A conversation with Laurie Hirsch Schulz, founder of LHS Coaching; transformation coach, change navigator, facilitator, connector.
Laurie Hirsch Schulz, founder of LHS Coaching, is a transformation coach and facilitator.
In this week's Making Change with Your Money podcast, Laurie describes how she transitioned from corporate roles at Kraft Foods and Visa to starting her own coaching business.
She shares how an offhand comment over dinner early on her career changed her entire life
"You never know what kind of influence you have on someone, and how just one sentence can change their trajectory" - Laurie Hirsch Schulz.
Key Takeaways:
- Listen to your intution AND combine it with facts. Pay attention to your gut coupled with objective measurements.
- Bravery plays an essential role as we navigate life transitions. In Laurie's words, magic happen when you're uncomfortable.
- Foster relationships with advisors that you can turn to for advice.
- Do your research before taking a leap. Talk to as many people as possible to understand the implications of your decision.
About The Guest:
Laurie partners with career explorers, solopreneurs and non-profit founders who are at professional inflection points to navigate through change to clarify, embrace and activate new opportunities. Laurie coaches at the intersection of work and life, supporting her clients to define what's next and "Map their Next Move". Services include 1:1 coaching, group programs and interactive workshops. Laurie also is the founder of Broad River, a women's networking group serving the Westchester NY Rivertowns, and the president of the board of the Westchester Youth Alliance.
Linkedin:- https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriehirschschulz/
Instagram:- @lauriehirschschulz
Website:- https://lhscoaching.com
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Disclaimer: Please remember that the information shared on this podcast does not constitute accounting, legal, tax, investment or financial advice. It’s for informational purposes only. You should seek appropriate professional advice for your specific information.
[00:00:00] You never know what kind of influence you have on someone, and just one sentence can change their trajectory.
Welcome to Making Change With Your Money. A podcast that highlights the stories and strategies of women who experienced a big life transition and overcame challenges as they redefined financial success for themselves. Now, here's your host, certified financial planner, Laura Rotter hi, I am so happy to have today as my guest, Laurie Hirsch Schultz.
Laurie is a transformation coach and facilitator, and she partners with people just like you, career explorers, solopreneurs, nonprofit founders who are at a career inflection point. And she helps you navigate through change so that you can clarify what it is you're looking for and embrace it and activate new [00:01:00] opportunities.
She runs group coaching programs in addition to solo coaching, and she's also the founder of Broad River a women's networking group serving Westchester, New York River Towns, and she's the president of the board of the Westchester Youth Alliance, a nonprofit organization. So, Laurie welcome. I am so excited to have you here today.
Well, thank you Laura, and I'm honored to be invited here by you. And I'm looking, I'm really looking forward to our conversation. I so appreciate all the things that you're involved in and your perspective. So I'm really looking forward. Great. So I, I like to start out these conversations with a question, and perhaps this question can help you frame your journey as you describe it to our listeners, and that is, what was money like in your family growing up?
Such an interesting [00:02:00] question. Well, I would say, I mean, money was, I mean, I was really fortunate. Money wasn't really an issue, I guess I would say. I grew up upper middle class actually very, and living much the way I live today, I would say. So I was really very fortunate in that regard. I mean, my, I was able to go to college without loans, which was, you know, very fortunate.
But I would say, We lived in, I, I grew up in Kingston, New York, which is about an hour and a half up the thruway from Westchester where we are. My father was an IBMer it was an IBM town. I feel like money was different then a little bit, Laura. I just, I feel like yes, we did. We took a vacation every year, which was lovely.
We never flew anywhere. It was, you know, we would drive places we. I didn't have a lot of, there wasn't even a mall in Kingston. I tell my, I tell my kids this. I mean, there wasn't even a mall in Kingston, so we would go, I feel like it was a little bit of a simpler time. We would go uptown to these little [00:03:00] shops.
I would go to London's for my clothes. And Alice was the salesperson and she knew my mom, and she knew my brother, and she knew me. And we would get, you know, a few pairs of pants and some shirts, and then we would go to Yalloms for our shoes. I mean, it was just, you know, it wasn't the access to so many things as there were. And my parents were both involved in, they were both volunteers.
They, they were on various boards and my father was a, I, I think one of the original environmentalists, he was one of the first people to be involved with like the Clearwater, which focuses on the, on the Hudson River and keeping cleaning the Hudson River. I think there was a balance on money. So money was never a challenge, but it also, there was a respect for it, I guess.
I think. Does that, that answers your question. Yeah. Yeah. What I'm hearing from you is that you took money for granted, but not in an extravagant way, just the money that you needed was [00:04:00] there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. And you know what, one of the, one of the first wake up calls I had, maybe not wake up calls, was I remember having my phone call with my first, my freshman roommate, we got the contact information during the summer and we met, and she asked me, how many pairs of jeans are you bringing?
And I just remember thinking, like that never would've occurred to me to even think about it. And I don't know if that was by nature of where I grew up or nature of my parents. You know? Like I said, I grew up in Kingston, which was kinda a low key town. I don't know. I was gonna say, when we go away to school, we meet people that grow up differently than us and think about things differently.
Sounds like that was well communicated. So. How directed were you at, what have, how young an age were, you know, walk me through where you went to school and you know, what you were thinking about? Well, I I went to Brandeis outside of Boston, Brandeis University outside of Boston. And I thought I wanted to [00:05:00] do journalism, so I, but they didn't have a journalism program, so I majored in political science.
I ended up not doing journalism. And actually, maybe this is part of the reason why I became a coach, because I think I was I didn't have the confidence I had like that inner critic who said, oh, well who are you to go out and report on the world? So I ended up going into public relations. So I mean, I, I like to write, I ended up going into public relations, got event, event work, event planning and things like that to help them promote their businesses.
And I went out to this, this is actually another piece of that that kind of has guided my coaching journey, I think, is that I went out to dinner with someone and we were talking about, it was like, I was like three years out of undergrad and I never thought about going to graduate school. I always thought, you know, I'm good.
Like this is, this is where I. And I was talking to this person that I was out to dinner with who was a little bit older than me and more years under his belt of work. And I was telling him what I was working on and I was like, oh, I'm beginning to get a little bit bored. And I was telling him about, I was [00:06:00] working with some people who are doing brand management and I was talking about, wow, that sounds so interesting.
And he said to me, well, have you ever thought about going to business school? and I thought, no, you never know what people this is. This is, I think this is something that I, you know, I, I'd like to think about myself and I say to my kids and I say to other people, you never know when someone says something to you.
Just what you, what, like what kind of influence you have on someone, and just one sentence can change the, their trajectory. I've never thought about going to business school, but why wouldn't I go to business school? You know, I had a liberal arts education, so business school would be so valuable for me.
That one comment like not meant, you know, just offhand. And then, you know, of course we had a longer discussion about it. Really changed my trajectory. And from there I applied to business school. I went to, I went to University of Michigan and from there I became, I started doing, I worked for Kraft foods which yeah.
And doing brand management and which [00:07:00] evolved into marketing strategy work. And then and then I moved, I was there for 15 years and I moved to Visa. Yeah. I was there for 15 years and I moved to Visa, the credit card company, and I led. Internal marketing consulting practice where we worked with, I did not think when I left undergrad, and maybe it was a little bit of that that insecurity, but I never thought that I would be going on to graduate school.
I thought, you know, all right, I've got this job in PR and I'll just keep plugging along. And that little comment was an inflection point that, you know, changed the tra trajectory of my career. It is so interesting how when we look back, we can see. What led to different inflection points and at the moment certainly didn't identify them as such.
It sounds like looking back you can see that change and. what gifts or strengths, Laurie were you bringing with you into this next stage? I mean, you mentioned that you clearly liked to write, [00:08:00] and that was why you had this idea. You wanted to be a journalist, morphed into pr, and as you look back, it sounds like somebody who made a commitment for long term to positions.
What were the strengths that you feel in addition to writing that you were bringing? You can now identify, I'm a strategic thinker. I, I think I, like, I do a good job of kind of looking holistically at things, but I also think, you know, the collaboration and, and collaborating together to brainstorm ideas and opportunities and then look big.
And then narrow in more, you know, more directly and being very focused on what are the outcomes that you're looking for. But using the outcomes is maybe that, that, that foundation, but really brainstorming being, you know, being creative. I don't necessarily consider myself to be creative in this traditional sense, but picking up like lots of loose ends and bringing them together.
So I think that strategic thinking and, you know, being [00:09:00] very focused on what, you know, how do you use insights and to guide your strategic thinking and how do you, you know, use those insights to actually activate solutions. I think that there's some, I've got a little bit, maybe a little bit of intuition.
Yeah. And, and listening to it actually. So my relationships with the people that worked with me that I worked with were always very strong and fostering that collaborative environment was very helpful also. So, you know, one of the funny things, you know, going back to business school and I, it hadn't even occurred to me until I was like a year and a half into coaching.
When I was at business school, I worked in the career advisory office as a coach for undergrad business students, and I was coaching them on their resumes and on their, their interviewing skills and like helping them to get more focused on what kind of jobs they were looking for. And I had done it as a job, but I really liked it.
I mean, it was a paid job that I did during my second year of business school and it's so funny how things go around and I [00:10:00] think that that innate trait of being able to make a connection with people and that mentoring, I think that that was very valuable in my career as well. , Laurie, I'm curious, since this is a podcast about transitions and how money is affected, when you say that you had a part-time job, was that by necessity, a requirement?
How did, how did that come to be? My parents and I, I don't remember if we had an explicit conversation, but we must have agreed that they were paying for undergrad. And if I wanted to go to grad school, it was on my own and it. So I was not, you know, I was not really in a position to be saving a lot of money.
So when I went to business school I had a small inheritance from an uncle who had passed away and I used all of that and I took out a student loan and I worked. So I guess you could say it was of necessity. And I think that that's, going back to that [00:11:00] original question is. Yes, I was, you know, we were very comfortable, but there was a respect for money.
I mean, I, I worked in, all through high school, I worked in a bakery, I worked in a jewelry store. I worked at a video. Yeah, I did like part-time jobs. I mean, they were really part-time, but that was my, you know, that was my spending money. So, yeah. So I always worked. Yes, I think there is a sense of self-sufficiency and knowing that you can take care of yourself.
That certainly comes across as as you speak. And thank you for giving me that additional insight into your background. And, and yet, and then you did make the decision though, to go to school full-time and not to continue to have a full-time job or, or go at night. Where did you go after business school?
So I'd had an internship with Kraft Foods and so I went and worked for, for Kraft. So that's the, and they, I started actually in their, they, Oscar Meyer was part of Kraft Foods and they were in Madison, [00:12:00] Wisconsin. So I, you know, I grew up in New York. School in Boston, and I worked in Boston for those four years at the PR firm, and I started in, in, in Madison with Kraft Foods, and I was there for four years.
I met my husband and I said to him, I'm kind of done with Madison . It was really cold. Then , things happen so fast that you don't even, you're not even aware quite that it's happened. I mean, you are aware, but you don't plan for it. So, I was offered a job, this, this opportunity in Zurich in like June of 2007.
We had we had a first grader and a, and a and a four year old, so we had to make a decision really quickly because we wanted to get our first grader into school, which also started in September. We took a trip out there in early July. I accepted the job. We packed up our entire house and moved our entire family in six [00:13:00] weeks.
Found an apartment in Zurich. Rented out our, leased out, our leased out our home. I don't know how we did it, but we just did it. We, you know, moved our kids just, we just. And your husband was able to keep his same position with Kraft? He was. So he, he was one of the first remote employees, I guess out there, in the world.
Cause he worked remotely from way before Zoom. Way before Zoom. He worked remotely from Zurich. And actually what's funny is he was working with a lot of plants. He was an, he's an operational engineer and he was doing some operations finance role at that moment, at that time. And he some of those plants didn't even know that.he wasn't in the United States, cuz he would do his phone calls from there. They didn't even know. And I'm so curious because you mentioned very flippantly, but Laurie it's really one of the hardest things for all of us. Did you make that decision partly from intuition and partly from pragmatism? Do you remember?
Or, or as you move forward because it's so hard. [00:14:00] You know, we're so trained to just have a list, pros, cons, and yet, as you pointed out, a lot of the decision has to come from internally. You know what, there's probably a lot of intuition. I think that there was some bravery I think that you, yeah, you need to be, sometimes you need to take the leap.
So, and the pragmatism, I suppose the pragmatism was, is that we were, I mean, it was an ex. It was an expat role. So there was the safety net of Kraft Foods. I mean, they, they paid for our move. And so, I mean, that was the pragmatic part of it. So in some ways they made it really easy, and maybe some of it was naivete in that.
We didn't know how hard the first six months would be, you know, moving to a completely new country. Would I, would I do it again? One, absolutely. 100, 100%. And maybe the fact that we didn't have a lot of time to overthink it is, is would probably help too. So I think it was intuition, bravery, [00:15:00] naivety. A little bit of pragmatism because we, we did have the support of a company behind us.
The magic happens, and maybe this has been, maybe that experience has helped open my eyes. I'm just kind of thinking about it. Magic happens when you're uncomfortable. It's not when you're the most comfortable. When you're most comfortable. It's just, you know, you mean like, I mean, so many of my clients come to me and they're like, oh, you know, my, my work's okay.
It's okay. And it's comfortable. Like, and they'll use that word comfortable. I know it, I know, I know how to do my work, but it's only Okay. Of course not. Nothing is fabulous all the time, and I love that. And as I reflect on changes that I've done in my own life, I mean, it's a little bit different twist, but took me a long time to make the leap and leave corporate.
And I'm looking forward to hearing how that transition happened. And while I was in the midst of not making the change, I had a spiritual director I worked with who said, Laura, you're just not in [00:16:00] enough pain. When you're in enough pain, you'll make the change. No, it's true. It's true. And, and I do feel like, I mean, just think about when you are trying to make a decision and, and you just carry it for so long because of that fear of change and that, that it becomes like this psychological burden.
It's like it's, it's a heavy weight. And everything just feels like it's okay. But I think that's, it's a great insight that it's, you have to, it's, it's not until the pain is is so hard, or you make it a habit. Like you purposefully think about being a little bit uncomfortable, maybe not every day, but on a regular basis.
And you say, well, I mean, my favorite thing to ask people is, well, what's the worst that can happen? And usually there's very little like, what's the worst that could happen? I did used to say to myself, do something that scares the shit out of you every day. . Yeah. It's the same thing. That's the same thing as we don't do something [00:17:00] uncomfortable.
Yeah. So then you came back after the stint in Zurich and. Please walk us through how you ended up leaving corporate life. Yeah, so I had an opportunity to join Visa and I worked for them for seven and a half years. But one of the things that was interesting about Visa was I was moving from food C P G to the financial services industry, and I thought that, It was going to be so hard to learn the financial services industry.
That's what I was most nervous about. Like if you had asked me, and it ends up, actually, your question at the beginning of this interview is such a great question. Like what traits did you have that made you successful in corporate? Those same traits that made me successful at Kraft, I was able to apply to, to Visa and it ended up that it wasn't, the challenge wasn't learning a new
industry. I, you know, I kept doing the work. The challenge was creating new community, creating [00:18:00] new connections, figuring out who in the organization I could count on or I could go to it to ask questions. That was the biggest challenge, especially since I was working in a field office. New York was a field office of Visa's corporate headquarters are in San Francisco, and my boss is in San Francisco.
So that was where the challenge was. So sometimes when you go through change, It's hard to predict exactly where the challenges are going to be, but so that's how you, so Visa recruited me to run their internal marketing consulting practice. I had done a lot of partnership management when I was in Europe, and that was a lot of the work that I was doing because I was working with the banks at Visa to build their, their Visa product, their Visa product business.
So I was there for seven plus years. and the organization started changing. Visa's a great company. I just didn't feel comfortable about where they were taking the organization that I was in. Well, I think you can probably hear that my career, like many, many people, and maybe you found this too, Is that [00:19:00] I started at a business school and I got promoted from one job to the next job.
And even this role at, you know, this, the, the, the global role in Zurich was, you know, it was, it was an opportunity that was put in front of me. And so I just kind of, you know, kept going, you know, I kept getting promoted, I kept getting promoted. You know, Visa actually found me through a recruiter, so I was like, okay, I'll go there.
That sounds. And it worked fine and I was never very thoughtful about my trajectory or where I was going. I just, you know, people would put in, you know, there was opportunities ahead of me and I would say, okay, that sounds good. Yeah, I'll do that. And then at Visa, things stopped working for me a little bit.
And I decided to be a little bit more purposeful about what was next. And I had a terrible boss. You know, lots of people leave businesses, leave. I had a terrible boss. And in the spring of 2017, we had a mid-year review. We were, our cycle was September to September. I had a mid-year review with a new boss and he's, you know, ready to give me [00:20:00] my review and I said, you.
I actually wanna talk about an exit plan. I, I, I'm like, I'm like, this isn't working for me anymore. I don't, I, you know, I, I knew there were exit packages because I was having to let a lot of, a lot of people go, and I said, I, I don't feel like the way the organization is going, the consulting practice is not necessarily my core competencies.
I ended up negotiating a situation where I stayed on until the fall of 2017. I stayed on almost six months and I got everything I asked for, and that was so empowering to be purposeful about what do I wanna do next? But that being very purposeful was really, really empowering. I think I felt more empowered than I ever had in my career before because I was like, all right, what do I want?
What do I need? And I'm gonna ask for it, and I'm gonna become prepared to ask for what I want. And I was successful. So that was, that's how I transitioned out of corporate. And Laurie again, you didn't bring it up for this little vignette, but bravery. [00:21:00] Bravery is clearly a trait that you have. I mean, we all have it if we're willing to source it, but that's another situation.
It couldn't have been easy to sit down and, you know, walk through. This is what I want. It sounds like you didn't experience it so much as bravery. You felt like you were in a position to ask for it. It also sounds like that you were resourced, that you had people to speak to, that you trusted in hr, who gave you good information.
Have you always felt that you've had people that you could turn to or you know, to get good? I think I always have. I don't know if I'd always been so good at doing so, but I think that is you, you know, you're alluding to a really important point, which is who are your advisors? I mean, I, I can't say that I ever actively fostered a mentor, like, you know, a senior leadership mentor, but I bet if I had, it probably would've done even better for my career.
It would've done well for my [00:22:00] career since I've left the corporate world. I absolutely foster those relationships and maybe that, and that was probably one of the first times that I, that I so actively and purposefully did so. And I think it was a game changer for me because I came with such a solid story and a solid connection.
So I took a little bit of time to figure out where I wanted to go next and, and then I decided to take a coaching certification class. But moving into, I spoke to a lot of people who were, who did do coaching, who were Kraft or Visa, who moved into coaching. I just, you mentioned that I'm the chair of a, of a nonprofit here in Westchester, and that's the first time I've been the chair of a, of a nonprofit before.
So I, I actually had a call last week with someone who's has a lot of experience in chairs as a chair of nonprofit and, you know, and, and, and used her as a sounding board. What do you think about this? What, what are the best practices? So, Very, very purposefully. Now as I [00:23:00] take on new things, foster those mentors or experts who can help guide me because I don't think any of us, and I'm always happy to do the same for other people as well.
I mean, I just don't think any of us can do it on, we can't do it on our own. I mean, I mean we're, we're own our own personal little echo chambers in our, in our brains and I certainly maybe that that bravery or confidence sometimes I. Can also be a liability. Like it's important to talk to other people.
So, so true. And back to. You know what we touched upon earlier, which is how we make decisions and we do need to learn to trust our own inner voice. And at the same time, it's important to have sounding boards and advisors that are more objective and can, you know, share their insights with us to help us ultimately make the right decisions for ourselves.
And how did the coaching come up? Like what gave [00:24:00] you the idea for becoming a coach? I, I would say that the experience of being purposeful in my transition out of corporate was really empowering and I wanted other people to have that experience. And in fact, my, you know, I've been in business now for four years and it's gone through a few iterations.
It's always been about transition. I, you know, like it's, I've always, and I've always talked about even at the, like the day one, I've talked about inflection points and how do you navigate through inflection points. So that's just something that's really resonated with me. Oh, I read this book. fabulous book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans.
Do you know it? I have that book on my Kindle. I don't know that I've made it through, but Oh, it's so fabulous and that really helped define like, what is it that, you know, what, what drives my personal life, what drives my work life? Cuz you know, I like to, I really focus on that intersection of work and life.
Building connections and [00:25:00] it all led me to the, to coaching and I, I got my coaching certification through a, I did a lot of research. I did a lot of research on the different coaching organizations that were out there. I spoke to a lot of coaches. Oh, and I know the last thing I was going to say that I also, I had outplacement services through Kraft.
When I, when I left, as much value as those out placement services provided, it was all about, How are you gonna get the next job? Get the next job, get the next job? You are a marketing strategist. You're a brand manager. You're gonna be a marketing strategist and a brand manager, not exploring what's important to you.
What are your values? Why are you here? What? What is. You wanna make a change? Let's talk about how do you reposition your skills and your, your, your, your capabilities. Let's repossi how do you wanna rebrand yourself as a and, and, and what does that look like? And I felt, and I really felt like this is a place where I can really bring [00:26:00] value to people, is to navigate through change and not think about it as, I've gotta keep on that autopilot, and I've been a brand manager my entire career.
I'm gonna be a brand manager for the rest of my life. I've been, I'm, I'm working with several attorneys. I've been an attorney my entire life. I'm, I, I have to keep being an attorney. And that's just simply not true. And coaching to a certain degree, builds on those insight skills, but it's about how do you develop insights about yourself so that you can evolve yourself and, or evolve or change in a way that's going to be.
even more valuable that reflects who you are and, and you know, you develop your, how do you wanna evolve your personal brand or your personal positioning? And so when I first went into coaching, I didn't even realize how much my skills from a insight to action perspective, like, you know, let's take an insight and then let's activate it.
It applies to coaching also, or to, or to making a change. What are your insights about yourself and actually [00:27:00] activate. You use those insights if you, if you're a social person and collaboration is really important to you, doing a job that's an individual contributor job where you're just sitting behind a computer all day is never going to work for you.
So that's kind of where, what's brought me to coaching and why I continue to really enjoy it and, and I think those are the skillsets that I bring to it as well. That's so beautiful. Laurie thank you for sharing all that. I think. People like you and I who work individually really do almost have a sacred mission to.
Help the people we work with actually see themselves. I mean, I do have people come who you know, think that, oh, a financial advisor, it's about making more money. But making more money is never gonna make you happy. But what are your values? What makes you come alive? And then use your resources, [00:28:00] in your case, your professional resources, in my case, your financial resources.
To optimize. It's important to have people like you, Laurie to create a safe space for people to explore who they are. If you have a sense of maybe how your values and sense of success tied to money may have shifted over time since I've come to understand how powerful you were in your previous roles. No, that's, that's a great, that's, that's actually, that's a great question.
So, I mean, I think money, And how you value yourself are so intricately tied, especially, especially I think if you had a corporate job or probably at all. I mean, whether you had a really crummy week or a really crummy six months, you still got your salary in general. Like your salary came in every single, you know, every other week.
And that was how I've, that was one of the ways absolutely. That I valued myself. A and you know, I was a working mom and I traveled a lot for work. And so, I mean, that was like, it was such a structured life and it [00:29:00] was, and the compensation was how you valued yourself. And when I left Kraft or Visa, One of the things that I didn't realize, I mean of course there was the money aspect of it, but I would take a walk around, this is before Covid, of course, this was in 20 17, 20 18.
I would walk around my block in the middle of the day and I would think, What are people thinking about me that I'm not at work right now? I mean, how ridiculous is that, ? I mean, and I knew intellectually it was ridiculous, but there is still that emotional, like they're thinking, oh, I'm just sloughing off.
I'm not, you know, I'm, I'm just, you know, hanging around the neighborhood. , I sh you know, why isn't she a work? And that certainly was tied to the, to the money too. It's just that. How I, you know, part of your value is that you go to work every day and you bring, and you bring home money and you're a role model for other women because it's the women part of it too is that I worked full-time and, you know, and I was, and you know, role [00:30:00] model for my daughters and, you know, all of that.
I think I'm still a role model for my daughter, but that takes a, that takes time. I think it's only been, I mean, it's been five years since I left Visa. I can't believe it's been that long, and I think it took. At least two or three years to really, to really move beyond that and recognize that there's, you know, and really not just recognize, because I knew it, I knew it intellectually, but really internalize.
That there's so many other ways to, to be valued beyond just a paycheck. And certainly my, you know, my friends and my spouse and my children didn't value me just on my paycheck. But it's very hard to break out of that when you've been, that, that's been so much of how you value yourself. And I think, you know, people talk about the silver lining of covid.
I think that Covid has helped to break that too. I mean, I think that there's more openness to be th to, to thinking about how do you create value. [00:31:00] beyond just bringing in a paycheck. Yes. And I think you illustrated it so beautifully, Laurie which is you were projecting onto others what you were thinking.
Like, oh my God, I'm walking without any purpose in my n in my neighborhood. What is that about? And I do, I do think Covid has made it easier. I also know. I too was the worst boss I ever had because it's not only the money, it's productivity. You should be up early and you should be working late and you should always have meetings.
And I think it is a message from our culture and a lifelong practice to. Take a step back, and uh, It helps As you age, you get more perspective on how much time we really do have here and what is really important. And, and, and I think for women in particular, I'll speak for myself. I was very [00:32:00] conscious of being.
A woman, a professional woman, you know, I went to business school now, Michigan actually had a pretty high percentage of women, but I think at that time, I mean, I think only 20% of most schools were 20 or 30% were women. I was very conscious of being a professional woman, and that was part of my identity too.
So, Laurie, I know you do such good work with people like our listeners who are going through a big life transition. If someone wants to reach out to you, what's the best way to get in touch with you? Thank you for asking. They can check out my website, which is lhs coaching.com or they can email me laurie@lhscoaching.com or LinkedIn.
Just find me on Laurie Hirsch Schultz and I'm happy to talk to anyone about Transitions and change. And, and like you said, I work with career explorers, I also work with nonprofit founders and small business owners. So what, what I'd like to say is I help people to map their next move. And I really, I, I, I use something called in my [00:33:00] Map Your Next Move navigation process, which is something that I, you know, that, that I use in both my individual and my group coaching programs.
So, I'm looking forward to if you, if people should reach out. Yes. And I also know Laurie runs some wonderful networking groups and so she can tell you about that when you reach out. Thank you so much for being my guest. I've learned so much about what your career was like previously and what led you to where you are today.
Thank you so much.
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Laurie Hirsch Schultz of LHS Coaching, and I'd like to share with you some of my takeaways from our conversation. The first one is to listen to your intuition. While combining it with facts, it's important to [00:34:00] listen and pay attention to your gut and to combine that with objective measurements.
My second takeaway is to know that. Bravery plays a role when we face a life transition or take a leap towards something new. In Laurie's words, magic happens when you are uncomfortable. That's when opportunities that you weren't expecting happen. My third takeaway is to know your advisors. Know who you can turn to to get good advice and foster these relationships.
And finally, do a lot of research before you make a change. Talk to many people, as many people as you can to understand as much as possible. The implications of your [00:35:00] decision. Are you enjoying this podcast? If you are, please don't forget to subscribe, so you won't miss next week's episode. And if you love the show, please leave a rating and review.
It would be much appreciated. Thank you so much.
Thanks for listening to Making Change with your Money Certified Financial Planner, Laura Rotter specializes in helping people just like you organize, clarify, and invest their money. In order to support a life of purpose and meaning, go to www.trueabundanceadvisors.com/workbook for a free resource to help you on your journey.
Disclaimer, please remember that the information shared by this podcast [00:36:00] does not constitute accounting, legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. It's for information purposes only. You should seek appropriate professional advice for your specific information.