Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Carly Schroeder. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Carly thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

Thanks for having me! When it comes to taking risks, well, I’ve never really been afraid of taking them.

Before I graduated college I knew that I wanted to travel. It was senior year and I was in a fairly new relationship with my current partner, Ian, and I remember approaching him with a proposition. I said, “after I graduate I want to move to England, would you like to come with me?” he didn’t even hesitate before he said “yes.”

Whether or not he said yes, I was going to go anyway. I was going to take the risk; I was willing to put my relationship on the line, have no set plan for making an income, have no idea where I was going to live, or how I was going to manage living in a country 4,000 miles away.

To me it was worth it.

I think when we’re young it’s easier to take risks because there really isn’t all that much on the line. I was 19. I didn’t have children or a career ladder that I spent years climbing. I didn’t really have any assets or something that I thought wasn’t going to be there after saying yes to an unconventional opportunity.

So it only made sense that I said yes to my soul’s desire and made the move. Ian and I spent about six months living in England and five weeks backpacking Europe before we came back to the states and I began my career. At the time, I had no clue about the online business world. Making money online was never something I even imagined.

So naturally, I kicked off my what-I-thought-would-be my lifelong career in corporate advertising. I spent 3 years in the field and 2 of those years I spent dreading my 9-5 life and wondering if this was really all that was available to me- if this was how it was going to go for the rest of my life. I spent my days sitting in a cubicle reminiscing on my adventures abroad and wondered if I’d ever be able to do that again without using all my vacation time in one sitting.

As a kid, I always imagined I’d be a business owner but a lot of what we’re taught in school is that becoming a business owner involves a lot of risk and really not much reward, at least not for years. Not that risk was really a barrier for me but the idea of overhead, employees and being location dependent just didn’t entertain me.

So a few weeks after some casual google searches on how to make money while traveling the world, I was served a paid ad about a digital nomad community (and this is when advertising sort of comes full circle for me, ha!) This is where I discovered that people were traveling the world and running online businesses like digital brand & website design studios, virtual assistant and social media management agencies, coaching, and so much more.

I remember feeling in my gut that this was something I wanted to do. I needed to learn how to do this. So, about a week later I invested money into a course on how to do just that. Which led me to spend the rest of my time in advertising while studying and building a business during my lunch break and after working hours.

And then one late night at my 9-5, I was handling a crisis that was way beyond my wheelhouse and responsibility, when I hit my breaking point. At that moment, I knew that was not the life for me and it was time to officially launch my business and get the heck out of there.

Shortly after, I launched my business, made my website live and sent an email to my existing network of friends and family and let them know I was open for (virtual) business. I spent some time applying to easy part-time jobs to secure a little income while I grew my business and shortly after, I got a call back for a small local business who needed help with marketing.

I met them at a local Starbucks and it sounded like a great fit. They were ready to hire me as a part-time employee but that’s when I realized I never wanted to be an employee again. That’s when I decided to take the risk and pitch them the same services but contracted through my own business. To me it was less about working for someone else and more about the freedom to do it not as an employee, but rather a business owner. They accepted my offer.

And without that risk, I wouldn’t have signed the single client who was paying me a little bit more than what I was making at my entry level full-time corporate advertising job. It felt like power.

I was officially on my own.

Now after four years of running my business full-time, I know that taking a leap of faith is the most important decision you’ll make for your own happiness. I’ve had to leap many times since I started. Every single one of those times I never felt 100% confident, I never felt truly ready, I never knew how things would turn out, but I did it anyway.

Just like when I was a kid and the idea of being a business owner felt like a lot of risk, I know now that it’s true. I just had to find my middle ground- I had to find what was worth risking.

And every time I’ve risked or taken a leap of faith, I’ve gotten closer to my purpose. The purpose that I feel I’m deeply rooted in right now. Because I’ve chosen not to settle, because I’ve always leaped before I felt truly ready, because I’ve taken the risk, I get to feel the sense of freedom I always imagined and I get to help others create the same sense of freedom they imagine.

My ever-evolving purpose has led me here, helping people find their freedom, passion, and fulfillment through energetics and entrepreneurship. Helping them pin-point where they’re settling, why they’re unfulfilled, and how to tap into their unique gifts and find their own purpose.

But, it takes the courage to leap and the confidence to trust that whatever happens along the way is getting you closer to your purpose.

Carly, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Yes! So I’m Carly, a business energetics coach & intuitive growth mentor for entrepreneurs. If you don’t know what those things mean, no worries, I’m not big on titles anyway, but I’ll just explain.

I work with both aspiring and seasoned entrepreneurs. For the newbs, I love helping them tap into their unique gifts and ultimately create the life of freedom they desire. I use a tool called Human Design which gives my clients insight into these unique gifts but I’ve also found that this system gives people the permission slip they need to fully embrace who they are at their core. Alongside that, we work together to uncover their passions and skills and kick-start the beginner phase of starting an online business. Most importantly, we work through the fears, limiting beliefs, and insecurities that present themselves when you choose a path less traveled. Deciding is half the battle, the rest comes after you’ve decided.

After working with entrepreneurs for over 4 years now and with my own experience, I’ve come to realize that nothing awakens your biggest fears and insecurities like starting your own business. I like to call it my spiritual awakening because after running a ‘good on paper’ branding & website design studio, I completely burnt-out. I found myself fixated on the financial success of my business that I stopped taking care of myself both mentally and physically. And it wasn’t until one night when I landed in the emergency room that I realized things needed to change. Although I had the business and was making a good income, I wasn’t really as happy as I thought I would be and certainly wasn’t experiencing the level of freedom I set out to achieve.

That’s when I took my biggest leap of faith after starting my business and decided to take a step back for a while and focus on my mental health. I was ridden with anxiety and physically my body felt like it was shutting down on me. After all, I was no longer on a clock-in, clock-out schedule so it always felt difficult to mentally unplug.

I took massive steps to tune inward, rediscover who I am, and create the lifestyle I desired without working 10 hour days and hustling to achieve a standard of success that everyone else created for me. It took a lot of inner work and because of that I now feel the most fulfilled I’ve ever felt in my whole life. Which is why I love helping seasoned entrepreneurs who are experiencing a level of burnout or lack of fulfillment in their business, truly reconnect to who they are, feel confident in themselves and the way they run their business, and create the success they desire from that place.

It’s a spiritual journey but it’s absolutely worth it and I know I have an intuitive gift of making people feel seen, heard, and validated during every step of their journey. My work goes beyond the business strategy, it’s a big part, but a lot of the work is building the confidence and belief in yourself as you do the things that most people are too afraid to do. And trust me, we make it fun.

If there’s even a tiny flame inside you that is burning at the idea of this sense of freedom, just know, that’s your soul telling you it’s available to you, you just have to listen to it.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Sure, my resilience is actually one of the things I’m most proud of myself for. You heard me quickly mention my trip to the E.R. one night- well that is one experience I’m super grateful for because it showed me where I needed to make a change.

Growing up, I always thought that being resilient meant powering through, getting things done no matter what it takes in order to accomplish the goal.

But now, I recognize that that belief is what led me into burnout in the first place. It led me to carry the hustle mentality from the corporate world into my own business. It forced me to work 10 hour days, push through things that were out of alignment for me, and strive for a financial benchmark that I was led to believe was the definition of “success.”

Well I did all of that- I worked the 10 hour days, I powered through things I hated doing and hit five figure months only to feel very underwhelmed and unhappy. I was always in, what felt like, panic mode after hitting my goals. Like “how the hell am I supposed to do that again?” Everything always felt like a fluke and my lack of confidence was just feeding it.

But I kept repeating the same negative cycle over and over again for two years until my body said enough is enough. I experienced a severe back spasm at 27 and couldn’t move my body enough to get into a car and go to the hospital. So I took my first ambulance ride that night, only to be diagnosed with high stress and lack of physical activity. Welp, that explains it.

I was running my business in a very toxic way and that wakeup call was what I needed to be reminded of why I started my business in the first place- for freedom and fulfillment.

And that was the start of my healing journey- both physically & mentally. I had to start putting myself first and had to completely restructure my business, tweak my business model, and pivot my services. But without that entire experience, I wouldn’t have been led straight to my purpose and finding my passion in the coaching industry.

So for me, resilience doesn’t mean pushing past my red flags or signs of misalignment or powering through feelings of unhappiness, but rather building my self awareness, and recognizing and making intuitive decisions for what’s best for me and future me.

The most important thing is that I haven’t given up on my dreams. This whole journey was unexpected and not always ideal but I’ve been resilient enough to stick with it and continue the path, I’ve just changed the way I walk the path.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Oh, absolutely! One of the biggest lessons I had to unlearn is this idea that everyone else knows what’s best for me- that authority, seniority, or the more experience someone has means they know what’s correct for me and I should follow that.

I’ve had to recognize that everything we’re taught is through the lens of someone else’s experience or perception, and no two people have had the same exact experience. No two people are the same and as kids we have been taught to be, act, look, and feel the same and it’s just downplaying the entire, beautiful human experience.

I know that sounds a little woo but once I was able to recognize that, my confidence skyrocketed. I started to trust myself and my choices, opinions, paths, and way of doing things. I started to view everything as an experiment and when it comes to business, I’ve been able to find what works for me and what doesn’t and not feel completely defeated when things don’t go the way that someone else told me they should. I feel so much more free and confident in who I am and that’s really what I believe to be the foundation for sustainability and success.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://carlyanne.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carlyschroeder__/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carlyanne.co
• Other: Podcast | The Awakened Entrepreneur Podcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1VTC1Br60LADIK80279r1q?si=744259852c7e4326 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-awakened-entrepreneur/id1597529401

Image Credits
ERIN EVANGELINE PHOTOGRAPHY