Welcome to Visionaries Pursuit, a podcast where we explore what it takes to turn your bold and inspiring ideas into reality. I'm Carolina Zuleta. I'm a life and a business coach and your host for this podcast. I'm thrilled to have you here. Hello, hello, and welcome to episode 10 of the Visionaries Pursuit podcast.
Hello, hello, and welcome to Episode 12 of the Visionaries Pursuit Podcast. I love being here with all of you. This topic was inspired by multiple conversations I've been having with clients in the past few weeks. And it's also inspired by my recent trip to New York. So if you've known me for a while, you probably know this story.
But for those of you who are new, I'm going to share it really quickly. I grew up in Columbia and in college, I studied economics and finance. Back then I was as ambitious as I am today. But back then my ambition was to work in wall street. I wanted to leverage my degree in economics and finance. To play in the biggest stage of finance in the world, Wall Street.
And to my surprise, but also to my joy, I made it. My first job was at Morgan Stanley at their office in 1221 Avenue of the Americas. I'll never forget that address. So in my recent trip to New York, I went to visit those offices. And as I was there, I was reflecting on who I was. Who was that Carolina at 22, 23 years old with that dream to work in Wall Street and who I am today?
In many ways, I'm the same. I'm ambitious. I'm driven. I like success. I like money. But in other ways, I'm very different. Now I care that the way that I'm successful and I make money is by having a positive impact in people's lives. Now I don't care so much about having a title or The recognition that comes from working at a big firm like Morgan Sandy, and I care more about being the voice behind all my clients dreams, being the person who's having an influence so they can achieve things that are bigger than themselves.
Working in Wall Street was my dream until it wasn't. When I was working there, I started learning about coaching. I started learning about self development. And every time I took a course or I read a book, a big fire, something lit up inside myself like I had never experienced it before. And I had to come to terms that all that I have invested in having this career in finance, Was it turning out as I imagined and that inside of me, a new dream was being born and that it wasn't going to have a fancy title?
In fact, the first time someone introduced me as here's Carolina, she's a coach. I cringed inside. I was like a coach. No way. I'm way more than that. Now I'm a coach. It really doesn't matter. Now I've done a lot of work to be at peace, to being in full alignment with the person I am today. Now when I look back, I realized that a lot of my values had shifted.
Anything from the way I wanted to dress. When I was at Morgan Stanley I wanted to wear a suit. Beautiful suits and dresses and high heels. And I want to wear jeans and tennis shoes. And back then I wanted to work at a beautiful office building and with lots of people. Now I love working from my home office and having time to spend with my kids before I value spending so much time at work.
Now I love that I decide my schedule. I can take a day off if I want to. I, every afternoon I can spend it with my kids. So It's not that my dream about working at Morgan Stanley was wrong, it's that it was a dream back then, and it's not a dream anymore. It's that I changed, my desires changed, my values changed, and I think that happens to all of us.
I think there's space for us to change who we are, what we do multiple times. So I'm sharing this story because lately I've had many conversations with people who are living the dream they had many years ago, but it's no longer working for them. I have a client who Her whole dream was also to work in Wall Street to have financial security and all of a sudden she's dreaming about, I have a client whose dream was also to work in Wall Street to have financial security, to have recognition, but now her dream is to live in an island and live a slower life and be connected to nature and have abundance of time to be with her children.
I have another client who. He was working in one of those big tech companies in the United States, being super successful. And then he traveled to the Amazon and that changed him. And he realized he wanted to have a life that was more in alignment of taking care with nature and being connected to it, of enjoying it, not so much being attached to a screen all day.
I have another client who was a very successful. executive at another corporation. And she realized she wants to be home and be a stay at home mom and be there for her husband and her children and her family members. And all of them have struggled with realizing that is their new dream, have struggled with accepting that the dream they had 10 years ago is That is no longer what they desire.
And I think it makes sense because we've invested so much education, time, connections in building one dream that what do we do when we look around and it's like, okay, this is no longer working for me. And for some people, it's not working anymore, either because maybe they're in a toxic environment.
They're starting to notice that their values are not aligned with those of the corporation or the industry they're at. Or maybe there's a life event that changes something within them and all of a sudden they have a new vision for themselves, a new goal. And I know this happens a lot. It's very common for people to stay living in a dream.
That was an old dream because the fear of change is so big. What gives us pause is that we think, well, can I make the same amount of money I'm making today in that other life? Can I make the same amount of money I'm making in Wall Street while living on an island and having plenty of time for myself?
Can I keep my lifestyle? Or maybe it's too late. Maybe I've invested so much here. That it's too late to start something new. Now I'm 40, 45 years old, 50, however old you are, and you're worried that it's too late. Or maybe you're concerned like I was that I'm not going to be as respected by society. That people are going to frown upon me because I'm no longer this executive with this title with this team of people I'm leading.
I'm spending most of my time at home with my family, or maybe we have a belief that we are not worthy of that other life because we've learned that the way we are valuable is because we're spending 40, 50 hours at work. We're producing, we're being productive. And then all of a sudden we're like, where will my value be if I'm not working that much?
Well, all of this are beliefs. They are thoughts that are holding us stuck in old dreams. There is something I learned from my coach, um, many years ago, and I do it at least once a year. And it's to give myself the permission to re choose everything I currently have. And the way I do it is by asking myself this question.
If I knew everything I already know about being married to Andrew, but I wasn't married to him, would I get married to him now? If I knew everything I know about being the mother of Maya and Mila, but I didn't have them, Would I have them now? If I knew everything I know about being a coach and an entrepreneur, but I wasn't, would I start this business?
Would I live in this house? Would I have these friends? And I try my best to be honest with myself and remember that every dream I've built in the past, I get to re choose it now. Because I've been married to Andrew for Almost seven years doesn't mean I have to stay married to him. I want to stay married to him because I am a coach and I have this business doesn't mean I have to do this the rest of my life.
I can rechoose every year, decide, yes, this is what I'm doing. Or he has, this is the way that I'm doing it. To be honest right now, we're growing this business and it's requiring a new level of effort. I'm learning to grow my capacity and it's hard. It's hard in many ways. I'll talk more about it in another podcast.
And yet I remind myself that I don't have to grow it, but do I want to? I choose yes, even if it's hard. So how do you know it's the right moment for you to reinvent yourself? One way is by asking yourselves these questions. Right. If these things I have in my life, I knew all about them, but I didn't have them, would I choose them again?
Another way is by staying close to you, paying attention to how you're feeling, what is the story you're telling yourself? What are the new desires that are coming forth? What are the stories you tell yourself as to why you cannot change? Why you have to stay in the same job or in the same relationship you've had for years?
And you don't need to make a change, but the first place to start is to be honest with yourself and tell yourself the truth about what you want. The other thing I want to share with all of you is something I've learned, I think, because I've lived in multiple cities, multiple countries, I've worked in different industries, and it's that I've come to realize that.
Whatever world we are in right now, and by world, I mean the work we have, um, the people we surround ourselves. In that small pocket of society, we have made up some definitions of what is better, of what is prestigious, of what success looks like, of what is approved or not approved. And I want to remind you that the Those are just stories and that when you change to another pocket of society, you will find another set of rules or agreements as to how you're successful, how you make money, how are you recognized.
And either of those groups has the ultimate truth. I'll give you an example. If you're working in corporate America, the rules about success look like, am I a senior vice president? Did I make the C suite? Am I part of any board? When you're an entrepreneur, the rules look like, well, it depends, right?
There's some entrepreneurs that is how much capital did you raise? How much money have investors given you for other ones is how much are you selling for other entrepreneurs is how much time do you spend working versus time you're taking off. Even when we're moms, right? You've, I've seen it. There are some group of moms that.
think that the way to be a better mom is by having natural birth and breastfeeding and feeding your kids organic food and being in every event your kids are part of. And then there are other moms who are maybe working moms who the rules or the agreements of being a successful mom is being an example for their children and allowing their kids to see them be successful and grow and develop and have an impact.
The point is. Whatever world you are in today, I want you to pay attention to how this group of people that surround you, including you, have defined success, have defined what's valuable or not valuable, what's better or not better. And I want you to remember that that is only one way. There are many other ways.
If you change countries, if you change cultures, if you change industries, if you change jobs, you're going to find a whole new set of agreements that are different. And why this is important is because we cannot be too attached to the ways our small pocket of the world says this is the best when we want to reinvent ourselves and become someone else.
I think that the best rules we could ever follow that define success, value, Productivity, any of those things are the ones we make up for ourself that are aligned with our values and our desires. The world is way more diverse and the opportunities to making money are infinite and you can have as many careers, as many versions as you want.
If you look into yourself, you will find your own path. Some years ago, I found a new dentist and she's an amazing dentist and I love her. But then I realized she's also an actress and she's in multiple TV shows and she has a big social media following and she's really funny in her social media. Wow. A dentist who was an actress, who would have thought?
The other story is my friends, they were traveling in Spain and they had to adjust something with their visa. So they were trying to find an immigration lawyer. Well, what happened is that their butcher, where they went to buy their meat every week, said, by the way, I'm also an immigration lawyer. And he was the one who helped them change their status, which I also think it's hilarious, right?
Butcher who's an immigration lawyer, who would have thought? So you get to reinvent yourself, be an actress and a dentist, a butcher and a lawyer, or whatever version you want to become, because there's only one of you. And there's only one lifetime that you get to decide who you want to be multiple times.
Some years ago, I was listening to an interview with Michelle Obama, and she said that she hated the question, who do you want to be when you grow up? The question we all ask kids. And the reason she hated is because in her opinion, that limited kids to choose only one thing, when in reality, we can be many things.
I can't finish this podcast without sharing with all of you the person who in my eyes is the king of reinvention, my father. My father in his teenage years, early twenties, was a bullfighter. He then become a businessman and got an MBA, spent most of his career working in textiles. For some years, he became the CEO.
Of the largest recording company in Colombia. We've been to support him at golfing tournaments, cycling tournaments. In his late fifties, he decided he wanted to learn how to kite surf. And he did. When he retired from his job, he decided that he had always wanted to be a scientist and went back to college to study astrophysics.
And he didn't care that his projects, he had to do them with 20 year olds. It didn't matter to him. Then he decided he wanted to learn how to play the saxophone. And he was so committed to it that he started playing with an orchestra. We even went to Disneyland to see him in concert there. He taught himself how to speak French and how to speak classic Greek.
Now he's also wanting to learn how to sing, so he's taking singing lessons. For my dad, age doesn't matter. what other people say. doesn't matter. That it's hard or that he's new or that he's bad at it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that he wants to learn, that he wants to develop a new skill, that he wants to appreciate a new aspect of life.
His latest thing, quantum physics. I want all of us to be like my dad, to allow ourselves to pursue all the desires we have. Even if we're not the best at them, even if we're not making money out of them, but that we're pursuing them because we have one lifetime and we get to reinvent ourselves as many times as we want.
So if you have a dream, if you have a desire of something you want to learn of something you want to become, please let me know. Send me an email to info at carolinazuleta. com. I want to be the person who supports you in pursuing the dream and becoming a new version of yourself. I'll see you next time.
