right, well, how? She sent me the link. The second I saw that I had to put in my birth data, I didn't even finish it. I'm like, who's going to
Julie Cober:
Try and steal my information?
Julie Ciardi:
[00:51:30] And I didn't even finish it. I'm like, that's stupid. Whatever. Boom. And God, universe, source kept putting human design in front of me to the point where finally I wanted to learn more. Curiosity got me, but much like you, I was like, what? I had to go to someone that was an expert. They had to read my design To me, none of it made sense, but something was so intriguing to me that I had to go deeper. And I just started on this whole [00:52:00] quest. And of course, I have to go down the science route, and I love quantum physics. I love, I actually believe spirituality and science are the exact same thing. It's just, yeah, I agree of one coin. And so I just got really obsessed with it, and I started to bring it into my clients' more for, we were experimenting with it and people started falling in love with it. But they kept asking me this one big thing. They're like, can you Julie ize this? That was the term that came up because they couldn't decipher the language. And [00:52:30] I knew that I couldn't keep trying to decipher this for them. I had to find a way for this to be able to again, scale so that people can read the language and have the breakthrough.
And so that's when through my studies, through so many different certification programmes, all the different things, I was like, I'm going to rewrite this language. This language needs a rewrite bio woman. She did, by the way, everybody she did looks like is unbelievable entire system. [00:53:00] I rewrote. And it's the language of the soul. It is so powerful. People. I mean, every day, Julie, every single day I will wake up and there will be a post in our community, global. So all hours, someone, I do not even know their name because they joined our lab, which is a big membership. I don't even know their name. And they're telling me in the thing that they have had the biggest breakthrough, they just had [00:53:30] the aha. They were waiting for something confirmed in them, who they are, what they're here to do, their voice, all the things, and it's just pure magic and gold.
So just again, you follow the breadcrumbs that kind of get brought before you. I had no idea. Like I said, this was a plot twist and it's been really fun. And so now rewritten the language. We use that with our clients to help them get clarity again, to do the work that they're meant to do, that they're divinely designed to do in this [00:54:00] world, but they need some help getting clarity. This is like I sell. Clarity is what I like to say. I sell clarity to people on themself. And then we also certify people to do the same thing. And it's been so beautiful to watch it unfold. I could never have seen it coming. I can tell you that right now. I did not set out for this to be this way, but I can feel the impact. I mean, oh, it's big. Really, it's my marriage. It's saving my relationship with my kids in a [00:54:30] deeper, more beautiful way. It's changing women's lives all over the place. I'm just so grateful for it.
Julie Cober:
It's unbelievable. So I'm going to share a couple things. So you have this too. So I am learning from you, learning from myself and my family. Julie always says, learn your loved ones designs. I'll tell you this weekend, I'm going to try and tell you this without crying. So I was deep diving, deep studying in the emotional centre this weekend, and I finally understood my son's [00:55:00] life purpose. And he's 23. I'm going to get emotional. He'll listen to this. His whole life just unfolded in front of me. And I was telling my husband and he got crying, and I'm like, because he's had some challenges. And I'm like, oh my God, this is why I totally understand him. His life's purpose is the gate of family, and I know why he's been in the shadow and for that as a mother. So there's that. And now I'm just trickling it out just a [00:55:30] little bit.
I kind of have to know what I'm talking about with my clients. My one-on-one clients, which is funny because Julie and I are so similar, but I love one-on-one. That is what I've realised in the last five years. I like group two, but I like to dive in. And anyway, both of my newest one-on-ones, all I shared was their profile from your language and their life's work. That's it. I'm like, we're going slow this week. I don't want to overwhelm you. Both of them were in tears. Yep. [00:56:00] They both said to me, I don't think anyone, I've never felt this validated. I've never felt this scene. However you wrote it, right? I am like, this is from my coach. I took it right from her spreadsheet. This is the definite. And they're like, yes, this is what I'm supposed to do and all this stuff. I know. It gives me chills. And I'm like, chill by the chills. So I debated coming into the coach school. I'll probably go to the next round. I just don't feel like I'm ready enough yet. I want to do
Julie Ciardi:
More. I love, I love that. [00:56:30] Listen, we need evidence. I want to learn more myself. And I think even playing with, I was going to say profile alone is huge.
Julie Cober:
My life's work. It's like I've known that since I was a child. I'm an 8, 8 4. I've known that I'm here to disrupt. This is why the podcast launched. This is why all the things that I've been delaying on is happening in my business now because of human design. So I just want to thank you [00:57:00] and listeners, go onto her site. Go to her next masterclass. I don't even know when it's going to be. She just had a big, huge one. Figure it out. If you want to learn about human design, because what I love, Julie, which I always have with you, since the day I met you, I have not seen a person. Maybe there's somebody out there, and I've been in a few human design communities. There isn't anyone who has taught me to figure it out myself. That's what Julie is doing. That's different. So you normally, you maybe are [00:57:30] hearing this and go, yeah, I went and got a reading. I don't really know what any of it meant. She's teaching us how to read our own designs ourself. Dig into the shadow, dig into the gift. Where do they all fall on the chart? What does even mean? And I go slow. I need to embody it. I need to really cross this as you should, but I don't know if there's anyone out there teaching others.
Julie Ciardi:
I don't know, sir. And that's been my goal because it was the only thing that changed me. I had all these readings done, different people. No [00:58:00] one's an expert on you except you, and that's why our whole goal is we enable people to read their own designs that of their families, and then if they feel called to bring it deeper into their work, great. But it activates people at a cellular level soul.
Julie Cober:
I don't know how to describe it. I know
Julie Ciardi:
The resonance.
Julie Cober:
It's my soul. It's like why I'm on this earth has become clear to me, [00:58:30] and I feel like now that I know that and have embodied it and feel it, I've seen it pieces of it all over and went, oh yeah, that brag come was kind of that and that, but now it's like the path is wide open. And also I would say, I think this is because of my learning in human design. I don't have the fear that I used to. I'm understanding these fears now. I'm understanding these shadows, that fear report you give. I'm like, oh my God. [00:59:00] And you realise, okay, it's there for a reason. You're to learn from it. You move through it, you come out of the shadows and into your gifts, and I just don't feel as fearful about what other people think or whether my business is going to succeed or not. I know it is. It is already, and I know it will continue. That kind of thing. That's what human design has given me.
Julie Ciardi:
Oh, it's so good. I know, and everyone that you're hearing
Julie Cober:
This from two Julies that are pretty logical, very, oh my God, [00:59:30] I used to say all the time I was cut off at the neck. I lived in my head very analytical, but interestingly enough in my design that is not who I am as a design way. That was how I was conditioned. I'm super creative. I have where I'm defined and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so happy to be back in my body.
Julie Ciardi:
Yes, yes. That's exactly it. It's mind and body and spirit versus a mind assessment, which is a lot of Exactly. Which is the other ones that [01:00:00] I lived with in hr. Right, exactly.
Julie Cober:
The other thing somebody asked me the other day, well, what's the difference between human design? And I'm like, okay, hang on. I'm like, all those ones we used in corporate, if you had a bad day that day and you took that test, that thing skewed. Right?
Julie Ciardi:
All just your mind answering it.
Julie Cober:
Right. It's not your body. It's not who you are. Anyway, I want to talk about your book. Yes, yes, yes. 50 not finished.
Julie Ciardi:
I love all the tabs.
Julie Cober:
Okay, look at this. You can't see if you're listening. Literally, I used a whole [01:00:30] packet, then I had to stop tabbing. I'm like, this is so happy, honest to God. Okay, so because I've been with you for five years, this felt like to me
This masterpiece of the last five years of my life and your life, and before five years for you, but just wrapped up in this beautiful bow gift with this beautiful bow on it. This has to be on your night table 50, not finished. If you have [01:01:00] to get it, it has to be on your night table. You're going to read it once, then you're going to tab the hell out of it like I did and highlight and study as Bob Proctor taught us. Right? So I can't even, that's why there's so many, these are all golden nuggets that she gave us on how to live a life that you love. That's why I was so excited, and I didn't want you on here until I finished reading it, which I finished last weekend. Anyway, I want to read something from the very end of the book.
Okay. It's [01:01:30] on page two 90 because this is what I do with the women that I work with and that are listening to us here. The next chapter is yours to write. It's full of potential filled with light, love, purpose, and infinite possibilities that come with living in alignment with your divine design. I feel like I'm just going to burst into tears as Florian shoval shin, so beautifully said, the divine design there is for each woman. Perfect. There is a place which she is to fill [01:02:00] and no one else can fill something, which she is to do, which no one else can do. It is her destiny. I don't even know what to say to that. When I read that paragraph, I burst into tears. It summarised this whole book. It has summarised your whole work that you do that you're bringing to the world. Take us through this process. Why did you write this book, Julie, and what are you hoping women get from it?
Julie Ciardi:
Well, [01:02:30] the tabs and how much you loved it and the fact that you said it was a culmination because it really is. I mean, it is the lessons and the learnings really truly of the last five to 10 years. And it was interesting. I started to write it a while ago, maybe two years ago, three years ago. I started with just note carts, just different concepts that I had been sharing or [01:03:00] learning personally and just kind of writing. And they were in a stack and I had a rubber band around them and they were just sitting on my desk and I'd write it every once in a while and I thought it was going to be called Ignite Her because Ignite her. We've trademarked that it's, it's kind of like the two words that summarise what we do for people. We ignite their highest potential and all of that. So I thought it was going to be called that. And then when I was writing it, it was also the year when I really was actually writing it. I was going to get it published and all the things. It was the year I was turning [01:03:30] 50, it was last year. And I just had this overwhelming feeling that I literally was just getting started
And I felt this fire in my soul. I was so excited to turn 50 because I felt like we talk about rewriting the rules and according to who is 50 over the hill, according to who, I guess I kept thinking of when I was little and thinking of what 50 was [01:04:00] or what I thought it was and what I was told it was. And I've never felt more alive in my life. And so the book began to shift because I actually began to feel like I was writing it for women over 45 or 50. I really started to feel like the book was starting to take shape and that who I wanted it in the hands of, and it's for any woman of any age, but at any age, you're going to pick up the nuggets. Totally. I just felt this [01:04:30] call, that's why it's called the Midlife Manifesto.
It's kind of like I wanted to help these women go to that next level and know that it's okay. And then the title 50 not finished, came to me. I kept saying, I'm just getting started. I'm just getting started. And then it was the idea, well then I'm not finished. And so that's why I'm 50, not finished, came through. And I'm like, that's it. And the book became this. Here's my story in my lessons. But then I wanted to highlight some of the most influential writers in the personal growth [01:05:00] and development space. People that most people don't even know some of these people and bringing their work forward. Because I also found out that Florence Shin, I dedicated the book to her in addition to my family and stuff, because at age 52, in 1925, she self-published her book, the Game of Life and How to Win It. And I thought, here I am 100 years later,
Julie Cober:
Wow,
Julie Ciardi:
Self-publishing my book at 50 and the women that went before me. And [01:05:30] so then it was just such a fun way to bring those learnings from these different people that impacted me, my own learnings that I've shared with so many of my clients. And it felt so good. It felt like that culmination, and I already know 60 not stopping will be the one for 60 and it'll come the next 10 years. Who knows? So much growth and change will happen in that timeframe, but it just,
Julie Cober:
Well, you have all the data too. Get all the women, Martha Stewart, [01:06:00] get them all that started like 55 plus. Yes, you're wearing all of them. I think this is what's happening. I'm 58, you're 51. All of my clients are in their fifties. I think the youngest client I have is 45. And you talk about this in human design. This is where they come together, like this new era that we're going into this era of individual. And also when we get to that age, a lot of the time the kids have gone to [01:06:30] college or university or maybe they've even moved out or some of us still have littler ones. But I think the feeling just gets stronger, especially if you're not aligned right now in your work. And for me, I was sitting in my desk, my office, a different office I have downstairs looking at the window going, I was deciding to leave.
Is this what the next 15? Is this the last chapter? Is this what it's going to be? I am not letting my last chapter be like this. I can't [01:07:00] think I'll survive it. But I was probably 48 at the time, and it took me two, three years from there to go. But I do think that's why I loved the name of this book. That's why I think this book is going to fly off the shelves because there's women in their fifties, late forties into their fifties. I got the feeling I need to do something different. All the things we talked about at about 43 took me 14 years to go from wouldn't it be great if I could kind of do my own thing [01:07:30] to actually leaving the decision dropped into me two years before I did it, still had two years to put an exit strategy in place.
So I think that's why this book is so important, because if you're in your late forties going into your fifties, you're feeling this poll, you're feeling this calling, this whisper, all the things we've described today. This is a Bible of how to do it. This is a Bible of how to do it. And the mentors in here, she's talking about none of them [01:08:00] are alive. I know you don't have to have live mentors. These mentors are OGs, OGs, and they taught us years ago how to do this. And the point again, we're meant I believe in every fibre of my being, we are meant to love every aspect of our life and have that supported by work that we enjoy. Not consuming us work is just one piece of us. So get [01:08:30] this manifesto, because it's going to teach you, it's going to give you ideas of how you can get that exit strategy going if that's what you want, or get to the next chapter. Maybe it's another job in corporate and just getting out of a toxic work environment. It doesn't mean, and not everybody's going to start a business. Right?
Julie Ciardi:
No, no. And I love that you're saying that, and I think that one of my favourite lessons of the whole book is self-responsibility
Julie Cober:
And choice.
Julie Ciardi:
And it's, to me, [01:09:00] we spend so much of our life waiting and hoping that maybe something might change one more year. One,
Julie Cober:
One more. I'll save up for one more year
Julie Ciardi:
Or feeling trapped because you said the same thing that I experienced, you felt trapped. There was no way out. And that caused health issues for you. I felt the same way. I felt so trapped. And what was so shocking to me was to actually realise the door was open and it wasn't [01:09:30] locked. Exactly. We could walk right through. It's our choice. And in the moment, it doesn't feel like my gosh at home. And I think that when I'm really honest about what was it that helped me to see that the door was actually open, it was books and podcasts. It was books of people sharing that they did it.
Julie Cober:
And
Julie Ciardi:
It was podcasts of people sharing that they did it. And all I needed to start to see was possibility.
Julie Cober:
[01:10:00] And we did it so they can exactly
Julie Ciardi:
Change everything. And I think that's the reason that I'm really so proud of the book. And it's so interesting. I am about to run a whole new campaign around it with my coach helping me with an audio book strategy that's not a typical audio book strategy to really get this in the hands of as many women as possible. Because for me, it's not about revenue. [01:10:30] It's literally about this getting in the hands of people so that they see that the door's open and it's time to step out and it's going to be scary. But we got you, Julie, and I got you. And I think that that's seeing what's possible, and it changes everything when you see what's possible.
Julie Cober:
Totally. So for all the women that are listening, and men too, if there's men, we tend to attract women, but that are wanting to make that midlife career transition, [01:11:00] whatever that looks like for them, what's a one top piece of advice you'd give them to take that next step, to take that first step?
Julie Ciardi:
Yeah. I know it's going to sound so cliche to say, and Bob Proctor would ask this all the time, and quite frankly, I use this for myself all the time. I actually pause and I stop to ask myself, what do I really want?
Julie Cober:
Because
Julie Ciardi:
Trying to run from something [01:11:30] you don't want is not actually answering the question, what do you want? And it's not always a fast answer, but what I can tell you is if you don't stop asking that question, if you just keep focusing on what you don't want, it's not going to help you. But if you keep asking yourself the question, what do I want? And Bob would say, what do you really want? Get clear on that. That's going to guide you. Because when [01:12:00] I started that process, I didn't really know how it was all going to play out. So I'm not saying what's, figure out the how?
Julie Cober:
No, how
Julie Ciardi:
No, what do you really want? And I still use that to this day to make sure that I'm building my business the way that I really want my life to be nice. Yes. I have to have a tonne of white space in my life to create, to do my creative stuff like my books and [01:12:30] creating content and rewriting the entire human design.
If I built my business the way a bunch of people were telling me I should have built my business back in the day, I would have no time to do any of those things. And so really know what's important to you when you really ask yourself, what do I really want? You know what? I actually came to the realisation when I really started asking myself this, when I was leaving IBM was I realised I was actually going to be okay if I made way less money than I was [01:13:00] making, way less than. That was shocking to me because I didn't know that that was going to be my response.
I think that I realised at the time that the joy of loving what I do and having freedom was going to be more important to me than the financial outcome. And I still knew what I wanted though, even there too. But it was way different than what I thought. It's really interesting because it's [01:13:30] really just this year, maybe there was one other year that I'm actually paying myself what I was making at IBM. I was totally okay with making because I mean, that was a lot of money. I was okay, not like I was investing back into my business doing whatever. I was fine. Actually, what I was doing is what I love the most. And so you have to keep your finger on the pulse of what do I really want? What's really important to me? And staying in integrity [01:14:00] of that because if you're just running from something, you'll probably end up running into something else. You
Julie Cober:
Don't really love the fire to the fire.
Julie Ciardi:
That's
Julie Cober:
Really important. And because a lot of women that will be listening here, especially in corporate, are trying to run away from something. So I always say too is if all were possible, what would you love?
Julie Ciardi:
Yes.
Julie Cober:
And you're right. It's a really hard question. And like I've said with several women I've interviewed on the podcast here, I have [01:14:30] clients who come in, it takes them three months to figure that out. Totally. They've never said, I don't know what I want. They've got the kids and their big jobs and all the things. They're like, I can't even think about dinner tomorrow, let alone what I love. But that's the question, ladies and gentlemen. That is the question. If you want to live a life that you love, you got to know what that is.
Julie Ciardi:
You got to know that. Are you okay with it? The kids are going to
Julie Cober:
Move on. Yes, exactly. I always say that you don't always have kids. Who were you when you weren't a mother? [01:15:00] Right? There was a time in your life that you weren't a mother, right? Well, I'm a mother and I'm a wife, and I'm this and that, and identity wise, right? Okay, well, what about when you weren't those? Totally. That's the human design that you are
Julie Ciardi:
With Caroline and Jack, my older two leaving the house, Caroline now is done with college living in New York City, and Jack's about to be done with college in the next year and a half. I mean, I've been in this devastated depression. I think if I didn't have this [01:15:30] work that I truly love and lights me up and gives me so much purpose and passion and all the things, so it is a worthy goal of sitting in the what do I really want? And continuing to ask yourself this because when those answers come and you start testing and you start exploring because it is a journey, your life will be so much more magical when you are actually [01:16:00] answering that question and continuously moving in that direction. And it's a direction. It's not a destination. It's a direction of continuous evolution, of knowing what you really want. There are some things that I wrote down that I knew I really wanted that five and a half years ago that are just coming to fruition right now, but I never let go of. That's what I really wanted.
Julie Cober:
Yes, it's a dominating thought. It's a dominating. You [01:16:30] can't let it go, as Bob would say. Right? And the other thing I'd remind people is that as you're doing this with this amazing suggestion, Julie's giving no, that if it crossed your mind, you're meant to pursue it, otherwise it would never have crossed you. Don't have things come into your inspirational hits, your mind, your intuition, unless you're meant to pursue them. So don't go, oh, well, no, I can't do that, or dah, dah, dah. If it hits you, if you get a hit when you're answering [01:17:00] this question, don't ignore it. It's the breadcrumbs that she's talking about.
Julie Ciardi:
Breadcrumbs. Yes, 100%.
Julie Cober:
Okay, so this was amazing, and I knew we're at, I don't even know how long we're at, but I knew we could go for hours. So how can the audience get in touch with you? I know they're going to want to, so give us some stuff here. We'll put everything in the show notes as well.
Julie Ciardi:
Yeah, so two big things I would do. Number one, go run your free profit map, right? Yes. It's [01:17:30] ignite her brand.com/map. Just go and grab that because the language, as Julie was just saying that she shared with her clients huge. Just grab that, it's free, it's amazing. And then reach out to me on Instagram or LinkedIn. But Instagram, I'm usually more responsive. Let me know something that might've surprised you in reading that report or whatever. If you have any other questions on this, I like to actually connect with humans, right? So message me on Instagram. Give me a follow over there. I think going to websites is pretty boring. [01:18:00] Well, yours is good. Yours is a good one. Grab the report and then meet me over in Instagram.
Julie Cober:
Yeah. Okay. All right, my friend. This was so amazing. Thank you so much for sharing all your nuggets, your gold, your story. I know this is going to help so many people who are listening today.
Julie Ciardi:
Thank you so much, and thanks for having this podcast. It's going to help so many people to see what's possible.
Julie Cober:
Thank you.
Julie Cober:
Thank you so much for choosing to spend your time with us. [01:18:30] I hope today's insights have empowered you and given you ideas and tools to start to rewrite your rules of success. If you love 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 [01:19:00] additional resources and strategies, visit julie cobra.com and subscribe to my 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. [01:19:30] And until next time, always be asking yourself “According To Who?”.
According To Who?
