Julie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s talk legacy –
what sort of legacy do you hope to build?

There were a lot of questions that piqued my interest, but this one hit something deeper. I turned 50 earlier this summer and had a series of memorable celebrations and acknowledgments of the robust life and career I have built. I have been practicing transformational work (for myself and as a coach for others) since 2017. And since that time, I have been increasingly focused on impact and legacy. In my work, I am called to support people around how they want to be remembered and the marks they want to leave on this world.

There is so much power and intention in these conversations because underneath the questions is the assumption that people have innate power to be changemakers and to make a difference, for themselves, for others, and for this world. I want to be remembered as a person who reminded my clients, family, loved ones, all my communities- that each of them matters, that each of them has more power and agency to drive the course of their lives than they might think and that each of them can make meaningful contributions to this world.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I spent nearly two decades in the legal industry before turning full time to coaching and building my coaching practice. I grew up in an affluent suburb of NY where achievement and ambition were highly valued. I was very driven to succeed and perform throughout my childhood and adolescence. And succeed and perform I did. I thrived at Yale, graduating summa cum laude and phi beta kappa. All my life I was told I should go to law school, and so without much of my own introspection and reflection, that’s what I did. I went to NYU law and landed in private practice in Big Law.

For the next nearly 17 years, I tried a number of different roles in the legal industry. I was a practicing litigator, business operations professional, talent developer, career counselor, and admissions consultant. Throughout this journey to find my place and my sense of belonging, I got married and had two incredible daughters. It wasn’t all blissful, as I suffered multiple miscarriages and years of unexplained infertility.

In about 2016, I found myself at a crossroads. I was bored and unfulfilled professionally. I was stagnating and feeling like my life was a fraction of what I wanted it to be. Around that time, I happened to share my experience with a dear friend of mine. She observed: “Julie, you are a natural coach.” I truly had no idea what she was talking about. But through some additional conversations with her (she had just completed a coach training program) and some limited research, I took what was at the time an uncharacteristic leap of faith and registered for a yearlong coach training program.

From there, my path became clearer. I learned how to be a coach and then I built a coaching practice. I trained for two years while building my brand, my website, my niche and working with people. Since that time, I have never looked back. I knew in my early days of coaching that this was- for lack of a better expression- my calling. To be with people in conversations about designing their lives, working towards goals, tapping into new potential, dreaming bigger than they ever have and imagining new possibilities- this was what I was made to do.

At this point, I have my one-on-one practice, and I also do group coaching through various platforms like Chief, Due Course, and Medley. I am also a coach in The C-Suite Collective, which is a boutique executive coaching and leadership consulting agency. The C Suite Collective has a bench of expert practitioners who provide an array of offerings to organizations to drive systemic and cultural change, with a focus on inclusion and belonging.

In my one-on-one practice, I work with people in a variety of ways and on a variety of issues, including leadership development, emotional intelligence, self-expression, people management, relationship building, communicating with influence, and navigating conflict.

I am also a consultant for Golden Resources. Emily Golden, the founder of Golden Resources, is my dear friend, colleague, and mentor who first introduced me to the field of coaching in 2016. With Golden Resources, I work on larger organizational contracts and executive coaching engagements, as well as bespoke workshops and trainings. In addition, Emily and I have co-created a suite of offerings around supporting women to be more effective self-advocates in the workplace. In our work, we have noticed gaps in how women show up for themselves and have seen professional women engage in various forms of self-abandonment that have them staying put or stepped over at work. I’m incredibly excited about the programs we have created, as I am so mindful of how much my own ability to use my voice and advocate for myself have made a difference for me in terms of what I’ve created for myself and how I experience my life.

I’m especially proud of the self-advocacy programming because watching my girls evolve and grow provided much of the inspiration and creative energy to develop the offerings. It is deeply important to me that my daughters know that they have tremendous agency and power to go after what they want and to be empowered about their desires for themselves.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

My business is deeply relational. That is to say, the way I grow my business and attract new and ideal clients is by developing meaningful, connected, impactful relationships with everyone I coach and doing great work to support my beloved clients to achieve tremendous results. My clients are often the best sources of referrals for new clients. Human beings are not universally coachable. Some are simply not willing or not ready to be in challenging conversations to break up behavioral patterns and try new ways of being and new actions to create new outcomes. It is work that is not for the faint of heart. But I’ve noticed that coachable people- the ones who are fundamentally curious, who relate to challenges as opportunities, who have lofty goals- these folks tend to have various communities of like-minded people. Birds of a feather and all. So my most effective strategy for client growth is to build long term (past the coaching engagement) and real relationships with my clients and to ensure that the coaching journey and partnership produce results and make a difference. This way, they will speak about our work and about me and introduce other people into my practice.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I love this question. I feel like I am constantly practicing resilience as I build my business. I was 43 when I began my transformational journey- both doing my own transformational work with a coach for the first time and simultaneously learning to be a coach and build a coaching practice. I had spent nearly two decades in a traditional industry (law) working for firms and companies as an employee. The pivot to the coaching industry (by comparison, the wild wild west) was jarring. The pivot from employee to entrepreneur was downright terrifying. I was learning to be a coach and to coach people, but I was also learning how to be a business owner. For the first time in my life, I was wholly responsible for my income generation. I had to enroll clients AND ASK THEM TO PAY ME. I had no skills for this. My coach training program was helpful to some extent, but I had to put on my big girl pants and take some risks, practice a boldness that felt very much outside my comfort zone, and deal with rejection- pretty much on a regular basis.

There were many points in a first couple years of coaching when I considered abandoning ship. I knew I was becoming an excellent coach. I have always been able to be with people and to engage in all manner of rich conversation. I’m not scared of the intimacy and depth that a coaching relationship demands. But what absolutely shattered me in those early years was the work of client-generation and having people I felt drawn to work with say no to me for one reason or another.

Thankfully, I have many communities of support, as well as my own coach, and a loving family and circle of friends. All of these people helped me to stay the course. I kept doing my own work and kept having to reconnect to my “what for” which, frankly is the work that my clients are doing throughout our work together consistently. Building a coaching practice requires tremendous resilience, and it is a regular practice. I have not “overcome” the need for resilience. Rather, as my business has grown and become more reliable, I’m up to bigger things- more impactful work, larger engagements, program development that feels like my progeny requiring even more resilience. “Rejections” can feel even more painful than in the early days. But because I continue to do my work, and I have created a strong foundation of well-being and support, I have developed key skills that keep me from bowing out.

I like to think that the work I continue to do on myself in this regard has strengthened my coaching immeasurably and enables me to support my clients to likewise stay committed to their goals, even when things seem hard.