Yvonne Heimann [00:00:01]:
Do you ever feel like your job looks great on paper, but leaves you feeling drained and unfulfilled? Today we're talking about the real struggles faced by a high achieving profession. Those who are successful in their careers yet feel stuck, miserable, or out of alignment with their true passions. There is the difficulty of trusting yourself to make a change.
The fear of disappointing others, and the lack of clarity about what would actually bring more meaning and joy to your life. On top of that, finding the discipline and support to follow through can feel almost impossible when you're overwhelmed. That's why Rachel is joining us today. She's helped hundreds of people redefine success and make purposeful, practical changes in their careers.
We'll discuss her own journey from corporate exhaustion to true alignment, dig into tools for self audit and mindset. And she has steps you can take right now to begin your own transformation. Expect direct strategies and plenty of inspiration to get you unstuck and move forward.
Yvonne Heimann [00:01:09]:
And with that, let me introduce you to Rachel Spekman. You are a veteran of coaching women who are unfulfilled by their careers and you help them really identify how to tap into their unique potentials. After 15 years in marketing brands start, 10 years helping women as startup founders and 5 years as a therapist. Talk about a resume. Rachel has helped hundreds of women to reinvent themselves and their career. Rachel now focuses all of her time and energies on helping high performing women go from high pay, miserable and unhealthy in their careers to applying their gifts and talents in ways that make sense them great income by aligning with their values and their purpose. And if anybody in my audience has been around for just one or two episodes, you already know why I brought Rachel in. And Rachel, looking at your bio, looking at all the things you are doing, I'm curious because you are so focused on one specific, specific type of person, one specific woman that high paying, miserable, I'm in a job.
This is not what I thought this is going to be. What do I do with this kind of woman? I feel like there has a story behind it. Why is it, why, why is it that Persona? Why is it that woman? I, I have a feeling there's a passion in the store behind this.
Rachel Spekman [00:02:53]:
Of course. Well, thank you so much for having me. First of all, I actually want to share that I have recently made a big decision which is to invite men and non binary folks into the program as well into my work, I should say, because as I like to say, it turns out everyone can feel stuck and miserable in their careers, not just women, unfortunately. So that is a change that I feel very enthused and excited about because I think we're all figuring out.
Yvonne Heimann [00:03:27]:
I love, I love this. Everybody that's listening. I know I tell it to you every single episode. You really should be watching the video because what you didn't see is my face. Because we are having a universe moment again too. This is one of the conversations that I actually had behind the scenes. My business is changing too. And I had these conversations because as you, I'm passionate about helping women turn their passion into profit.
I want women to be able to have the complete freedom, bodily freedom, financial freedom, business freedom, freedom of life, freedom to do and choose as you want to. And that brought up the conversation similar to probably the same conversations you had of having this container of just a woman program. Am I like, I don't want to. I understand that there might be conversation containers happening because sorry guys, you don't know crap about periods I don't need to talk to you about my energy level. Somewhere in the month. But I see it sometimes in certain cohorts and situations as a disadvantage of just having women. And because now suddenly we built the same containers we were trying to break. So I'm curious, and I would love to dive a little bit deeper in what made you decide opening this up.
Rachel Spekman [00:05:03]:
Yeah. Okay. Well, let me take one question at a time because there was a lot in this.
So to answer your first question, yes, I am a coach for who I was about eight years ago. And I was flying high in a very professional, well paid, great on paper, great title position, and I was literally crying in the bathroom. I was a keynote speaker at an international conference. And when I walked away, I said, this is supposed to be the penultimate of my career. And I am not in what I call the right room. I'm not doing what I feel passionate about. I am not. The name of the company I run is made for more coaching.
I was made for more than what I'm doing, and I need some help. And so I started getting myself some very serious help. Coaches, therapists, financial planner. And made a very large change to go from the corporate senior director title to an intern and went back to social work school full time and am now a fully licensed therapist.
Yvonne Heimann [00:06:25]:
That. That is quite a step and quite a. What do I want to call it? Trust exercise. I was going for trust exercise.
Rachel Spekman [00:06:40]:
Yeah. I call it the best. I call it the largest adult calculated risk I ever took. And really, what was I. What was I calculating? I was calculating. Do I trust myself? Do I trust myself to say I made it in different industries, whatever making it is. Uh, you know, I. I got all the promotions, I got all the salary increases.
I was building all the networks. I can do this again in a different field. And I bet you this field is going to speak to my soul. Once I had to kind of check my ego at the door, which, of course, it always comes with you wherever you go. And I had. I can't even tell you the reactions I got from people. I mean, investors, people say you've been taking a vow of poverty, you know, all kinds of reactions. But I felt so settled in my own decision and nervous, of course.
And I just made another big decision, which is I left a therapy job full time to do this full time. So the tr. The trust piece, it. It's a feeling. It feels right within you. And more than a feeling, it's a plan and it's a timeline and it's the right, people. And it's really having the systems ready to go so that you can hit the ground running while you're falling and trusting yourself at the same time.
Yvonne Heimann [00:08:05]:
How. How was it going through that trust exercise? Because that all didn't happen within a week, right?
I'm. I'm curious. Was that trust in yourself always strong or was there voices where it's like, what the fuck are you doing?
Rachel Spekman [00:08:24]:
No, it's definitely the volume has been kicking up more and more. And that's when we get into abundance, mindset and the vibration and following myself, the opportunities. I truly do mean this. Are really coming my way. What happened is while I was in said high flying position positions, I started having a very long, unexpected and painful family planning journey to have my children. And I was basically pretending all day that nothing was going on, that I was fully fine and things were not fine in my life. Actually, things were. My marriage was in a really hard place.
My body was going through a lot of. Emotionally, I was going through a lot. My relationship were. And you know, pretending takes its toll on the body, on the brain, on everything. Of course, we all have to fake it till we make it. Be professional, do all of the things. You would have never known what was going on with me. But internally, a whole nother part of me was really opening up.
Rachel Spekman [00:09:33]:
And when I went back to when I finally did have my child, my first son, my son, I have a daughter now too. I went back to work as usual and I was there for six months. And I said, this is not it. And that is where I was speaking at that conference. And I do like to share this part of the story that Moana, the film was playing on the way home and I started crying like a baby. I was like, Moana's following her dream and her passion. I have got to figure out what mine is. And then I did.
I did 40 interviews with people in different fields. I went on two international trips to get to know myself in a different way and push myself. Marriage counseling, like I said, the financial planning. I sold a property so I could do this. I mean, this was not an overnight decision. It was also one of the only decisions that I made without telling everybody else first. I decided to make it and then announce it. Make it and then announce it, don't announce it and then make it true.
Yvonne Heimann [00:10:41]:
It's interesting because so many, so many coaches and business expert or whatever talk about announce it, sell it, and then do it. And you went the other way around. And I find it also in combination with that Discipline and consistency. So looking at what you have done to align with yourself, to do something that feels right, to do something that is your passion and where you feel completely you. You also talk about that in your business. You lead. You lead yourself, you lead your clients. You lead your mindset with discipline, consistency, and support.
Now, I'm curious. How do you help your clients cultivate these qualities that you have already shown you carry too? Which isn't always easy. If we are stuck, if we are overwhelmed, if it's like, oh, my God, the little voice says, what the fuck are you doing? Or let's be honest, about at least four days of the month, I'm just in a black hole and I want to kill everybody and not do anything. How do you help your clients cultivate that discipline, consistency, and support when they feel stuck, when they feel overwhelmed.
Rachel Spekman [00:12:13]:
Okay, so let me share that. When I was doing therapy, doing all of my training, all my certifications, I had people from previous parts of my professional identity reach out to me and say, how did you make that change? I'm unhappy. And so to answer your. And that's actually how my business started. Truly. Like, this is how career. I didn't set out to be a career coach. I just happened to find a career I loved.
And it turns out a lot of people want to find a career that they love, and they're in a career that they don't love, and they need a path out. And I'm happy to help people with a path out because it's amazing to be in a place that you love. It's truly amazing. Is every day perfect? Absolutely not. So. But the first way to answer your question is giving yourself permission to say, I'm gonna do it.
Is giving yourself permission and saying this. This might piss some people off. This might piss my boss up. This might piss my partner off. But I'm. I know. You know, at the end of. Who cares what anybody else thinks at the end, you put your own head on the pillow.
Rachel Spekman [00:13:20]:
At the end of the day, not your children, not your spouse. Right. So there's that accountability piece. And it is competitive. And there is AI and there is. It's crowded. All the things are also real.
And giving yourself permission to. To truly, whether it. I didn't want to say invest because that has a financial implication, but to invest the 3t is the time, talent, and treasure in yourself that. So I do a lot of mindset work to. Basically because people get really. They get. They get saturated in their identity of I hate my job. I'm always going to hate my job.
I hate this. I'm always going to hate it. I'm gonna. The next place I go is gonna be toxic. The next place is this. Well, you're just manifesting it to be, so.
So I'm gonna stop you right there. So that's really where a lot of my combination of the psychological background and having navigated several careers and career environments can. Can really overlap well. But, you know, I think in addition to permission, it's strategies, it's a timeline, it's project management with support, and then it's consistently. It's brick by brick. It really is. It's brick by brick. I mean, look, I can talk about how I ended up inviting men into the program.
I'm still figuring things out right now. I had two clients this morning. They're like, hey, I tried to pay you and it didn't go through. Okay, let me figure that out. It's just figuring out one piece at a time.
Yvonne Heimann [00:14:45]:
For anybody out there that feels like their career looks great but feels wrong, what would you say is the first step that they potentially even can take tomorrow to make that change or take it today? Figuring out the change.
Rachel Spekman [00:15:04]:
Take it right now. So the first thing I'll have you do this is I call it an internal audit of your job, of what you're doing. Where are you spending? 10% of your day? 5%, 20%. And then color code it. Green, yellow, and red. Which one?
Yvonne Heimann [00:15:25]:
Oh, yes. This is it. This is a universe episode again. I literally had those conversations with my right hand this morning. It's like, okay, where are we taking the business? I'm like, oh, girl, I feel called out today. In a good way. In a good way.
Rachel Spekman [00:15:40]:
It's hard. I mean, so that's that. So then, you know, you say, okay, I'm. I'm doing budgeting for 20% of my day. Ask yourself, is that using skills that I enjoy using? Is this aligned with my values? And am I curious about how budgets work? Next topic. Okay, I'm doing podcasting. I don't even like being in front of the camera. That's a red.
I'm just using an example. As you start to audit. We're doing this all day for groceries, for. We have enough toilet paper. We gotta do it for ourselves. What is going on with me? So that I don't run out of milk, whatever. So I don't run out of energy. However, when it comes to ourselves very often.
And this is what I do think is actually universally a female problem, which is, give, give, my kid's happy, this is happy, this is happy. And I'm last. So I want to challenge everybody to. I'm always about starting the day, put yourself first just one time today. No, I'm not going to do that. The power of no. I'm going to say no to that thing that's draining me. So that's what I would say is the internal audit.
Rachel Spekman [00:16:59]:
And the second thing I would say to that is I say this all of the time. Our bodies are giving us data every moment of the day. When you see that person, do you shudder a little bit? When you see that person, do your eyes light up because you're excited to see them? When you get to that email, oh my gosh, I can't stand emailing this client. When you get to that email, oh my gosh, I can't wait to see her succeed. That this micro data is helping orient us. If we're paying attention to what excites us, what makes us feel expansive, open. And that's back to me crying in the bathroom. I was leading the entire group up there, but my entire system was basically shutting down, which is why I had to go cry in the bathroom.
So I said, I can't. I'm a person who can't live with that kind of asymmetry. Some people can
Yvonne Heimann [00:17:53]:
Where it's like, yeah, I can be in a situation I don't want to be in for a certain amount of time, but if I don't consciously work my way out of it, I will burn it to the ground unconsciously. It's it. There is, there is no way around it.
Rachel Spekman [00:18:10]:
Right? So that's the other thing. I mean, here's one more exercise people can do. What's in your comfort zone? Your panic zone. And then right in your sweet spot of the stretch zone. I like that because most people are like, I don't want to go to a networking event. That's my panic zone. Great, we'll grab a friend that'll put you more in your comfort zone. I don't want to do that thing because what if they don't like me? A writing class, whatever.
Okay, Figure out one way to make it more in your comfort zone because you're going to elongate your comfort zone.
Yvonne Heimann [00:18:44]:
And that actually speaks to my next question. What. What are some of the most common mindset blocks you see in high achieving women and people? What is what is that thing where it's like, that's holding them back, is there?
Rachel Spekman [00:19:05]:
I'll tell you number, it's in the title. The first thing is everybody says I'm not high achieving. That's number one. People say, I kind of want to work with you, but I'm not high achieving. Well, tell me what you do. I run a $6 million budget. I'm this corporate executive. I mean, truly.
Yvonne Heimann [00:19:20]:
So it's the personal perception of you are not even who you are.
Rachel Spekman [00:19:25]:
It's the narrative, right? It's all of that. So that's a very common blocker. And so that's one of the first things I do is I say, okay, well, what is high achieving? How do you define high achieving? Then we have to start unpacking some of the messages we receive around work achievement, prestige, right? I say we're all carrying a very heavy backpack of our baggage, and so we're going to unpack some of that together in a very productive, deliberate way so that you, you reassess. You know, it's like you're wearing a backpack and you're like, that water bottle is sticking into me. It's like, okay, let's reposition things. I'm being a little abstract, but we all have that stuff that we carry. So how are we going to hold it and say, oh, actually the nugget that I got from that is this or the nugget that I got from that toxic boss is I like working in environments that are collaborative and you know, know. So we, we have to kind of do that shadow light work.
And as far as mindset, it's, it's a lot of it is trust and like I said, setting up that plan and it's, it's not simple. I'm not trying to say it's simple at all. I have people right now who are applying for positions they never thought they would apply for. Connecting with people. So it's also letting your surprising yourself. I always say it all the time. It says to my children, let people surprise you, let a situation surprise you.
Yvonne Heimann [00:20:49]:
It's, it's interesting. Did I, did I mention, I haven't mentioned this is a universe episode where I literally had a situation this morning of over the last 24 hours clarifying where we want to take my business over the next year. And literally this morning I get a message from somebody that is not even in the country here right now, that is not even, "working right now" on vacation, having run into somebody else that is connected to My assistant. That is a perfect client for me, a perfect client for them. The. The. The perfectly aligned personality type that we want to work with. And it's like, I literally just made the decision 24 hours ago what I want this business to look like and feel like, and here it is.
And it just shows up. It's like, wow it. And that's. That's one of my exercises where I go back to. I've done it in my private life, where I went through the exercise of what does a healthy relationship to me look and feel like? And I started the same exercise for my business. What does a fulfilling, healthy business look and feel like for me? And literally having a list of 21 things. And. And I started on that list yesterday.
And the universe is always showing up where it's like. And so random. Literally, both of these people are in a country. They are. They're not regularly at. At the same freaking food tour, getting all of us connected. And I'm like, okay, universe, I hear you.
Rachel Spekman [00:22:37]:
And she's like, I've been knocking. I've been calling your name.
Yvonne Heimann [00:22:40]:
I promise I'm listening. And I wanted to bring this up as an example where it's really like, don't limit yourself. Don't limit yourself with the specifics of what this has to look like. You can build your offers or the companies around it. Leave the door open for it to show up for you.
Rachel Spekman [00:23:03]:
Not to be your therapist right now, but I want to point out something that you did that was really beautiful just now for your listeners is you decided to be in relationship with your business and be intentional. And so when we're in. When we're overwhelmed with money, that's our relationship with money. When we're avoiding looking at the bank account, that's an avoidance relationship. Okay. When we are a relationship with food, we're in a relationship with everything around us. And a relationship, as we all know, takes work. It's dynamic.
I think about it as like, chips in the bank. Right? So we have to kind of have these, like, withdrawals, deposits, those kinds of things. So one thing I heard you say is, you said, I'm going to be in relationship with my business in a way that serves me that is healthy. And I want to invite people to do that with their. Their professions, with their careers, and get curious about it, because if not, it's years of burnout and health issues and fatigue, and then bring that to your partner and your children. And then, you know, and we just kind of. We become very, very resigned. It's very sad.
It's honestly very sad. And most people who come to me, one of the first questions I ask is, what percent happier are you in your job?
Yvonne Heimann [00:24:25]:
That's one of the things where it's like, yes, I might be stuck in something when I'm working through it for a while, but there's gonna come a point where I'm like, I'm done. Life is too short to be stuck in something that doesn't serve me, that doesn't energize me, that. That doesn't do anything for me. And there is. Literally, I've seen myself not having done the work and start subconsciously burn stuff to the ground because I didn't listen. But when I'm. And I love how you brought it with, really, with a relationship of avoidant, I'm like, yeah, my financial and my money mindset is still a big work happening where I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm avoidant often enough with it. However, when I work through that avoidant moment, and I'm like, I'm taking charge of this.
Yvonne Heimann [00:25:16]:
I. I'm. I'm, quote, taking care of you. My bank account. First of all, it's less stress. Second of all, my control freak is a little bit more happy, right? Because when I step away from it and I don't do anything with it, it doesn't help the situation. It just makes my control freak even worse. And the whole energy with it suddenly changes.
And when I stop ignoring it and I stop avoiding it, suddenly there is things that help me take care of whatever I'm dealing with at the moment. So it's. It's just this whole encompassing. Owning it. Enjoying it?
Rachel Spekman [00:25:54]:
Yeah, Right. I was gonna say, I think. I think really, gratitude is a very big part of this too. I mean, I really do think that, you know, and many people I work with, there's a lot of guilt. Should I change careers? My parents work so hard, you know, they put me through this law degree. I hate law school. I hate school. So there's again, back to that permission piece and then that gratitude.
Wonderful. You got that experience. Now you can take it and make meaning of it, right? And so I. I truly feel grateful that. I feel grateful that. That I get to do this work and that I can. I truly do feel this way, that it. It's serving people to realize their highest and greatest good for themselves.
Yvonne Heimann [00:26:35]:
And that feels right. Now, Rachel, tell me, where can people find you if they're ready to make that change and they are done with their career? Where can they find you? How can they connect with you?
Rachel Spekman [00:26:48]:
Thank you. Wait, I want to say something. I help everybody make what I call a small, medium, and large change for their career. So if you're done that. I'm not. We're not quitting tomorrow. Nope. We are make.
We are building the bridge as we leave. And just because you're done doesn't mean you're done with. Maybe you're done with that manager or you're done with that part of your role. So I help very much negotiate within your role. You can find out more about me at Rachel Spekman rachelspekman.com or madeformorecoach.com and as.
Yvonne Heimann [00:27:23]:
Always, and as always, the link is really simple in the description. Wherever you're listening, watching, reading, whatever it is, you'll find the link in the description. Rachel, thank you for joining me for another universe episode. I love how the universe always delivers. It's like, yeah, Yvi didn't even know what's going to come on this one. And I cannot wait to follow you and see how you're gonna tenfold your own business, because I know that's one of your future goals. Everybody out there, make sure to follow Rachel. I know there is a lot of great knowledge and a lot of amazing journeys to come here in the soon in the future.
And if you want to meet and hear about other amazing women like Rachel, you know the drill. Go hit that follow button and if there is a notification bell, hit that one too. So you don't miss any upcoming episodes. Rachel and everybody in the audience, thanks so much for joining me for yet another amazing episode of She is a Leader.