The Career Butterfly

Whether you are ready to return to work right now or are unsure of what you would even do, here are 5 reasons to convince you to take action now!

1) Economy 2) Diversity 3) Acceptance 4) Skill Development and 5) Business Development

Tune in to hear what each of them means for you, your career pause, and your future!

Mentioned in this episode:

List of Companies with Returnships

No one likes to talk about the protection side of money, but what if taking care of those issues upfront left you free to ENJOY your money? Today's guest Jenifer Sapel believes in protecting your money first to allow you to enjoy it. She even named her company, Utor Wealth, after the Latin word for enjoy!

It wasn't always this way for Jenifer. Her earliest memories of money were based in fear, anxiety, and scarcity. The phrase she heard most often as a child related to money was "We can't afford it."

Determined to forge a different path, she worked hard to be financially secure at a young age. She took it even further when she pivoted her career into financial services. Today, she's all about showing people how to use money as a tool to live richly.

This episode is for everyone who has a family to protect - regardless of how much money you have and whether you are currently with an income or not.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Who convinced her that a commission-only job could work
• How she gave herself 2 years herself to succeed
• Why an acquisition where she was employed created the perfect time to start her own business
• The difference between a financial advisor and investment advisor
• Why employer disability insurance will never cover your entire income.
• Why a mom without an income should consider life insurance
• Why Jenifer blends opportunity funds with emergency funds
• Why rate of return is not your only indication of financial health
• How much you should optimally be saving once you have your safety net in place
• Her thoughts on the gender pay gap when you return to work
• Why she believes you are the best investment you'll ever make

Mentioned in this episode:

Utor Wealth

CFP Board

Smart Asset

Lindsey T. H. Jackson is on a mission to empower 1 million female leaders by 2025. She owns several businesses, but at the root of it all she focuses on authenticity and holding space for each other.

In this episode, she shares the story of how a difficult pregnancy enabled her to finally walk away from a failing business. This personal experience eventually led to her research and deep work on women and why many fail to reach their full potential. After selling her business, she spent a few years at home as a mother—a time she found extremely confusing as she struggled to form her new identity.

Today, she is one of those multi-hyphenate entrepreneurs—a storyteller, a coach, a leader, a teacher, an author. She also recently launched Hezalia which is a marketplace for women's health and wellness practitioners and femtech developers.

Looking to the future, she's excited about her upcoming book, Vagina Leadership: Rethinking Women and Failure, and her summer workshops: Mindful Mothering, Relationship Mastery, and Women on Fire.

Mentioned in this episode:

Lindsey T. H. Jackson

Hezalia

I'm changing things up this week in honor of Father's Day in the United States! I interviewed my first guy for the show!

Steve Layman is the perfect first guest because he not only took 5 years off to stay home with his two boys, but he also has a history of hiring people out of their own career pauses - including me!

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Why Steve and his wife decided he would be the one to stay home from the beginning
• His 3 rules for being a stay-at-home-parent
• How Steve got his first customer before launching his company
• How being his own boss gave him the flexibility to parent and work
• Steve's perception on whether it's harder for men or women to return to the workforce
• How men who take a career pause experience the same issues confidence and identity
• Why, in hindsight, Steve wishes he had found a part-time project for himself while he was home with his kids

Mentioned in this episode:

Blox Construction

Meg Applegate is a natural opportunity visionary and encourager. As the founder and resume writer of Hinge Resume Collaborative, she is a matchmaker for people and their next opportunity through resume writing and design. She holds the certified professional resume writer (CPRW) credential and a master's degree in Higher Education and Student Affairs. She is an 'Ask the Experts' contributor for the National Resume Writers' Association and her work is featured in the most recent edition of Resume For DummiesⓇ. A native Hoosier and enthusiast of antiques and old homes, she is driven by her faith, family, dark chocolate and her morning cup of coffee.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• How she cold-called her way into a new career
• How, as a new mom, she found a jobshare with a colleague
• About the identity crisis she faced at the beginning of her career pause when she was no longer receiving praise or achieving short term goals as she had at work
• Why she decided to become a Certified Professional Resume Writer
• How starting her own business gives her the flexibility she needs now and an opportunity to build into her long-term plan to career coach
• How resumes have evolved into marketing your personal brand
• What specific details you need to remove from your resume now to avoid it lookig outdated
• How (and why) to be active on LinkedIn beyond your profile
• How to create your own Personal Board of Advisors

We all have those "Who Am I?" moments...

Who am I to be interviewing for this job? Who am I to be to be starting this business? Who am I to be sitting at this table?

In today's episodes, I share some of my long ago and more recent imposter moments.

Most importantly, we'll talk strategy to move past it!

Helen Brody is a therapist, a coach and a Brene Brown Certified Dare to Lead Facilitator. She's also a mother of two children who has faced her own issues related to career and motherhood.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• The difference between therapy and coaching and leadership training.
• How vulnerability is the way to courageousness.
• How issues of shame, worthiness, and vulnerability are currently impacting our nation and our world.
• How your negative thoughts may be contributing to a lack of confidence.
• How the elements of the cognitive triad (thoughts, emotions and behaviors) influence each other.
• How we function in an unconscious kind of way much of the day, but can change this by adopting an observer stance.

Mentioned in this episode:

EQ Mind Health

San Francisco Therapy Space

Dare to Lead by Brene Brown

The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown

Parenting from the Inside Out by Dr. Daniel Siegel and Mary Hartzell

If there was ever a formula to follow in returning to work after a long career gap, I think Fiona Haynes has it mastered.

Past Work Experience + Side Hustle + Connection = Job

She had impressive work experience with The Economist. She took a job writing for About.com in the early Internet days. And she had a connection that introduced her to the company where she works today as a Financial Editor. The resume by itself might not work, but it's powerful when you combine it with the other elements.

In this episode you'll hear:

• How Fiona found her way into a media job even after missing an opportunity with Reuters and ending up in Library Science.
• How she negotiated a remote and international opportunity with The Economist.
• Why she got a 6 month maternity leave while living in the United States.
• How a connection led to a side hustle as a freelance writer that gave her flexibility when her children were school age.
• How volunteering was a good outlet during a personally difficult time
• How a connection led to a full time job
• How she uses her English accent to her advantage at work
• About the challenges to remote work

www.readypausego.com

The Mom Project is a digital talent marketplace building bridges to help women ramp on and off the workforce as they choose. They work with companies of all sizes to create opportunities that range from freelance to permanent, entry-level to executive-level, on-site to remote.

The Mom Project is elevating the voices of moms and showing companies the benefits of embracing this amazing talent pool. They believe women shouldn't have to hide the fact that their moms - just look at their company name!

In this episode you'll hear:

• Why freelance project opportunities are crucial to both employees and employers.
• How the need to backfill parental leave is creating new opportunities.
• How Colleen went from a user of The Mom Project to their Director of Marketing—at 7.5 months pregnant.
• Which industries The Mom Project is currently focusing on.
• How having a diverse and inclusive culture is good for business.
• How they use Flex Factors to allow women to say up front what they need out of a job.
• About the Women's Work Initiative to bring 1000 moms back to work in 2019.

Links mentioned in this episode:

The Mom Project

Ready Pause Go

Jennifer Loomis was an incredibly successful maternity photographer when she walked away from it all. She spent many years building the career she loved, but in her 40s, she found herself sitting in her OB/GYN's office and being told she'd never be able to have a child. Devastated, Jennifer could no longer do her work taking pictures of women about to become mothers. First, she and her dog Salvador walked across Seattle, but she needed to go even further so she flew to Spain to walk the El Camino de Santiago.

In this episode you'll hear:

• How a referral from Annie Leibowitz helped launch her career – even though she wouldn't commit to it for another 6 years.
• How she views maternity photography as fine art.
• Why she turned down Bravo TV five times to be the photographer for Pregnant in Heels.
• How she found her way back to her career.
• How a client opened the door and showed her the path that ended up to Jennifer's pregnancy at 46.
• What it's like to try to cram a 50 hour workweek into 30 hours now.
• How her creative awareness has evolved in phases from 1) A desire to challenge society's definition of beauty to… 2) Making women feel beautiful and empowered to… 3)Realizing how the children come to cherish these photos of themselves inside their mothers. Photography shows children how loved they are to… 4) Capturing moments between families as they grow.

Mentioned in this episode:

Jennifer Loomis Photography Feel Beautiful

The Natural Light Collective

Photo Salvation