Career Pivots
Typically I talk about what's going on in my one-on-one container. I coach leaders of color, who are focused on finding value in their strengths, growing their confidence, and having clarity of vision for their life and career. But today, I'm going to pivot that a little bit and talk a little bit about myself.
I had a call last week with a new Latina coach who wanted to pick my brain about my entrepreneur journey. I was thinking about it afterwards, and I talk a lot about the work I do to support my clients when they're making pivots in their life, but I don't really go into the nitty gritty of how it happened with me.
I had a long career in K-12 eduction, and ultimately decided I wasn’t going to continue with it. And so I left and took a six-month sabbatical. During that sabbatical, I started exploring opening a business, so people started reaching out to me and offering me consulting work.
I quickly started figuring out things like getting an EIN number, a business account, licences etc. But what made it clear to me that it was not the time to be an entrepreneur, was that the experience was not in alignment with who I am and what I value.
What I mean by that is: I am an extrovert. Connection and community are my values. As a consultant, I would show up, do a project, read a report, submit it, and then move on. I would travel to another city to do a project, hang with people during the day doing all the technical things, and then go back to the hotel. It was a very non-communal, lonely experience, did not play to my strengths in terms of the connection piece, and did not play to my value, which is I always want to be in community with other people.
So at that time, I decided opening a business was not for me. I moved on, ended up launching the nonprofit and focusing on work that was very much aligned with my values: supporting black and brown education leaders in leadership development.
That allowed me to be in community with folks. One of the things I was looking for in work was mentoring and coaching, and the nonprofit gave me the opportunity to do that. It also was a place that supported me, being able to be connected with other community organisations to be doing social justice work. These were all things that were values that were very important to me.
So when we're thinking about career pivots, it's not just about making a move to make it. Are you clear on what you're really great at, so you can make sure that next move is going to be in your realm of strengths? Is it something that's aligned with your values?
At the time, the experience I had with entrepreneurship did not feel like that, so I moved into the nonprofit realm. After you've been a high school principal, every other job feels like a part-time job. So even though that first year was busy getting things up and running, I still felt like I still had energy and time on my plate. In that second year of the nonprofit work, I started looking into a coaching certification for myself.
I had no idea what I was going to use it for, but I knew that there was something there that was calling me. I was following what my purpose was, following what I valued, and making sure that I was bringing my strengths to the forefront. I got the coaching certification and was taking on extra projects on the side.
I talked a little bit about this last week, when we were talking about calculated risks. I wasn't sure what this pivot was going to look like, but I knew having that financial safety was what helped me take the sabbatical the first time, and I was likely going to need that again. So every dollar I made from consulting or coaching on the side, went into a separate bank account so later on I could take the leap when I was ready.
The coaching certification programme was in person (because it was pre-pandemic) and it was focused on social justice. I went into it naive because up until that point, I had only been coached by Latinas. I did not know that the coaching industry was a bunch of older white people—I thought it was all these dope people of color, because that's what my whole experience had been.
In that programme, we spent a lot of time talking about who we were going to serve and what we wanted to do with our coaching. And I kept saying, “I don't know yet, but I know it's going to be to serve Latinas.” I was adamant that at some point, it was all going to make sense.
Once I finished, I continued doing my work, making some extra cash here and there, putting it on the side. But I consistently was asking myself, “How was my purpose getting to show up? How are my values getting to show up? What am I really great at? How do I keep putting my time and effort there?”
So if you're thinking about a career pivot, those are important questions to think about. During my coaching certification, I was never thinking, “I'm doing this to become a VP,” or “I want to be a CEO someday.” I just knew that this was the work I was meant to do. I am meant to hold containers for folks of color. Within that, it started to get clear that it was about supporting others with leadership development and getting those roles and retaining them, and then it started getting into supporting Latinas with purpose work.
So my question to you is, as you're thinking about career pivots, do you know what your purpose is, the work that you're meant to do? Because that's what's going to help you to have a guideline, as you're moving through this whole process.
Are you clear on your values so that when you're going through processes and career pivots, you can keep asking: Is this keeping me on the right path to what's the most important to me? Is this helping me to continue to have my lens on the world? Or am I having to pivot and give up things that are important to me to fit into a title or role?
The theme I always see with folks of color is, people tell you that you’re a hard worker, somebody who cares about the people that you serve. Those things are important, but you are so much more than a hard worker and somebody who cares about social justice. How can you make sure that you are clear on what you're great at, so that you can define that and tell other people what that is, and not just let them tell you.
When the pandemic hit, I started writing down my ideas for The Chingona’s Sabbatical, my six-month group much group coaching program for soul-searching, ambitious Latinas to define a plan and live their purpose-driven life. There are so many of us out there who are just following what folks recommend for our career, following what other people tell us we're great at, when we want to be the drivers. We want to be the leaders in deciding what's important for our life and defining what success means for us.
So I spend the time writing that curriculum and put it out there. God bless the 10 people who signed up that first round, because then it was like, “Oh, this is a thing!”
As you can tell, this was a slow progression. A lot of times when we see the leap, when we see that people land somewhere else, we think it happened quickly. But you have no idea how long that person has been dreaming, mapping it out, doing stuff in the back end, and slowly building clarity, growing confidence, and getting clear on how to make those leaps happen.
I knew I wanted to explore entrepreneurship at some point. But I wanted to take the time to make sure that the second time around, I wasn't just going to fall into something. I wanted to carefully plan it out so that it actually served a purpose.
I loved the work that I was doing, which was a great place to be because I could intentionally plan what came next.
In 2021, I went full-time. At that point, as well as running The Chongona’s Sabbatical, I was also coaching one-on-one clients in the nonprofit and education space, and doing speaking engagements a few times a month.
All of this did not happen overnight. Your career pivots should not be happening overnight. These should be things that we are constantly thinking about. Even if you're in a place where you love your job and you love what you're doing, there's still an opportunity to dream.
When I get on calls with folks who want to talk about coaching, I'll often ask them, “What do you anticipate is coming next?” Because I want to be clear about how we are preparing you for that dream. How are we preparing you to be able to be ready to make moves, even if it's going to be two years from now? Because you should not be waiting until you're frustrated or stressed out.
Thinking about these things now helps us know intuitively when the right time is to make those career pivots, so that we feel safe and prepared for a calculated risk. You can be planning now for a career pivot that's going to be a year from now, or five years from now, because you want to be thinking long-term about the vision you have for your life and your career.
So that's a bit more about my story. If you are looking for a community to support you along the way, I have my one-on-one coaching, or you can sign up for the waitlist for The Chongona’s Sabbatical.
I can support you to get clear on what your strengths are, and grow your confidence by taking steps now that will help you realize you can trust myself to make big leaps and pivots whenever you want to. You can book a free discovery call to learn more here.
Ultimately, I believe that once more Latinos are clear on all these things, standing in our value, proud and confident and trusting in ourselves, that the world would be a much better place. Because the world needs more Latinos who are living in purpose. So let's make that happen. I hope to do that with you.
