How Her Healing Journey Led to Her Career Leap with Camille Ali (Ep 31)
If you’ve ever been in a toxic work environment, you know how it wreaks havoc on your mental and physical health. It can be difficult to find a way out, and it’s common to leave one job and jump right into the next.
For today’s guest, taking a sabbatical was something she had never really considered, until she found and listened to Season 1 of this podcast. She realized she needed to embark on a healing journey to find her authentic self and learn what makes her happy, when it comes to both her personal and professional life.
In the last episode of this season, I’m chatting with Camille Ali, who left her six-figure job to focus on her health and happiness, which led her to a career pivot and discovery of how to be herself, despite what her family and society “expected” of her. She’s sharing about the impact that a toxic work environment had on her , how traveling helped her heal, how she got into writing and also launched her own business, and why she chose to put herself first.
In this episode, you’ll learn...
About the crisis that led Camille to take a leap in 2019 and how she handled it [03:26]
About Camille’s sabbatical and how she spent her time [07:11]
What to expect from taking time off to heal [10:08]
How travel and sharing stories with other women sparked a turning point in her journey [14:04]
How healing helped Camille discover her true version of herself and what makes her happy [17:40]
How Camille got into writing [20:44]
How she became a writer for xoNecole, a lifestyle website for women of color [22:03]
How Camille ended up launching her own business and her experience discovering what she wants from her work life [26:01]
Camille’s message for other women of color on their journeys [31:28]
Camille’s advice for trusting your instincts [33:45]
If you’re considering your own courageous career leap, be sure to tune into this episode.
Standing at your own crossroads and ready to get clear on your direction? Apply for my Catalyst Coaching Program today!
If you are at that sort of stage where you are trying to figure out what do you want out of your next role, and you want to do some self reflection, I have something that is going to help you do that. Check out my self-paced digital course, Illuminate Your Career Path in 5 Steps. Five different modules will take you through step by step how to do some of this initial planning and thinking about what you want next for your career path.
I want you to know about my new free change planner. This planner is for you if you'd like to make a significant change in life or work, but you're feeling kind of stuck. My change planner will help you get the clarity you need to take your next steps. Inside, I'll show you how to understand what you really want and why it's important, how to face your fears constructively so they don't hold you back, and this planner also has a scenario cruncher. I hope you get all possible scenarios out of your head so you can find the right one for you!
Connect with Lisa
Connect with Camille
https://www.csvirtualparalegals.com/
Camille’s Bio
Camille is a creative and analytic based in Florida. By trade she has learned to be a paralegal and management consultant. Authentically, Camille is a free spirit and a creative writer. Her words inspire and her power is her voice. A California native with Trinidadian roots, she has penned personal essays, interviews, and lifestyle pieces for xoNecole, POPSUGAR, Medium, FEMI magazine, and SelfishBabe. Camille is continuously creating a life she loves through words, self-love, fitness, travel, and empowerment.
Links mentioned in this episode…
Download my FREE Change Planner: https://www.lisahoashi.com/change-planner
Transcript of Episode 31: How Her Healing Journey Led to Her Career Leap with Camille Ali
Lisa: Welcome to Leap Like Me. If you can't shake the feeling that you're not on the right path, if you feel called to change things up but don't know how to begin, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Lisa Hoashi, and my specialty is coaching people at those crossroads moments in life when you feel called to take a new direction. Sometimes that means taking a leap. I want to share practical advice and inspiration for your leaps and how to keep going after your dreams in a challenging world. This season, we're talking all about career leaps. Come along for the conversation.
An element of my perfect job is seeing results. Having an impact. Seeing that my work has actually helped others. So I am thrilled to wrap up this season with a story from someone whose own leap was inspired in part by this show. We did the same for season one and it is becoming tradition, so keep listening for a great story. Our guest today wrote to me to say, “Lisa, it was you that inspired me to take this leap after reading your story and hearing your first season of podcasts.”
Today, we've invited her to the show to tell us about her leap, how she quit a six figure job in the consulting industry, sold all her things, and started a healing journey. And how that led her to a career pivot, to freelance writing, and to her own small business in the legal industry. Please welcome Camille Ali.
Camille: Hi Lisa, thank you for having me.
Lisa: Yes. I'm so excited to chat with you today.
Camille: I'm excited.
Lisa: Thanks for being here.
Camille: Thank you.
Lisa: So first, Camille, will you let us know just a little bit about yourself, including where you live and what you're doing for work right now?
Camille: Yes, I am originally from Southern California and right now I'm currently based in Florida. I always say by trade, I have learned to be a paralegal and a management consultant. But authentically, I'm a free spirit and a creative writer. I own a virtual paralegal business, and I'm also an independent management consultant for law firms.
Lisa: And so we first talked actually around 2019. And so I know that you have been in the middle of some big changes for the last three years. And so I'm curious, you know, if we were to go back in time to maybe even prior to when you and I first connected, what was going on in life and work, and what were you starting to realize about the leap that you might need to take?
Camille: So at the time, I had moved back to California from Florida for a job. I was leaving my government role and pivoting into the private sector. I was working for an employer and the work environment became extremely toxic. It was impacting my mental health to the point I was diagnosed with clinical anxiety, PTSD, and depression. I had to seek therapy to work through those things. I was on the verge of a mental breakdown and I did finally break. Everything that was going on was eating me alive. I wasn't eating well, I wasn't sleeping well. I gained weight. I started to isolate myself from family and friends. I pretended that I was okay when I wasn't, when really inside the emotional trauma I was carrying was super heavy. I was in so much pain; I didn't know how to handle it or what to do.
Lisa: Oh, man, that just sounds so hard.
Camille: Yeah, it was.
Lisa: And I just really feel for you. And how much was was going on for you. A kind of low point in life for me also really sparked my own leap. And I know like how hard it is to like, make things happen when you're feeling so down and terrible and just really struggling. And so I'm curious, like, what were some of the things that kind of helped you begin to get out of that situation or kind of see like what could be possibly ahead for you?
Camille: So there really wasn't much I can do. I, you know, I had to separate from my employer, and I did. After I separated from my employer, the idea of going back in to work in an office was extremely traumatizing for me. I was faced with certain questions regarding finding a job, another job, because, you know, that's what we do. We move on to the next job or next career opportunity like clockwork. In America, we cannot not work. It's just something that we have to do to survive like everybody else.
I had to ask myself what that looked like for me, what kind of work that I want to do. Was there remote work available? What company did I want to work for? I didn't have the answers to those questions, so I decided to take some time to myself to figure out what Camille needed. What helped actualize my leap was finding your story on Google and listening to your podcasts. And before I read your story, I’d never heard of a sabbatical or a career break. I heard of a gap year and that, and I thought, There's no way I can do this now in my thirties. At the time I was 34.
Lisa: Uh huh. Same age as me. At that time. Yeah.
Camille: And my parents are immigrants. And from an early age, you're taught to go to school, get a good job, stay there until you retire. But I thought, if Lisa can do this, why can't I?
Lisa: I love hearing that. I'm also from an immigrant family and so we have that in common. Like high expectations. Yeah. Do really well. Stay there. Don't rock the boat. Be grateful for what you have. Yeah, it's really hard. It can be really hard to go against the grain with that.
Camille: That's exactly what it was. You sit on a pedestal, and that's the example you set for your siblings, your cousins. Like that's what’s expected of you and nothing else.
Camille: Yeah, well, so that was really brave then for you to start considering. I mean, I'm really glad that you found me on Google and my story. And that was really brave of you then to kind of start considering what a break, what a sabbatical might mean for you. How did you start to imagine, like, what you would do with that time or how long it would be?
Camille: I didn't really have a plan. I didn't know what I was going to do, to be honest. I just knew I needed time for myself. I did nothing. I continued my weekly therapy sessions and stayed active whether that was hiking or going to the gym. I was so depressed I didn't really want to be around people and if I was, it was around very few people that I trusted. In my situation, I could say that I've been blessed enough to have support. After I separated from my employer, I had a really good friend of mine and her family, which I've known for 20 years now, invite me into their home to live with them so I can start healing and figuring out my next steps.
And I took this as a sign from God and the universe I was on the right path. Once I accepted the invitation and made the decision to live with them, everything else seemed to align. I broke my lease on my apartment, sold all my furniture within a month. It doesn't happen that fast, but it was happening. After that, every decision I made seemed to get easier. It turned out living with them was exactly what I needed to begin to heal. Later in my journey, I also lived with a cousin of mine as well. He also invited me to live with them until I figured things out. It was really a blessing how my leap unfolded. And I'm I'm always so grateful about it.
Lisa: And it sounds like the blessing was really like having that support, of having people that really cared about you reaching out and offering you the support during that time.
Camille: It was. I'm not someone who usually asks for anything and like if someone offers like my family or friends, I'll accept. But I was never expecting it to be like this.
Lisa: Mm hmm. And, you know, a lot of… unfortunately, I find that toxic work environments are all too common. And I think particularly people having lived and worked through the pandemic, like burnout is really on the rise. And more people are contacting me to, you know, think about how can I do a sabbatical? Because of burnout, you know, like in the past it was like for various different reasons. But I feel like burnout is like one of the leading reasons now, and that's been a big change since the pandemic.
And so I'm just curious for the people out there who are maybe thinking about taking some sabbatical time off to heal, what should they expect? Like what were kind of some stages or some things that maybe surprised you or how, you know, how long did it take? A lot of people wonder like, how long is it going to take for me to feel better? How would you respond to those questions?
Camille: I would say healing is never linear. It really started with me getting into therapy and I never thought I would need to see a therapist. You know, I grew up, I think, in the era and time in the 90s and early 2000s where therapy was kind of frowned upon, where you have to be legitimately like have real mental issues like bipolar, schizophrenia or something, that you would need a therapist, right? So I started with therapy and I had to face myself and it's gonna be very uncomfortable. It's not something you're going to want to do, but you have to work through everything you avoided dealing with and suppressed. And no one is going to do it for you either. You have to be able to be vulnerable enough with yourself to accept some hard truths about yourself and then decide how you will move forward and who you want to be.
And nothing about healing is pretty either. I've done talk therapy, I have done EMDR, I've been to equine assisted therapy, and I've done therapy for the last four or five years. And I, you can't put a time on healing because oftentimes sometimes things come up where you're triggered and again, you have to work through that again. I think the best form of therapy I did was equine assisted therapy, and that is working with a horse to understand patterns and behaviors about yourself. And I did ten sessions of that, I believe, last year, and I met my truest self, and I really had some things to work on that I thought I worked through. And talk therapy didn't really address those things.
I can't really put a time on it. I would say maybe it took me two or three years to feel like myself again or step into another version of myself. But there's, you’re gonna always be working through something. Like it wasn't til this year my… because I had two therapists. I had one with equine assisted therapy and I had a talk therapist. So one was helping me through working through breaking patterns and stuff like that. And the other one was like a biweekly check in. And so they told me like, you're done, you don't need me anymore, you're fine. But every so often I'll do the monthly check in just to talk about certain stuff or work through certain stuff that may be bothering me at the time, so I can't really put a time on it.
Lisa: Yeah, that's really helpful. I think, I mean, similarly, I think what I often respond with is, it's probably going to take longer than you think. It's like you don't know how long, but probably it will be a little longer than you think. And it is, I think it's surprising to people, you know, even when you take a break for, you know, you take some time off, and yeah, it can be uncomfortable. It can be kind of hard at first, you know, you don't feel like immediately this sense of liberation because there's actually a lot of stuff to kind of get through first.
Camille: Yeah, I didn't know what to expect. I made a decision and I'm not… The old me was never a risk taker. I'm not… I'm very calculated in a lot of areas of my life. So I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what I was doing. I kind of just moving in flow and then being grateful that I had friends and family that were there to support me. It was scary. Like, I don't like to make decisions without knowing exactly what I'm doing or getting into. And I just did.
Lisa: Mm hmm.
Camille: And I had to. I didn’t have a choice.
Lisa: So it sounds like initially, like you really had this support from friends then kind of what were some other important sort of stages or turning points in your journey?
Camille: What was the turning point for me was, like I said, I was just doing nothing, just going to therapy and just being at home with my friend and her family. A friend of mine who worked for an airline gifted me a buddy pass and she's like, you know, you sound like you need some time away to get away from your current environment. And so I decided I was going to travel to Hawaii by myself, and I did. And Hawaii was exactly what I needed. Everything about Hawaii, it was so healing from, you know, the hiking, the ocean, and meeting different people. And I at the time I stayed in a hostel and it was probably the first time I shared space with people because in college, I didn't have that experience.
I met people from Australia and Singapore and Canada. And actually one of those people and I are still very good friends today. And everything about traveling by myself solo, like it was what I needed. And I, that's when I caught the travel bug and I wanted more. And so when I got back from Hawaii, I was like well where else can I go? That is not cold and I can explore. So I was like, I thought I was going to go to Portugal for three weeks and then three weeks in Portugal ended up being 40 days in Europe, across England, Portugal, Spain, France and Italy in 18 different cities by myself. And it was the best decision I ever made again. Again I stayed in hostels and I met some amazing people.
And just by sharing my story and listening to their stories of other women around the world, it was healing. Women have a natural ability to heal each other, and those interactions were just it was so calming and soothing. Like women around the world, we all have similar commonalities. And whether it's like a breakup or, you know, a bad work environment, whatever it is, like we all share these things. Like we came together and sat and talked about it and it was, it was what I needed.
Lisa: Sounds incredible. Also was this your first time solo traveling was when you went to Hawaii and then you went off to Europe?
Camille: So I had did Mexico, Cabo San Lucas on my 32nd birthday.
Lisa: Mm hmm.
Camille: And that was like the icebreaker, right. I mean I’ve traveled out of the United States before I mean, because I have family that live in the Caribbean. But I was with family, right. And then Mexico was like the ice breaker. But I was still kind of playing it safe, you know what I mean?
Lisa: Yeah.
Camille: I would travel smart. I'd be in my room by 10 p.m. or whatever and it, you know, I would be really careful. And then I also spoke Spanish, so I got by. And then Hawaii and Europe was like my big travel jump, right, by myself. And I was, you know, you always have that first fear when you're getting on a plane to a foreign country and then it kind of subsides. And so, yeah, that was my big travel trip by myself.
Lisa: So cool. Yeah, we have a lot in common. I did a solo trip as well to Mexico. That was like my icebreaker, too. And then funnily enough, the second one was to Hawaii by myself. I did a solo backpacking trip in Kauai to see if I could if I could hack a solo backpacking trip, like camping out, like, not travel backpacking, but camping.
Camille: Yeah. And then I went to Puerto Rico. That was like the last trip I took and that was on my 35th birthday and that was a solo trip and I ended up meeting other women again and we just hung out the entire time. And it was, you know, I was in celebration mode. I had a lot to celebrate. I was finally getting to a place where I felt like myself again. But I would say the second turning point was during this process, I became my authentic self. I was always a straight arrow, like I said, I came from a family of foreigners where you're raised a certain way, you're told you're going to be at an early age. You are conditioned to follow a linear path. And I never did anything unconventional before. I did everything my parents expected me to do. I got the straight A's. I never brought home trouble, went to college and graduate school, got the high paying, stable job, and that was considered success.
But all of that, who I was told to be wasn't my dream. I was always living my life for my parents, and now those type of things don't define me anymore. It's the best feeling ever, and it was the most free I have ever felt. And now I can say my greatest accomplishment is becoming my authentic self. Another turning point was I rediscovered my passion for writing. I have always loved to write, and academically writing was my strong suit, but I didn't know how good I was at it. I love the fact that I can write about almost anything. I love personal essays and a good interview, but I also love writing news pieces.
Lisa: This resonates so much with me, and in many ways I feel like my own leap was about was so similar. I mean, coming from this background like you're describing, you know, like that you feel like you start out in life with this sort of predetermined set of things you're supposed to do. And so yeah, the straight A's, the going to a good college, the getting a good job, but then realizing like, hey, this isn't me and it's not making me happy and it can't be my version of success. And so it sounds like you were able to like really find that for yourself. And it sounds like along the way that you discovered that writing was a big part of that for you.
Camille: Yeah, it was. And you know, I am so grateful that I healed so I can truly live the life that I was meant to live. I think that if I didn't take that time for myself, I would still be an old version of myself.
Lisa: Yeah, so much transformation, self-discovery, and like you said, not an easy journey, but like a really fulfilling one and one that, like, leaves you a lot more open to all the possibilities in life and all the openness that is in you now. I'm curious about, will you tell us a little bit about what you discovered about writing and how you started doing some freelance writing.
Camille: Yeah, so I was never a writer before. I am. I only wrote academically and I, you know, all through high school and college, in grad school and even in work, like I just did well with writing, whether that's like a research paper or technical writing, whatever it was. But honestly, it began with my journaling. My therapist at the time recommended journaling as a coping mechanism for me, so I would journal daily and I still do. So after I returned from traveling, the pandemic hit and so we're on lockdown, we couldn’t do anything, it was a mandated quarantine.
So a few universities like UCLA Extension School were offering free online courses. So I enrolled in one or two creative writing courses. I wanted to share my travel story, so I began writing about different topics in an online community, and a few of my articles were received very well. So from there I started to pitch to online publications and platforms and to gain writing experience. I wrote for a new and upcoming magazine called FEMI for about a year. I wrote both online and print pieces. That was actually really cool to see my name in a print magazine.
Lisa: Yeah, so cool.
Camille: And I had wrote the cover story one month and it was like a, I think it was Bobby Valentino who is an R&B artist, Bobby Valentino, and that was pretty cool. And I wanted to learn about the industry as far as journalism and gain writing experience. So I was writing articles unpaid for a year and I didn't care because I liked to write. But it wasn't until June 2020, after I moved back to Florida, that I received an email from the managing editor at xoNecole. The piece I had written and pitched to them about skin care was going to be published on the site. And I was so excited because I had been following Necole Kane and xoNecole for over ten years.
Shortly after my first article was published on the site, I had actually met Necole at an event in Atlanta. When I came home from Atlanta, I was talking to a friend on the phone about my writing, and so I pulled up the site to show him not knowing that two more of my articles had been published again. And I was so surprised.
Lisa: Wow.
Camille: I thought it was cool to have one on there, but now it’s three. I was like, wow. And so I didn’t know it was up there for weeks. I don't check the site like daily. I ended up doing a thank you post on Instagram to the managing editor and she commented to email her and at that point she offered me to exclusively write for xoNecole. And that day I cried for like a good 10 minutes. I cried out of gratitude and happiness because I never saw this coming. It's one thing to be a published writer on a platform, but to write for someone you admired or looked up to for a very long time is a completely different thing.
Lisa: Yeah. Will you tell us a little bit about xoNecole, if people haven't heard of them before?
Camille: Yeah. So xoNecole is a women's lifestyle brand and platform for women of color and there are articles on there from career, from self care to love, sex, relationships, different topics. So I’ve been able to write for them for a year about… I've done interviews, I've done evergreen pieces, I’ve done personal essays, whether it's my own story or someone else's story, they do travel stories. It's a little bit of everything. And it's… the site gets a lot of attention. And I've been following them for, like I said, the last since 2014 or 2015 or something like that.
Lisa: Mm hmm. Yeah, that's so great. It's like you said, like when you're able to connect with or work for someone who you admired for so long and just be a part of that, it's really, that's really exciting.
Camille: Yeah, I never saw it coming. It was completely like, it hit from like left field. I just didn't even know it was something that I wanted or something that I dreamed of doing. It just I was writing for leisure. If you if you want to say that, I mean, it just and it became true. I don't know how else to put it. It became true, and, you know, it was, I guess people say I manifested it, but I wasn't really conscious of it, if that makes sense. Yeah. So that's how it all happened.
Lisa: You're following what brought you joy. and it had like… it sounds like a pretty magical moment when you got contacted by them.
Camille: Very magical. Like I, like I said, I literally sat there and cried for 10 minutes, and I’m not someone who cries very often.
Lisa: Well, and so, Camille, like it’s a lot but like you came back from travel and then like the pandemic happened. But I imagine like at some point along the way, you kind of started thinking about like, what am I going to do for work?
Camille:I did.
Lisa: How did you negotiate like those questions when they would pop up?
Camille: So when I moved back to Florida, I really didn't know what I was going to go and do for work. Like I was unemployed. But then a cousin of mine, her stepdad, needed an assistant. And so I started doing some paralegal work for him remotely. And then when I got to Florida, a friend of mine who also owns a law firm needed some paralegal work done as well and I started working for her as well. And then it led to, because of my experience in legal industry and consulting, it led to me creating opportunities for myself.
The level of freedom I found in that time off that I had and traveling… I didn't want to give it up. I didn’t want to go back into a normal 9 to 5 job. And I repeatedly told myself that like every day I didn't want to go back into an office, work for somebody else. And so that's when a friend and I decided we would open a virtual paralegal company, and we launched it this year. We've been planning it since last year, but we launched it this year in January 2022. And that's how that happened. And I also do some consulting work for a law firm because of the skills that I acquired while working in the consulting fields. And it just kind of panned out. I wasn't planning to go back into consulting, I wasn't wanting to go work for the government again or anything like that. It just kind of unfolded that way.
Lisa: Mm hmm.
Camille: And so now I own a business, and it's growing. And, you know, I always loved the legal industry. I loved being a paralegal, and I loved helping people. So the fact that I get to do that through being a paralegal and consulting and writing is really what I'm passionate about.
Lisa: Yeah. Tell us a little bit more about like what you discovered in terms of like how you want to work and what you want your work life to be like.
Camille: I absolutely love my freedom and flexibility and I wouldn't trade that for the world. I work from home a majority of the time. And, you know, I still get to do the things that I like to enjoy and not working past 6 p.m. And sometimes if I don't have a heavy workload, I'm done by 3:00pm. I like that I can control my schedule like I still get up early and, you know, make sure that I go to the gym and you know, the morning time is my time for myself before I start working. I still try to keep a healthy work life balance.
Being a business owner isn't easy. There's a lot to be done. But balance is and self-care is important. So I make sure that I go to the gym every day and make sure that I'm eating healthy. I make sure that I have time for my family and my friends, whether that's a phone call or a visit. You know, I recently got back from Colombia because, like, I had the travel itch, I didn't go anywhere for the first quarter of 2022 and I was like itching to go somewhere. And now like I feel like replenished and refreshed. Because I got on a plane just to travel to Colombia. Awesome. Yeah. And it was a short trip, but it was needed because, like, I find that travel, like, it feeds my soul. Like, I'm truly a free spirit and I'm truly a Sagittarius. And so, like, I need that in my life.
Lisa: Did you know I'm a Sagittarius, too? There's so many similarities here.
Camille: No I didn’t know that.
Lisa: Oh, I so feel you.
Camille: Yeah. So I'm true and true a Sagittarius like everything they say about Sagittarius as far as independence and freedom and all that. It's definitely true for me.
Lisa: Yeah, well, it's been such an amazing journey and I'm really curious, what do you imagine for for what's next? Do you have any ideas about how you'd like to grow or keep going with some of the things you're doing right now?
Camille: I… My business partner and I definitely want to grow our business where we have employees, so we're not working as hard. Travel is something that's never going to leave my life. I plan to take a quarterly vacation when I can, whether it's domestically or internationally. And right now I think I'm in a building stage where I'm still building the life I want to live, and that's through self-love and self-care and travel and empowerment. I really believe that my voice is my power and I write to inspire other women. So as far as writing goes, I'm not sure where that’s taking me yet. But I do enjoy, love, I do enjoy and love telling the stories of other people to inspire other people or other women. Like you can have this life, that you don't have to do what you've been taught your whole entire life. And I think a lot of women of color, other minorities struggle with that. But as the pandemic hit, it's starting to wind down a little bit. Like more women of color are making that leap.
Lisa: Yeah. And so for women of color, like in particular, it sounds like you want to like encourage or you have a message for them. And so I'm curious, what are some pieces of that for you?
Camille: I think I would say for me, I had to trust my intuition and how certain things make me feel. You have to know what type of environment you thrive in, where you are the happiest, where you are the most successful, where you have community and support, and where your energy feels the best. Like when talk therapy wasn't enough for me, I started doing Reiki sessions, which is energy healing, and I'm more of a spiritual person now and I believe in energy and universal signs. So every so often I'll do a Reiki session to understand what is going on with me energetically or to removes like energy.
But ultimately you really have to trust yourself. And that's why I decided to move back to Florida, because I knew being in Florida the first time around was where I was the happiest and where I felt my best. And when I moved back, everything started to fall in place, like, without a question. Like it all started to flow in the right direction. And, you know, they tell you you can't heal in the same place that made you sick. And I couldn’t be in California anymore because of that. And much as I left California and, you know, my family's there, my closest friends are there. I couldn't be there anymore. That was no longer home.
Lisa: Mm hmm.
Camille: So, I mean, you really have to know yourself and trust your intuition. And if you don't trust your intuition and the sign that the universe gives you, like I've been told once that when you're not supposed to be in a certain place, a job, a situation or relationship, you'll become so uncomfortable that you're going to be forced to leave. And I think that's what happened to me.
Lisa: Yeah. Well, Camille, I really appreciate how you have volunteered to share your story both with me and with all of our listeners. With Leap Like Me. I really appreciate it, and I hope that many hear your story and can find some ideas and some inspiration in it. So thank you so much for sharing it with us.
Camille: Thank you for having me, Lisa.
Lisa: I have three quick questions for you that I ask every guest who comes on our show. And so I'd love to wrap up with those.
Camille: Okay.
Lisa: All right. So first is, what do you wish you had known before you took your leap?
Camille: I wish I would have known that it's okay to change direction. You don't always have to be a straight arrow. You don't have to stay in a place or a job longer than you should if it's not for you. It's okay to pivot. It's okay to take time for yourself. I don't think I was ever told that growing up or in my adult life until I had to or until I went into therapy. So I wish I had known it was okay to just pause and change directions.
Lisa: Mm hmm. And what was some, the most unexpected thing that came from your leap?
Camille: I think the most unexpected thing that came out of my leap is that I used to be risk averse and now I'm risk tolerant. Like I am definitely a risk taker now, even though I'm still calculated about how I move. I would also say my love for travel and becoming a writer and owning a business. But what's even harder for me to hear or believe sometimes is how much I inspire my family and my friends, how much I inspire people who read my articles. I have this way about me, where I make everything I do look completely effortless when I actually do really work hard.
Lisa: Awesome. And for someone who is thinking of doing something similar, what's one piece of advice that you would offer them?
Camille: I would say trust yourself enough to know when something is not right for you, instead of try to hold on to the end where you're absolutely broken and you lost yourself and you can't even look in the mirror and know what you're looking at. Because I was that person. I got to the point where I couldn't look in the mirror. I didn't know who I was looking at. And now I'm not that person anymore. I know who I am. I know what I stand for. And I don't ever stray from that.
Lisa: Yeah. Well, Camille, I really admire your strength. I've heard it at so many points in your story, and, yeah, I just really appreciate also just, you know, what you've brought to sharing your story with us today. And I know you'll continue to do it in your writing. So thank you so much.
Camille: Thank you, Lisa.
Lisa: Thank you for listening to this episode of Leap Like Me. If you're enjoying the show and getting lots of value from it, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss any new episodes and leave us a five star review. Also, do you know anyone who's considering a career change? Who might appreciate the ideas and inspiration from this show? Please let them know about it. We want as many people as possible to benefit from these shows, and know that if you do share it, you can always tag me @lisahoashi on Instagram or LinkedIn.
By the way, if you haven't already connected with me in those two places, I'm also sharing tons of good stuff there. Speaking of sharing, I want you to know about my new free change planner. This planner is for you if you'd like to make a significant change in life or work, but you're feeling kind of stuck. My change planner will help you get the clarity you need to take your next steps. Inside, I’ll show you how to understand what you really want and why it's important, how to face your fears constructively so they don't hold you back.
And this planner also has a scenario cruncher. I help you get all possible scenarios out of your head so you can find the right one for you. It's my favorite part, and having used it with many clients, I've seen how powerful it is. I know you're going to get many great insights out of this free planner, so head on over to leaplikeme.com to get your copy. That's a wrap for this episode. Thanks for listening, for sharing the show and being part of this journey with me. Take good care.
