We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Julie Cielo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Julie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

After establishing a healthy private celebrity practice in Neuromuscular Therapy, Intuitive energy work, & Yoga, leading retreats in America, Peru, and Bali, I spoke consecutive years as a guest panelist for hundreds at a Women’s Wellness event. —my first career in Wellness spanned over 20 years, Then I moved to Los Angeles leaving it all behind after a divorcing my high school sweetheart of 22 years. Shortly after arriving in LA, I founded one of the first non-alcoholic drink companies in the US, was first at Erewhon and first on stage at BevNet Live speaking about what is now the Sober Curious movement back in 2015–now a $30B global sales category! I spent nearly a decade running and operating the startup I raised over $1.5M for before our co-packer destroyed half of our inventory in the middle of a $65K rebrand. He went out of business and took our proprietary ingredient, forcing me to have to reformulate for acquisition. After the inventor pulled out due to this I closed the business one year ago, grieved hard and picked up where I left off prior to launch as a Transformational Life Coach and Somatic Therapist. I have been meditating since 1995 and am currently studying Evolutionary Astrology and will soon be offering readings alongside my other offerings such as live events that include Somatic Breathwork, sound, and hypnosis. Additionally, I have created a personal transformation program called The ReWrite and have a book being published this year. I am inspired to inspire women 35-55 reclaim the voice that was silenced and own the power they gave away as they heal symptoms like autoimmune, gut and skins issues caused by PTSD holistically mind, heart & gut from the inside out.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Raised in rural Pennsylvania by an Italian immigrant grandfather who taught me homestead living when I wasn’t with my mother who had Borderline personality disorder who was bi-sexual, she was married six times that I know of. I was diagnosed with a severe scoliosis at age 14 and was told to learn yoga and was self taught from a book from the public library in the 80’s. I received trigger point therapy on a country road from a man named Bob who also treated the amish. We would line up to be seen by him. I was a child medium since age 8 and worked at my mother’s hair salon applying makeup before being offered a job at a funeral home in my senior year of high school. That inspired me to go to Mortuary College in Florida immediately after high school graduation. After having an out of body experience in the medical examiner’s office my last semester of Mortuary college, I was divinely guided to ‘choose the light’ and was guided to go to massage therapy school which I did, then went on to train extensively with Paul St John Neuromuscular therapy and others over two decades.

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

I built my first career before the internet, no business cards, no advertising, strictly word of mouth. When I stepped into my second career in Wellness as a beverage founder social media had just started to emerge. Running a startup changed my resourcefulness and I struggled to get tech stuff done without help due to a lack of confidence. This coupled with trying to figure out how to use my intuitive gifts without putting my hands on clients, I have been forced to learn new skills, delegate what makes most sense, learn new ways of being, while leaning into my strengths. My third career began recently and feels like the biggest stretch I have ever taken. Fully stepping into my gifts as an author, speaker, coach & healing facilitator now at 49 years young I am more in my power than I have ever been yet I humbly request advice from people half my age.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

The investor of my second career, a beverage startup, was one of my best clients in my first career as a professional healer. She said she did not invest in one of the first non-alcoholic drinks in the US, she invested in me. She said she believed in me, yet did not have much empathy for me when I struggled to manage minimal capital being dripped in, not allowing me to build a team, which made me and the business suffer to grow due to her not acknowledging this nor my knowing any better at the beginning. This relationship was ruined due to getting into business together. Moral of the story; See the big picture before taking the first step. Get all the money up front to build out a team that can hustle resourcefully.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.juliecielo.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliecieloofficial
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/juliecielo

Image Credits

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