What does it take to leave your international corporate job behind to return to school and pursue your true passions? In this episode of Career Relaunch, Audrey Lemargue, a former Cosmetics Export Manager turned Naturopath shares her thoughts on the importance of career exploration, respecting your emotions, and trusting your career instincts. During the Mental Fuel segment, I share thoughts on the upside of “career dabbling.”

During this episode’s Mental Fuel segment, I talked about the upside of “career dabbling” and taking the initiative to explore your interests outside your day job. To help brainstorm ways to do this, download my “Test the Waters” Worksheet.

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After working in the Perfume and Cosmetics industry traveling the world for nearly 15 years, Audrey Lemargue decided to take a break to find her true calling. After several months of reflection time where she tried to get in touch with her creative side, she had an epiphany one day after watching an interview of this amazing 86 year old French Naturopath. The inspiration was so deep that she started researching courses to become a Naturopath herself.

Now, Audrey’s a student at the College of Naturopathic Medicine in London, set to finish her program Dec 2017. She also works in Sales and Marketing position for Iwari, a superfood company that recently expanded to the UK. She was recently featured in the Sept 2016 edition of Healthy Living Magazine.

If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners!

Teaser (first ~15s): Trust your gut feeling and follow your instinct. If it doesn’t feel right, it’s because it isn’t. Give yourself the time to actually figure it out. The answer will come eventually if you keep your mind open.

Joseph: Hey, Audrey. Welcome to Career Relaunch. I’m really looking forward to hearing more about your current focus on naturopathic medicine and mostly how you found this true calling. Just to kick things off, can you tell me a little bit about what’s keeping you busy right now?

Audrey: Thank you for having me first of all. At the moment, I’m starting to become a naturopathic nutritionist, and I’m also working part-time for a superfood company. That’s keeping me very busy.

Joseph: What does a naturopathic nutritionist do?

Audrey: It’s a holistic way to approach nutritionism and to treat people, to treat people in a natural way. Basically, Hippocrates said, ‘Let food be your first remedy,’ and that’s what we’re doing as nutritionists.

Joseph: How we met was very random. I was at a Planet Organic in London, and you were sampling this really interesting stuff that I’d never seen before, which is this raw superfood breakfast powder. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about, first of all, what you do at Iswari. After that, we can go into what you were doing before.

Audrey: Iswari is a superfood company that is originally started in Portugal and Ireland six year ago, and they do superfoods. Among them, the Buddha’s Awakening, which is quite a fantastic product, they’ve been on the market for six years, and they’re now starting to explore the UK market, and I’m the person that they chose to do that for them.

Joseph: I want to hear a little bit more about Iswari at the end of the this conversation, but before we do that, can you tell people what you were doing before you got involved with naturopathic nutrition and superfoods and Iswari? Because I was really surprised to hear that you’d actually spent 15 years in the perfume and cosmetics industry before moving into this line of work.

Audrey: I was working as an expert manager for a perfume company based in France, and I was in charge of the Americas. I was traveling a lot through the Americas for this company. It was very exciting but also a very hectic time of my life.

Joseph: When did it occur to you that you wanted to make a change?

Audrey: I think I wanted to make a change years before that, but it takes time to sink in. First of all, because I didn’t feel completely in-tune with what I was doing in terms of what I was selling and the type of business it was although it was a very nice industry. The other thing is, as you grow older, the traveling, although it’s still very exciting and you’re still meeting very interesting people, becomes also very tiring, and you want to get grounded with your family and your personal life, and it’s not always compatible.

Joseph: You mentioned that it took you several years between the time you realized that maybe this isn’t right for you, and the time when you took off. What was happening for you during those few years?

Audrey: There’s a lot of questioning going on. ‘Am I in the right place? Should I be doing something that makes me happier on a daily basis that I’m happy to wake up to and go to work for in the morning and that I feel passionate about?’ I couldn’t find the passion anymore, I would say, after the first 10 years. When I say 15 years, it probably took me about 5 years to take the leap of faith and change the career.

Joseph: What made that tough?

Audrey: Fear. Fear is the first thing that makes it tough because it’s hard to actually start something that you don’t know at all and also because you don’t know what you want to do. It took me time to realize what it was that made me feel happy and passionate.

Joseph: Can you just give us a little insight into how you figured that out? One of the things that I hear from a lot of people who aren’t happy in their current roles is, ‘I know I don’t want to do this, but I actually don’t know what I’d want to do instead.’ Did you do anything in particular to help you put the pieces of that puzzle together?

Audrey: First of all, I actually took the time, and I quit my job. I needed the time to think. I needed the time to actually process what it was that I wanted to do. This is the hardest question to answer, so I actually explored more of my creative side. I started taking piano lessons. I took acting lessons. These helped me to disconnect with the corporate world completely and open my mind to other things.

Joseph: I see, so you were just pursuing things that interested you. Would it be safe to say you didn’t know if those are necessarily going to transpire into another career?

Audrey: It didn’t make me interested to the point that I was going to take another career and think, ‘I’m going to become a musician,’ or, ‘I’m going to become an actress or something like that. That was something that I knew I enjoyed doing, but it was not going to push me to the point where I was going to start over from scratch in those fields. It was a very good way to spend time.

Also because when you quit a job and you quit a career and you destroy everything you built in a way to rebuild something new, there’s a time where you go through thinking, ‘This is crazy. I’m going to need money at some point, and I need to find a job that actually will pay my bills. I might go back to what I knew,’ so you’re a bit depressed. To get over that depression, you need to put yourself out there and keep going and searching.

As some point, for me, what happened is that I was exploring a lot of things, and something, one day, just on the internet, something so simple—and thanks to Iswari actually because I knew about Iswari as a company before I started working for them—they had this interview of this naturopath, a French lady, 86 years old. That was a revelation to me because she was such an inspiration of how she led her life, what she was doing in terms of treating people, how she did it. After that, after watching that video of this interview of this lady, I was researching how to become a naturopath, how to become a nutritionist, and everything fell into place so fast after that. It was like a matter of days.

Joseph: How did you know that this particular interest was more than just an interest like the piano or like acting? What made this different?

Audrey: It’s like falling in love for the first time again. It was a bit like that, love at the first sight feeling. It was really that straightforward.

Joseph: You felt an emotion. That’s how you knew?

Audrey: Exactly. That was very strong emotion that drove me and pushed me to do whatever I needed to do. It was interesting because it was completely different from what I had been doing before in the past, very new but also very familiar at the same time.

Joseph: How did people react to the fact that you decided to quit even though you didn’t know exactly what you wanted to do next.

Audrey: I had two sides of people around me: one side that really understood that I needed to combine not only my personal life but also what was going inside me as not being completely satisfied with the current situation in my work and the other side that was thinking, ‘Maybe I should’ve kept going,’ and a lot of people actually stay in their jobs for ears without really enjoying it.

Joseph: How did you deal with that? How did you deal with people who told you, ‘Audrey, you’re crazy for leaving that behind’?

Audrey: It is hard because inside of you, you’re a bit torn between the convention, the conformity, and the craziness of actually having the guts to quit your job and pursue something different that you don’t know what it is yet. At the beginning, it was hard to convince people that I was doing the right thing, but then, as time went by, it became clearer that I didn’t want to go back. As soon as I actually realized that I wanted to become a nutritionist and naturopath, it was very easy. All of a sudden, I had an answer for everything, and it didn’t matter what people thought about what I was doing anymore because I knew this was the right thing for me.

Joseph: Did you go ahead and apply for the College of Naturopathic Medicine in London?

Audrey: I applied for the college, and luckily, they were starting the summer school the week after.

Joseph: Wow, lucky.

Audrey: It was like, when things are right, they fall into place quite easily.

Joseph: When you were thinking about returning to school—I talk to a lot of people, and they’re thinking about making a career change, and it requires them going back to get a Master’s degree or to get a Doctoral degree—how did you make the decision that it was worth it for you to invest the time and the money to go back to school?

Audrey: For me, it was like, ‘This is what I needed to do, and it doesn’t matter that it’s going to take another three or four years for me to get there because the journey will be so much fun.’ This is how I thought about it, because going back to school implies a lot of studying, a lot of researching, especially in the field where I’m going because I do a lot of research-based assignments. I’m now reading research papers from medical doctors and from medical journals, which is quite heavy. It is different from the business and corporate world. However, I’ve learned so much. It opened my mind to so many other things, and I’m thinking to myself, I knew so little, and I still know so still, and I want to keep learning more and more all through my life. It’s a pleasure really. It’s more like something that I enjoy doing.

It’s funny how when I left college, when I graduated from business school, I was so happy and relieved it was over probably because from the beginning, it wasn’t my real calling. Now, I don’t want it to end because every new lecture I get or every subject we approach is a door open to something that fascinates me.

Joseph: That’s really interesting, the tension between feeling relieved when something is over versus feeling excited and energized. Was there anything tough about making the transition from being a high-powered corporate employee to someone who is back in school?

Audrey: All of a sudden, I felt that I was doing what I was meant to be doing all my life. It was actually very exciting. It was nice to also put myself in a different position where I was taking a seat back and observing and learning and not being the one who’s teaching and managing people and telling them what to do and how to do it. Because it’s a completely different field and we’re talking about medicine, because the first years is really studying biomedicine, I was very handled by the lecturers and the knowledge I was getting from them. That inspired me so much that, at this point right now, I want to keep studying and studying more and learning from others.

Joseph: Knowing what you know now, is there some sort of advice you would offer to yourself when you were back in the corporate world, not quite ready to leave yet?

Audrey: Trust your gut feeling and follow your instinct. If it doesn’t feel right, it’s because it isn’t. Give yourself the time to actually figure it out. The answer will come eventually if you keep your mind open. I would give myself that trust and that confidence.

Joseph: Do you think you could’ve done this exploration while holding down the full-time job in the corporate world?

Audrey: I don’t believe so because while you’re working in the corporate world, it takes all your thoughts. If you want to do your job properly, which I was committed to do, it would have been difficult to leave space to wonder and think about what would have been the right thing for me. I needed actually that free time, that free space that’s time where you’re actually thinking to yourself, ‘What am I going to do with my day today?’ and let things come into you. That’s, I think, something that is sometimes difficult in the corporate world, especially if you’re highly invested in what you’re doing.

Joseph: I can definitely relate to that. I know that when I was thinking about branching off to do my own thing, it was really hard to balance the full-time job with the side projects. There’s just not enough energy and time in your day to do both. It’s very hard to juggle the two.

Audrey: It’s hard and frustrating because as soon as you start opening the window to something that actually lights up a bulb for you, you don’t want to be doing the other thing anymore. It’s like two antagonistic things that’s really tearing you apart.

Joseph: What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?

Audrey: I received it from my brother-in-law years ago, because I was telling him how lucky I was that I was doing an internship in Miami when I’m French originally from Paris, and my friends and mates were all in France in Paris, gray and dark and rainy, when I was working in Miami, sunny Miami by the beach. He said to me, ‘Actually, Audrey, you create your own opportunities and you made that happen for yourself.’ I think that was so true what he said. We create our own opportunities. It depends what you set your mind to do. I’ve always followed that in life. If I want to do something and if I want to live a better life, it falls onto me to create that opportunity.

Joseph: I’m totally with you on that, Audrey. I’m not a big believer in fate. I’m definitely a big believer in hard work and trying to create your own opportunities. Your luck only takes you so far, then you’ve got to make it happen.

Audrey: Exactly, being a go-getter.

Joseph: Absolutely. Finally, what’s one habit that has consistently served you well throughout this journey?

Audrey: I think it’s more like a personality thing. I treat everyone with respect and with genuine care. In my career as a top manager, when I was visiting my markets and I was discussing with the beauty advisers that we’re working on the shop for, I always, always took the time to get to know people I was working with and treat everyone equally and being very handled by the information and the things that they were giving me because I was learning from everyone. Never neglect anyone you meet because that person on your path can teach you something interesting and can actually give you so much. You always think you’re going to teach people things, but actually, I think, people teach you so much more if you listen.

Joseph: Great habit to have, because the world is small, and you can not only learn a lot from people, but you also might run into people when you least expect it. It’s been really great to hear your story, Audrey. Not only the shift between the corporate world and moving into natural medicine but also your decision to return back to school to help you get there. If people want to learn more about you or they want to learn more about Iswari, where can they go to find out more?

Audrey: If they want to find out more about Iswari, it’s easy to go to Iswari.net or Iswari.co.uk. About myself, at the moment, I’m on LinkedIn, and I’m thinking and working on probably starting my own blog or website further down the line to talk about my own experience in the natural and naturopathic world and nutrition.

Joseph: I’m telling everybody Iswari because I now sprinkle it on my breakfast cereal every single day. We put it on our yogurt every single day. We’re addicts. Thank you so much, Audrey, for your time. It’s been really interesting to hear your story, and I wish you the best in your studies and in your time at Iswari and hope it all goes well for you.

Audrey: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to share.

What’s it like going from working in Silicon Valley to starting your own welding business? In this episode of Career Relaunch, Zai Divecha, a former software marketer turned metalworker and designer shares her thoughts on what it’s like to be “in flow,” how to prepare for a career change, and the benefits of connecting with liked-minded people.  I also share some thoughts on the difference between doing energy generating vs. energy depleting work.

During this episode’s Mental Fuel segment, I talked about the importance of doing energising work. For some help in identifying some ways to do this, you can download a free “Reenergising Your Work Days” Worksheet.

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Photos: Ellen Wildhagen, kindredweddings.co

Zai Divecha is a metalworker and designer who learned to weld at the age of 14. She first worked in the tech industry at Box before deciding to return to her metalworking roots in 2014, when she founded Elektra Steel. She now spends her days creating handcrafted steel art and home goods. You can check out more of her impressive welding on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And to learn more about her story, check out this interview she did in July 2016 after being selected as “Featured Designer of the Week” by Deck Studios in London.

If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners!

Teaser (first ~15s): The most surprising part is that I think about my work all the time now, and I love it. I love the fact that I wake up thinking about this. I think about it on the weekends. I work on the weekends. It feels like such a gift to be able to think about what I love most.

Joseph: Hello, Zai, and thank you so much for taking a break from your metalworking to join us here on Career Relaunch.

Zai: Thanks so much for having me.

Joseph: I am so excited to have you on the show. When I heard about you, I just had to hear more about your story. I got so many questions to ask you. I don’t even know how we’re going to fit it all in, but can you just start by, first of all, explaining what it is that you do?

Zai: I am a metalworker and a designer, and my background is in TIG welding, which is a specialized form of welding that allows you to weld different kinds of materials and of many different thicknesses. In the past, I’ve done some furniture, some lighting. I’ve done a number of welded, faceted, geometric stainless steel vases and planters and bowls and things like that. Right now, I’m working on a line of geometric wall hangings that are tiled mosaic pieces of steel.

Joseph: How long does it take you to do one of these?

Zai: The design takes either several hours or several weeks, depending on how many design revisions the client asked me to do. The actual cutting, sanding, finishing, staining, waxing, mounting, welding, grinding, all of that, takes about a week.

Joseph: How long have you been doing this?

Zai: I’ve been welding since I was 14 but as a hobby in my free time. I went to an amazing high school in San Francisco that taught metalworking, glass, jewelry, architecture, woodworking, and electronics, and every student had to rotate through all the shops to get a little taste of each one. I absolutely fell in love with metalworking as soon as I tried it. It was just a hobby until fairly recently. About a year and a half ago, I decided to quit my job to do it as a career, which is totally different than doing it as a hobby obviously.

Joseph: Zai, so you’re working on metalworking right now, but just a couple of years ago, you were doing something very different. Could you take me back to the type of work you were doing before you got into welding and metalworking?

Zai: I was on the marketing team at an enterprise offer company called Box. I was in charge of customer marketing, using customer stories to showcase the power of what Box can do for companies in a variety of industries. Literally no overlap with what I’m doing now. I loved Box. I loved the product. I still use it today for all of my work. I love the company. The people were amazing. It was a great community. It was comfortable. It was stable.

The one thing that really got to me though was that I realized that I was never in flow state. I was constantly toggling going between working on a PowerPoint here and doing this quick email, and someone would come over and ask me a question, and I dash to a meeting, and then I pick up loose threads on this project, and I get interrupted.

Flow state is that mental state in which you’re really in the zone, like you’re immersed and you’re engaged or highly focused. It’s often a joyful feeling. Most people experience flow at some point in their life, whether it’s in their gardening or engineers I talk to feel like sometimes they get in flow when they’re really in the zone working through a challenging problem. I definitely feel it when I’m working with my hands, whether I’m knitting or cooking or drawing, painting, welding, making jewelry. I’ve always done stuff with my hands in my free time since I was a little kid, and that’s when I feel the most engaged and focused.

I was thinking like, ‘I wonder if I could create a job for myself where I’m in flow for, if not the day, at least some part of the week would be really, really nice.’

Joseph: I know you mentioned that you started welding when you were 14. Did you ever consider just jumping right into it? If not, what stopped you from doing that?

Zai: Great question. In high school, I had many people ask me, ‘Are you going to apply to art school? You should definitely go to art school,’ because I was already making furniture and art, and I already knew that I loved it more than anything. At the time, I had this naïve impression of what it would mean to be an artist and the kind of life that would involve, and I felt like, ‘I have so many other interests. I have so many other ways that I want to use my brain. Creating art is just one part of how I like to use my brain.’ I didn’t think it would be satisfying.

I went to a liberal arts college. I went to Yale. I studied completely other things in college and in grad school. It wasn’t until pretty recently that I had this somewhat obvious epiphany that being an artist or making something physically with my hands also involves a whole business side of it that I did not even realize. I didn’t realize until I worked at Box that I actually really enjoyed thinking about business strategy, that I would enjoy the marketing, that I would enjoy the sales, I would love figuring out how to run a sustainable business.

Once I realized that there’s that whole side of it, I was like, ‘Maybe this actually would really satisfy my brain in a lot of ways. I would get the creative engagement of working with my hands and designing something aesthetic and visual, but I would also get to switch gears and figure out my marketing strategy, update my social media stuff, figure out what my sales channels are, working with clients, all of that stuff.

Joseph: Can you take me back to the moment right before you made the decision to leave Box and start your own metalworking business? What was going on for you at that time?

Zai: I knew I wanted to leave. I knew I wanted to work for myself. I knew that I wanted to be creative, but I didn’t have an exact plan. I spent about a year getting all my ducks in a row.

I talked to every metalworker that I could get my hands on to ask some questions about their career, how they got started, whether they thought I needed any professional training. Did I need to go to school for this? Should I train under someone else? Should I start my own business? Should I just dive in? Then also about what their sales strategy was, what their business goals are, what the hardest parts were, what the most rewarding parts were. I tracked down every welding instructor that I’ve had to get their advice. I got introductions to metalworkers in LA and visited a number of shops down there. I read books on how to start your own business.

There was an epiphany moment of like, I don’t think I want to be doing marketing at a tech company for the rest of my life, but then the transition spread over at least a year.

Joseph: During that year, you mentioned flow state before and that you were feeling out of flow when you’re doing your previous work. What was that year like for you to continue to be working in a job where you felt like you were out of flow?

Zai: It’s really hard. Whenever you have one foot out the door but you’re not through the doorway yet, it’s hard because you’re focused on the next thing, you’re excited about the next thing, but you still have responsibilities to your current situation. I think that’s whenever you leave a job.

The way that I looked at it was like, ‘I’m at this company. I’m committed to seeing this through.’ I wasn’t leaving because I was unhappy. I was leaving to pursue my passion. It was something that a lot of people, I think, were excited for me, and so I think it made the transition a little bit easier because I could just be really honest with people. I can say, ‘I love this job, and I love what I’m doing here, but I think I could be really fulfilled if I could do this other thing that’s totally unrelated.’

Joseph: Obviously, you had this passion for welding and metalworking, and yet you were continuing to explore and think about whether or not this was going to be the right thing for you to pursue. Was there something in particular that held you back from making the leap sooner? The reason why I ask is because I talk to a lot of people who have this sort of dormant interest or this passion that they’ve been wanting to pursue, but they can’t quite bring themselves to do it. I’m just curious what held you back from making the leap sooner?

Zai: I think a couple of things. One was that I don’t think I would’ve known that I wanted to do this without having worked at Box. There are couple of parts that my experience at Box helped to directly lead me to this. One of them was the interest in marketing and sales. I had only worked at non-profits before this, and so I’d actually never worked at a for-profit until Box. I don’t think I would’ve thought that I had it in me to be an entrepreneur or a small business owner without having grown up in that kind of business setting.

The other experience at Box that I had that helped motivate me to do this was that I ran our company’s cycling team. I started our cycling team to participate in AIDS/Lifecycle, which is a seven-day fundraiser bike ride from San Francisco to LA. It happens every June. It’s 545 miles. We raise money for the San Francisco AIDS foundation in the LA LGBT Center.

The part that was a really important feedback for me was that the fervor with which I dealt with even the most tedious logistical details in running this team made me realize that I am so happy and work so much harder when it’s my own vision. I was coordinating corporate sponsorships. I was hosting events. We’re doing fundraisers. I was organizing training rides, overnight weekend trips, and dealing with all the minutia of getting 26 people prepared to bike and camp for seven days in a row.

Once we’re back, I was like, ‘Wow, I am working really hard, and I wish that I have felt this sense of fervor for what I’m actually getting paid to do.’ That’s when I was like, ‘Maybe I should work for myself.’

Joseph: I know you mentioned you went to Yale for college, and then I know that you went to the Yale School of Public Health for grad school. How did people react to your decision to pursue what you’re doing right now? I guess what’s behind my question is I also went to a school. I went to Northwestern, and there’s a certain amount of expectation about what your career should look like after you finish those types of pre-professional programs. I’m just wondering if you ran into any sort of skeptics or critics along the way.

Zai: Absolutely, at every turn, people are like, ‘You’re going to quit your job to do what? What’s your plan?’ I explained that I tracked down mentors and did inferential interviews and read books on starting a business, that I was really doing my homework and putting together a plan. There’s one more thing that helped with the skeptics. I showed them pictures of things that I’d made, and that often helped change people’s mind faster than anything else because they would say, ‘Oh, wow! That’s actually really good. I would totally buy that.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, good. I’m putting you on my future newsletter list.’

Joseph: Do you feel like people were questioning the type of work that you wanted to go into or were they questioning how good you’re going to be at it? What do you think was behind why people were skeptical?

Zai: It was a total mix. I think they’re skeptical that I could turn this into a sustainable business. They were skeptical that I was going to a career that was very non-traditional. I recently went to my five-year Yale reunion, and I was sort of nervous going into it. I was like, oh my god, I have this Master’s degree that I’m not using at all, and nothing that I’m doing is related to what I was doing in college. Meanwhile, most of my friends, many of them are already practicing lawyers. Many of them are medical residents already. They’re already doctors.

I’ve learned that some people are also skeptical because they wish that they were doing something that they cared about as much as I care about what I am doing. I think many of them express skepticism because they’re like, ‘I have a dream and a passion, but I’m not doing it. What’s stopping me from doing it?’ or, ‘Could I do this?’ I think it makes people think about how much they care about what they’re doing and whether it’s really in line with their values.

I totally recognize that a very small percentage of the population has the financial freedom to be able to take this kind of risk. This isn’t for everyone, and I definitely don’t think that everyone has the ability to just drop everything and start a business based on something that they love. That’s not an option for many people.

Joseph: The idea of going through a reunion is really interesting—I’m actually going, coming up myself—because you’re going to go and see these people who you went to school with and then you’re reconnecting with. I would imagine everybody wants to come across at least seeming like they’re happy with their lives. Was there anything in particular that you observed about the people there in terms of the types of professions they were pursuing and their level of happiness with their work?

Zai: I went into it thinking that I was going to have to prove myself and show off that this is a successful business and prove that my non-traditional path is worthwhile or respectable, but when I got there, it was much more relaxed and genuine, and I felt like people were really authentic about what they liked about their job, what they didn’t like about their job. I definitely connected strongly with the people who had also taken a non-traditional career path. We’re like, ‘Oh my god, you’re also doing something totally crazy that you don’t know anyone else is doing this kind of thing? Cool, let’s talk about it.’ It was fun and people responded much better than I expected to what I’m doing.

Joseph: What do you think has been the toughest part of making this career transition?

Zai: The hardest part has been the emotional rollercoaster. I know that anyone changing careers goes through an emotional rollercoaster, and definitely, anyone who’s trying to start their own business has felt that. Also, I think most creative people feel the emotional rollercoaster as well.

Joseph: Why do you think that is in the creative industry in particular?

Zai: Because there’s some degree of your work that’s your heart and your soul and your vision, and other people may not always like it, and I think there are some element that you feel like your heart’s on the line a little bit. I think the highs are obviously exhilarating, like selling a piece to someone who loves your work and getting money for it. That’s an amazing feeling, but the lows are also pretty low as well. I’ve had some weeks or months that were really hard where I felt a crushing amount of self-doubt or even paralysis.

Looking back now, I can see that those phases were all precipitated by specific events. An especially tricky client project that was really far outside my comfort zone, technically changing metal shops a couple of times. It’s hard getting used to a new environment and a new community. I can see now that they were just growing pains, but at the time, each one felt like a crisis that made me question my decision to do this, like, ‘Can I really do this? Did I make the right choice? I’m never going to make it. I’m never going to make money. This isn’t going to work.’ I took them very personally. Now looking back, I can see that obviously, these were growing pains, and I’m stronger for having gone through them.

The highs and lows of working for yourself, it’s pretty hard because you’re making the decisions. Everything’s up to you. Whether this business succeeds or fails, you’re running the show, so it’s very personal.

Joseph: I think you’re absolutely right, Zai, about when you’re working for yourself, you are definitely putting yourself out there. When people don’t either want your services or they don’t want your products, it’s hard not to take it personally. In those moments where you’re going through those lows, how did you get through that?

Zai: I’m an extrovert, and I’m also an open book, so my strategy in any difficult situation is to connect with people around me, let them know what’s going on, and get their advice. The more I share about what I’m struggling with, the more support I’ve gotten from people around me.

A good example is, last summer, I had an especially tricky client job. It was really outside of my comfort zone. It was technically challenging. The client had high expectations. We also didn’t have a contract in place. I’d never had a contract with anyone before. I talked to a handful of friends who are also freelancers, and every single one of them has faced a client like this, and they all gave me great, practical tips for getting through, what I should do next time. Many of them sent me their sample contracts to show how to set expectations. It was such a lifesaver, and I am so much more prepared for that kind of situation now. I really couldn’t have gotten through it without the support of other creative freelancers.

I think I’ve made a pretty big effort to specifically seek out friendships with other makers and creative freelancers and entrepreneurs. They’ve become a major, major source of support for me.

I have a weekly call with a friend of mine who runs his own wood and metal furniture company. We literally talk through our week’s to-do list. We proofread each other’s newsletters. We problem solve fabrication challenges. We hold each other accountable for setting and reaching our goals. We’re both extroverts who are running our own companies ourselves, and so these weekly meetings have been critical in both of us feeling reenergized, refocused, and not so alone.

Joseph: So you go into starting your metalworking shop, what has been the most surprising part of transitioning into this line of work for you?

Zai: The most surprising part is that I think about my work all the time now, and I love it. At my last job, I used to clock out at the end of the day and try not to think about work as much as I could until I had to. It’s such a joy to care so much about what I’m doing that I’m constantly thinking of either new pieces or new strategies or wanting to learn new skills or getting advice from people. I love the fact that I wake up thinking about this. I think about it on the weekends. I work on the weekends. It feels like such a gift to be able to think about what I love most at all moments of the day.

Joseph: I think that’s amazing because I think it’s really nice once work doesn’t feel like work, and that separation between going to work and having to deal with it just goes away, and it just becomes part of your life, which is a great place to be.

Zai: I want to be clear though that that does not mean that it’s easy or that it’s fun all the time. I want to dispel the myth that being a maker, running your own business is like roses and sunshine all the time because there are many parts of it that are not fun, but the parts that are fun are so worth it and it’s so rewarding that it gives me the fuel to get through the parts that are tricky.

Joseph: In those moments when it is fun, I’d love to just go back to that concept you talked about of being in flow. We’ve talked about being out of flow. Sometimes, people ask me, ‘How can I tell if the thing that I’m doing now is or is not right for me?’ I’m wondering if maybe being able to understand when you are in flow could help people understand when they are doing the right thing. Can you take us through what it’s like for you now to be in flow each day? Can you describe that experience?

Zai: My week is typically broken up into business and computer tasks and then metal shop tasks. My days are kind of every day different. If it’s a computer day, I’m doing design, website updates, product photography, sketching, computer design, things like that. Then I have days where I’m in the metal shop wearing workshop clothes. I’m cutting, grinding, welding, sanding, that kinds of thing. I find that I’m most in flow either when I’m sketching designs or when I’m actually welding or doing metalworking.

The feeling of flow, there’s something really meditative about it. I notice that I’m in flow when I realize like it’s 3:00 or 4:00 p.m., and I forgot to eat lunch. If I’m not in flow, I get hungry very, very, very regularly, like, ‘Okay, it’s lunch time. Got to go eat.’ When I’m in flow, my body is like, ‘What? Oh, we forgot about that. That’s not important.’

Joseph: ‘Forgot to go to the bathroom. Doesn’t matter.’

Zai: When I step out of it and I look back at what I’ve accomplished, I look back at either all the pieces that I’ve cut and sanded and welded, or I look back at the finished piece and I step back, I think like, ‘Wow, this is cool. This is what I envisioned. A few weeks ago, this was a design in my notebook or at a computer, and now, I’m physically holding it.’ I love that moment. It’s very magical. The flow feels like a time warp, like when I’m working and time passes. I just get lost in it. It’s such a good feeling.

Joseph: One of the things that struck me before this call was watching one of your time lapse videos. One of the things that really stood out to me was how singularly focused you were on the object in front of you. I think it just seemed like your eyes didn’t go anywhere else other than on the thing you were working on. It was just a really interesting thing to watch.

When you look back on your career change, what’s something that you wish you had known that you now know?

Zai: Part of me wishes that I could go back and reassure myself that this business is totally going to work, people are going to love your work, you’re going to find customers, they’re going to pay you money, you’re going to wake up every day loving what you do and caring what you do, but I think if I’ve gone back and actually told myself that, I would’ve gotten complacent, and I don’t think I would’ve worked as hard.

The fear of the unknown and the anxiety that I had about whether or not this could work and how it would all work and how the pieces would fit together, that motivated me to learn everything I could, to be really, really prepared, to do my research, to do my homework, to get all my ducks in a row. I think it pushed me much harder, so if I could have the chance, I’m not sure actually if I would go back and reassure myself that this could work and that it could be a fulfilling form of work for me.

Joseph: I also was just curious, what’s the best career advice that you’ve received?

Zai: Do your homework. Talk to as many people as you can who have made this kind of a jump, and ask them the hard questions, ask them what the least favorite part of their day is, ask them what the biggest hurdles have been. Make sure that you go into it with your eyes open, knowing both what the potential is for the benefits and the amazing thrill that you can get from this switch but also the part that’s just really hard work so that you know what you’re getting yourself into.

Joseph: Has there been any particular way that you’ve gone about your days that has worked especially well for you? Has there been anything in particular that you’ve done that you feel has been one of the secrets to you succeeding in this line of work?

Zai: Whenever I come up against something where I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I have no idea how to do this,’ I think when I first started this business, my attitude was like, ‘Oh no, maybe I’ll never figure I out,’ or like, ‘This thing’s really hard and complicated.’ Now, my attitude is, ‘There are thousands of other small business owners. They’ve figured it out before me. I’m sure I can figure it out too.’ I think that confidence has given me a scrappiness that helps me get through a lot of the challenges now.

Joseph: I’ve got to wrap up here by talking a little bit about welding. The reason why is because I just know absolutely nothing about it. I very rarely come across people who are in this line of work, so I’m wondering if you could just tell us a little bit about the process of welding. How do you go from an idea to a finished product?

Zai: I design the piece using CAD software. I make a 3D model of it. I unfold it to get what each of the facets is going to look like. Then I have those parts laser cut so that the parts are really, really precise. I set up the welder. I prefer a method called flash tacking where you just hold the piece and then do a quick spot of heat to fuse the two parts together at one spot. Then I go back and weld all of the corners to seal all the corners up. Then I really get in the zone and just run long welds along each of those edges. The puddle of molten metal is very small. It’s a very precise movement, sitting very still, guiding that little puddle across that seam.

Joseph: Wow, very interesting.

Zai: It’s cool. It’s pretty magical.

Joseph: Do you have a favorite thing to weld?

Zai: I love welding 16-gauge stainless steel. It’s thin-sheet steel. If you’re doing it right, it makes this nice, little rainbow color. It’s very quiet. It’s very smooth, very clean. That’s my favorite material to weld.

Joseph: I watched a video of you doing some of this welding on your website, and I know part of it involves putting on a lot of protective gear, so it’s not for the faint of heart, I think, doing this kind of work. Very interesting. If people want to find out more about you or the work that you do, where can they go?

Zai: They can go to my website. It’s ElektraSteel.com. If you’re interested in seeing behind the scenes photos from the metal shop and from my process, from sketching all the way through to fabrication, Instagram is a great way to stay in touch with me. I’m just @ElektraSteel on Instagram.

Joseph: I can definitely highly recommend that people check out some of your time lapse videos online. They’re mesmerizing to watch. Thank you so much, Zai, for sharing your story with us, talking about flow, how you made this business become a reality and also the importance of doing homework and also teaching us a little bit about welding. Thank you so much for your time.

Zai: Thank you so much for having me, Joseph. This was really fun.

What does having “wealth” mean to you? Do you think of material possessions and money? Or do you think about less tangible things you value? In this episode of Career Relaunch, Byron Trzeciak, a former Security Analyst turned Online Marketing Agency Founder shares his thoughts on why money isn’t everything, the importance of being able to control your time, and the toll your job can take on you when you’re doing unfulfilling work. I also share some thoughts on what it means to be truly “wealthy.”

During this episode’s Mental Fuel segment, I talked about the importance of defining what wealth means to you. For some help in doing this, you can download my “Redefining Wealth” Worksheet.

Log in if you wish to renew an existing subscription.

To learn more about online marketing and SEO, be sure to check out his PixelRush blog. I read this article they wrote about WordPress vs. Squarespace. I can definitely attest to their arguments for going with WordPress (what I use!), and I think you’ll find many of their articles useful. You can also listen to Byron’s podcast on

If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners!

Teaser (first ~15s): By reaching that salary, you can buy something else that may make you happy, but in reality, that’s often not the case. It needs to be something more than money as a motivator, I believe, if you’re going to feel genuinely happy about what you do.

Joseph: Hello, Byron. Thanks so much for being on Career Relaunch. I’m really excited to say that you’re our very first guest from Australia.

Byron: Beautiful. Thanks for having me, Joseph. It’s great. We can make the connection from so far away.

Joseph: Technology is amazing these days. Definitely. Welcome to the show, and thanks for taking time to speak with me. I know it’s getting late in the evening over there for you. I was wondering if you could just start us off by telling us a little bit more about what you’re focused on in your life and career.

Byron: Right now, I’m focused on my own business, which is called PixelRush. We’re a conversion-focused, digital-marketing agency, and our main aim is to help businesses build profitable online businesses or online marketing strategies. We’re really focused on getting a good, quality return for the businesses that we work with.

Joseph: I definitely want to hear more about PixelRush, and I know that you do a lot of work in the space of SEO and conversion. Maybe we can come back to that topic, but what I would really love to talk with you about is your career and your life and how you came to found PixelRush. I was wondering if you could just take us back in time a little bit.

I first discovered you from the medium article that you wrote in June of 2016, which I thought had a great title, which was ‘The Day I Earned a Six-Figure Salary was the Day I Quit My Job.’ It definitely jumped out at me, and I’d highly recommend this article to listeners out there. We’ll include a link in the show notes. You started off that article, Byron, which kind of made me chuckle, you said, ‘Two years ago on January 6, 2014, I quit my job.’ What was going on for you at the end of 2013?

Byron: Back at this particular time, Joseph, I was working for a very large bank. I’ve been employed to work in a brand new team, which was basically a global security operation center which we were there to identify and manage security incidents. Anyone that’s out there in security will know something about it and knows what businesses we’re up against now with hackers and that sort of thing. It’s a very challenging role, and it caused me a number of issues back then.

Joseph: What were some of the issues that you were wrestling with as a security analyst?

Byron: We were forced to become more of an audit checkbox machine, the tick-box mentality where we were doing things because it satisfied audit requirements rather than actually give us the chance to identify the types of attacks and respond to them in a way that we would like to. You had a very capable team. I worked with some incredibly smart individuals within that team, but it just wasn’t something that we were able to transition into effective processes for the business. It was a struggle to have that innovation and do things at a high level. That opportunity to succeed and to put your best forward was a real struggle.

Joseph: What was ultimately the biggest issue that made you start to think that it was time to move on?

Byron: I started off very passionately. I’ve always been very passionate about IT security. At the time, I was doing a lot of self-education and really trying to up-skill so that I could move into high roles in the future and progress my career, and you basically continue to come back and see the lack of progress. For example, we used to have a meeting every Monday, and it was just a shift changeover which was between 3:00 and 3:30. We’d basically come back and discuss the same issues that we discussed the week before, and there was never any progress.

I’d term it a little bit like ‘Groundhog Day’ if you’ve ever seen that movie with Bill Murray. It was like you were coming back and nothing had changed. The weeks went on, and all of a sudden, you’re getting older and you’re seeing the days pass by, and you’re kind of wondering, ‘Why am I turning up here when I’m not really making an impact?’

Joseph: How long did you feel like this before you decided you wanted to make a change?

Byron: I would say probably the 12 months before actually quitting is where I really started to struggle and really started to question whether this was where I wanted to go with my life or whether there was something else out there, smarter ways or more enjoyable ways to play out the rest of my career, I suppose.

Joseph: One of the things you mentioned in your article, Byron, was that your job was taking its toll on you. I was just curious if you could explain to us what kind of a toll was it taking on you in your life and your career.

Byron: It’s probably not something that I fully realized until after I’d left. I think even within the article, I talk about a feeling of depression but yet not really wanting to admit that to myself at the time, thinking that I’m probably a stronger person than what I thought I was. All of a sudden, you just feel negative and dark throughout the day and that whole feeling comes through the door with you when you get home and you see your wife and so forth. Rather than saying, ‘How are you?’ or sitting down for a cup of coffee with each other, you tend to be discussing some of your frustrations from work. All of that bubbles up into your home life as well, and it took me a while before I got pointed back in the right direction.

Joseph: One of the things that you talked about in your article was that, when you earned your six-figure salary, which I know is this sort of alluring goal for many of us, and I’ve definitely been there when I was in the corporate world. I actually remember the moment that happened to me. It kind of feels good, but at the same time, you realize it doesn’t really drive happiness. What did you mean in the article when you were talking about the idea of money not being everything and how earning the six-figure salary was the trigger to you deciding to leave your job?

Byron: It’s something that I had from quite a young age. I think it gets instilled from your parents as well who typically come from more asset-focused mindset and earn a big salary, buy a house, get a car, get married, have kids, that kind of traditional conforming mentality. I think it came from that, and I continued to strive for it. I think you’d go through this cycle where you would start a new job, and it would be great because it was new and fresh and something different for you.

I find with any new job, there’s always a degree of learning involved, and when you’re learning, I think that’s when the mind is most interested in what it’s doing. Then you get to that point where you typically want to innovate and improve upon the things that you’ve been given, and I think that’s probably where a lot of businesses struggle: allowing people to innovate and to improve on things within the business.

When that didn’t happen, it came back to me saying, ‘Maybe if I got more money or I got a bigger salary, that would fix these feelings and these frustrations that I was having,’ so you continue to change jobs and then push for a higher salary. By reaching that salary, you can buy something else that may make you happy, but in reality, that’s often not the case, and it needs to be something more than money as a motivator, I believe, if you’re going to feel genuinely happy about what you do.

Joseph: It was interesting, because in your article, you also talked about that you reached this goal or at least the financial monetary goal, but you weren’t happy when you got there. Can you just explain what that was like for you?

Byron: It was a strange feeling. I mean I sort of explained to my wife how, on the weekends, you’d get to the weekend, and maybe you had a significant amount. We had a good salary. She had a good salary as well. The week was such a struggle though. You were struggling every day of the week. You’d get to Monday, and you’d have those Monday blues. A lot of people have that. They get up Mondays, and they hate that day. They hate the morning. They hate the feeling of it, but you get to Friday, and it’s this feeling of elation, and music sounds better and everything sounds great on a Friday afternoon.

Then you’d get to the weekends, and you take your pay packet, and you probably go and buy something new and say, ‘Here’s a reward for you getting through the week.’ Basically, you’d find that you were kind of in this rut. The more you earn, the more you spent, and you tried to find something as a treat for getting through another week of your life and your career. You sort of realize after a while that this money that I’m earning isn’t making me feel great. I’m still waking up with those Monday blues regardless how much I earn.

I think after a while, we kind of all accept that Monday should be the worst day of the week, but when you talk to people that are successful and they love what they do and they’re very passionate about what they do, a lot of the time Saturday and Sunday or Friday evening is the worst day of the week, and Monday is actually their best day because they get to go back and do what it is they love and they enjoy, and it doesn’t feel like work to them anymore.

I think that’s really important. When you’re looking at money for happiness, just realize, how do you feel when you get up each day, and come Monday, are you excited for your week or are you looking for that weekend treat to congratulate yourself for getting through another week of your career? Think that’s an important mindset to think about.

Joseph: That’s very interesting. I hadn’t thought about it like that. It’s almost like you’re dangling your own carrots in front of you just to keep yourself going.

Byron: That’s it, yeah.

Joseph: Interesting behavior if you think about it. It’s like you’re conditioning yourself to be okay with your situation.

Byron: I don’t know how I thought about that one day, but I’m just like, ‘Is this what I’m doing?’ and, ‘Is this what I’m trying to do to keep myself happy with where I’m going in life?’

Joseph: One other thing you mentioned, Byron, which I thought was interesting was you talked about legacy in your article. First of all, what the legacy of your life was going to be, and then what it would be like if you lived an ‘unfulfilled’ life. What was making you start to wrestle with that particular question?

Byron: At the time, I remember saying to a lot of my colleagues that I was working with and saying, ‘Say you got terminally ill and the doctor said to you, “You’re going to have X amount of time to live,” would you still continue to turn up to this job?’ The majority of responses I got were, ‘There’s no way I’d come in,’ ‘I’d probably travel the world,’ or, ‘I would go and do that one thing that I love so much in life but never have the opportunity to go and do it.’

I think death, as morbid as it sounds, has a way of putting things into perspective and has a way of encouraging you to take action. Life has a start and a finish, and when you’re 90 years old and you’re looking back on your life, you want to make sure that you’re not saying, ‘I wish I’d done that,’ or, ‘I wish I’d done this,’ or, ‘I wish I’d spent more time with family,’ or these sort of things. I think it’s important to think about what those later years of life are going to be like and be happy that you pointed yourself in the direction that you felt was going to give you the best experiences and the most rewarding life, because we do only get one shot at it, and we’ve got to get it right I think.

Joseph: Another thing you just mentioned was family. I know you wrote about how you realized that you were spending more time with your colleagues than your family, and I’ve definitely been there too. It’s kind of this weird, confusing feeling. What was the moment when you realized that?

Byron: Previous roles, it’s something that I’d always thought about going, ‘Why am I spending so much time here with my colleagues when my wife’s at home or other family members that I prefer to spend more time with?’ It ended up that they got the less-quality time at the end of the day when you are tired and exhausted from such a long day. It’s a challenge these days to fit in family and especially with shift work.

I was working, sometimes, on late shift for six to eight weeks in a row. That meant you basically got the transition periods of the day. For example, if it was in the morning, I’m probably asleep still from the late shift the night before, and my wife would get up and she’d get ready for work, and just before she went out the door, she’d come in and give you a kiss on the forehead and say, ‘Hope you have a great day,’ and, ‘I’ll see you later on.’ By the time that I got up and I got to work by around 3:30 in the afternoon and then get home at midnight or later when she was already asleep, I’d come in the door, give her a kiss in the forehead and say, ‘I’m home safely. Hope you had a great day.’ That was kind of how it went for the quite a few weeks in a row and consistently with these late shifts overtime.

After a while, especially when you’re not enjoying your job—and my wife’s such a big part of my life—when you limit that time with family and the people that you really want to spend time with, it just tends to send you into a darker place as well. It’s something that I felt that I should be able to have a career where I can balance both career and family, travel, and all those sorts of things, and join them in one. It shouldn’t be something that’s separate. It shouldn’t be something that if you want a career, then you have to forsake the family. You should be able to have them all.

Joseph: It’s interesting. It reminds me of this topic of wealth and how, in the traditional form, wealth is all about financial or monetary or physical assets, but I think what you’re getting at is how there are other measures of wealth, like control of your time or time with people you love. How did you begin to think about the value of your time?

Byron: At that particular time, those past prior 12 months before I quit my job, I started doing a lot of reading. The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss was one of the books that I read, and Tim has a lot of interesting opinions on smarter ways to make money. While I was working this job, I realized that I could actually complete the work that I needed to complete in a much shorter period than 40 hours per week. The problem was that my managers and the company had the expectation that you must be here for these 40 to 50 hours per week if you’re going to do the role to an acceptable standard. This 40-hour workweek is a very outdated mindset I think. There’s an expectation regardless of workload or work rate that you must be in the office, and they’re between the hours of 9:00 until 5:00 for example. There should be more flexible ways of working.

Joseph: Some of these constructs are completely arbitrary. You mentioned the six-figure salary, which there’s a sort of milestone or a construct that we’ve created as a society. Then there’s also this 40-hour workweek, which if you think about it, who came up with 8 hours or who came up with the 40 hours? It’s just always been there, and it’s somewhat arbitrary.

What has been one of the more surprising parts of your life now that you have switched out of the world of being a security analyst, and now, you’re running your own agency? What’s that been like for you?

Byron: The flexibility is something that’s definitely changed in life. If, for example, I need to rearrange something in my life, if I need to do something, you have flexibility and a choice about what you do every day. It’s not so structured. If you want to go for a coffee at 11:00 a.m., then that’s something you can do. If you want to work between the hours of midday and midnight, then that’s something you can do. If you want to work from overseas or work in a different location throughout the day, then that’s something that you can do as well. There’s a lot more flexibility in the way that you go about your day to day.

Joseph: It sounds like you’ve got that flexibility in your life now that you didn’t have before. One of the things that on my mind is we started this conversation talking about money. Is there any aspect of that that you miss from the corporate world, the money or the six-figure salary? Do you feel that right now at all?

Byron: Since quitting, there’s been times where I know I’ve definitely struggled with the lack of stability in that regular income that comes in. Some days, I might make more in a day than I would make in two months of my old job, so there’s moments where you have really good days, and it really outweighs. Then there’s other months where you might make half as much as what you made in a month. There’s always those stability issues when it comes to business and nothing static as you would’ve known in working for somebody else.

Joseph: What’s been the hardest part of making this career change for you?

Byron: When it comes to running your own business, you always have to be great at everything or be able to employ people to do so. I think the biggest thing has been overcoming individual hurdles, like fear hurdles. For example, podcasts like this, you got to get over the fears of, ‘How will my voice sound?’ and, ‘Is what I’m saying something that is going to resonate with people?’ Then the everyday marketing of your business, making decisions, you typically learn how to fail and accept that as great way of learning moving forward.

I don’t come from entrepreneur-style parents or anything. They’ve all got very successful careers but no real business mentors and things like that. A lot of it has been self-taught and trying to learn things as I go. Not every day is a diamond I guess.

Joseph: Before we wrap up with talking, I do want to talk about PixelRush. What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?

Byron: What does Monday feel like for you? If Monday is a very negative day, then I think that’s a good time to reassess. See if you are still passionate about your career. If you are, maybe it’s the job, maybe it’s who you’re working for, and maybe you need to do your own thing. If you’re not passionate about it, then try to find what it is. I think that is a challenge for a lot of people: to find what it is that really gets them going and what gets them excited and then trying to find out how they can make a career from that and earn some money from what it is that they love the most.

Joseph: It’s always really useful though to take a step back and think about what you’re really passionate about. At the same time, it’s got to be one of the hardest things to figure out out there. It’s got to be up there with your life purpose and things like that. It’s definitely a worthwhile topic to think about.

I want to wrap up today by talking about PixelRush, which I know is a conversion-focused, digital-marketing agency there in Australia. Can you tell us a little bit more about your current projects and what you’re focused on there?

Byron: We basically offer web design, search engine optimization, paid traffic solutions like AdWords, and combining all of those strategies to build a profitable online business presence for the businesses that we work with. We’re very much focused on driving sales and improving the revenue for the businesses that we work with.

Joseph: Do you have a simple tip that you could share about ways that people can drive up their conversion?

Byron: The main one is learn what problem it is that you’re trying to solve for your customers. If you can really nail what their problem is and how your service or product basically solves that problem for them, then I think you’re halfway there.

Joseph: Very helpful advice. I know that it’s one of the things I struggle with myself because I have this tendency, especially on websites, to get caught up with talking about everything that I’m offering, and it’s kind of about me, and I sometimes forget to make sure I word things in the context of the actual customer and what’s in it for them and what’s the benefit to them, what’s the problem I’m solving for them.

Byron: There was a good article about that from Pat Flynn, The Smart Passive Income. I’m not sure whether you’ve heard of Pat before. That was big on saying your ‘about page’ is not about you. It’s about what you can do for your audience. That’s quite interesting because I think your ‘about page’ is one of those pages where a lot of people probably get carried away with listing out their resume and their achievements and so forth, but what most people are looking for is how you can help them. Your ‘about page’ is a very important page to your website and one of the most frequently visited ones. It’s certainly one that you can look at tweaking and trying to get right for yourself.

Joseph: Very helpful. If people want to learn a little bit more about you, Byron, or if they want to learn more about SEO or conversion or if they’re looking for a good digital marketing agency, where can they go to learn a little bit more about PixelRush and the work that you do?

Byron: We’ve got our website, which is PixelRush.com.au. That’s the best place. Jump across to blog, and you’ll find a lot of great information there. We also have a few podcast episodes that provide a wealth of information as well, and I’m always available via email. I know you’ve added me on Twitter and LinkedIn, Joseph. I really enjoy that whole process of seeing how I can help. Don’t ever ask me how you can market your online business because I’ll probably talk to you for the next hour or so.

Joseph: That’ll be a separate podcast. I know I’ve always got questions about that. We’ll definitely include links to all those resources that you just mentioned in our show notes, Byron. I just wanted to thank you again for taking the time to share your thoughts about your own career-change journey and reminding us how important it is to figure out what’s important to you and the value of time. I believe that a lot of people are going to find this to be really useful, so thanks so much for your time.

Byron: Beautiful. Thank you very much for having me on the show, Joseph. I really appreciate you reaching out. I really respect what you’re doing, and I really hope that a lot of people are inspired by relaunching their career and really attacking their life like they’ve only got one chance at it and making it the absolutely best life that they can make it, because it’s all up to the individual.

Joseph: Absolutely. You only got one life to live, so you definitely should make the most of it.

Byron: That’s it. Make the most of it.

How do you manage the ups & downs of starting your own business? In this episode of Career Relaunch, Noz Nozawa, a former Tech Marketer turned Interior Designer shares her thoughts on the emotional impact of running your own business, how your perceptions of self worth can get intertwined with your work, and the importance of support networks. I also share some thoughts on where you can create some support structures in your own career.

During this episode’s Mental Fuel segment, I talked about the importance of building a support network. For some help in doing this, you can download my “NETWORK BUILDER” Worksheet.

Log in if you wish to renew an existing subscription.

Photo credit: Colin Price Photography

Ever since she was a little girl, Noz Nozawa wanted to be an interior designer. Or an architect. Whatever job would let her work on houses all day. But her father encouraged her to focus on business instead. So she graduated from college, landed a great job at Clorox, and hopped over to the tech industry in 2011. But in 2014, she couldn’t ignore her “calling” anymore – so she “retired” from her successful marketing career to follow her passion for interior design. Despite not having formal training, she launched her own business right out the gate. Two very challenging, roller coaster sink-or-swim self-employed years later, her little business is growing and thriving, and she’s never looked back. She now runs Noz Design, a full-service residential interior design firm based in San Francisco, serving clients from coast to coast. With a focus on eclectically modern spaces, Noz Design creates well-appointed homes that not only reflect their dwellers’ lifestyles and tastes, but also maximize a space’s functionality and a project’s budget. Follow Noz on Instagram and Twitter.

If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners!

Teaser (first ~15s): I didn’t realize how much a part of my self-confidence being self-sufficient financially was for me. For the first time in my entire adult life, I relied on another person to pay for my life.

Joseph: Hello, Noz. Good to talk with you again, and thanks so much for joining us today.

Noz: Thanks so much for having me on. I’m super excited for all of your questions.

Joseph: Can you first start off by telling us what you’re focused on right now in your career and your life?

Noz: Absolutely. Right now, I am focused on growing my little business. This summer, I’ll be taking classes and getting really good at AutoCAD. I’m also, this summer, going to be looking for an intern. That’ll be my first person that works with me. I’m also potentially considering another side project where I would be restoring junked up ratty, old chairs and giving them new life in really bold and surprising fabrics to represent how you really don’t have to be beholden to any particular type of style.

Joseph: Very cool. It sounds like your business is going well, and you’re doing a little bit of hiring, and you’ve even got some side projects going. It sounds like you’ve got a lot going on. I was wondering if you could take us back to the time before you launched Noz Design. What were you up to and what were you working on?

Noz: Before the interior design business came about, I actually was in a completely different space of internet tech marketing. I went to school for business, focused in marketing—that was undergrad—and came out of that in a marketing career. I went from consumer packaged goods to the tech industry.

I made the transition several years ago and thought that was it. I felt like the culture was faster-paced. People were more willing to take risks and make mistakes, but it was probably just over two years ago that I started to get really itchy and realize that I wasn’t still fulfilled. There was just so much more that I wanted to do, and I kept rationalizing why I didn’t need to be in interior design in order to love it and have a passion. My career pays for my passion. This way, I can afford to shop for new décor and renovate and whatever.

The first moment when I realized that this full-time career on marketing is not where it’s at was when I got caught at work doing an interior design concept for a friend of mine instead of the thing I was supposed to be doing. It just all became exceedingly clear from there that I needed to do something more than I was doing.

Joseph: One of the things that struck me, Noz, when we were speaking a few months ago, was that you actually knew from the point you were really young that you wanted to go into interior design. Is that right?

Noz: Yeah, I was obsessed. There were so many times when I was younger and so much less afraid of needing to make money or needing to be realistic or whatever else it is, before all of that came in to cloud my vision, I knew. When I was five years old, I would play with Legos, and the only thing that I would ever make was houses. I only made houses, and I put little wall partitions in. I became very adamant about the proper way to construct Lego walls so that they wouldn’t fall down. I would get really upset that there weren’t thinner pieces so that I could make more realistic chairs and toilets. It was out of control.

My dad was a general contractor and a real estate broker, so he kind of owned a full vertical of property development in Los Angeles. Even he saw it, but he was actually the person to discourage it

Joseph: Why did he discourage it?

Noz: My dad was born super poor to Japanese immigrants in 1922, and they went through the Great Depression, and they went through World War II, and the family was interned, where we lost everything. They had to build the businesses back up after that. With all the struggle that my dad and his family went through when he was a kid, I think the last thing he wanted was for me to sign up for a life of struggle.

To him, an easy life, a good life, meant having a career where you didn’t work very hard. You didn’t stress too much about anything because you always had a pay check coming. That took shape in the form of a marketing career for me, and that was something that I did to make him proud and feel safe.

Joseph: How much were you thinking about interior design when you’re working in those offices doing marketing?

Noz: All the time.

Joseph: How did you deal with that?

Noz: In my apartments, I would just spend a lot of time thinking about how to decorate, redecorate, paint, repaint, furnish, whatever, any home that I lived in at the time. I spent a lot of time reading magazines and convincing myself that I didn’t have to follow my passion for interior design in order to have it and maintain it and cherish it. I also told myself that I had other passions, which is true.

I do believe, now, you don’t need to have just one life passion. I think people can have multiple passions and honor those all at the same time. It was easy enough to tell myself, ‘Interior design is my passion at home or on the side. That’s what I do on weekends.’ I would peak around inside of open houses on Sundays in really fancy parts of San Francisco. I could do that, but I could also really care about and enjoy and be passionate about my marketing career. That’s what I told myself until I couldn’t anymore.

Joseph: When you couldn’t anymore, can you take us through the decision-making process you went through there, the one where you ultimately decided you couldn’t juggle the two anymore and you had to either leap in or not pursue it at all?

Noz: My brain was in such tumult at that time. For one, I discovered I didn’t really like having a boss, which was funny for me to have discovered. I’m pretty insubordinate and very overly independent and still not able to put the pieces together for so long. ‘What I need to do is go into the interior design career. I need to go back to school,’ is one of the paths that I had gone down at some point, or, ‘I need to figure out how I can start entry-level at a firm that will hire me for my raw talent and passion, and then eventually, I can make that into an interior design.’ I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me for so long, ‘You don’t do well with bosses. You should maybe start your own business,’ but eventually, I go there. That was one of the things: realizing I’m terrible with orders, I’m terrible with having a boss.

I think the other biggest thing was that I started to realize that I cared more about actually doing something with interior design, I cared more about thinking about it than I cared about the marketing stuff that I was doing. I was most recently, before I set out to do this, working at a tech startup that was actually in interior design, architecture, etc. It was Houzz. Their whole business model is about bringing technology, social media, and online powerhouse tools to the residential building and home improvement industry. On the regular, I was directly adjacent to helping figure out tools or marketing opportunities or educational opportunities for interior designers, architects, general contractors, tile installers, pillow makers. All the people that I would be working with as an interior designer, I already got to work with them.

I got about as close as I think I could have in a marketing career to this industry. When that wasn’t enough, and it increasingly was not enough, that was when I was like, ‘Let me just be honest with myself here. I don’t want to work with interior designers. I want to be an interior designer.’

Joseph: One of the things you mentioned was the formalized training. I hear this question a lot from people who are trying to make a switch into a new career that builds on one of their passions, ‘I’ve got to go back to school for it,’ or, ‘I don’t know if I have enough time or money to do the formalized training.’ You chose not to pursue the formalized training route. How did you think through that, whether or not you needed that in order to make the leap?

Noz: I actually continued to think about it and doubt whether I needed to go back for formal training even after I made the leap. At the time, when I was making the leap, what I had decided was I have met so many interior designers through my job at Houzz, so many of whom never did go to school for it and were able to find workarounds or believed fully that they didn’t need it.

I care about home. I care about my clients living a good life at home and raising families in good homes. Knowing that I didn’t have that much interest in pursuing a lot of commercial work, it became clear, ‘I don’t need a certificate of interior design, I don’t need an education or membership in X, Y, Z interior design societies in order to be able to do the kind of interior design that I wanted.’

But then, even after, I didn’t have a whole lot of business going on certainly after I took the leap, so I had some time, and I very, very seriously considered going to an extension university program to take classes in interior design in order to earn up to what is called a Certificate of Interior Design. Then again, I reached out to someone that I saw on LinkedIn who had taken that program and then owned her own interior design business and asked her what she thought of it, and she did not have the most glowing of reviews.

I’m not one of those people who needs to have some kind of proof of achievement at the end of a journey to feel like I’ve gone on that journey and earned my way through it. I’m totally not against taking classes, but when I decided for me, ‘I don’t need a certificate to feel like I’m an interior designer,’ that was the point at which I was like, ‘I’m totally fine just taking one of the classes in things I’m interested in.’

Joseph: Going back to one of the other things you mentioned, you mentioned your father had some influence on some of your career decisions earlier on. How did you share the news with him or other people in your life about the fact that you’re going to be leaving your traditional job behind to launch your own interior design business?

Noz: My dad specifically actually passed away right before I graduated college, but I already had my job offer with Clorox over on the other side of the bay. It’s what brought me to San Francisco. I took that job. I continued forward with it and stuck with it to honor his memory because it was something that made him really proud. He really wanted me to do it, but he was a business owner his whole life, so if I think about what his reaction would have been—I had a really great career where I ended proving that I could do this, and certainly I could go back to it if I needed to, but—aside from him wanting me to have an easier life, I don’t think he would have ever wanted me to follow a life without passion.

With everybody else, I was super concerned, certainly with my mother and my fiancé’s mother, about what they would think, what are these life decisions her son is about to make with this girl who’s being irresponsible? That’s everything that went through my brain. Ultimately, it was so funny. We broke the news to her in person, and she just smiles and she goes, ‘You know what’s so funny? When I saw that you’re quitting your job, I told Bob, “She can start her own business now.”’ I guess that was her whole instinct about me, and I’d never mentioned it. I’d never ever said anything about wanting to start my own business.

My mom had the exact same reaction. My dad was, at some point, very, very stressed, and she had said to him, ‘You should just go take a job somewhere. Why do you work for yourself? Why do you run this business? It just causes you so much stress all the time.’ He said to her, and then she told me this, ‘I would much rather do this and live with this kind of stress than ever, for another day in my life, have to work for somebody else.’ She basically, in that one sentence and that one story, made clear that she knew that I was always meant to work for myself.

I was really lucky. It wasn’t the way that I thought things would go. I have Asian parents and immigrant parents within one or two generations of me. They went over really well, and all my other friends were just like, ‘Thank god. She’ll stop complaining about work finally.’

Joseph: Was there anything else surprising about this transition for you?

Noz: A lot of things have been really surprising. When you’re operating on inertia and you are operating on the sheer momentum of the leap, to me, I found that it was very invigorating and refreshing and renewing and exciting. I got so much done so quickly after I took the leap – figure out a logo, develop my business card, set the website up, take pictures of my place so that I could have some kind of portfolio, all these stuff. When that momentum wears off, because it inevitably does, that for me was the big surprise. That was the part that was hard.

Joseph: How quickly did that come for you?

Noz: A few months in.

Joseph: What was that like to go through one of those dips?

Noz: That was the darkest time. When I finally quit my job and set off on my own, I was distracted by all the excitement of setting up the business that when things came to a lull, I realized finally how much I needed to recover from mentally and emotionally from the business. That was really dark. I had no idea that I was capable of being super depressed.

Joseph: Was it the trajectory of the business or was it something personally as a business owner that you were struggling with?

Noz: It was definitely a combination. Part of it was how bad being stuck in this other career path had gotten for me. It sounds so privileged, ‘I ended up really depressed from my very lucrative, high-paying tech startup,’ but it’s real. We are human beings. It’s still an unnatural place for a person to be in a car for four hours a day, working at a job with no privacy and not feeling fulfilled by it at all. You can get depressed. Maybe I was more of a weakling than other people who can trudge through it in life for longer, but that was a contributing factor absolutely: having to recover from that and all of the changes that happened all at once. My fiancé moved in, and I suddenly had no income for the first time in my life.

I didn’t realize how much a part of my self-confidence being gainfully employed and self-sufficient financially was for me. I didn’t realize that money was so much a part of who I saw myself as being in terms of feeling powerful or fierce or independent. For the first time in my entire adult life, I relied on another person to pay for my life, and that sucked. It was super lame. I had savings, but those ran out, and I was socially isolated.

That was two parts. One, I went from being in office all the time to being home alone all day, trying to figure out what to do next. I also didn’t have many clients. I had a couple of side projects while I was still employed at Houzz, and then when those projects ended, I felt accomplished. I had pictures taken of them, but I didn’t have anything else to do.

I sort of opted out of a lot of other things. I wasn’t feeling confident as an interior designer. I wasn’t feeling confident as a self-employed person or a business owner because I didn’t feel like I had anything to show for it. I was like, ‘You know what? This was incredibly easy to set up a business. I went to city hall, I paid $30 to register my business with a tax collector of San Francisco, I filed my business name in the newspaper for $60, and I bought a GoDaddy domain name and put a website up. That’s all it takes to be an interior designer officially, and frankly, you don’t even need a website.

I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe how easy this was,’ and that was a great thing. Then while things started to get dark and my confidence start shaking, I realized, ‘Oh god, it’s way too easy. Anyone can do this. It’s not special. Anyone can just set up a business. It doesn’t even matter.’ I’m obviously like, ‘Anyone could be a fraud and do this, which means that anyone else might think I’m a fraud, and what if I am a fraud? I don’t have clients. I don’t have projects I’m working on. Am I a fraud? I must be a fraud.’

I ended up opting out of social situations because I didn’t want people to ask how things were going. I didn’t want to have to answer whether my business was going great or not, and so I just avoided social interaction, and then that ended up being its own self-contributing factor in this depressed, dark state that I was in.

Joseph: How did you ultimately get out of that state?

Noz: A couple of things happened. One was external factors. I got projects, which gave me something to do. It made me feel busy, and then I would regularly get feedback from my clients that I was listening to them and I was delivering on what they hoped I could do. That was really confidence building. It took me out of things.

Quite frankly, I don’t have an easy answer for the rest of it. The rest of it was just kind of putting a name on the fact that I was depressed. When I finally knew what it was, I started reading about it. It was also around the time that people in the media started covering stories of how entrepreneurship and depression are very closely linked and correlated, so it felt really good to know that I wasn’t alone.

Joseph: What do you think makes entrepreneurship lead to this sort of emotional downs that you were feeling?

Noz: Things like social isolation. You’re working all the time. You’re probably working by yourself in a hole. You’re not in an office necessarily unless you have funding. You’re constantly having to pretend in social situations like things are going well, or certainly, you feel the pressure to say that things are going well when, inside, you’re just lying.

The consequence of fronting like you’re doing great, but actually you know behind the scenes it’s not going well, the problem is that you’ve now put a wall up, and you can’t connect with that person deeply anymore. You’re suddenly aware that you’re lying to this person about how well things are going, and so now, everything else is kind of false. It puts you on a different frame of mind versus being vulnerable and being open to real, authentic human connection. You’re kind of just networking and small-talking at that point, which I personally think is very isolating, certainly for introverts in the world – having to front constantly and not really connecting with anyone in a social environment. That’s exhausting.

Really, the ‘fake it till you make it’ thing is so much more true than I ever thought it could be, which is great because it means that everyone is empowered to fake it till they make it, but it’s also kind of depressing because it was like, ‘At what point, if ever, will I actually be able to feel like I’m truly living this life that everyone thinks I’m living?’ Certainly for me with interior design, if this is my life’s work and if I suck at it, then what does that mean about me and my life? Is my life as worthless as this business that I built? Your brain just starts doing crazy things and making very reasonable but outlandish connections, I think, between your self-worth and your life and your life’s work if you choose to follow it full-time.

Joseph: That makes a lot of sense. As a business owner myself, I definitely feel like you’re much more exposed when you’re working on your own. Those shock absorbers that you get working in large companies are just completely gone, so you feel those ups and downs a lot more. When you look back on these ups and downs, was there something that you learned about yourself?

Noz: One thing I discovered is how deeply empathetic I am as a human being, how much I care about other people and how much I care about what everyone’s going through, how important having a safe and happy home is for your mental health. The home is nourishing and restorative. These things ended up becoming a major part of my business values actually as an interior designer, knowing that there are a lot of people out there who feel like they can’t talk about these vulnerable topics like mental health and social anxiety and all the likes.

That was one of the things that I realized about myself. It was like, ‘This is amazing. I’m so much better able to connect really deeply and empathize very thoroughly with people who are going through these dark phases or maybe dark realities of just the way that their brains work.’

The other one, which was more obvious I guess, is the fact that I’m able to come out of it gave me a lot of self-worth and confidence.

Joseph: If there were somebody else out there who is on the cusp of thinking about launching their own business or pursuing their passion full-time and turning it into a business, do you have any advice for that person?

Noz: One, do it. Just do it. Two, talk to a lot of people and people that you might not already know. I realized, through the process of trying to find people to talk to, that I didn’t have anyone to have as a mentor or a person to get advice from. If you spent your entire career working in an office with other people, there’s a very good chance that every other co-worker that you’re surrounded with has only ever worked in an office with other people. It’s not as likely that you know people in your professional network that have done what you might want to do, but there are small business owners and business owners everywhere looking to help out and share their stories because every single person who has set off to do their own thing has gone through it. It’s not easy for anyone.

I think every business owner, even if they’re super, super busy, if you reach out with interest in understanding what it’s been like for them or pitfalls they should watch out for, the worst that happens is you don’t get a response. If you don’t get a response, don’t take it personally. It’s probably just that they’re busy or they literally didn’t see it. I didn’t realize how few people outside of the office tech marketing world use LinkedIn. Nobody uses LinkedIn regularly in this space. If that’s the only way that you reached out to them, there’s a good chance that they might not see it, and it’s nothing personal.

Joseph: That’s great advice, Noz. I can tell you that as an introvert myself, I definitely have a tendency to reflect way too much on my own or try to figure everything out by myself. I definitely feel like following your advice on reaching out and having a couple of conversations can be so much more clarifying.

Along those lines, if people want to connect with you or learn more about your interior design, can you tell us where they can go? Also just give us a quick snapshot of the projects you’re focused on right now.

Noz: Absolutely. Folks can find me @NozNozawa if you want to see some of my social stuff, and it will all link back to my website.

My focus is in residential design. I care so much about making sure that people have a space that is healing and restorative to come back to at the end of a long day of work. One of the things that I’ve realized coming out of that is that I have the opportunity to do more for people who would never be my clients, so I actually, as of last year, decided that a good portion of my proceeds annually will go to a local women’s shelter in San Francisco where they take in child and women and survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking and give them a temporary safe haven to call home while they get back on their feet and figure out what home means. It’s brought so much more meaning to the work that I do.

For me to be able to have such the privilege, the incredible and immense privilege of spending my day doing something that’s self-actualizing and meaningful to me, why would I not share that? Why would not I share this incredible privilege and do pro bono work for shelters and share the living that I’ve been able to make with people who have so much less and deserve so much more than they were given in this life?

Joseph: Noz, that’s really inspiring to hear. Thanks so much for talking with us about your life as an interior designer, not only how you made the decision to start your business but also some of the emotional struggles that a lot of business owners deal with but don’t always talk about. Thank you so much for being so honest.

It’s also great to hear you’re not only living out your own dream but also helping other people create comfortable homes for themselves and also giving back to the community there in San Francisco, which is so important.

Noz: Thank you so much. I had a blast. This has been really cool, and I hope that if anyone’s listening who’s connecting at all with some of the things that I’ve said I’ve gone through, by all means, reach out anytime.

What’s it like to take evening classes while working full time to expand your career options? In this episode of Career Relaunch, David Gulbransen, a former Software Startup Founder & IT Consultant turned Intellectual Property Attorney & Director of IT shares his thoughts on attending law school while holding down a full-time job, managing failure, and creating a diverse, portfolio career.  I also share some thoughts on the importance of investing in yourself.

During this episode’s Mental Fuel segment, I talked about the importance of investing in yourself. For some help in doing this, you can download my “Investing in Yourself” Worksheet.

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David Gulbransen is a author, attorney and “IT” guy based in Chicago, Illinois. In his law practice he focuses on intellectual property issues (copyright, trademark) as well as information technology and business law, primarily with startups and small business entities. He’s also the Director of IT at the University of Chicago Law School. David had over a decade of experience in information technology and software development and is a published author with over half-dozen technical books under his name. Currently, he contributes a regular technology column to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.

If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners!

Teaser (first ~15s): It was just a very unique opportunity that presented itself, a natural and very good fit for my particular experience, sort of an alignment of the stars if you will.

Joseph: Hello, David. Thanks so much for joining us today on Career Relaunch. I am really looking forward to hearing all about your career story.

David: Great, I’m happy to be here.

Joseph: I’d love to start off by, first of all, having you just tell us a little bit more about your law practice and also the work you do at the University of Chicago Law School.

David: My law practice is primarily concentrated in intellectual property. I practice part-time because I am also at the University of Chicago Law School. My role there is as the Chief Information Officer, so I’m in charge of the IT for the school, both from a policy perspective and overseeing the technical staff here at the school.

Joseph: I see. On the intellectual property side, do you work with any particular type of clients or any particular type of business?

David: I tend to focus on small businesses and startups. I have a background in computer science and a lot of experience with startups actually before I became an attorney. I really like working with small business owners or people who are in the very early stages of startup venture, trying to get things off the ground, don’t necessarily have a lot of money or funding but still have legal questions and legal issues that they need to address to make sure that they’re in the best position possible down the road when they do start either growing their business or receiving funding to grow their business.

Joseph: I definitely want to come back to that because I think there’s a lot of interesting tips and lessons that we can definitely learn from you. I’m actually most interested, since we are here to talk about career, in hearing a little bit more about your career trajectory, because obviously, having a law practice and being the director of IT are two very different things. You got the true portfolio career. I’d love to go back in time and just have you take us through how you got to where you are right now. Can you explain to us what you were doing before you became an attorney, when you were involved in web development?

David: I graduated from college with a degree in Computer Science, and so after that, I needed a job, and it was in the mid ‘90s. It was a very good time in the US in the tech industry, and so I actually went to San Francisco and worked for a startup there. After that startup was acquired, I launched another startup. I was mostly doing technical development work, XML, Java development.

I really enjoyed working in the startup environment. I enjoyed the culture, the pace. Everything about it was really great, but I realized that the things that I was interested in relating to startups were less development, less technical and more the business side of the house, more financing, management, growing the business, attracting investment, that sort of thing.

Joseph: So what happened after that? Did you continue to do what you were doing or did you make a move into the business side of things?

David: I started to make a move more into the business side of things with my own startup, which was an XML development company. I enjoyed having my own startup, but I really liked the people that I met at other startups and talking to them and wanted to figure out what way I could work with other entrepreneurs in a way that I could add value to the businesses that they were creating, which led be to a decision point where I thought about pursuing an MBA, and I thought about pursuing a JD.

My wife was an attorney. We sat down, and we had this discussion. Basically, it came down to the single question of, what can you do with one degree that you can’t do with the other? Although the education track is somewhat different for the two obviously, with an MBA, you could do everything that you could with a JD, except practice law, and the converse is not true. With the JD, you could do everything you could do with an MBA, but you also have the option of practicing law.

I’ve always been interested in intellectual property, especially as it relates to software development and tech companies. Obviously, with any kind of tech startup, there’s a large intellectual property component, and so that led me back to law school. I decided to go ahead and pursue my JD with a certification in intellectual property.

Joseph: What was that process like, David, as you were thinking about the prospect of going back to law school, having already worked for so many years? What was that like for you?

David: It was daunting really. I mean I was a non-traditional returning student, so I was older than most of my classmates. I had a job at the time. I was working at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in the IT department as the director there, and so I had to return in an evening weekend program, which is a little bit longer than a traditional law school program. Going to school period is a challenging thing. It takes a lot of time and energy. Doing that on top of working a full-time job was really daunting.

Joseph: How different was the type of work you were needing to do in law school versus the type of work you were doing before? Obviously, you were a student, which is different, but I would imagine the way you use your brain is radically different.

David: It really is. It’s kind of cliché, but the saying is that law school doesn’t teach you the law. It teaches you how to think like a lawyer. Like most clichés, there’s an underlying element of truth to it, and it’s a very different skillset that you’re applying. There’s a similarity in that a lot of law, at least in practice, is problem solving, and a lot of IT is problem solving, and so there is some overlap I find there to approaching how to solve a problem, but that’s really where the similarity ends.

Joseph: I see. During that process, did you ever have one of those moments where you just thought, ‘Am I on the right track here?’

David: Sure, there were plenty of times when I thought, ‘Why am I doing this?’

Joseph: I can imagine.

David: ‘Can I sustain this?’ going to work from 9:00 to 5:00 and then a half-hour break and then classes until 9:00 p.m. four nights a week. There were definitely times when I questioned whether I was doing the right thing or not or whether or not I could keep up with it.

I think what really kept me going was my wife was very supportive. She had gone through a similar program. Not only did she understand the perspective of what I was going through as a law student because she had done it before, but she understood the additional challenge of being a non-traditional evening weekend law student, which is different than the challenges that a full-time law student faces.

Joseph: Could you also just take us through or give us a glimpse into what it was like to be a slightly older student in law school? Because I know some people I talk to, they realize that they need to go back to school to get to where they want to go, but the idea of going back as an older student is one that they struggle to reconcile. Could you just give us a glimpse into what that was like for you?

David: Actually, I liked it for a couple of reasons. One, most of my peers when I was in law school had full-time jobs, had families, and so they understood sacrifices that we were all making to be there, and they understood the difficulty of managing the workload from your primary day job in addition to the workload for school. I think you get a lot of support from your fellow students, which is nice.

The other thing that I think is a little bit different is I knew I wanted to be there to pursue a JD. I wasn’t there because of family pressure to continue in the family business. I wasn’t there because I had just graduated from college and didn’t know what else to do. I had a much better focus, I think, than I would’ve had when I was younger.

Joseph: You had a lot of experience before in the IT industry. What happened to that part of yourself when you made the shift toward pursuing law?

David: I focused my classes on intellectual property, on trade secrets, copyright law, patent law, and in those courses, I think having a technical background definitely helped and contributed to the subject matter because so much of the tech industry has intellectual property as a major component, and so it was definitely helpful to have that background.

I found that in those intellectual property classes, the majority of students had some kind of technical background. It wasn’t necessarily computer science, but it may be that they were electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, or chemists, biologists, people that were coming from some kind of science, technical background because that’s a big help when you’re pursuing a career in intellectual property law.

Joseph: What’s interesting, as I’m listening to your story here, David, is that you seemed to have this very strong clarity. I know you mentioned there were some doubts along the way, but you seemed very certain of where you’re headed and what you wanted to do. How did you get that clarity? Because I talk to a lot of people, when they’re thinking about making a change, one of the biggest fears is knowing whether or not that’s the right move and the fear that they’re going to end up in a situation that maybe isn’t any better than where they were before. How did you amass that or cultivate that clarity?

David: Part of that is that I frequently experiment with other things. I pursue lots of hobbies in my spare time, and so I explored different options along the way. In addition to my background in computer science, I have a background in theater.

Joseph: I saw that. You deal with the green computer science and theater.

David: My undergraduate degree added scenic design. I was a designer, not an actor. I pursued that for a while. I actually, for a while after college, had my own production company that did video production. I explored that career option. It didn’t work out. It turned out not to be for me.

At least for me, I had to go through a period of trying different things and not being afraid to fail. It’s hard. I think everybody is afraid to fail, and I was certainly afraid to fail, but I did fail. I had startups that didn’t pan out. That teaches you some valuable lessons, I think, about your interests, where they lie, what you’re capable of, and I hate to say I recommend everyone to fail—it sounds weird to say that—but I do because I think that one of the best lesson that I learned from failing in a startup environment is the lesson that it’s okay, and life goes on. You can pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try something else.

The world doesn’t stop, and it’s not the end of everything if you do fail. Life is full of second chances, and so if you try something, and it doesn’t work out and it fails, try to look at it, learn the lessons from that failure, and then take those lessons into the next thing that you try.

Joseph: As you think about this transition, David, what do you think was the hardest part of making the shift from one industry into another?

David: The hardest thing for me personally was that I wasn’t actually sure if I wanted to practice law. I had a very clear vision of what I wanted to do with my law degree – advising startups and dealing with intellectual property. The absolute thing that I did not want to do, which I saw some of my peers having to do, is end up doing insurance defense of get trapped into a large firm where, all day long, you’re reviewing documents and supervising other people reviewing documents. Those are things that I definitely knew I didn’t want to do, and frankly, that’s the majority of stuff out there practicing law.

Eighty-five or ninety percent of it are things that I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to litigate, I didn’t want to do criminal law, and so it seemed like it was a big leap of faith to pursue this degree with the end goal being the ability to practice law, knowing that the majority of types of practice out there I didn’t want to do.

Joseph: Finding the needle in the haystack there.

David: Right, the very particular niche market that I wanted to be in.

Joseph: So you finish up law school, and then what happens? Obviously, you decided not to go work for a firm. How did you then come to the decision that you wanted to start your own practice?

David: I’ve always been very independent and comfortable with the startup aspect of it, and so I launched my practice immediately after law school. I spent about two years doing consulting/legal work while I started to build clientele with my practice because I always had the IT side of things, which has sort of always been my safety net. I was able to take on a mixture of IT consulting clients and legal clients. It allowed me to not handle a divorce case when somebody would ask me for it.

That, honestly, was one of the hardest things to avoid when I started my own practice: you don’t have a deep base of clients, so there’s always this temptation to take anyone who walks in the door because you need the work, and you think, ‘I could just do this one divorce because I don’t have any IT clients lined up right at the moment, and I don’t have good prospects. This is right here, and it’s pay.’

Joseph: How did you avoid that temptation?

David: I took a divorce case. It was awful. It was so awful. It was absolutely horrible. It just wasn’t worth it if you know the tradeoff of the potential money from that type of work versus how much I disliked the work. If I wanted to keep doing work that I didn’t want to do, I could have not wasted that much time and effort. That helps bring it into very clear focus.

Joseph: In addition to focusing on the legal work you do enjoy, if that weren’t keeping you busy enough, you’re also the Director of IT at the University of Chicago Law School. Can you just walk us through how you came to that decision to add another layer to your career to make it a true portfolio career?

David: It was just a very unique opportunity that presented itself. I was practicing. I had a lot of experience in IT in the university setting. I worked for the University of Chicago Booth School of Business for eight years, so I had a lot of experience with the institution, I had a lot of experience in the academic computing, and so when the position at the law school presented itself, it was a natural and very good fit for my particular experience. I had university experience, I had IT experience, and I had a law degree. It was just sort of an alignment of the stars if you will.

My practice is very small. Again, it’s part-time. I deal primarily with very small startups and small businesses. The nice thing about it was that it’s not full-time, so I can do it part-time outside of regular working hours here at the university. That allows me to be very selective about my client base, which is something that is very, very fortunate.

Joseph: When you look back at all your career changes, what’s something that you wished you had known that you now know about career change?

David: I wish I had known how much work it is. I think I did go into law school a little bit blind to how difficult it is to sort of completely swivel. It’s hard. Going back and pursuing additional education is hard. It’s a big time investment, and I don’t think I fully understood how much of a time commitment that is. Again, I think that, sometimes, you just have to take that leap of faith and not be afraid to fail.

Joseph: If anybody out there wants to change careers and become a lawyer or get into the legal profession, do you have any advice?

David: I love education, and I recommend more education for everyone, but you do have to look at the return on that investment. Law school is not cheap, either is business school, and so you really have to understand the value of what you’re paying for and the prospects for the return on that investment to obtain that JD.

There are great things that you can do with a law degree that are rewarding in non-financial ways. I know a number of students, people that I went to law school with, who are working in public interest, who are working in immigration law and who are not getting rich doing it but are really, really making a difference in people’s lives. There are non-monetary returns that you have to weigh into that calculation.

Joseph: Now, I can’t let you go without talking a little bit about your expertise, which is intellectual property. Do you have any intellectual property tips for small business owners, whether it’s just a common pitfall that comes up that you deal with or just a general piece of advice that you think is helpful to share?

David: Two things that I see happen a lot are patent law and trademark law. In patent law, the number one thing that comes up is, ‘I have this great idea. I’ve been selling this product for a couple of years, and now I want to see about getting it patented.’ There’s a statutory one-year bar on patents once you started selling your product.

If you have a physical invention or if you have a process that you think is very unique, any kind of invention like that that you think may be patentable, talk to a patent attorney or a patent agent as quickly as possible. End up saving yourself money in the long run by spending a little bit of money upfront to figure out whether or not you have a patent.

The other mistake that I see people make is with relation to trademarks. That is, ‘I launched this great company, and it’s going really great, and I’m selling it. Then I just got this letter from this other company that says that I’m infringing their trademark. What is this?’ It’s a lot better to pay a small amount of money to an attorney to do a search and make sure there are no conflicting trademarks out there and to register your trademark upfront than it is to be selling your product and developing your brand for three years only to get hit with a cease and desist and find out that you now have to start over again from square one.

Joseph: I can definitely attest to the importance of speaking to an attorney about your trademark. When I started my business, I called it Onward Coaching, which I thought was so cool, and I was really excited about the name because it was aspirational and it was all about moving on in your career. It wasn’t until I actually talked to a trademark attorney that I realized I couldn’t actually trademark that name because it violated one of the criteria for a trademark.

I know that whenever I talk to legal experts like you, I end up learning about a lot of things that never even cross my mind to consider. So I think that’s valuable advice.

If people want to either learn more about intellectual property law or if they just want to have a chat with your or find out more about the work you do, where can they go?

David: They can go to my website, which is just GulbransenLaw.com.

Joseph: Thank you so much for your time today, David, sharing your story about your portfolio career that you developed for yourself, the importance of learning from failure, and also just sharing a few useful tips about getting into the legal profession but also some tips on intellectual property law too. Thank you so much for your time.

David: No problem. It’s been fun.