From corporate banking to founder of Career Ecology and The Great Compassion, career transition coach & recruiter, meet Lori Wallace of Carlsbad, CA
What happens when life rips up your plan and hands you an unexpected invitation to start over?
In this episode of The Career Flipper, host Jenny Dempsey sits down with Lori Wallace, executive recruiter, mentor, and all‑around career‑flipping muse. We talk about the serendipitous way we met (spoiler: Jenny was pretending I worked at an art show) and her journey from corporate banking to a total physical and emotional breakdown that changed everything.
These days, we often hear stories about COVID being the turning point for career change but Lori takes us back to another moment that shook the world: 9/11. It was the catalyst that impacted her health, her career, and ultimately, the way she lives and works today.
In this conversation, Lori shares:
If you’ve ever felt like the rug’s been pulled out from under you, stuck, scared, or unsure of what’s next, this one’s going to meet you right where you are.
Connect with Lori:
🌿 The Great Compassion
🌿 Career Ecology
🌿 LinkedIn
The path isn't always a straight line. It's not. This happens and then boom, it all works out when you find that next job. Yeah. But when you listen and you are following this inner sense of meaning, it not only just like changing jobs, but I had to lose my old self so that then I would truly be lit up with what I'm here to do.
Hello and welcome back to the Career Flipper podcast. This is the show where we turn those Oh. New moments into, oh wow. Second chances. Alright, I'm getting dramatic here, but I'm Jenny Dempsey, your host, fellow career flipper. Your personal career flip cheerleader. Yeah. I'm the girl that drags sad curbside furniture home to give it a second chance at life.
AKA at Furniture Flipper. Here's the truth, though. This podcast started after I got laid off from my tech job and I spiraled into full on what am I doing with my life mode. 'cause I could not find another job. I was sending out resumes, like fricking confetti, collecting, ghosting and rejections like they were a new hobby.
And then, I don't know, one day I, I spotted a really junky coffee table in my friend's basement. I didn't have a plan, but I did have some leftover paint, some wood stain, uh, and I don't know a whole lot of feelings, so I binged YouTube and Instagram and tiktoks and somewhere between sanding and top coating.
I flipped that table and I realized I wasn't just giving it a second chance. I was also giving myself one. Now I do this. All the time, in addition to a full-time job that is currently the investor in my dreams or technically pays the bills so I can build my dreams up, and this show is my love letter to reinvention.
I sit down with people from all over the world who flip their careers, their lives, their mindsets, sometimes by choice and sometimes by complete accident. And they're here to tell us how they did it. What they learned and why it was all worth it. So if you are craving a career change, a mindset reset, or just a spark of hope that your next chapter is out there, this is your permission slip.
This is your sign. Hit follow, hit subscribe, and let's start flipping. This episode today is the textbook definition of a career flipper story. If there ever was a textbook about this, but hang tight, maybe I'll write one one day, but the episode is messy, it's unexpected, and life changing. I met Lori Wallace in the most random yet serendipitous way.
At an art show at Culture Brewing in Encinitas, California. It was showcasing a fellow career flipper from an earlier episode, Ethan Stein's Art, and I was basically pretending with a beer in hand and my dog and dog leash in the other hand, basically pretending that I worked there answering questions about his art because I'm just so.
Damn proud of my friends who do cool shit. And Lori and I just started talking and, and then we got on the topic of, well, what do you do? What do you do for work? And honestly, my jaw hit the floor. Lori is not your typical career transition coach. She's a mentor. A muse, a talented singer, poet, and the kind of person who can hold you steady in the Stormiest chapters of your professional life.
She's the founder of Career Ecology and they do a lot of services, but essentially liberating authenticity at every touch point for job seekers. And businesses so you can find your next step and make the transitions a little less crunchy. Her journey, though her personal story, is one of radical reinvention after nine 11, and I'll be honest, a lot of the times we hear about COVID and how that shifted people's perspectives, but we're gonna go even further back from COVID.
We're going back to nine 11. When she experienced a traumatic health crisis and then got laid off while on maternity leave, and then she decided to flip everything she thought she knew about work worth and what really mattered, including in recent days, creating the movement, the great compassion. In this conversation, we go deep.
What happens when the plan falls apart, when your body literally forces you to. Stop and how the breakdown can actually be the doorway to your next chapter. It's emotional, it's real, and it is so full of hope. I can't wait for you to meet Lori. Let's get into the episode now. So this is a true career flipper in real life moment.
Because Lori Hugh, you and I met in such a unique way. So Ethan Orenstein was probably one of my early guests on the career flipper. He created Wave Arcade and does amazing coastal art, and he was having a gallery showing at a brewery in Encinitas one evening. Gosh, when was that? Do you remember? It was before Christmas.
'cause I was looking for Christmas gift ideas. Okay. Yes, that's right. That's right. So. And you were just looking at the art and he was outside talking to someone and I was in line to grab a beer and you had questions about the art. So I just popped in and started answering them like I worked for him or something.
But um, I was just so proud of his work and hanging there and answered those questions. And then you and I started talking. Yeah. And when you said what you do, which I'm not gonna say it yet, I want you to say it in your words, but when you said what you do, I'm pretty sure my jaw hit the floor because I felt it was so serendipitous.
But anyways, Lori. Wallace, thank you so much for being here on the career flipper. Enough about me talking. Tell everybody who you are and why my jaw dropped on the floor about what you do. I'm gonna share that, but I also just wanted to share and express that moment when you walked up, you had your dog with you, and I was there with my husband and we were looking at the art and I was really just admiring it, you know, and you just dropped in to admire it with me.
So you are a joiner. And I, I turned around and I'm like, huh. And you know, I just was your beautiful smile. You were just so kind and you shared about it and you said the artist is outside. It was just this incredible moment of synchronistic connections and. You know, if I were to imagine you as a spirit animal, you were definitely a bee and I was another bee and, and I was like, I'm looking for pollen and honey.
You know, I wanna make more honey in my life. So that was instantaneous. And we exchanged our numbers and it was like we'd known each other for a couple lives now. So thank you for being brave and walking up to a stranger. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you for being open to this weird girl with her dog walking up to you.
Seriously. So amazing. So grateful. So the, I mean, one of the biggest things was the work that you do at this point, and we'll dive into obviously how you got there. But can you tell everybody a little bit about what you're doing now? Yes. And this is where, you know, we realized when we were talking 'cause you were sharing about your pathway and at the time you were still in between the W2 position.
Mm-hmm. But you were doing so much creative work with your furniture flipping and you told me about your podcast and. I'm a mentor and a muse. I would not say that I'm a career coach because, uh, you know, what I say to people is, this is your mountain to climb. I am going to join you because this is your hero's journey.
Uh, you know, I have come to really realize, Jenny, that career change is the most underrated, misunderstood area of trauma and fear and anxiety. In the world, um, people are just told, oh, you lost a job, get another one. And you're just told to just jump out there. And not to admit when you're feeling fully, uh, ignored, rejected, ousted, wondering if even you'll be able to pay your bills.
Um, you know, it's really tugging on ancient feelings of being cast out. Um, you know, our nervous systems are developing at a snails rate compared to technology. So, you know, we have experiences in everyday modern life, but that night we have a dream that we're being eaten by a tiger. So, you know, the archetype of rejection and fear and loss is big.
And especially at a time like now where there are AI bots that are sending out, you know, thousands of resumes for a person in a couple months time just to flood the zone. So that means it's very, it is a lot harder now to be seen. It's hard. You can feel like you're drowning. You know, how do you get your head above water?
And so my work now, my heart work, although I'm an executive recruiter as well, so I have these dual tracks, so I, I stay really engaged with the job interview, search process and, and deciphering and all of this stuff that's going on. But my meaning and purpose is to join people in that liminal space after leaving work, whether they were forced to leave it or they chose to because the situation was either toxic or maybe their heart wasn't in it, or it was sold deadening.
There's so many reasons to leave a job. I join them when they're lost and scared, and I come up right behind, practically slip my hand in theirs. It makes me wanna cry, you know? And I just say, you're not alone. I've, I've helped and been with so many people in all different sorts of stories and, and traumas and tragedies that necess necessitate change.
And the good news is I'm gonna tell you that you're gonna end up in a good place. We just need to go ahead and bring your heart forward to the seat of your true power and intelligence. Your ego's the one that's afraid, but your heart is courageous. You are a hero, and we begin it and it ends up being a gateway to wholeness.
That was so well said. It's like I'm already feeling emotional, but you know, coming to this awareness and realization and the. Capacity in your own heart to give back and help others. Tells me that you've been through a few things to get to this point. So, Lori, how did this all begin? How did you flip your career?
Mm gosh. You know, as you're saying that I'm a person, I get two things. I get two tears and I get chills. And this time the chills just went from my left brain, right over to my right brain, across the corpus callosum. There's a little bit of anatomy. Ugh. So. I, it all happened when I was 36, so, um, you know, at this point I'm married 12 years and I'm seven months pregnant, and it's September 11th, 2001.
The phone rings at six in the morning or so, and I have a family member that says, get on the TV right now, turn it on. And I do, and I see a burning twin tower and I'm thinking it's a horrible accident. While I'm watching it, I see a plane hit the second one, and collectively I realized this was not an accident.
When I saw that, I went instantly to a place of despair for the world. I did not go to a place of fear and anger. I want to despair and as a first time mom with a baby, very large baby in my belly, my body. Remember I said a minute ago that like we're developing far slower? My body went into a panic mode and I went into labor.
So my husband put me in the car and we rushed to the emergency room. And let me tell you something, there were a lot of women there. There were a lot of babies born on September 11th. Um, you know, our, you know, animals like possums, you know, they have something. 30 babies in their belly at any moment. And if they're in danger, they just push 'em all out and they're like, good luck, you know, and they go running and I don't know, I'm hoping that my body wasn't like push and run.
I hope it was push hold your baby and you know, you know, duck and cover or something. But I, um, I was taken care of by some really talented doctors and nurses and pharmacists. So I took the medicine, I calmed down, you know, and I kept my baby in. But that day was the end of the old glory. I came home and I started to sense that.
The, the world needed radical kindness. This is, this is the word. I was like, I wanna practice radical kindness in the world. I started to dream on it and meanwhile, I'm my old form and who I was is stripped away because you know, as you're preparing and then when you have a baby, you're just all together very different.
You are no longer in control, you know, of your, of your world. And so that's happening and I'm thinking about kindness and then I got laid off. We all know that word. Yeah. Right. Um, I was an executive at a bank in San Francisco. I was in charge for of, of a national, national program, um, for home equity lines of credit.
I was also working on a special project with the president on employee satisfaction, and I was home already on maternity leave. Um, you know, I'd left a little bit early so I could prepare, and then I would have like four months home with the baby. Well, our bank went into a recession, you know, we had a kind of a downturn or whatever, just like.
The entire financial sector did. Mm-hmm. As a result of September 11th. And so I get the call and I get the letter and I'm laid off. I was in shock. I honestly didn't think you could do that, you know, with like a pregnant woman, but you can. Hmm, you can real quick. How long after September 11th did that layoff happen?
Had you, did you have your baby yet, or was it before then? It was after childbirth. Okay. So I, you know, I had this baby and I'm needing stability. My husband also was in between jobs. He had already been laid off a couple times. And we thought, well, let's both be home with the baby and then I'll go back to my job while you're looking for your job.
That was the plan. Oh, the plan. Yeah, the plan. You know, I'm 36, I'm considered a geriatric pregnancy, you know, it's ridiculous. Mm-hmm. Um. And, but many of my friends had already had a baby before then, and they had an idyllic situation. They birthed their baby, they put their baby in their little pottery barn crib and you know, and it was Easter time or like whatever it might have been like in the idyllic sort of movie setting.
And they walked around in the springtime and my whole life shattered. Um, although I also had this baby, which was, you know, there are no words obviously for that. And, um, so I get laid off, but then I also fall into a massive. Massive autoimmune collapse. So my body broke out in hives, head to toe, and my eyes were swollen shut with blepharitis.
I had onset fibromyalgia, half of my face was paralyzed, and I began to lose weight very fast, even while I was, you know, trying to breastfeed and all of that. So basically when you look at this at a mythic level, um, my whole other body and self was melting and stripping away. Yeah. And, uh, my husband was working and we couldn't afford more than two months, so we had to sell our home, uh, in a month's time.
And we moved in with my parents at the age of 36. So this is getting interesting. Yeah. Um, you know, this is a complete, this is like, you know, when you talk about career flipping, sometimes it comes. Really with this, like, I'm gonna remove everything that you knew about yourself, you're gonna have nothing to clinging to.
When I talk to people about their journey in, towards, in, in like career change or flipping, I say to them, you know, it begins with exile. And if your exile is very complete like mine, then the message is. Wait a minute, like something is happening. We are going to like, the universe is like, I'm going to respond to what you've kind of been calling in.
You wanna, you wanna work in the world with something that's like meaningful, you wanna make an impact. Sometimes the liminal state or the transition will be just maybe two layers down, but this one was all the way down, down, down to like the core, you know, everything. Yeah. So my body, I couldn't eat wheat.
I found out I was allergic to that. So now I had to eat all different sorts of foods, um, living with my parents, da da, da. So, so what ends up happening is that I'm still the sanguine one, and I begin the process of, you know, I don't wanna go back and have a job that's seven to seven. That's what it ends up being when you're thinking of, you know, your commutes and everything.
Mm-hmm. Months before, when I was about five months pregnant, my husband and I had sat in a local bar where we lived in Berkeley and we had a yellow steno pad and we both sat there and we said, we don't wanna be corporate people where we miss out in our child's life. We don't wanna have our child grow up with a nanny who will be wonderful, but we will miss out on the child.
Yeah. And so we were writing all these career ideas and I came up with. Well, how about like, we open up a better like dog kennel 'cause they're all horrible. Well, I wish I had thought of Rover, you know, dot com. Um, my husband's like, no way. I don't do that. But you can see we called this in. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So Jenny, this is the thing.
I'm gonna say this out loud to you and to anyone listening, you might call in what's happening to you. In a way, we told the universe we didn't wanna have corporate jobs, so. That's, you know what? That's such a interesting thing about how sometimes it feels like it's everything outside hitting us, but yet we did call it in and the ownership of that is like, it feels really hard.
'cause I'm like, wait, why would I wanna cause that much less and stress on everything but. Hearing what you're saying, it's just like, it sounds like it was absolutely necessary. And one of the things, Lori, that comes up a lot when I talk with other career flippers or are these very like physical things that happen to us, and sometimes we can see it being a reflection of what we're going through, but sometimes these things start earlier.
So kind of talking about calling it in like. For example, I had an anxiety attack at work in, it must have been like 2015, but it didn't just start as that anxiety attack at work. It happened years before, but I had no fricking idea. I wasn't paying attention to the signs. So I was curious to hear from you with these very, like these reactions that your body is having.
Did you think in the moment. Like one, did you, were there things already happening that maybe you didn't pay attention to or you did pay attention to, but you shrugged him off? Um, did you know in the moment or maybe feel in the moment that it was necessary for the next step? Or did it just feel like absolute chaos?
And mess and, and pain. Like, I'm just curious if you could talk a little bit about that. 'cause we feel it so much sometimes, but we just shrug it off and think, well, I just gotta go to work. Or, oh, I gotta go do this, or, well, you know, all the things. So I'm, I'm curious to hear that from your perspective.
Yeah. I'm so glad that you brought this in. I'm so glad that it's coming up in this conversation. Because it just so happens this year that, uh, my husband is now going through a process of learning about his polyvagal nerve responses. So this is, there's something called the polyvagal nerve. Um, what do they call it now?
Well, I, it's, they're saying it's sort of an hypothesis, but it's really, you know, it's based on biological nerve, which is your mind and your heart and your gut. Because it's not only the mind that has neuron cells, it is the heart and it is the gut. And according to HeartMath Institute. The heart actually radiates out electrically.
Magnetically about 5,000 times greater when you first meet, uh, someone new. So the heart is really the first, and then it's telling kind of the brain. Maybe the gut's the first too, 'cause the gut might be like clinch. Um, but the heart generally, if you. You know, if you're able to stay neutral and calm in, in most situations, that could be unsettling.
The heart is going to talk to you. But the thing is, we are in a system here in the United States and I, I'd say probably the world where we are told, or we just find we do this to survive, but we snip the wires to our hearts so that we don't have to feel back. So we don't have to feel bad about ourselves or someone else, so we don't have to let it in, that somebody's disappointed in us.
We don't have to feel shame that somebody's projecting on us. And so what happens is, is we stop sensing, feeling and noticing the somatic clues, and our bodies are the very first place. Toxin tells us it's time to make a change, a shift, take care of yourself, take a nap, build a boundary. It's sort of like in your car when the little red light goes off, says, Hey, you're gonna need an oil change.
Um, humans would go ahead and snip that wire because it stresses them out that they don't have time to do it, or they just don't want, they don't know how to do it, and they just wanna ignore that they need oil. They just wanna keep going on their journey. They don't wanna, you know, take that left turn and try to find someone to help them with the oil.
Yeah. Yeah. So they snip the wire. And then the car burns out. Yeah. And dies. And so I had two clues. One very, very physical is that I had been allergic to wheat, not gluten. But allergic to wheat my entire life. And so when I would eat something that had quite a bit of amount of wheat, I would just lose my meal.
It would just be gone. And I'll just leave that to everybody's imagination. Um, and I just thought that was normal. And the other thing that I did, it's sort of like the movie broadcast news. Um, I would have these like Holly Hunter, you know, she's a character in that I would have just cry attacks. I would just sit down, I'd know it's coming, and I would completely wail, and then it would be over.
Rather than feeling the emotions, dealing with, you know, conversation, setting, an inappropriate boundary, self-care, self-love along the way. It would become almost like volcanic each time. And I would just sit there and I would just cry, cry, cry. And my husband, when we were dating, thought it was ever so strange.
And I told him, this is normal. People do this. And also it's normal. What happens after you eat. No, no, no, no. So when this happened at 36, it was finally my, my whole body, my whole life, just saying, you are pushing everything away. You are trying your best to just make, do, it's time to turn in and understand what your body and your psyche and your soul and your heart and everything needs.
Yeah. So I, I can say I'm so very grateful. That I had this breakdown and it was very connected to the trauma of seeing the Twin Towers. Like everything was a convergence. Sometimes you need like the match, you know, it was the last part that truly childbirth also was the last tipping point where my body and Psyche just said, I've held it together for 36 years.
Yeah. Right, right. That's, that's come to terms. Yeah, it's a good question. That's, it's the polyvagal. No, what is the word? But anyway, just look at polyvagal nerve. That's fascinating. And thank you for sharing that. I just, there's just such that that point of when we have to tune in because there are things that we might be ignoring on the emotional level, but our bodies are trying to talk to us, so, so you've been through so much at this point, and then you're laid off and you're living back at home with your parents and you are raising a baby and.
What goes on? Like you're, you're thinking about doing something different. You don't wanna go back to the seven to seven, neither does your husband. So how do you make money? How do you make a living? How do you find purpose in the day to day? What do you do? Yeah, this was really overwhelming. So at the time when I started to answer that question, um, you know, I'm living with my parents and remember I had hives head to toe, so, yeah.
Um, I didn't, I couldn't really interview, you know, I, I looked really scary. My eyes were swollen shut and my face. Has a horrible rash and I thought that I might be infecting my child, but it, it wasn't infectious, it was just my own body. And, um, my mom told me about a neighbor who was struggling with cancer and that she had been healed through, uh, and really found her way to just like a, a period of time, years where she was healthy through, um, this wonderful acupuncturist, Dr.
Haw in Los Angeles. And when I hear things, you know, a lot of times when you're in this liminal state and you're in between. Recognize that when you share with people what's going on, if they offer you something, you can receive it and take or toss. But if you can become aware of that internal sort of yes, that internal like, ah.
That that rings true, you know, and then explore it. So when I heard that about Dr. Ha, I started with him and I sat in his office and I said, get rid of this rash. I have to do interviews. And, you know, and he said, uh, you know, we can't start it that way. We gotta start with your adrenal exhaustion. We'll get there.
And so I was forced to take it slow, but I had time to dream. Um, you know, over about a month or six weeks I was in that office. Four times a week, which is very expensive. You know, acupuncture is $120 a session. I only had the money 'cause we had sold our home, so I was very lucky. I know not a lot of people could drop into this like that, but it saved me, saved my life.
And while I was doing that, while I was waking up multiple times a night with my baby and everything, I, it's just a miracle I survived it all. Um, I was dreaming. I was like, you know what? I wanna practice radical kindness. So remember I mentioned that that was like. Always the seed. So when you understand what is the meaning, you know, I remember listening to the Michael Matson wonderful podcast.
He had a strong sense of meaning. You know, his whole thing was around customer excellence and service and communications, and really opening the door to what we humans are here for and what we're capable of. I had that too. I was like, I wanna practice radical kindness. So I'm 36 years old. I've already been a director of a Fortune 500 bank, and I'm thinking, well, maybe I could just help small businesses, like dry cleaners or just small little mom and pops.
I could get a job at Paychex. I could, you know, help them with their back office so they just can concentrate on doing their good works. And I'll be the kind of rep that shows up with like cookies and, you know, in celebrations on their birthday. And I can just love them. I can love them up, you know, and as I'm thinking, so I'm doing the interviewing.
Ultimately as I start to get better with my face and kind of covering it with makeup, I'm doing the interviewing and I'm doing well, they're like, wow. 36-year-old, everyone else is 21 going for this role. Mm-hmm. I ultimately realized I didn't belong there. That was for the new grad. Um, it wasn't the right place and just didn't fit.
I just didn't feel right. And this is where the next synchronicity happened. So I'm in the car driving with my husband and my phone rings and it's my own recruiter and he, I get him on the speaker and he says, Hey Lori, I'm working on a VP of finance with GE Capital in Seattle. I wanna talk to you about it.
And I said, you know, Tim, I'm switching career paths. Okay, let me tell you something. Recruiters hate that because you're in their recruiter database and they need you for this job. So, you know, he's like, uh, great. You know, and, but he's curious and he's like, well, well, what do you wanna do now? And I said, practice radical kindness.
And he is like, wait, what? I don't even know where to start with that. And I'm thinking in my head, I could be a teacher, I could be a psychologist, I could be, but I, I have to go back to school. I have to get certifications. I don't have time or money for that right now. Mm-hmm. So I just said to him, you know, I'm thinking about it.
Keep me in mind if anything comes up. And I said, by the way, I am gonna be in Portland, Oregon. My husband and I are thinking of living there for a lower cost of living. Maybe there'll be opportunities. And he said, oh, it's where my office is. And I said, oh. And he said, why don't you come visit? And I said, sure.
So fast forward a couple weeks, my husband and I are there. I show up in my torn jeans. This is just Tim. He's called me through the years, you know, I'm not interviewing with him. Yeah. So I show up and we start talking and he says, have you thought about being a recruiter? And I said, wait, don't they just get phone books and just like cold call people all the time?
And he said, oh no, we do a lot of cold calling. Yes, but it's not quite like that. Um, he said, but you said you wanna practice radical kindness. Well what about people who are needing a new job? I said, check. Mm-hmm. And he said, you also are a person that is looking for an opportunity to make as much money based on what you put in.
So this is a base plus commission. I'm like, check. So I'm listening to this. He says, okay, I'm gonna interview you and I want you to take the personality survey and we're gonna find out if you're a match. So I take the survey, we end up flying back home. He calls me with the results and he said, Lori, I'm not sure I wanna hire you.
I said, oh, what? What? What's happened? And he said, well, I got the results back. And he said, you score too high on empathy. Oh gosh. I couldn't believe it. And yeah, that's why I was really good at my job at the bank where I wrote scripts for national programs. We were selling home equity lines of credit over the phone.
'cause I knew how to shape and create trust environments. Mm-hmm. So I, I reminded him of my success records and he said, I'm gonna give you a shot. So I said, all right. So I took my husband out for tacos that night. We sat in Malibu. Yeah. And I said. I propose we move to Portland. I'm gonna be taking a pay cut from 180,000 to 40,000 draw.
That's not even, that's not even real money. You have to give it back next month. And, uh, we'll just go find an apartment. We'll give it a go. And my husband looked at me and he said, you really think this is a good idea? And, and Jenny, I just knew it was yeah. I just felt it. Yeah. You just know it was, you can see how completely different this was.
Yeah. And we had to move to a new town. We had to exile ourself again. And, you know, we get there and, and it led to where I'm I'll, I'll pause now because that, that is, it's really just the most dramatic moment of my. I mean, yeah, just throw on another change, slather it on New City learning. I mean, even down to the nitty gritty of like learning new streets, finding a place to live, moving all of your belongings from California to Oregon, um, you know, leaving your parents' house where you had been after all of this trauma had occurred, and now you're starting a chapter knowing that it's not gonna make a lot of money.
And also knowing that. You know, your husband is kind of like, wait, are you sure? But it sounds like he trusted your intuition with that. Is that right? Like, did you feel that you had that support or did he go into it kind of like, Ooh, I'm not sure. You know, interestingly enough. Over tacos. It's have been really good.
He did trust me. It's not always that case. A lot of times he's a little bit more resistant because, you know, from our temperament standpoint, I'm the one that says, let's just jump. Mm-hmm. And he's the one who says, let's make sure we have a double parachute. You know, so, but he sensed it. We almost had like nowhere to go.
You know, sometimes your process of change comes because life just says, why don't I just take it all away? So you just have nowhere else to go but into this like unknown zone. Why don't you just take this chance? As I mentioned to you, all my friends are back at home, like in their regular lives, in their regular homes with the regular mortgages and their regular regulars, and they just, they just wrapped a child into that and my life was.
You are wholly a different person. You are now a mother. Yeah. You not, you didn't know what that was. You know, and you're in a different town and you're not doing this old job and you know, you're just all together and new and um, and you have to eat differently. And the interesting thing is once we got there, we had one week of beautiful weather and then it slammed into typical Portland weather where it was just overcast and constant rain.
And we moved into a place really of just kind of overwhelm and, and slight depression. Um, I'm learning to become a recruiter. It's hard. There's a lot of cold calling. I'm working night and day to, to understand it. We're in a tiny apartment that we're renting before we found a place to live, and I'm literally sitting on a toilet with a top down, um, you know, but, or a quiet spot while my child is crying in the other room to talk to a candidate.
It was, uh, all hands on deck. And, and after doing that, I realized, um, after about a year. That I really didn't like working there. And, uh, nobody was there really for the candidate. They weren't there to help them. They, the general manager was holding me to an eight minute rule on the phone. Um, for a quick screen.
I wanted to be on the phone for 45 minutes to 50. Mm-hmm. So I was constantly getting kind of marked for that, although I was the rookie of the year. Um, so I did one day. Uh, and this, this was what launched me to what I'm doing now. So I share this because I want people to understand is that the path isn't always a straight line.
It's not. This happens and then boom, it all works out when you find that next job. Yeah. But when you listen and you are following this inner sense of meaning and you, and you asked your heart, and your heart says yes, your ego's like, I don't know about this. The sun doesn't shine there. There's a lot less money.
Yeah. But your heart's like, yeah, tacos, let's go. You know? So we're like, yay. Um. It turned out I needed to have an experience of how recruiting is done in a way that exploits people so that I could actually be so upset that I could quit and start my own agency in 2005 to transform headhunting into human connection.
So my career flip had to go through. Not only just like changing jobs, but I had to lose my old self. That denied my somatic messages that that denied myself. Even the proper food denied myself the dream that I had to help the world be a better place. I, all of it had to go away. We had to leave our homeland in a sense.
And then I had to experience what the real world was in a place that I thought should have been filled with compassion so that I could wake up so that then I would truly be lit up with what I'm here to do. And it was this final moment. This is, I don't know if this has ever happened to you, and I wanna hear, and I dunno if it's happened to anybody who's listening, but I'm driving to the office with this other recruiter, the general manager guy.
And I'm crying and I don't even know if everything that all the blur is my own tears or if it's just more rain. Mm-hmm. Uh, again, and I'm, I'm just yelling like, I hate this. I'm not happy. What have I done? What am I doing? And I heard the voice. Out twice in my life, and I've heard this actually scientifically, you can have such a strong message from your inner, like Carl Young would say, it's like your, your inner god, your inner hero.
That true self of you, that it pops into your consciousness. It comes outta what you only would touch in a dream that you promptly forget. Mm-hmm. And so I'm, I'm desperate. And then the voice says, do not quit. This is your future. You are here for a reason. Figure it out. Oof. Yeah. What just happened? I was really stunned and I go to work that day and sure enough, I began to plot how to start my own agency and what I would call it.
Ooh, I know what major look at. I mean, gosh, I just hearing that of like, I don't know, I, I'm kind of like speechless at the moment because hearing the steps that it took, like you had to go through. The the muck in order to come out and see how much muck you didn't want on your shoes and to be able to then grab the hose and clean them off yourself.
And I think sometimes with these career flip stories, and that has been something that has actually been so prevalent on my mind lately of like. It is not a linear path, and it doesn't mean all of these amazing people that I have talked to. It doesn't mean that this job that they're doing now is gonna be the end all be all.
Like this could be another step in their journey. They could decide they don't like it, but you know, kind of like going back to what you just asked. And if I have experienced anything like that, I haven't told anybody this. I'm gonna, and, and this is a true story, but I'm. Uh, seemed I, I know it in my head, but I, it felt silly, but I'm gonna say it because you shared with me, but like, just this past December, like shortly after, you know, meeting you and I was, you know, one of my friends offered, she's like.
There's a role that opened at my company. It's a junior role. I think you'd be a great fit. You should interview and hearing how it was hybrid, like it was back in an office twice a week. It's very corporate. It's a very established company. Um, and you know, I know what I know about it now and there's great things, but at that time I was like.
My immediate response was like, Ew, I do not wanna be in an office. I do not wanna go back to corporate America. No way. No thank you. But there was this weird, weird ass voice in my head that kept saying, yeah, I hear you. But you gotta take it because you're gonna get a lot out of it. And I remember hearing this and thinking, my gosh, it like, am I, am I literally insane?
Like, what do, where is this coming from? I don't understand. But also, how can I be okay with something that I am literally hosting a podcast about? I feel like a hypocrite. But it was that voice that just kept coming back like, you have to do this. Like this is a part of the story. This is the next step.
You have to do it. You're gonna learn a lot. And I just. Wow. I don't know. I just, it made me feel like, okay, I guess I'm gonna say yes. And so after I went to the interview and then, you know, was the one that was picked for the role, um, took it. And I think, you know, I'm only about four months in for, or I guess, uh, at this time it's like August.
So several, maybe seven, eight months in. But, um. It's just, I'm still learning and figuring out what it all means. But that moment I literally was just like, what is this? What is this voice in my head saying? Yeah, it's not what you wanted, but it's gonna be exactly what you need. And that was just like such a weird moment for me.
And I remember texting my friend after hesitation and was like, I'm gonna say yes. And I'm, you know, I'm glad I did. I'm very grateful, but at the same time, I'm still learning and figuring it out. You know, what does it all mean? But thanks for normalizing the fact that like, hearing things like that Yeah.
Are, I don't know. Like, it's okay. Like that's okay. I, I might sound a little wacky, but you know. Oh my gosh. Know the right people get it. I'm so glad you shared. I get it. And you know I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say that, you know. There's magic in the world. There absolutely is. And you know, prior to us being in this modern age where, you know, we have, we've turned off all these somatic signals and, and we don't even see, you know, necessarily like all the synchronicities 'cause we're just.
So focused in this rational box in our mind. You know, you go to the Aboriginals in Australia and they can walk hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles without a compass or a map. They their dreams, they remember them in vivid color and they're prophetic. I mean, there's a whole bunch more that we have access to because life is.
Literally a frequency. You know, they, when you look at quantum theory now, the understanding is that atoms are not actually these protons and neutrons, like these little material things. They are when we look at it and we capture it, but really it's a wave. So everything is energy and water is a looser energy than like the hard table, but everything is energy.
And so when we remember that, we come back to our whole selves and we can really consciously say before bed, I often do this and I wanna remember to do it every night, is just to say I'm open to the guidance and receive in that part of me. That is connected to the the collective and to the whole and to the creative future that I want.
I wanna open up those channels of receptivity. And so that's why there's mantra, that's why people even pray. That's why that lot of these things help us get out of that locked in syndrome of the ego and the rational mind. And when you start to open up to the frequency. Then you hear the voice or you see the billboard and it means something.
Or the song that comes up is the one that's telling you what to do. Like it might be, I so often I've had a song when I'm thinking that I'm really mad at my husband, and I'm wondering like, do I just wanna like. Leave for a day and not hang out with this guy. And then the song comes on Matter of Trust by Billy Joel, which is a song that we heard all the time when we were, you know, in college.
And I'm like, oh really? Okay. I'll turn around and say sorry. You know? Um, so look for it. The magic is everywhere, and especially if you have another person that will join you and listen and reflect. Yeah, then you have a chance to recognize that similar to like your butterfly story, I was like, what? You have just been, had an encounter of an epic proportion.
I hope that you put the link to that video in the show notes. That's a great, you know what, I will, I don't necessarily know if I've talked about that on the podcast, but I'll absolutely put the link if you wanna know what's going on with the butterflies and what I experienced last year, I will absolutely link to that because you're right.
And to be completely honest, I didn't really realize the, um, full weight and magic of that until we chatted after meeting. I just again, kind of thought, ah. It's a little wacky. No one else is. Everyone's gonna think I'm wacky. And then you did it. And I was like, wait, did this magic check. And it's okay to share that because I agree it is everywhere.
And if you look for it, you will see it. And it only lends itself more and more to your story and to the, the places you're going. Like the Dr oh, the places you'll go. Like I feel like you'll find that wherever you look and. Lori for you. So you're in this place and you're just like, I'm done with the rain.
I am done with this job. It is not what it's cracked up to be, but you had to go through it because it taught you exactly what you didn't want. And so did you move back to California at this point? How did you, 'cause you weren't making a ton financially there. How did you have enough to start doing your own thing at that point?
So after a couple more traumas, a home that had toxic mold and a miscarriage, you know, it really just continued to test my resilience. Even the miscarriage was a signal to go back home. The toxic home was, get outta here, you know, go home again. Listen, listen, listen, listen. So the bad things are the, the wound is the gateway to the wisdom.
And I told my husband, I said, you know, I, I lost a baby due to this toxic mold. And I said, you know, I, I can't raise our other baby here. So we said we're going home and I, I quit and I, you know, set up my company called at the time, it's just the corporate name, Irvington group. 'cause we were living in Irvington, so I hated homage and I remember getting in the car to drive home, leaving the wet redwood trees, which still a romantic and beautiful, but driving towards the Northern California.
Dry yellow hills just speckled with oak trees and the smell of just like dry dirt and things that I just, that are this home for me and mm-hmm. And my son had me play this song, which I will send you so you can put it in the show notes. Um, but it's just this, he, he wanted to play it at that a thousand times.
And it's a song about being sorry for, um, not taking care and loving yourself. It's just this really intense song and I wish I can remember the title right now. He wanted to play it like 15, 20 times. And so we are driving with this loop and we come home and I, I begin it and I start with my own recruiting agency and my husband's looking for a job and I'm like, okay, I have six months to see if I can do it, and then I'm gonna go back to the corporate world, you know?
So I gave myself, I told the universe, I said, six months. And every day I'm sitting in this little apartment, you know, bedroom. My husband find that he does get a job, which is great, but he didn't like it. And he comes home every day and he said, so how's it, how's it going? And I said, uh, you know, not good.
And he said, so you're gonna quit? And I said, no. And then he come back the next day, how's it going? And I said, well, I'm running on fumes. You know, now I'm like, up to fourth month. I had a non-compete. I wasn't allowed to be in California with people I knew. I'm, I'm recruiting out of Pittsburgh. And you know.
Just nothing is happening. And finally we get to, I kid you not a week before my deadline, my husband's, how's it going? I said, I am running on fumes, on fumes on atoms, on electrons on fumes. And he says, you're gonna quit. I said, no. You know what? I have nothing. Tomorrow. I have nothing. And I'm gonna sit in this chair one more week.
Literally when I said I have nothing, but I'm gonna stay three deals, boom, all happened. Wow. And it was an answer. You know, I had to enter into this without any, at like attachment to the outcome I had to. Be in complete surrender. Mm-hmm. I had to learn that this was not just my work to make things happen.
That I am keeping my balance amid surprises, that I am part of a co-creative, chaotic world, that I have to learn to go with this current, which would continue another conversation, another time, many, many other moments of rebirth and redesign. But really this being the most consequential one, and it's the greatest lesson.
I just, I wanna be in sync. With the co-creative universe, I, I wanna be in flow. You know, people talk about flow states, we talk about what it feels like to surrender and not try so hard and work so hard, and to trust that it's all leading to that ultimate experience of love. You know, it's not about uber wealth, it isn't about material things.
It's this concept of really seeing the sky and, and hugging and, and smelling the, you know, the baby smell of your child before they grow up. It's, it's how, you know, having a conversation and really paying attention. And so I ended up as, as a result of my recruiting, starting to turn on and work. I was essentially a stay-at-home mom because I, I told people, thought I was recruiting for them.
I always filled the position, but they thought I was recruiting when I was actually at my son's school sewing costumes. So my dream ultimately came true and while my son grew up, I was a mom that was available to him whenever he needed me. It was great. Wow. Yeah. And it took a, the journey to get there and.
You know, resources that you have made to help others going through their own ups and downs of these career changes. Because it's not just, like you said, it's not just about the career. There are so many pieces of our personal lives, of our health, of our families, of our friends, of everything that's woven into this.
And it all comes back to tuning into ourselves and. Just taking action honestly. You believing in yourself and making that comment like you, I mean, I'm just like picturing like this frazzled mom, you know, trying to like, one more week, one more week. Just like, and then, and then it comes to you. And I think that's a great reminder for a lot of people listening where they might be feeling that way right now.
Like could be the reason why they're, you know, listening to this podcast. 'cause they're like, it is just not working. I've been at it. I'm not making money, I'm struggling. Like this is the thing that I loved is no longer fun because I'm so worried about it not working out and hearing that from you, like true story right there of like, just keep going.
I always like to say, you know, what's the best that could happen? Which is a little cheesy, I'll admit, but it's one of those things that it's like you don't know what's gonna happen, good or bad, unless. You keep going. Yeah. And your true testament to that. It really is. I, I think the word for me has come down to, I trust this.
I just, I, I practically need to tattoo it on my inner left wrist, which is where the very first hive showed back in the day. When bad things happen, I instantly join the co-creative universe and I just say, I trust this. I am getting direction, I am getting guidance. There is intel and if I feel that it's like I'm stuck or stagnant, then I stop and I say, what am I not hearing?
And sometimes it means that I really do need to sit in that hot bath and I just need to still myself, I need to, you know, take a day off. I, you know, there are things 'cause I know I'm not listening. When you, when you look at the beautiful calligraphy word in Japan, in Japanese of the word, listen, it has three or four different shapes and you know their, oh my God, their language.
It's just incredibly beautiful. You know, it's just calligraphy and when you look at it has like three different shapes that make the singular word, and it has ear, heart, and deep inner self. I think those are the three things. Wow. That's what, that's what we're trying to do. It's like the listening. You know, our eyes are very connected to our ego.
It's very connected to a sense of scanning for danger. But when you close your eyes and you even practice listening outside of what is sort of right in your immediate orbit, and you even try to hear what's beyond the street and beyond that street, and maybe even beyond that street, you're tuning away.
And, and then it becomes easier then to just steal yourself and say, I'm open and I trust this. And we're starting to open that channel and we can live a life where we don't panic and we let it come. I think there's that Mill Robbins, you know, just let them, or just let yourself. Mm-hmm. Just let, just let, just let them, you know.
And you did that, Jenny. I mean, you were like, okay, I am. You know, you, it's like for me, you know, it was, it was William that sort of sparked, and it was September 11th for you. It was walking into that basement and seeing that really sad little dresser that called out to you, you know, and you know, and you said yes.
Yeah. Um, practicing. Yes. And see where it goes. Try allowing and see what happens. And when you're 90, you'll have lived a life that is worthy. Of an Academy Award-winning screenplay. It is much more fun than just being in one house with one job and you know, no challenges. It's always through the antagonistic mentor.
It's always through something that that rocks you and pushes you to your edge. That's where you grow. That's how the caterpillar sheds its skin. That's how the snake sheds its skin. So, so embrace it. Don't run away. See what's possible. Yeah. Yeah. That's just, I mean, that's advice I know that I needed to be reminded of because it can get hard and it can be so much, it feels so much easier to just be like, oh, I'm just gonna throw in the towel and, uh.
Thank you so much for, for being here and for sharing with me. I just, I, I mean, we could talk for hours because we can, but, um, but I, I think like your wisdom and you sharing your story with such eloquent words and so much vulnerability, it's just such a gift. Uh, I am honored to have you here and I am really happy that our Career Flipper listeners will be able to absorb all of the magic that you have brought to this episode.
So, where can people find you, Lori? How can they connect with you and reach out if they wanna talk more? Well, thank you and thank you for opening this portal. Thank you. Thank you for. Thank you to the person who laid you off because this is the thing. We are gonna write a list of thank you notes to all the people that sent us off on a tailspin.
Yeah. My list is pretty long. Lemme tell you. I love that. I gotta get a really thick packet of thank you notes. Um, but I thank you for you and, um, yeah, you know, I wanna invite everybody listening who's curious to come into my new website that, uh, I developed as a result, which I'm also gonna send to Jenny.
'cause I want everybody to have, uh, the capacity to take part in this woman, um, Jenny Sword. Her organization's called the Secret AI Society. Okay. Does that sound magical? Yeah. It's, and she will take you through an experience where you'll discover your personal brand, even if you don't have your own company.
You get to go through it and discover just your essence and how you, um, kind of can be seen or how you, how you really are, and then you can let it out of a box. So I did that, and as a result, my website went from trying to kind of hold onto corporate world, but also poetic form. I went through her thing and oh my gracious, so I will let you experience it at www uh, dot career ecology.
That's one word. So career in the word ecology. CEC, sorry. E-C-O-L-O-G-Y. And it's really the idea of, you know, career as a natural process of authentic relating to your environment, external, internal. So career ecology.com. And you will be taken on a journey in there. Uh, it it'll surprise you. So come on in and see if anything in there is, uh, of support to you.
I'm here. Amazing. Oh yeah, I'll definitely be doing that. That sounds so, so fascinating. Laurie, thank you so much, so, so much for being here. I. Appreciate you so much in our serendipitous way of meeting and just being connected and you know, you're wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, I adore you.
Thank you. Thanks so much for hanging out with me and Lori on this episode of the Career Flipper podcast. You can find all the links to connect with Lori in the show notes. And hey, if this episode made you feel a little more seen or inspired, subscribe, follow, leave a review, or share it with a career flipping friend because this whole flipping your career thing is way easier.
When you know you're not the only one out there doing it, and if you've got a career flip story of your own, or if one is still unfolding, I'd love to hear it. Head over to the career flipper.com and share it with me. Who knows? Maybe you'll be a guest in a future episode, and if you're looking for a speaker for your team, event or community who can talk about career change and maybe furniture flipping in a real, honest, hopeful, and kind of goofy, cheesy way, let me know.
I'm your girl. Just shoot me a message over to hello@thecareerflipper.com. More than anything, I hope these stories from real people who are changing their careers from around the world remind you that it's okay to start over, to change your mind, to want something more. These episodes are your permission slip signed.
You're ready to go, but I know that first step can feel terrifying, but it can also be the thing that changes everything. You never know until you start. So what's the smallest step you can take right now? Even if it's messy, even if you're scared, I mean, you listen this long to the episode, right? What's the best that could happen?