The Career Changers

Our guest today is Virginia Peterson, a nurse who couldn’t find a comfortable bra to wear for a 12-hour shift, so she designed her own.  SWOOP is now in year 4 and continues to provide nurses, health care workers, and busy women the support they need….Literally + figuratively! 

 Today she is here to share her experience and share with you:

—  How nursing inspired her to start a business

—  Not letting fear hold you back

—  Working through the ups + downs

—  Living a life where you can have it all


Find inspiration in three quotes:

• I started a website and I got one order from one girl called Buffy, who ordered one bra. One week later Buffy ordered other four bras. At that moment I realised that if I girl I didn't know owned four of my bras, I wasn't able to do this business on my own anymore.  That's when I transitioned from being a side hustle to a small business and I hired my first employee.
• For the women's community, I help them to feel better during their day. Women tell me that they never found such a comfortable and well-fitted bra and this makes me feel that, through my work and business, I make a difference in a small way, in the daily lives of women. 
• Don't stop following your dreams. Chase them as much as you can. You have only one life. Live it to the fullest. When you feel you hit a roadblock and it seems you are not going anywhere and you don't want to do this anymore, take a deep breath, go for a walk, and think about other options. Ask for help. 

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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

In this episode, we are meeting Alison Hall, life and business coach, public accountant, tax planner, and certified divorce planning professional.

Alison reinvented herself to become her own happy boss after 25 years of building a conventionally successful corporate career. She started several lucrative businesses, and for the past 10 years, she has been using her knowledge of finances and in-depth understanding of human behavior to guide women in making wise financial decisions regarding divorce and other significant life-changing events, such as starting their own businesses. Alison taps into her own experience as a burned-out corporate grinder turned successful business owner to inspire women to embrace life-affirming change. As she likes to say "It's never too late to reach for a dream and grab it. If you only have one life to live, you'd better get cracking."

Find inspiration in three quotes:

• Economics is at the centre of everything. We can't move to the next level of Maslow's pyramid of needs if our basic needs are not met. This is why it's the foundation for everything else. 
• Today I remind myself of the importance of being in the moment. My mum has Alzheimer and I visit 4-5 times a week. There are many other things I could do during that time. But I have learned to enjoy the present moment, like when I bring some candies to other old ladies and they are so happy. 
•  I am a big advocate of writing things down. Take some time to write what you want to do in the next five or ten years. Confusion often comes when other people's voices come into our heads when we find out that we have more SHOULDS than WANTS. 

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Are you looking for more inspiration? Why not take our ten minutes career test?
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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

In this episode, we are meeting with Lindsay McDonell, cancer coach and author of Your Dance with Cancer: Steps to Maximize Your Chance of Survival. Before that, she had a career as a private detective and interior designer. 

Eight years ago, she started her own path of cancer diagnosis. Early after her first diagnosis, she realized how sterile and ostracizing the label of “cancer patient” is, so she set out to help others feel like they are part of a community—or at least to be heard. Over the next few years, she became an individual cancer coach and she wrote Your Dance with Cancer: Steps to Maximize Your Chance of Survival book.

Find your inspiration in three quotes: 

• Cancer is identified as a battle and when someone dies they say "They lost their battle with cancer". I choose to not battle because if I battle I am going to be exhausted, always in the fight or flight mood. 
• Ego isn't going to get you anywhere. When I started to ask for help and say to doctors "I need your help" is when I started to get better support. 
• I decided I was not going to be the strong one because I needed to take care of myself first.  We work so hard for people to not see us as less, wasting our energies instead of focusing on healing. 

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Are you looking for more inspiration? Why not take our ten minutes career test?
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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

In this episode, we're meeting Rick Bleiweiss - the perfect example of the saying "You're never too old to follow your dreams". In fact, it wasn't until 2022, at the age of 77, that Rick's dream of being a published author was finally made into a reality with the bestselling, award-winning Pignon Scorbion historical mystery series.

But before then that Rick had careers in music as a rock performer, Grammy-nominated producer of over fifty records, and record company senior executive.

In 2006, he also pursued a career in the publishing industry working as a publishing company executive where he acquired works by noted authors and celebrities.

Find inspiration in three quotes:

• My mantra is “It is never too late in life". Grandma Moses didn’t start painting until she was 77, Harland Sanders didn’t start Kentucky Fried Chicken until he was 62, and Clara Peller became a television personality at 81, starring in the 1984 "Where's the beef?" advertising campaign for Wendy's fast food restaurant chain in her first acting role. Berry Friedman said, “Aging is not lost youth, but a new stage of opportunity and strength”. And I just live by that”. 
• My dream, when I was a child, was to be Mick Jagger. I always wanted to be a rock’n roll star. I am kind of lucky because I have a balanced left brain, right brain. I had parallel tracks all my life, between being creative and business like, so I have been a rock performer but I have also been a business man. 
• I left the music industry because it was not bringing much joy out of my job anymore. The industry was changing and it was not fun anymore. So I moved with my wife and started working in the publishing industry. They hired me saying "We are not sure what you can do, but we will find something". 

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Are you looking for more inspiration? Why not take our ten minutes career test?
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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

In this episode we're going to talk about career change with Adam Sackett who went from a two-decade career for large banks to opening and owning his own karate school.

Find your inspiration in three quotes: 

• If your aim is to change career you need to have patience. Things aren't going to happen in one day or one week. Have a plan B and C. There is no such thing as wasting time, if you do something that can help you moving in the right direction. Have some money in the bank, because you still want to take care of your family. 
• While working in banking I was waking up, having breakfast, going to work, come back home and repeat again the same day. I didn't feel I was having an impact on other people's lives. It has been a good career for financial stability and to learn many skills, like public speaking and presentations, that are helping me to run my karate school today successfully. But I have never really loved it.
• In 1999, I started teaching karate one night at week. Was that going to change my career at the time? No. But I really enjoyed it. Nothing really get me as excited as seeing a "light bulb moment". With teaching I feel that I am making a difference. What I would say to my younger self? Maybe you were not really made for the business world, yes you made some money, but teaching is really your thing and you should have started that earlier. 

We'll discuss his career change and the wider challenges of career transition. 

Support the show

Are you looking for more inspiration? Why not take our ten minutes career test?
Just click here to start the test.

If you want to receive your regular dose of inspiration follow us on
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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

Our guest today is Jasmine Katatikarn, Creative Leader for a Fortune 100 company, mother of two, and co-founder/CEO of the Academy of Animated Art, an e-education company for 3D lighting artists that helps people land their dream jobs in major animation studios like DreamWorks and Sony.

Find your inspiration in three quotes:

• Looking back I knew that my passion was in creating things, because I can do it for hours, and time flies by.  But it wasn't super clear to me when I was younger, that it could be more than a hobby. I remember leaving an interview for a banking firm and thinking "No, this isn't for me, but I wasn't sure what to do next". 
• When I started the side hustle, it wasn't about money. It was more about creating something in parallel. The first year we didn't bring in much revenue. It took almost seven years to get it to six figures. And that happened when I started to develop different skills, like marketing and developing a framework. Automation has been key together with delegation.
• Often, we think that the goal is to quit your day job to work on your side hustle full time — and I used to think that, too. But now I see everything I do as an extension of myself and an opportunity, not a chore. I love my full-time job and I love my business, so I keep them both. They help me design my work life so that it fits me perfectly”.  

Jasmine has previously worked on animated movies like the Ice Age films, Rio, and Spies in Disguise.

 Today she is here to share her experience on how she grew her side hustle to six figures while working full-time and raising a family to explain how making time for side projects can help you find your purpose, even if you are incredibly busy. 

Support the show

Are you looking for more inspiration? Why not take our ten minutes career test?
Just click here to start the test.

If you want to receive your regular dose of inspiration follow us on
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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

Our guest today is Joe O’Connor, Director & Co-founder of the Work Time Reduction Centre, Ex CEO of 4 Day Week Global, founder of the 4 Day Week Ireland, and career changer himself. 

Find  your inspiration in 3 quotes: 

•  The reduced hours working week can be a great contribution towards gender equality. When I started working on the shorter working week, it emerged from a survey that many women with children were already working 4 days a week, but the responsibilities and expectations in their roles were unchanged. 

•  Parkinson's Law really holds true - and it means that a task will expand to fill the time it's available for its completion. The benefits of a shorter working week for employers are increased productivity, reduced burnt-out, and talent acquisition and retention. On the other side, employees can live healthier and more fulfilling lives and have more time to make choices that promote global sustainability. 

• We have moved from a philosophical discussion about the 4 days working week to a logistic one - where today we are discussing how to make it work. And the catalyst for this change has been the pandemic - where the paradigm of the 5 days working week has been shifted. 

Today Joe is going to talk about his career and how the 4 days working week can make the world a better place. 

Support the show

Are you looking for more inspiration? Why not take our ten minutes career test?
Just click here to start the test.

If you want to receive your regular dose of inspiration follow us on
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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

Our guest today is Carolyn Buck Luce, author of Epic! The Women’s Power Playbook and one of America’s most respected and accomplished advocates for women.

Find  your inspiration in 3 quotes:

• " I have never felt that my job is what someone else is paying me to do. My job is to become the leader I long to be, at work, at home, and in the world ".

• " At the end of my 30's, I  was working in Wall Street doing mergers and acquisitions. I had two small children and I was getting a divorce. I suddenly realised that the game was all about money, and that is not my game. My game is about developing people to be the leaders they want to be at work, at home, and in the world. So I quitted  Wall Street. ". 

• " Courage comes from the (Latin) word "cor" which means heart, and it means to go forward with your heart in your mouth at times of doubt, fear, and uncertainty. So to be the leader you want to be at work, at home, and in the world, you have got to be courageous".

Carolyne has built an amazing five-decade career as a diplomat, Wall Street banker, consultant, healthcare futurist, professor, and philanthropist while raising a family and enduring her own losses and disappointments.

She is the creator of The Decade Game®, which she has been playing since she was 8. 

 Some of the Decade Game “axioms” - were created over the years as her own un-rules of the game.

It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you

If you are not having fun, you are playing by someone else’s rules

The Trials and Triumphs of the Past, are the Treasures that fund the Future.

Today she is here to share her career change story and how she is coaching women to become their best selves at home, at work, and everywhere beyond and in between.

Support the show

Are you looking for more inspiration? Why not take our ten minutes career test?
Just click here to start the test.

If you want to receive your regular dose of inspiration follow us on
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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

Our guest today is Lindsay Teplesky, Army Veteran & Spouse turned career coach and learning and development specialist. 

Together we are going to talk about her military career and career transition, the challenges many faces during a military career transition, and how to find the inspiration to transition to a new life and career. 

Support the show

Are you looking for more inspiration? Why not take our ten minutes career test?
Just click here to start the test.

If you want to receive your regular dose of inspiration follow us on
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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

Our guest today is Jenny Tse, Sipping Streams Tea Company founder, World Tea Expo first prize recipient, and Essence of Tea Podcast host.

Sipping Streams Tea Company founder, Jenny Tse, was born in Hong Kong, but raised in Fairbanks, Alaska. She spent her summers selling her mother's vegetables at the local farmer's market and was very active in the local community. Her vision for Sipping Streams began in the summer of 2004 when she began to notice how tea brought different people together.

Traveling to different tea farms in China encouraged her to teach about tea in her local community. Tse is a certified tea specialist. Her custom hand blends and specialty teas have won 1st, 2nd, and 3rd at the North American Tea Championships, 2nd place at the Global Tea Championships, and 1st place for the Top Tea Infusionist Competition at the World Tea Expo 2011.

She is also the author of The Essence of Tea – The Transformational Journey of a Tea Connoisseur, a fascinating blend of entrepreneurship, cultural identity and self-exploration. Jenny Tse takes the reader on a whirlwind tour from Idaho to Alaska to China and beyond in her search for the perfect tea, her family’s roots and, ultimately, where she fits into it all.

Support the show

Are you looking for more inspiration? Why not take our ten minutes career test?
Just click here to start the test.

If you want to receive your regular dose of inspiration follow us on
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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal.