IAM074 – Personal Development Coach Helps Young Professionals in Corporate America

Sydney is a badass young female entrepreneur who focuses her work on personal development coaching. After leaving her successful career as a Buyer in Corporate America due to severe burnout, anxiety and lack of fulfillment, she began her own Coaching Business full-time. She now focuses on helping young professionals find clarity and purpose in their lives, navigate overwhelm, connect to their authentic selves, and take the next step towards success in their lives and careers. She has a unique perspective on coaching work that makes yogic philosophy, spirituality, and personal development accessible and applicable to high-achieving young professionals in Corporate America.

Website: https://www.sydneyaxelrod.com/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/wildflower.movement
Free Training – “The 4 Keys To Get Unstuck – Even if you are burnt out, anxiety-ridden and over it”: https://bit.ly/2spZSyP
Podcast: Everyday Woo Woo
Podcast Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/everyday-woo-woo/id1410823707?mt=2
Podcast Instagram: http://instagram.com/everydaywoowoo

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today Sydney Axelrod of sydneyaxelrod.com. Sydney is a young female entrepreneur who focuses her work on personal development coaching. After leaving her successful career as a Buyer in Corporate America due to severe burnout, anxiety, and lack of fulfillment, she began her own Coaching Business full-time.

She now focuses on helping young professionals find clarity and purpose in their lives, navigate overwhelm, connect to their authentic selves, and take the next step towards success in their lives and careers.

She has a unique perspective on coaching work that makes yogic philosophy, spirituality, and personal development accessible and applicable to high-achieving young professionals in Corporate America. Sydney, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Sydney Axelrod 1:19

Yeah, I'm ready. Let's do it.

Gresham Harkless 1:21

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Sydney Axelrod 1:28

Sure. I grew up in Denver, Colorado. I went to college at Emory University. I don't know if many people have heard about it. It's in Atlanta. It's a small school with a really great business form and I studied marketing and finance there. I did a visual arts minor. So I've always been one to be interested in both the creative and the analytical and then from there, I moved out to Minneapolis, I got a job at Target Corporation.

So I've always been a perfectionist, maybe some people who are listening can relate to my story, but I did all the things, I got a 3.9 GPA at Emory, I went to Target, worked my butt off there and within three years at Target, I was running a $1.3 billion business at Target. So loved it, and had a great experience working my way up to do exactly what I wanted to do there after about four years at Target, I had my first moment where I strayed from the plan, the perfectionist plan, good grades, good job, what's next, what's next promotion, etc. And I made a decision to actually take some time off and do some traveling and not have a plan so to speak.

I didn't want to stay in Minnesota. So I decided to leave, I went back home to Denver, I attempted to take three months off and ended up taking a year off, I backpacked for a while by myself and I did yoga teacher training programs and coaching programs and I painted and I just explored my passions and what I loved. And then after a year, I decided to move out to San Francisco, which is where I am now and it was my first call to action, so to speak, of starting to live more in alignment with my purpose where I was like, Okay, I think I want to get out of retail, I want to follow my passions, I got really into yoga, yogic philosophy, and wellness. But of course, like every story, I declined the first call and I took a job out of fear because San Francisco is such an expensive place to live. So I took another job in corporate retail as a buyer and went down that road again because that's what I knew, that's what I was good at.

But within a year, it was very clear that it was not the right place for me, I was living so out of alignment with what was true for me and that manifested in lots of anxiety. I started having panic attacks, you read this in my bio, I just got so burnt out, I was working so much and working so hard and just not enjoying what I was doing and where I was working, the environment was quite toxic and it was just a tough experience for me and I got to the place where I was so burnt out that it was hard for me to even figure out another job also because I was working crazy hours I just didn't have the time or energy to find the right thing for me.

So what I did was again, I quit without a plan and I booked a two-week leadership intensive workshop in Costa Rica with my favorite coach and teacher who I had worked with before and did immersive deep self-work and self-exploration, and came back with a nine-month plan of something that I curated in that place where I was dreaming really big, I was really excited and what that plan was, was to become a life coach, what I loved had already completed all of the prerequisites to this coaching program.

But I came back and the fear settled back in and I was like, do I get a job? What do I do now? and what happened was I actually got really sick for a while. So I think all the stress all the pressure took its toll on my body and I was a bit out of commission for a while just trying to heal and that was a wake-up call for me because I was like, wow, I really did some damage to myself with being in such a stressful environment for so long and that was where I was able to flip in my mind my narrative from Okay, Why won't this nine-month plan work that I had created in Costa Rica to what if it does work? and how do I make it work?

And I just changed my thinking, I ended up doing basically six months of what I considered my form of grad schooling. So just doing entrepreneurship courses, and life coaching, I got my certification as a life coach, and I did health coach courses and worked with doctors and coaches, and I healed myself and I did all this work.

And then after that, I was just like, This is what I'm doing, it was just more of knowing I was like, I want to keep doing this work and I want to share what I've learned with people and I want to make this into a business. I just felt I knew that that was where I needed to take my career. So now I've jumped into the world of starting my own business and working for myself and making my passion a full-time job.

Gresham Harkless 6:52

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, I'm sorry to hear, all of that happens. But sometimes I tell myself, sometimes it gets darkest before dawn and, even though you had that stress and the burnout, and all those things were taking a toll seems like it led you to the path you wanted to go in the first place or should have maybe been going in the first place and being in alignment with who you are, and what it is that you're doing for clients as well, too.

Sydney Axelrod 7:14

Oh, totally. Yeah, totally. I'm grateful for all of that and in some of the moments I couldn't find it. But now I'm like, Oh, of course, if you're living so out of alignment, something is going to be like, hey, knocking on your door, change your path, and the more you don't listen, the stronger it gets. I was just taken out of commission until I had to rethink my plan so, I totally think that stuff was just part of the process of finding out what I really wanted to do and having the courage to step out of my comfort zone and just do it.

Gresham Harkless 7:46

That makes perfect sense. And now so for the people that you work with, the clients that you have, could you talk a little bit more about, how you help them and the things that you do for them?

Sydney Axelrod 7:54

Yes, sure. So what I love to do is one on one coaching, and just to give you a little more info on what life coaching is, maybe you know, maybe you don't, but the way I like to describe it is when you think about general therapy because more people are familiar with therapy. Right?

So therapy is a lot about where are you now. And how did you get here? So working through the things that made you uncover your story, that kind of thing. Coaching is more around? Where are you now? Where do you want to go? And how do we get you there? So what I do with coaching, if I work with people on, how are holding themselves back from getting to where they want to go from realizing their full potential from living in alignment with their purpose, all of these things, because I have the belief that, if you have an unhealed part of your story, it's going to be showing up for you right now, so coaching is a little more like around the tactical, there's a lot of self-exploration and discovery and then putting it into action.

So I work with clients over the phone, one-hour sessions typically, and then after each session, there's always what I call soul work or homework for them to do, which is taking discovery from the passion that we had, and actually applying it to your life and that's such a big part of the transformation and big part of coaching is actually making the change so it doesn't just live in a one-hour discussion and it actually becomes a part of your life so that's really what I do. I work with people one on one over time to work through any resistance that comes up, I do a lot of work around uncovering and letting go of limiting beliefs identifying what people's values are and how to live more in alignment with them or what people say like what their purpose in life is, do a lot of work around supporting and managing anxiety and depression and I have experienced with that and mindfulness and self-care and also processing and working through a motion.

So it's really broad, but it's anything that is holding you back, let's bring that to the surface and work through it so that you can really create the life that you want to lead.

Gresham Harkless 10:11

Now, I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce, which might be something that you feel distinguishes you or makes you and your organization unique.

Sydney Axelrod 10:17

My secret sauce, I think, is that I have a unique vantage point on coaching because, I think of myself as having lived in two different worlds my whole life so half of my life has been spent in the corporate world and going to a good school, getting good grades, and being a perfectionist in that arena.

And then the other half has been in the creative philosophical coaching and yoga world, I also have almost 500 hours of yoga teacher training under my belt. So it's like, I love doing that stuff and whenever I've been in the coaching world, or the yoga world and hanging around those more free-spirited, creative beings, I've always been the corporate one.

And I'm in the corporate world, I've always been, the hippie one, who people come to for mindfulness tips and diet tips, and all that holistic wellness. So I think that's my uniqueness.

Gresham Harkless 11:19

Yeah, that makes perfect sense, especially because you mentioned, you've actually experienced it, you've actually done and you've experienced both sides of the coin, so to speak. So you already know, when you are speaking with somebody, you can relate to them to that degree to make sure that they're going to the path and they're staying in alignment with what it is their quote, unquote, supposed to do.

And now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And CEO hack can be an app or a book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

Sydney Axelrod 11:50

Yeah, this is gonna sound too cliche and self-promotion. And it's not, but for me, it's just working on my own self-development and I just believe with my whole heart that, the biggest obstacle that holds anyone back from realizing their potential or accomplishing the goals that they have is themselves and their relationship with themselves.

And the other thing I was thinking, about is the way that I incorporate my own self-development with consistency I've become really obsessed with my morning routine.

Gresham Harkless 12:22

Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this might be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice you might have.

Sydney Axelrod 12:28

I would say, nobody knows what the hell they're doing and it's okay, it's all part of the experience of being human and it's almost like, you're never going to know, you're never going to be completely healed, you're never going to be complete and whole in the way that you have in your vision, and yet you already are complete and whole and perfect as you are and there's just always more.

Gresham Harkless 12:55

And now I want to ask you, which is what my favorite question is, which is the definition of being a CEO. So what does being a CEO means to you?

Sydney Axelrod 13:02

Yes, a CEO, to me means being more committed to your purpose than to your comfort zone, I've been thinking about this and I think that the hardest part of following your calling of like taking the leap to become a CEO, so to speak, is not following your calling, is not starting the business, I actually think that the hardest part is stepping away from your comfort zone or from the place that you know is safe, that you know will work out, that you have more control around the stepping away from all of these conditions, ideals around success.

And so in my experience, as a quote, unquote, CEO, I feel I have to step out of my comfort zone and just commit to my purpose, I have to do that every single day that I'm in this role. So it's not just a one-time leap, it's every single day that you're choosing your business and your purpose over your fear and your comfort zone.

Gresham Harkless 14:05

I love that, I love that. Sydney, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic to see if there was anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and also how best people can get ahold of you.

Sydney Axelrod 14:16

Sure. Yeah. I just want to thank you, I love what you're doing. I love that you have this focus on how cool CEOs and I think this content is so valuable, and I can't wait to listen to what everyone else has to say. So thank you for following your purpose and doing your work.

And yeah, so to connect with me or anything else, my website is sydneyaxelrod.com and then I'm also on Instagram @wildflower.movement. If you want to see more inspirational posts and tips and tools for mindfulness and self-care, and then I also have a podcast called Everyday Woo Woo that I do with a friend who is a boss lady at Google, so two interesting perspectives. So that's @everydaywoowoo on Instagram. And then just to share what I'm doing now if anyone is interested in exploring coaching, whether it's new, I like to offer the first three coaching sessions with me as pay what you can afford and then, I sell a wildflower deck of affirmations online so just positive messages to come back to every day to retrain your brain to think in a more productive way rather than focusing on fear and worry.

And then the last thing I wanted to offer is, I'm super excited about this and it's on creating your perfect morning routine program called wake up. It's a seven-day coaching Kickstarter program, and then all happy to offer, for people who listen to this podcast 10% off of that if you want to try it, and that's what I have going on.

Gresham Harkless 16:03

We'll have those links in the show notes just so that anybody can follow up. But Sydney, I appreciate you for doing all these awesome things and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Sydney Axelrod 16:13

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you too and thank you for having me.

Outro 16:17

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co

I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening

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