A conversation with Julie Delucca-Collins, speaker, coach and author. Julie helps women entrepreneurs build and grow sustainable and profitable businesses.
Julie DeLucca-Collins is a speaker, business coach and award-winning author dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs and leaders to build and grow successful businesses. Julie has a passion for helping women establish and expand their brands. She is certified in Tiny Habits, guiding individuals toward positive behavioral changes that lead to lasting success, and she's also a Thrive Global certified coach, providing holistic guidance to her clients whenever they need it.
Julie shares her personal financial journey, from the affluence of her family in El Salvador to the economic challenges faced when the war broke out and her family moved to Miami. She paints a vivid picture of how early experiences with money shaped her path to independence and success. She details the evolution of her career, from teaching in Virginia to impacting policy and fostering educational partnerships in New York, highlighting the role of mentorship as well as the personal evolution that paralleled her professional achievements.
Julie's story reflects broader themes of navigating life transitions, reclaiming financial autonomy, and crafting success on personal terms, underpinned by a commitment to lifelong learning and the empowerment of women to achieve their full potential. Her experience and advice offer valuable lessons for women looking to grow confidently in their careers.
“All of the women that I work with, the one thing that they have in common is that there's that piece of imposter syndrome. There's that piece of, not that they're not confident, because they are in some ways, but they need what we call a believing mirror. There's the concept of borrowing the belief of somebody else so that you can use that belief to start to build and get the evidence that you can do the thing. And once you have the evidence, it helps you build the confidence to keep going.” - Julie DeLucca-Colllins
Key takeaways:
- Develop multiple skills. Julie came from a family of educators, and assumed from an early age that she too would become a teacher. Her dad wanted her to have a secure financial future and so encouraged her to develop multiple skills in order to be more marketable. She interned with the agency for international development that her dad worked for, and so developed her writing skills by learning how to write grants.
- Prioritize your education, rather than working, in your formative years. Julie noted that her father, who was living abroad, provided her with some spending money when she was in high school. He recognized that it can be intoxicating when you first start to earn money, especially when you’re feeling financially insecure. Without some additional support, Julie might have prioritized working over learning.
- Don’t be afraid to set big goals for yourself. Julie remembers being at a national conference in Atlantic City for the company she was working for, and watching the awards ceremony for the managers of all the high performing centers in the network. She asked herself, and the company founders, “how do I get on the stage next year?” and by the end of that year her center had become one of the top performers!
- Relationships are key. According to Julie, building relationships has been key to her success. From growing relationships with important referral partners, to becoming a trusted advisor, Julie credits her alliance building with helping her get promoted, climb the corporate ladder, and ultimately to move on to a new company when the time was right.
About the Guest:
Julie DeLucca-Collins is a highly sought-after TEDx speaker, business coach, and award-winning author dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs and leaders to build and grow successful businesses.
With a passion for helping women establish and expand their brands, Julie has become a trusted advisor for many women. Certified in Tiny Habits, Julie leverages her expertise to guide individuals toward positive behavioral changes that lead to lasting success.
Her coaching expertise extends beyond this domain, as she is also a Thrive Global Certified coach, providing holistic guidance to her clients whenever they need it. Julie's impressive achievements include publishing her book in September 2021, quickly soaring to the top of multiple categories, earning the coveted #1 spot.
As a dynamic speaker, Julie has captivated audiences with her insightful talks and has been featured on prominent media outlets such as ABC, NBC, and FOX. Julie has spoken at many colleges and universities and delivered keynote presentations at national educational conferences, and leading companies across the US. She delivered her first TEDx Talk at the TEDx MellenStreet in November 2023.
Website: https://www.goconfidentlycoaching.com/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goconfidentlyjulie/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julie_deluccacollins/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jdelucca
Email address: Julie@goconfidentlycoaching.com
Julie's podcast: Casa DeConfidence
Julie's book: Confident You: Simple Habits to Live the Life You Imagined
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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.
Julia Delucca Collins
But all of the women that I work with, the one thing that they have in common is that there's that piece of imposter syndrome. There's that piece of, not that they're not confident because they are in some ways, but they need what we call a believing mirror. There's the concept of Borrowing the belief of somebody else so that you can use that belief to start to build and get the evidence that you can do the thing.
And once you have the evidence, it helps you build the confidence to keep going.
Narrator
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.
Laura Rotter
I am so excited to have as my guest today, Julie DeLucca Collins. Julie is a speaker. Business coach and award winning author dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs and leaders to build and grow successful businesses. Julie has a passion for helping women establish and expand their brands. She is certified in tiny habits guiding individuals toward positive behavioral changes that lead to lasting success. And she's also a thrive global certified coach providing holistic guidance to her clients whenever they need it. So welcome Julie, to the making change with your money podcast.
Julia Delucca Collins
Thank you so much for having me, Laura. I appreciate you extending the invitation. I love chatting with other people on their podcasts.
Laura Rotter
Yeah, this is going to be a fun conversation. I'm going to start with my first question, which is, what was money like in your family growing up?
Julia Delucca Collins
You know, it's, it's a complex answer and I will try to answer it as succinct as possible. First of all, I grew up in New York.
El Salvador until I was 10. My mom is from El Salvador. My dad is from New York. And I went back and forth between New York. My parents came from very different families. My mom came from a very affluent family. My dad, not so much, right? Grew up in a working family in New York. And money was tough for them.
Obviously, when I was born and they were married, we were also very much supported by my grandparents, my maternal grandparents. So, grew up in a home in which money, of course, afforded us several different things. We had, People that cleaned our house, a driver, a cook, and definitely did not worry a lot. I remember my grandparents both would give me an allowance.
And again, my grandparents had very different money backgrounds too. My grandmother came from that affluent family. My grandfather did not. And I learned from a very early age that there was a lot of value to money. My grandfather always talked about saving. My grandmother always talked about being independent with your money.
She was ahead of her time. She had her own checking account and she had, she was a business owner as well. But I remember that from an early age, I would watch her and ask my grandfather for, I guess, allowment. for groceries to so that she would run the household with what my grandfather, even though she could afford it.
Right. But they never really meld money. His money was her money too. And that's how they ran the house, but her money, that's how she ran her business. And she could go shopping and invest or do travel, whatever. Soon after we left El Salvador during the war, by that time, my parents were divorced and my mom.
Never really was taught how to use money as most women do when we, at that point, my dad had remarried. He lived abroad. We were living in Miami and things were tough. Things were tough for my mom again. Highly educated woman, but never really. Had a job that you can say that made it very easy for her to not have that money not last us through the month.
I remember from a very early age, I guess I was 11 12, we would go shopping for groceries and my mom would make the joke. Oh, I hope this doesn't bounce. Or she would like write the check knowing that she's getting paid on Friday, but this is Sunday, right? And she's hoping. And that was a lot of, of that, that I learned she, you know, a lot of times coming in home from school, it wasn't unusual to find that maybe our phone or lights were cut off because it was hard for her to.
Keep up with the bills. She would also, and she didn't want any help from my grandparents, which I never really understood. She's like, Nope, I'm doing it on my own. And I remember one particular time in which I said to her, I don't understand. I wanted to go to private school. That's what it was. And she said, well, we can't afford that.
And I thought, well, why not? My grandparents can afford that. And she's like, your grandparents don't live here. And I am not going to ask them to. So that was like a big reality because I never really understood, which in some ways taught me that I needed to be independent. Or money with money, and as soon as I turned the legal age, I got a job and I wanted to be able to make money so that I could buy the things that I needed for school or be able to go on the school field trips and from time to time also help my mom because that was one of the things that I knew that she needed help with.
Laura Rotter
Oh, that, thank you for sharing that. That is a powerful story. Do you have any siblings?
Julia Delucca Collins
I do have siblings. I'm the oldest of three girls.
Laura Rotter
Even more responsibility.
Julia Delucca Collins
Yes, I am the oldest of three and they would tell you that I am the bossy one, but I don't try to be the bossy one. I try to be the one who always was, well, I was always told I needed to set an example for my sisters.
I needed to take care of my sisters. And I was put in a position a lot of times I would come home and again, I would help mom make dinner or make sure that my sisters were doing what they were supposed to be doing. We're four and six years apart with my sisters.
Laura Rotter
And you said your mother was highly educated. What was your expectation around education?
Julia Delucca Collins
You know, education was always something that was very important in my family. For my mom in particular, her mother was highly educated as well. She was born at the turn of the 20th century and again to an affluent family, but she went to school to be a teacher and she wanted to be a teacher, but my great grandfather didn't want her to work outside the home.
Because in those days, especially a girl from a certain family, you weren't expected to have a job. And my, my great grandfather had my grandmother go through school and school. And then finally, my grandmother said, I don't care, I'm, I'm going to work. So my great grandfather actually built her a school so that she would have a place to work.
And that's, that's the business, right? Because it was a private school, it was a for profit school. And that's the, the, the business my grandmother had. But education was always something that was highly regarded in my family. My mom was sent, she went to boarding school and then she was sent to Georgetown for college.
After that, she went to Spain and, you know, went to, lived in Barcelona and she was studying there, came back to El Salvador and then was working on a master's on political science until the war broke out and we, we left the country. So what was your education? Yeah. So, you know, for me, I, I knew that school was always going to be something that I needed to go through.
I was always a good student in high school, but I also was very social. And when I decide when I was getting ready to graduate from high school, one of the things that I wanted to do was actually do a year abroad. prior to going to college. And that's the one thing that I, I was working towards. And I did not apply to college right away because I was expecting to go abroad.
And of course, things change rapidly and money was one of the issues. I couldn't really go abroad again. And I found myself having to start at the community college and begin working. And for my entire career, you know, I was always working and putting myself through school. I then went to DC. I lived with my dad at the time and I went to school for education.
I came from a family of educators and I knew that, well, I'm going to be a teacher that comes naturally to me. So that's, I started working as a teacher in DC and then, or Virginia rather, as the DMV area, and then moved back to Miami. And as a teacher, what I found is that You know, you don't make a lot of money, and I knew that I wanted more for my life, and I knew that, but I wasn't sure with that.
What that was going to look like, and at that point, I moved to New York and I decided teaching was not in the not what I was going to pursue, but I still wanted to work in education. I started to do different types of work. I worked retail. not knowing where I fit in. And then I was hired by Columbia University by Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory in Rockland County.
And I was doing some temp work for them writing grants. And from there, I was recruited by a national educational company and I grew through the ranks in that area. But certainly, you know, for me, I would say I'm a lifelong learner. Even now, as a coach, I continue to. Pursue different certifications and trainings because I'd like to, in some ways, Yes, we have that imposter syndrome that says you need to be better, you need to do this and have the qualifications.
But at the same time, I also love to learn, love to read, love to be better and find more stuff out. So that that's a little bit of my background.
Laura Rotter
Thank you. I'd love to explore that a little bit to get the sense of how you perceive of your own strengths and, and what you brought to different positions.
You said that, you know, you first became a teacher and I can understand that you had teaching in your, in your blood, if you will. Why did you, Julie, say you wanted to stay working in education once you decided that, that what, that being a teacher wasn't your future? Sure.
Julia Delucca Collins
Yeah, I think that for me, again, teaching came very naturally, right?
I, I remember. What about my kids? Yeah. So, I, I, I like kids. I, I played being a teacher to my cousins and siblings from an early age, but I, I, I knew that I wanted to help change. the lives of people. And one of the things that my grandmother would say, and I talk about this in my book a lot, is that education is really the key.
And again, I am not your typical El Salvadorian person, but people from El Salvador, you're either have money or you don't, or at least at that time, there was really no middle class and people who were starting to get into a middle class is because they had education. So I saw that and I knew that. that was the ability for people to change circumstances.
Also, knowing from my dad, my dad was again in the background that he grew up in a very poor family. They really struggled financially as well. And he joined the Air Force because he wanted to be able to get an education. He wanted to better his life. And when he left the Air Force, he really sacrificed a lot to be able to put himself through school.
And, and I knew that. If that had been a life changing experience for people that I have been, that have been in my life, I wanted to be able to contribute in one way or another. And it's not that I didn't enjoy teaching and even now, to some extent, uh, you know, my husband and I volunteered in our church.
We teach middle school, what we haven't taught since the pandemic, but it's always something that it's, is there in my blood and comes naturally. But I did, I did feel that. There was something else that I could do that, again, my grandmother, although she was in education, she was also a business owner, and I was really drawn to the business part of education as well.
And how can you marry providing a service, providing support, and yet be able to make a living out of it?
Laura Rotter
Thank you. I'm really hearing a thread of strength and drive. in your family of origin, that, oh, there were obstacles, that there was a passion and a commitment to better oneself. So you were working in education. What was the Columbia University?
Julia Delucca Collins
It's Lamont Doherty. Earth Observatory.
Laura Rotter
Okay, never heard of it.
Julia Delucca Collins
Yeah, a lot of people have never, I had never heard of it and it was really kind of a fluke. I was living in Rockland County and I, my, my ex husband at the time, he was commuting into the city. He's an attorney and I, I knew that I didn't want to commute into the city because that commute, as you know, especially from Rockland County, we actually looked at houses in Rockland and I thought.
No, you have to cross the Tappan Zee Bridge, get to Tarrytown and then ride the hour and a half in. And I, I knew that I didn't want to do that in, I might've been, I might've answered an ad or perhaps maybe, I think maybe I went to a temp agency and that's how I ended up there. I don't really a hundred percent recall it's, it's a, it's over 20.
Four years ago now. And you wrote grants so, so you're clear. The company, he worked for the Agency of International Development. And while I was going through school, I, I did a little bit of an internship with the organization that he worked with, in which they prepared proposals and grants to get funding to run different, different types of programs around the country. And he actually was in charge of a large program that went into third world countries to train nurse midwives. And although he was not in the medical field, he would train the trainers that would come in and train nurse midwives. that to go in into very rural areas because they didn't have necessarily the medical care, but nurse midwives could be someone that can provide medical care and prenatal care in these very, very remote areas.
So my dad wanted me to be able to have, I don't think that my dad opposed to me being in education, but He also wanted me to have a secure future.
Laura Rotter
I really enjoyed hearing your father's advice to you, because I think when we grow up in homes with some financial insecurity, as I did as well, I am often amazed when I look at the fact that my sister and I were the primary breadwinners.
And though I didn't feel it consciously, there was clearly a message of you need to be independent. You need, if you want financial security, you need to go out and create it for yourself.
Julia Delucca Collins
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, again, My dad would help my mom with, with child support, but my dad also saw that my mom was not a very good money manager.
So when I turned 15 and I started to work, he was very afraid that I would continue to prioritize working so that I can have a little bit of financial security. So he began to He would still send my mom money for child support for my sisters, but he would send part of that support to me in, in my own bank account so that I had that money and it allowed me to not work as much because I, I, I, Let's face it.
Once I started working and I saw, oh, wait a minute, I have money. I can do this. And I went to that quintessential high school that we, we see in movies, right? Where all the kids are very well off. And I was the girl like then pretty and pink, right? That we did live in the, in the good side of town. However, I, I didn't get a car when I turned 16.
I actually was driving the little 1979 Beater with a little crack in the windshield where my friends were driving brand new cars. And I really realized that if I wanted to continue to have a certain lifestyle, I needed to be able to rely on myself. And at that point, at that time, my dad, although he was helping me in some ways, he lived abroad.
So I never really had that support from him that I could necessarily call him right away, right? It would be a little more challenging than it is today. I'm really dating myself with all these examples too.
Laura Rotter
So it enabled you also to concentrate on your studies and not feel like, oh, I don't want to do this because I need more money, which can be intoxicating when you first start.
Julia Delucca Collins
Oh, no, for sure. For sure.
Laura Rotter
So how did, how did your journey, your professional journey continue to evolve to where you are today?
Julia Delucca Collins
Yeah. So the first company that I worked for that recruited me, it's a company that you probably are very familiar with. They are a national tutoring company and they have what they call local centers in which you could, and again, this is before remote education, parents would pay the company to tutor their kids.
And I was hired to be a center director. And this is a little bit of where my retail background in my education background really helped me because my responsibility was to run the center, hire teachers, train them, make sure that they were following the tutoring system that we had, but also meeting with parents.
And again, also ensuring that you had to have a certain retail background because as parents inquired about the services, it was up to the center director to enroll them or to sell the program to the parents. And because I've had some background in retail, that came fairly easy to me. And I started to, I started to do that.
When I began working for them and End of 99, 2000. I was, I was actually hired for their lowest performing center in Hartsdale, New York. And it was a fairly new center. When I was hired to go there, I realized like, wait a minute, I don't even know if I can do this. It was, it was, Just it was in disarray. The whole the whole center itself was in disarray.
And I remember thinking, wow, these are really long hours. This is like, I don't I don't get this. And there was a lot of of learning curve. And then finally, when I got it. About six months later, we, we went to the national conference, a national convention for the company owned centers because this is a franchise company and they have company owned and then they also have the franchise, but the company owned centers, we went to Atlantic City.
This is really what I think was the moment for me. They had an award ceremony for all of the high performing centers in the system. And I remember sitting there and hearing what they've been able to accomplish. You know, the, the one that had the best keep rate for student that service the most, that had the most school relationships or the most revenue, of course.
And I thought, okay, how do I get on stage next year? And as I was getting into the elevator. I happen to get into the elevator with both founders of the company, Mr. and Mrs., which again ran the company. He was the CEO at the time and she was the COO. And I remember just looking at them and I said, Hey, thank you so much for everything and bringing us here.
I have a question for you. How do I get on stage next year? And she said to me, relationships. And I remember coming back and I spoke to my dad and he's like, absolutely, relationships is the key. And by the way, my dad at that point, he had been in sales too. So he was another great mentor in that arena. And he said, that's what you need to do.
At that one point, I started to report to both. Mr. and Mrs. I reported to the CEO and basically the VP of development went and continued to develop mostly the franchise business. But this new school services division became my baby and became something that grew as a complete new business line. And I got to represent the company in Capitol Hill, giving feedback on what was working, what was not working, doing some, I wrote a, I helped not.
I'm not just me, but I contributed to the writing of a white paper advising, you know, what worked for tutoring, what didn't work. I forged great relationships with not only local school districts around the country, but also with the state departments of education so much so that there were four different state departments that asked me to be in the advisory board for the implementation of the program statewide.
So I got a great view. Of education, not only at the local level in the classroom, but also at a school wide district wide statewide and nationally. So that was a great, great experience. And I became and I continued to become passionate about that. And around that time again, I was married. That was about 2008.
So it was about eight years. And at the time I was married to my ex husband and I was traveling a lot. I was traveling about three weeks out of the month, either to meetings or to represent our company or to conferences where I began speaking in conferences. We would do franchise trainings as well. And I would go in with the training department and help them in this new endeavor.
And I, I became very, very tired of the traveling and I knew that my, my marriage was in trouble and I knew that maybe I needed to rethink what I was doing. At the same time, someone that I had gotten to be very friendly with in my endeavors in Capitol Hill, she was the owner of a new company up and coming in New York.
And she had asked me since 2005, you need to come work for me, you need to come work for me. She was an educator. She was a teacher, had been an educator for many years, and had began her company just kind of on a fluke. And all of a sudden, when she started working with these programs, she became the largest provider of the services in New York, New York City Public Schools.
And although she was doing very well, she didn't have the business background to kind of operate. So I decided that I would go and work for her, and she became a great mentor, friend, boss. I stayed with her company until the pandemic, until 2020. I, I love the work that we did, and again, it gave me the ability to be able to you.
help, especially students that were in the lowest socioeconomic background. I would go into some of the schools in New York City in which are the poorest schools, everybody on free and reduced lunch, everybody kind of struggling, everything that you see about, you know, the, the challenges. It are the things that I encounter, but it really helped me be more motivated and empowered and excited to be able to bring these programs to the students who normally would not be able to afford private tutors.
or bring trainings to teachers who were feeling burnt out and discouraged. And all of a sudden, we were bringing in programs to train them, help them, support them, and provide them with additional, additional supplies and things that would make them better educators. And that was incredibly rewarding. At that time, throughout 2008, 2009, I did go through a divorce.
And it was, it was It's incredible. And I share that because my boss, my mentor, she was very instrumental in that support system, helping me go through something that difficult. And by 2020, I'm Unfortunately, she succumbed to cancer and she had been battling cancer for a couple years and I, at that point in 2017, I had remarried and had moved to Connecticut and I would commute back and forth into the city.
I was also traveling to some of the areas outside of New York where we had programs and by the time. I left the company, I was the chief innovation officer that oversaw all of our program in contracting and developing of new programs. I stayed with the company after she passed mainly because I, I really knew she shared my passion for education.
She was an incredibly gifted person that was. incredibly generous as well. And I knew that her mission to continue to provide educational services was very important. And I wanted to help her and help have her legacy live on.
Laura Rotter
I'm just going to stop you right there. You've said quite a lot, Julie. And so I just want to reflect back to you.
And I guess to our listeners, we'd said earlier, You're a lifelong learner. It's very clear from everything you're saying. Now you're mission driven. You have you're strong in relationship building. It's very clear, even from our conversation here that you bring your passion to the conversations and that clearly draws other people in.
And also what I said about your you're parents is so clear about you. I mean, not everybody would have been brave enough to approach the founders of the company in an elevator and start to talk. You just gave a look, but clearly you take that level of I don't know what it is. Bravery maybe isn't the right word, but a sense of yes, for granted.
And you're also competitive. You were there and you said, I want to be on that stage. And that's, that's me to a T. And that's, you know, definitely who you are. You did talk about your challenges with the divorce. Can I assume that you were financially you were able to support yourself?
Julia Delucca Collins
Yes, but Laura, I have to tell you, this is the interesting thing, and I think that a lot of women may identify with this, and this is why I am so passionate about the work that I do now.
The marriage was certainly in trouble for a long time, and when We married, we made it a point to keep money separate. Complicated, but I really, again, struggled with the whole money issues that I had seen with my mom. And although I was making a six figure salary, I was incredibly afraid to leave the marriage because I didn't think that I could afford to live on my own.
And I remember when I was working in New Jersey for the com, for the educational company, the, the first company, I thought, well, maybe if I live in New Jersey, I don't know, maybe I can afford it here. And by the way, I have family in New Jersey. I family in New York. I, but I, I felt so inadequate. And it wasn't until something came to the head with, with the marriage.
I found out that my husband had at the time had somebody else that he was with. And I thought, Oh, okay, well, I'm out. And that forced me to go. And I remember number one, there was no question asked, whatever it was going to take, I was going to do it. Second of all, I, um, I remember calling My boss at the time, and I said, Hey, I know that I have a bonus coming up and I know that it's, it's December and I'm not due the bonus until January, but can I have that in advance?
And she said, sure, but why? And I explained what was going on, and that was on a Monday. So this happened in by Saturday. I had moved out, had a place of my own and, and it was interesting because at first when I started to look for places, you're going to laugh. I lived in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and of course, you know, I wanted to stay in the Upper West Side and at the time, this is 2008.
It's not like it was inexpensive to be in the Upper West Side and yet I knew that I didn't have expenses with a divorce. And I started to look for roommates. Then the thought, well, maybe I need to look in Brooklyn and I started to look for roommates and that night, that Monday, I went and I looked at four different places and I thought I'm too old to have a roommate.
Like what am I thinking? Like I remember going into this place and it was like a room that had, it was a mom and a daughter. And, and by the way, I almost took that and I'm like, no, wait a minute. I make a six figure salary that night when I got home and I had, I did not tell my ex that I was leaving. I was kind of like formulating my plan.
My boss said, did you look in Brooklyn? And I said, not yet. And then I found several places in Brooklyn. And the next day, as I was heading into the office, she said, I will go with you. Tell me the places that you look at this morning. I found, I found the perfect apartment. It was in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. It was beautiful.
It was overlooked the water safe. And I remember my boss said, you cannot sign a lease until I go look at it. And she, of course, went to look at it and approved. And, and then I, I kind of felt empowered. And certainly, I think that this happens to a lot of women, no matter our background or education or intelligence or drive and our bank accounts.
At times, we have been told that we can't do it on our own that or we've seen the pictures that it's it's not possible or not, or we've Who are you if, you know, you're going to be able to do it on your own? Like are, there's so many, it's a complex issue. And I remember, and even as I think about it now, like what was I thinking?
Like of course I could make it on my own. I could afford to live on my own. I could afford to pay my bills and, but it was that mentality that, oh, and by the way, this is something that I still to this day, I, I have to work through. I have. A deep fear of not being able to afford things. And, you know, when, when, and, and even when paying bills, I could have all the money to pay bills, but I still like hesitate because I'm like, Ooh, but I need to save some in case my husband now, and, and he certainly is.
an incredibly supportive person and we have a complete different relationship from my first marriage. Though we, we were going through finances, finances a few years back. And he's like, how many bank accounts do you have? And I'm like, because I would stash money in all these bank accounts. And it gave me a sense of security.
And to the point that now we don't, we only have You know, the business account and, and in our personal, but it's still something that it was always very challenging to grow up.
Laura Rotter
I think that that doesn't go away. That sense of insecurity that you shared of watching your mother, you know, hope that the check doesn't bounce.
Julia Delucca Collins
And I think that, you know, the story and that this is generational trauma and, and the epigenetics of it all, right? That, And my mom, I can see where my mom would get it from. My grandfather grew up very, very poor. And, you know, you couldn't throw things away because it was, you never knew where you would need them.
And I think that my mom, although she grew up in a home that provided her with everything, she still had that fear. of not having enough and the story that she couldn't manage her money, which was passed on to myself.
Laura Rotter
So we know that you went out on your own and left a marriage that wasn't working. When and how did you decide to go out on your own and start your own business?
Julia Delucca Collins
I, when Lil, my, my former boss passed, when she passed, I had already gotten a coaching certification. And I knew that I wanted to do more to help women. I wasn't sure what I, I stayed with the company and I continued to commute into New York and help and whatnot. I had started thinking in 2019 there was a new CEO that was brought on board and we got along immediately.
Great. I loved him. He, he's a phenomenal person, but again, I knew that there was more for me. I was hesitant to leave. Again, because one, I thought, am I going to make it? And number two, what are people going to think of me that I'm leaving the security of a very good job with a fancy title to all of a sudden go out on my own?
So I was in tittering in that spot until the pandemic hit. And the company was hit very, very hard. We had to lay off countless of staff members. We, most of the programs were closed. And then, Because they were catering mostly to government, right? Mostly to schools, yes. And one of the things that had happened that I had advised against is when When the founder passed, the family that remain in charge of the company didn't really have much involvement in the company previously, and they So they weren't sure what was the next step, but then they decided to pull back all of our contracts outside of New York City, which left New York City to be our sole source of income, which because I had been involved in government contracting, I knew that number one, your contracting takes a long time when your contract expires for the entity, right?
To renew it to go through the, all the red tape. Number one, number two, I also knew that if anything changed in New York State, New York City, obviously we needed to have something else, like diversified in our, in our sources of income. And, and that was not the case. We really, you know, they, they really wanted to pull back, which again, it wasn't, it wasn't, A wrong decision in their part.
They invested everything into our programming in New York City, which made an incredible difference. We continued to expand into other areas within the, within the boroughs. And, but when New York City closed the schools down, all of our programs had to shut down. Not to mention that as a business, when you start programs that are being paid by public funds, you have to wait for your money.
So we had been waiting. For the income to come in for the services that had been provided from September. So the company was going to do very minimal work with some of the schools, some of the yeshivas actually, that were going to stay open and someone like me who was a top level person and where they needed teachers.
I was offered a separation package as was the CEO of the company, he and I were offered a separation package and I took it. I, I, I remember getting the call from the CEO and he was extremely apologetic and you can tell that this was very difficult for him on the phone or we were on actually on zoom and, but at the same time, I remember thinking to myself, I know exactly what I'm going to do.
I'm going to start my own thing and I'm going to help women. I was excited and then all of a sudden, like an hour later, it hit me and I went through a process of grieving, but it wasn't so much for the job. It was the chapter in my life that I was closing. Because I had been so close to the founder of the company, to the organization, and that was part of my identity at the time.
So it really was, you know, one of these challenges, um, but I, I was excited at the possibilities as well. And of course, the way that my brain works, I immediately started to think like, okay, what am I going to do? How am I going to do it? Who, who do I need to contact? And I remember the day after it happened, going down the list on LinkedIn.
Outreaching to people that I knew and letting them know that I was odd on my own. And I knew that I had marketable enough skills. to help others, right? Either write grants or whatever it might be, strategize a program. And I did some consulting work for another educational company. I didn't necessarily want it to work for them full time, although they offered.
And I said, no, I'm going out on my own. And initially the goal was to, initially I wanted to coach women do executive coaching. Women who were in my position climbing the corporate ladder for one reason or another did not have the confidence to step up to the plate or to lean into the table. So I knew that I can help individuals as a business coach as well.
And that's mainly what I do now is I work as a business coach. But I use a lot of different things to help me. Anybody can teach business to someone and how to run a business, but I use the approach of tiny habits, which is behavior design. Sometimes we need to be able to change behavior to do the things that are required, right?
The boring stuff, the consistent actions that move a business forward. So who are your favorite people to work with? Well, my favorite person to work with. Is the woman who has a dream and maybe hasn't had a job for a very long time. is questioning what their worth is and yet has the gifts and talents and the know how and the experience to help somebody else and make a difference in the lives of that person.
That's the person that I want to continue to work with. And you know, all of the women as I look at, and by the way, I do work with men as well. I do have some clients that are men, but all of the women that I work with, the one thing that they have in common is that there's that piece of imposter syndrome.
There's that piece of, not that they're not confident because they are in some ways, but they need what we call a believing mirror. There's the concept of borrowing the belief of somebody else so that you can use that belief to start to build and get the evidence that you can do the thing. And once you have the evidence, it helps you build the confidence to keep going. I love that term, the believing mirror. Yeah. And it's not my term, by the way, I believe episode three of my podcast, I interviewed a good friend. Her name is Valerie Hager. And she, we talked about believing mirrors. She taught me that concept. I believe it's from a book she was reading called women who run with wolves.
So it is not my original idea, but I use it all the time. And I know that for me, you know, Lillian was my believing mirror. When I was leaving my marriage, my husband is my believing mirror as I, when he said, okay, do whatever you need. I'll support you a hundred percent. And even now, as we built this business and we work together to continue to grow at times, I know that I, I have the gumption, right?
The hotspot to go, but at times I still need that believing mirror that will catch me.
Laura Rotter
That's great. So Julie, as we come to the end of our conversation, we'd like to explore how your definition of success has changed through all these journeys you've been through.
Julia Delucca Collins
Originally, I think the definition of success I had when I was in high school, you're going to laugh, I remember writing in my yearbook, That one of the things that I wanted to do is I wanted to be a 30 something because from the from the Remember in the 80s, there was that show 30 something where there were all the yuppies and at that time having a six figure salary having a You know a great sports car and being able to travel the world was that success At one point when I lived in New York City and I was in Manhattan and again, that's my city.
I miss it tremendously. But when I lived in Manhattan, having that great apartment in the Upper West Side, right? That and being able to travel and do all the things that was another level of success. And then at one point when I, when I left my marriage, Being able to stand on my own became the level of success.
Being able to overcome some of these beliefs that, that kind of keep us from doing the scary thing, right? That was a level of success. And now for me, the level of success is having the freedom to decide when am I going to work? Who am I going to work with? How am I going to make an impact? And ultimately being able to live by my values, which are service.
Growth, education, and again, community, connection, having, being able to have my values be something that I live with every day, that's my level of success.
Laura Rotter
Oh, that's so beautifully said. Thank you so much, Julie. So if, you know, our listeners want to get in touch with you, what's the best way?
Julia Delucca Collins
The best way is I am Julie DeLuca Collins on all of the social media platforms.
And hopefully the hacking on Facebook will be behind me. But if not, you can find me on my website. My website is go confidently. And if you want to download my resources, cause I have lots of free resources for individuals, they can go to GoConfidentlyCoaching. com forward slash quick links and all of the resources are there.
Laura Rotter
I will put this all in the show notes. It's been such a pleasure to have this conversation with you, Julie. Thank you so much for being my guest.
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Julie DeLuca Collins, speaker, coach, and author. Some of my takeaways. First of all, develop multiple skills. Julie came from a family of educators and assumed from an early age. That she too would become a teacher. Her dad wanted her to have a secure financial future and so encouraged her to develop multiple skills in order to be more marketable.
Julie interned with the Agency for International Development that her dad worked for, and so developed her writing skills by learning how to write grants. Second takeaway, prioritize your education rather than working in your formative years. Julie noted that her father, who was living abroad, provided her with some spending money when she was in high school.
He recognized that it can be intoxicating when you first start to earn money, especially when you're feeling financially insecure. Without some additional support, Julie might have prioritized working over learning. My third takeaway? Don't be afraid to set big goals for yourself. Julie remembers being at a national conference in Atlantic city for the company she was working for and watching the award ceremony for the managers of all the high performing centers in the network.
She asked herself and then the company founders. How do I get on the stage next year? And by the end of that year, her center had become one of the top performers. And finally, relationships are key. According to Julie, building relationships has been key to her success. From growing relationships with important referral partners, to becoming a trusted advisor, and Julie credits her alliance building with helping her get promoted, climb the corporate ladder, and ultimately to move on to a new company when the time was right.
If this has struck a chord with you, please don't hesitate to schedule time to speak with me so we can together develop a financial plan for you to move towards your purpose. And are you enjoying this podcast? If you are, Don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss next week's episode. And if you're enjoying the show, a rating and a review would be greatly appreciated and will help others just like you to find it. Thank you.
Narrator
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 forward slash workbook for a free resource to help you on your journey.
Disclaimer, please remember that the information shared by this podcast 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.