IAM1550 – Career Change Agent, Podcaster and Life Coach Helps Women Recognize and Make the Most Of What They Like
Special Throwback Episode - Podcast Interview with Sara McArdle
Career Change Agent and life coach Sara McArdle wasn’t born with an obvious “calling.” In fact, while she knew when she started working as a professional graphic designer that something was missing, she waited nearly 20 years to make a change. In 2013, she began practicing Compassionate Communication? a discipline that helps people transform negative self-talk, identify what matters most to them, and take steps toward a more wonderful life.
Her experience of empowering herself and others was so transformative that she pursued a Whole Person Coach® certification and launched a business to help women recognize and make the most of their unique gifts, and (like her) find work they’re madly in love with. Today, she works one-on-one coaching women, hosts workshops and events, and has her own podcast, called “Women Who Went for It,” that features inspiring chats with successful career changers.
- CEO Story: Picked her first career at the age of 17 when she had a 5-minute conversation with her sister asking about her major in college, asking about her interests, where she replied art in computers, to which her sister recommended graphic design. And right then and there Sara signed up and doing it for 20 years. She made a shift when she fell in love with coaching. Started practicing Compassionate Communication in 2013.
- Business Service: Coaching. Giving advice on how to find answers in themselves.
- Secret Sauce: Career change agent and coach. Finding meaningful careers for clients.
- CEO Hack: Word's calendar function that helps color code events respectively.
- CEO Nugget: Honor when it's time to make a change.
- CEO Defined: (1) Freedom to make decisions (2) Courage and humility to ask for something out when needed.
Facebook: @saramcardlecoaching , @womenwhowentforit
Instagram: @sara.mcardle.coaching
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Transcription
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00:27 – Intro
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.
00:52 – Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresham from the I AM CEO podcast. And I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Sara McArdle of saramcardle.com. Sarah, it's awesome to have you on the show.
01:02 – Sara McArdle
Great to be here. Thank you so much, Gresham.
01:04 – Gresham Harkless
No problem. And I'm super excited to have you on. And what I wanted to do is read a little bit more about Sarah so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Sarah is a career change agent and life coach. And she wasn't born with an obvious calling. In fact, while she knew when she started working as a professional graphic designer that something was missing, she waited nearly 20 years to make a change. In 2013, she began practicing compassionate communication, a discipline that helps people transform negative self-talk, identify what matters most to them, and take steps towards a more wonderful life.
Her experience of empowering herself and others was so transformative that she pursued a whole-person coach certification and launched a business to help women recognize and make the most of their unique gifts and just like her find work they're madly in love with. Today she works one-on-one coaching women, hosts workshops and events, and has her own podcast called Women Who Went For It that features inspiring chats with successful career changers. Sarah, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?
[restrict paid=”true”]
02:03 – Sara McArdle
I am ready.
02:04 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you to start your business.
02:10 – Sara McArdle
Sure. So you just gave an overview because it's included in my bio, but I will impact it a little bit more. So I don't know about you, but I picked my first career when I was 17. We are not fully formed as adults, even if our brains are not fully formed. And I chose what I was quote-unquote gonna do for the rest of my life at that time, which I know a lot of my clients do as well. And that involved a conversation with my sister where she said, so what are you gonna major in in college? And I admitted to her, I don't know, I'm scared. So she said, well, what do you like? And I said, I don't know, art and computers? And she said, well, how about graphic design?
And I said, what's that? And she said, well, let's open my college course book and take a look. So we did, we looked at it and it was basically art and computers. So I was like, okay, great, done, sign me up. And that's how I chose the thing that I was gonna do for the next 20 years a 5-minute conversation. Went to school, awesome. Went to the workforce, less awesome. I got into my first job and I remember thinking almost immediately, really? Is this it? It was not the collaborative creative atmosphere that I had had when I was in school. And I was working at a daily newspaper, cranking out ads. And I'm sure that's a wonderful job for a lot of people.
And it wasn't right for me. And I found myself designing a double-page spread one day that was weed-whackers and riding lawnmowers and thinking, this is not it. So I decided to go into nonprofit, which is much better. And I had an awesome employer, but something was still missing And I couldn't put my finger on it. And I tried to fake my way through it and find some really cool hobbies too, you know, wait for the nights and weekends to roll around and find my sense of satisfaction there. But every time I went out and did really cool things and organized weekend trips for friends and all this adventurous stuff, I would come home and feel unfulfilled again within 24 hours.
So I joined a leadership group that invited me to see how I was living according to my values and that could apply any that I chose and I chose my career. I was like, I'm going to look at this thing finally, admit that I'm not happy, admit that I need to make a change, and then do something about it. And I was the one who was most focused on my career in that group. So didn't have a lot of direct support, but I was surrounded by people who were also going for their big dreams. I discovered my passion for coaching through my experiences in professional and personal development, where I enjoyed mentoring others.
I also practiced something known as compassionate communication, which you referenced in my bio. And I realized I had the skills and there it was, it was coaching and I started coaching, and fell in love with it immediately. It was the best fit. There was no question. And when I started coaching, I realized, gosh, it took me a really long time to get here, to an understanding of what I wanted to do. I want to be able to offer that to others as well so that they can find their way to work that they absolutely love much more quickly and easily than I did. And so that's how I picked my niche.
05:41 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And it's always interesting, especially, you know, like you mentioned, like when you were 17 and you figure out what you're gonna do for the entire rest of your life and you don't really know even how to make that decision. So you just find something and whatever, it seems like a click, you just kind of go with it, but then you realize that maybe that wasn't as in-depth of an analysis as it could have been. And then you start to do that, you kind of redirect yourself towards where you should be.
06:03 – Sara McArdle
Yeah, and I actually have one other part to add. The interesting thing that I discovered in all of this journey is that the things that were missing were parts of me that were going unexpressed. So I was only doing graphic design. I wasn't doing anything to interact with other people and support them and their growth. And once I combined the 2, I've found the sweet spot. So now I have multiple income streams with graphic design and coaching, And it's awesome.
06:31 – Gresham Harkless
That is awesome. Yeah, definitely. Sometimes you forget that you can, you know, kind of create your own life, so to speak, where you can bring those 2 things together because this is your zona genius. This is what you do the best at. So you're able not to just choose one or the other. You can do both and find that kind of sweet spot like you talked about. So I think it's pretty awesome. Now I wanted to drill a little bit deeper into how you help those people that you work with find their sweet spot find their passion and those unique gifts and continue with their calling.
06:56 – Sara McArdle
Absolutely. So I think what's really important is that I distinguish what I do from somebody who might be more of a career counselor. So there are a lot of people out there and they work with folks to find the right job by doing administered assessments and helping them with LinkedIn and interview skills and kind of just guiding them and telling them what direction to move in. And for me, I don't advise clients on what they need to do for work. I advise them on how to find the answers in themselves for what they need to do and coach them through creating an action plan to get there.
So all the doubt that pops up along the way, we work through that. And, you know, I've worked with people who do cool things like buy an Airstream trailer and refurbish that and check that out for work and start conferences for women and get on a team to do that. And those aren't things that are going to pop up in an assessment or a menu of potential fields out there. And then we work with something called the 7 Cs of a successful career change, which is kind of my roadmap that I've developed because, in my own process, I had to teach myself strategies for finding the change that I needed. And now I am using those with my clients successfully. So that's exciting.
08:12 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, it definitely sounds exciting. It's like, you know, as you're explaining, you're talking about your story and what you do for your clients, I definitely see the synergies and the parallels between like your story and how you're able to kind of help out those clients that you're working with. So I definitely can see how you could probably say, you know, I've been in your exact shoes. So here's how I can help you to go through and do the analysis so you can make sure that you're making the right decision.
08:31 – Sara McArdle
Yes, absolutely.
08:34 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this is what you feel kind of distinguishes you or sets you apart. But do you have an example of a secret sauce you can give to us?
08:41 – Sara McArdle
As I said, I'm a career change agent and life coach rather than a career counselor. And I work with women who are bored or burned out in their chosen field. And we work to find meaningful new work that makes them want to jump out of bed in the morning. And sometimes that means fully changing careers. Sometimes they add in a side hustle everywhere in between. And usually, these women are at a place where they're kind of questioning their path forward.
A lot of them have had something major happen, like a milestone birthday, a divorce, or kids going off to school. They are just having a lot of layoffs in their organization and they're thinking, gosh, am I next on the chopping block? You name it, but something is causing them to reevaluate and they only know that they don't want to continue to do what they're doing now. They just want to do something else, but they don't know what that thing is.
09:31 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And, you know, me having been somebody that has been laid off or been in those kind of tense situations, I could definitely understand to a small degree, you know, exactly like what it feels like to be, you know, in a frustrated position and not understand like if you made the right path and what's the next step and all of those things. So it kind of sounds like you are able to kind of help alleviate some of that stress and definitely help people realize that there is a better way and some opportunity.
09:55 – Sara McArdle
Absolutely.
09:56 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be an Apple book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.
10:07 – Sara McArdle
Sure. So one that I love is actually kind of old school. I found that apps and programs weren't giving me the functionality that I was looking for. So I wanted to be able to back out and look at a whole month's calendar electronically and see entire days color-coded, not as specific events happening on those days, but the whole day had its own color to represent something. So for me that was, am I really busy that day and unwilling to add in anything else? Am I a little bit busy between my personal and professional life and I have room for a little bit more? Or is this a day that I want to block off entirely as my own so that I can recharge?
So I started doing that in Word and I downloaded their calendar function. So it's almost a combination of my personal and professional calendars where I color code these days. I started out with red, yellow, and gray, Red being no more, yellow being a little bit more, and gray being no more. And then I even started to tweak it so that I was color coding days like dark blue for play, light blue for business development, and orange for personal growth. I find that being able to back out and look at my whole month allows me to see if I'm spending my time on the right things and how I'm distributing my time and energy. And I find that to be really useful.
11:31 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that definitely sounds awesome and I absolutely love it. And I'm sure definitely obviously you being a graphic designer and you know a lot of people being visual people but I love the you know the breakdown of it but then the backing out of it so you can kind of look at a moment's glance and see okay you know am I going to go crazy this month Or do I have like all these things piled up? Or am I making enough time for play? So you can look at kind of like a moment's notice and see exactly how you're balancing everything.
11:55 – Sara McArdle
Yes. Yeah. So if people ask to add in a new appointment or spend time with me socially, then I can look at the calendar and decide if is it this week, is it next week, when truly fits in given all that I have going on.
12:09 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, I love that. And I will be borrowing that once I appreciate you sharing that with us. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget and this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice if you could hop into a time machine what would you tell your younger business self?
12:23 – Sara McArdle
I would say honor when it's time to make a change because we are all meant to grow and evolve and I always think of that I don't know if you had this, but in the yearbooks we used to write, never change. How terrible would that be if we were still the people we were in high school? So I encourage you if you find that it's time to change, an honor that even If you have invested a ton into your business, if you have that nagging voice in the back of your mind that's saying, you know what, this is not making me happy. It's hard, but honor it.
12:57 – Gresham Harkless
I love that. I love that. I often find that sometimes when you hear that voice and sometimes if you ignore it, then it starts to build up and certain things happen in your life to push you that way.
13:06 – Sara McArdle
Yes, absolutely.
13:08 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, so it's like you have to listen to it one way or another. So it's always best to kind of just go with that gut feeling that you have. So I love that CEO nugget. And now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. But I wanted to ask you, Sarah, what does being a CEO mean to you?
13:26 – Sara McArdle
Sure. So for me, I am a one-person company. So Being a CEO for me means having the freedom to make my own business decisions, which I absolutely love. It also means having the courage and humility to ask for support from other people where I need it, whether that's hiring something out asking my colleagues or my support system, or just getting help when I need it.
13:50 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely, yeah. I definitely love that definition and that perspective because often, even being a solopreneur and one woman or man band, a lot of times you have other people you can reach out to as far as resources, whether it be support or, you know, delegating things. But it definitely is a really good perspective to kind of remember that you're not necessarily alone all the time. There are resources out there for you.
14:11 – Sara McArdle
Absolutely. We forget how many resources there are out there. I say get out from behind Google and get out into the world interacting with people and make those connections so that you are highly resourced.
14:24 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Sarah, I truly appreciate you so much for taking some time out of your schedule. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know, and then how best people can get in touch with you.
14:36 – Sara McArdle
Sure. So I have a free download if you're interested in going to my site. It is a highlight of the 7 Cs that I refer to, the 7 Cs of successful career change. And you can download that at www.sarahmcardle.com slash 7 C's so I'm going to spell that out. It's SARA mca RDLE dot com slash 7CS you can download it there So that is my website if you want to just go to the general website, it's sarahmcardell.com. You can find me, Sarah McCardell coaching on Instagram and Sarah McCardell coaching on Facebook. I'd love to hear from you.
15:19 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Sarah. We'll make sure to have those links in the show notes as well. So someone can just click through and follow up with you and definitely take advantage of that download. But I truly appreciate you for all the awesome things that you're doing. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
15:32 – Sara McArdle
Thank you. Appreciate it, Gresham.
15:45 – Outro
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.
00:27 - Intro
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.
00:52 - Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresham from the I AM CEO podcast. And I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Sara McArdle of saramcardle.com. Sarah, it's awesome to have you on the show.
01:02 - Sara McArdle
Great to be here. Thank you so much, Gresham.
01:04 - Gresham Harkless
No problem. And I'm super excited to have you on. And what I wanted to do is read a little bit more about Sarah so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Sarah is a career change agent and life coach. And she wasn't born with an obvious calling. In fact, while she knew when she started working as a professional graphic designer that something was missing, she waited nearly 20 years to make a change. In 2013, she began practicing compassionate communication, a discipline that helps people transform negative self-talk, identify what matters most to them, and take steps towards a more wonderful life.
Her experience of empowering herself and others was so transformative that she pursued a whole-person coach certification and launched a business to help women recognize and make the most of their unique gifts and just like her find work they're madly in love with. Today she works one-on-one coaching women, hosts workshops and events, and has her own podcast called Women Who Went For It that features inspiring chats with successful career changers. Sarah, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?
02:03 - Sara McArdle
I am ready.
02:04 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you to start your business.
02:10 - Sara McArdle
Sure. So you just gave an overview because it's included in my bio, but I will impact it a little bit more. So I don't know about you, but I picked my first career when I was 17. We are not fully formed as adults, even if our brains are not fully formed. And I chose what I was quote-unquote gonna do for the rest of my life at that time, which I know a lot of my clients do as well. And that involved a conversation with my sister where she said, so what are you gonna major in in college? And I admitted to her, I don't know, I'm scared. So she said, well, what do you like? And I said, I don't know, art and computers? And she said, well, how about graphic design?
And I said, what's that? And she said, well, let's open my college course book and take a look. So we did, we looked at it and it was basically art and computers. So I was like, okay, great, done, sign me up. And that's how I chose the thing that I was gonna do for the next 20 years a 5-minute conversation. Went to school, awesome. Went to the workforce, less awesome. I got into my first job and I remember thinking almost immediately, really? Is this it? It was not the collaborative creative atmosphere that I had had when I was in school. And I was working at a daily newspaper, cranking out ads. And I'm sure that's a wonderful job for a lot of people.
And it wasn't right for me. And I found myself designing a double-page spread one day that was weed-whackers and riding lawnmowers and thinking, this is not it. So I decided to go into nonprofit, which is much better. And I had an awesome employer, but something was still missing And I couldn't put my finger on it. And I tried to fake my way through it and find some really cool hobbies too, you know, wait for the nights and weekends to roll around and find my sense of satisfaction there. But every time I went out and did really cool things and organized weekend trips for friends and all this adventurous stuff, I would come home and feel unfulfilled again within 24 hours.
So I joined a leadership group that invited me to see how I was living according to my values and that could apply any that I chose and I chose my career. I was like, I'm going to look at this thing finally, admit that I'm not happy, admit that I need to make a change, and then do something about it. And I was the one who was most focused on my career in that group. So didn't have a lot of direct support, but I was surrounded by people who were also going for their big dreams. I discovered my passion for coaching through my experiences in professional and personal development, where I enjoyed mentoring others.
I also practiced something known as compassionate communication, which you referenced in my bio. And I realized I had the skills and there it was, it was coaching and I started coaching, and fell in love with it immediately. It was the best fit. There was no question. And when I started coaching, I realized, gosh, it took me a really long time to get here, to an understanding of what I wanted to do. I want to be able to offer that to others as well so that they can find their way to work that they absolutely love much more quickly and easily than I did. And so that's how I picked my niche.
05:41 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And it's always interesting, especially, you know, like you mentioned, like when you were 17 and you figure out what you're gonna do for the entire rest of your life and you don't really know even how to make that decision. So you just find something and whatever, it seems like a click, you just kind of go with it, but then you realize that maybe that wasn't as in-depth of an analysis as it could have been. And then you start to do that, you kind of redirect yourself towards where you should be.
06:03 - Sara McArdle
Yeah, and I actually have one other part to add. The interesting thing that I discovered in all of this journey is that the things that were missing were parts of me that were going unexpressed. So I was only doing graphic design. I wasn't doing anything to interact with other people and support them and their growth. And once I combined the 2, I've found the sweet spot. So now I have multiple income streams with graphic design and coaching, And it's awesome.
06:31 - Gresham Harkless
That is awesome. Yeah, definitely. Sometimes you forget that you can, you know, kind of create your own life, so to speak, where you can bring those 2 things together because this is your zona genius. This is what you do the best at. So you're able not to just choose one or the other. You can do both and find that kind of sweet spot like you talked about. So I think it's pretty awesome. Now I wanted to drill a little bit deeper into how you help those people that you work with find their sweet spot find their passion and those unique gifts and continue with their calling.
06:56 - Sara McArdle
Absolutely. So I think what's really important is that I distinguish what I do from somebody who might be more of a career counselor. So there are a lot of people out there and they work with folks to find the right job by doing administered assessments and helping them with LinkedIn and interview skills and kind of just guiding them and telling them what direction to move in. And for me, I don't advise clients on what they need to do for work. I advise them on how to find the answers in themselves for what they need to do and coach them through creating an action plan to get there.
So all the doubt that pops up along the way, we work through that. And, you know, I've worked with people who do cool things like buy an Airstream trailer and refurbish that and check that out for work and start conferences for women and get on a team to do that. And those aren't things that are going to pop up in an assessment or a menu of potential fields out there. And then we work with something called the 7 Cs of a successful career change, which is kind of my roadmap that I've developed because, in my own process, I had to teach myself strategies for finding the change that I needed. And now I am using those with my clients successfully. So that's exciting.
08:12 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, it definitely sounds exciting. It's like, you know, as you're explaining, you're talking about your story and what you do for your clients, I definitely see the synergies and the parallels between like your story and how you're able to kind of help out those clients that you're working with. So I definitely can see how you could probably say, you know, I've been in your exact shoes. So here's how I can help you to go through and do the analysis so you can make sure that you're making the right decision.
08:31 - Sara McArdle
Yes, absolutely.
08:34 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this is what you feel kind of distinguishes you or sets you apart. But do you have an example of a secret sauce you can give to us?
08:41 - Sara McArdle
As I said, I'm a career change agent and life coach rather than a career counselor. And I work with women who are bored or burned out in their chosen field. And we work to find meaningful new work that makes them want to jump out of bed in the morning. And sometimes that means fully changing careers. Sometimes they add in a side hustle everywhere in between. And usually, these women are at a place where they're kind of questioning their path forward.
A lot of them have had something major happen, like a milestone birthday, a divorce, or kids going off to school. They are just having a lot of layoffs in their organization and they're thinking, gosh, am I next on the chopping block? You name it, but something is causing them to reevaluate and they only know that they don't want to continue to do what they're doing now. They just want to do something else, but they don't know what that thing is.
09:31 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And, you know, me having been somebody that has been laid off or been in those kind of tense situations, I could definitely understand to a small degree, you know, exactly like what it feels like to be, you know, in a frustrated position and not understand like if you made the right path and what's the next step and all of those things. So it kind of sounds like you are able to kind of help alleviate some of that stress and definitely help people realize that there is a better way and some opportunity.
09:55 - Sara McArdle
Absolutely.
09:56 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be an Apple book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.
10:07 - Sara McArdle
Sure. So one that I love is actually kind of old school. I found that apps and programs weren't giving me the functionality that I was looking for. So I wanted to be able to back out and look at a whole month's calendar electronically and see entire days color-coded, not as specific events happening on those days, but the whole day had its own color to represent something. So for me that was, am I really busy that day and unwilling to add in anything else? Am I a little bit busy between my personal and professional life and I have room for a little bit more? Or is this a day that I want to block off entirely as my own so that I can recharge?
So I started doing that in Word and I downloaded their calendar function. So it's almost a combination of my personal and professional calendars where I color code these days. I started out with red, yellow, and gray, Red being no more, yellow being a little bit more, and gray being no more. And then I even started to tweak it so that I was color coding days like dark blue for play, light blue for business development, and orange for personal growth. I find that being able to back out and look at my whole month allows me to see if I'm spending my time on the right things and how I'm distributing my time and energy. And I find that to be really useful.
11:31 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that definitely sounds awesome and I absolutely love it. And I'm sure definitely obviously you being a graphic designer and you know a lot of people being visual people but I love the you know the breakdown of it but then the backing out of it so you can kind of look at a moment's glance and see okay you know am I going to go crazy this month Or do I have like all these things piled up? Or am I making enough time for play? So you can look at kind of like a moment's notice and see exactly how you're balancing everything.
11:55 - Sara McArdle
Yes. Yeah. So if people ask to add in a new appointment or spend time with me socially, then I can look at the calendar and decide if is it this week, is it next week, when truly fits in given all that I have going on.
12:09 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, I love that. And I will be borrowing that once I appreciate you sharing that with us. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget and this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice if you could hop into a time machine what would you tell your younger business self?
12:23 - Sara McArdle
I would say honor when it's time to make a change because we are all meant to grow and evolve and I always think of that I don't know if you had this, but in the yearbooks we used to write, never change. How terrible would that be if we were still the people we were in high school? So I encourage you if you find that it's time to change, an honor that even If you have invested a ton into your business, if you have that nagging voice in the back of your mind that's saying, you know what, this is not making me happy. It's hard, but honor it.
12:57 - Gresham Harkless
I love that. I love that. I often find that sometimes when you hear that voice and sometimes if you ignore it, then it starts to build up and certain things happen in your life to push you that way.
13:06 - Sara McArdle
Yes, absolutely.
13:08 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, so it's like you have to listen to it one way or another. So it's always best to kind of just go with that gut feeling that you have. So I love that CEO nugget. And now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. But I wanted to ask you, Sarah, what does being a CEO mean to you?
13:26 - Sara McArdle
Sure. So for me, I am a one-person company. So Being a CEO for me means having the freedom to make my own business decisions, which I absolutely love. It also means having the courage and humility to ask for support from other people where I need it, whether that's hiring something out asking my colleagues or my support system, or just getting help when I need it.
13:50 - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely, yeah. I definitely love that definition and that perspective because often, even being a solopreneur and one woman or man band, a lot of times you have other people you can reach out to as far as resources, whether it be support or, you know, delegating things. But it definitely is a really good perspective to kind of remember that you're not necessarily alone all the time. There are resources out there for you.
14:11 - Sara McArdle
Absolutely. We forget how many resources there are out there. I say get out from behind Google and get out into the world interacting with people and make those connections so that you are highly resourced.
14:24 - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Sarah, I truly appreciate you so much for taking some time out of your schedule. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know, and then how best people can get in touch with you.
14:36 - Sara McArdle
Sure. So I have a free download if you're interested in going to my site. It is a highlight of the 7 Cs that I refer to, the 7 Cs of successful career change. And you can download that at www.sarahmcardle.com slash 7 C's so I'm going to spell that out. It's SARA mca RDLE dot com slash 7CS you can download it there So that is my website if you want to just go to the general website, it's sarahmcardell.com. You can find me, Sarah McCardell coaching on Instagram and Sarah McCardell coaching on Facebook. I'd love to hear from you.
15:19 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Sarah. We'll make sure to have those links in the show notes as well. So someone can just click through and follow up with you and definitely take advantage of that download. But I truly appreciate you for all the awesome things that you're doing. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
15:32 - Sara McArdle
Thank you. Appreciate it, Gresham.
15:45 - Outro
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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