We were lucky to catch up with Laura Nguyen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Laura thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. undefined

After 20 years leading and managing teams, I quit my executive job, with nothing lined up. Instead, I set out on a career break, one that would help me realign my life, my goals, and become the beginnings of my business. When I decided to take a career break, I spent time interviewing others who took breaks or sabbaticals. And what I learned was that many people don’t have a plan for their break, they don’t create a structure. Seventy-seven percent of the people I surveyed said they knew something had to change. Yet, 40% of them felt frozen or stuck, and 26% said they needed a plan.

So, I created an intentional plan for my break with the goals to recover from burnout, reignite my creativity and set me on a new career path. The intentional career break was broken into 4 key areas:

1) Play: Create unrestrained time for fun and adventure
2) Pause: Engage in personal self-care and thoughtful reflection
3) Plan: Chart a career that is fulfilling and sustainable
4) Pursue: Reenter the workforce with joy and positivity – no burnout

In my four month break, I had three surprising learnings:
1) Clarity: Distance shows you what’s really important and offers valuable perspective and insights.
2) Creativity: Ideas come where you least expect them.
3) Confidence: Stepping away made me realize that my career doesn’t define me. My break was an exercise of self-love.

Stepping away isn’t a set back. It propels you forward.

Today, I am an author, online community leader, coach and consultant. The career break opened up new doors I didn’t expect. It gave me clarity that I needed to advocate for a new way to work and live. That we can achieve sustainable success, rather than peak performance at the cost of our mental well-being.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

For 20 years, I led high performing marketing teams in high growth consumer and B2B businesses. I started my career on the agency side, leading award-winning marketing campaigns for Fortune 500 companies, private equity and private businesses.

After experiencing burnout, I created an exit plan with an intentional career break to reset, recharge and ready herself for the next chapter in life. Following my break, I founded Solle Solutions, a marketing consulting firm specializing in performance and digital marketing. I am an advocate for career breaks, and create content and resources on burnout, well-being at work, and leadership. I share content across all social channels, including Linkedin and Instagram, as well as in my weekly newsletter.

I wrote Career Break Compass, a book to help leaders refresh and recharge through intentional time off. The book is available on November 12, 2024. To help bring the resources in the book to life, I created Cove & Compass, which is an online community and program that helps high-achieving professionals go from burned out to balanced, and have tools for sustainable success throughout their life and careers.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

When I started my consulting business, I knew that I didn’t want to only talk about marketing. Instead, I wanted to be more authentic and aligned to me. So, I shared my story of burnout on Linkedin. It deeply resonated with people, and I immediately gained 10,000+ followers within the first month of regularly posting. Since then, I have seen consistent growth, and have evolved the type of content and resources I share with my audience. Additionally, I created my own newsletter about 6 months after I started posting on Linked, and have gained more than 17,000+ subscribers.

My advice for those looking to build on social is to pick one platform. My recipe for growth is
1) Consistent content – post daily and at the same time each day
2) Community and engagement – find others to connect with and comment on their posts, and build relationships
3) Be data driven – monitor the day and see what works, what doesn’t work. Double down on what creates the most impressions and engagements

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I am a card carrying member of the people pleaser, no boundaries club. I have had to retire that membership, but it took to unlearn and dig deep into why I was so inclined to making everyone else happy. The truth was that each time I said yes to something that didn’t align with me or my values, I was betraying myself. That was a tough lesson to learn.

During my career break, the distance gave me time to realize that my fear of disappointing others was leading me to resentment. The examples are small, yet consistent throughout my day. The answering of text messages from work at 7 am, while I frantically tried to get my child ready for school. The compulsion to volunteer for every school activity. The accepting of calls at 8 or 9 PM, despite being at a family event.

It was even present outside of work. Going to networking events I didn’t really want to go to. Even the fear of disappointing our waiter while on vacation because we skipped dinner one night. There were too many examples of saying yes, when I should have said no. Today, my default is to listen to my mind and body when I am presented a choice, and asking if it aligns with my values and my desires. This small shift has made a significant difference in how I live and work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lauranguyen.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauranguyen.co/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauran546/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LauraNguyenCo

Image Credits

Angi’s Art llc