Client Case Study Lindsay Foley - When I Grow Up

Client Case Study Lindsay Foley - When I Grow Up Um, do you know that Ive coached hundreds of women since I started offering dream career guidance in 2008? And that these women are freakin rock stars, leaving soul-sucking jobs and traveling the world and launching creative, grown-up businesses and simply doing work that fits their lifestyle goals? Well ya do now and youll hear their stories firsthand in my  Client Case Studies series!  The totally incomparable, super hilarious Lindsay Foley is todays feature, and she decided to not only tell about her journey, but to add to it with GIFs. You guess correctly that we are in platonic love. Why did you decide to work with a creative career coach? Since graduating college in 2008, most of my Decembers have come with a new planner for the upcoming new year. I would always flip to the far-off December 31st and write, Where are you now?. And each New Year’s Eve, as I would come upon that question I would have another year under my belt but not an answer that felt satisfying. The lack of contentment was in large part due to not knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up (despite having already grown up). I have always likened my search for a career to floundering around in a pool of jello. I don’t like jello. So last year, while feeling unsatisfied in my then-current job, sick of jello, and wanting to take some action so that on the next December 31st I could have a better answer to my question, I signed up to work with Michelle. What were you doing work-wise when we started our sessions? I was the Director of Camp Programs for a summer boating camp. I had worked for the company over many previous summers in every role possible: dock staff, rentals manager, sailing instructor, kayaking instructor, camp counselor, assistant camp director, camp director and finally, had signed on as a full-time, year-round employee overseeing 3 different boating camps. If my job and I were in a facebook relationship, it would have held the prestigious title of Its Complicated followed by the hashtag #allthefeelings. What was your biggest takeaway from our work together? Michelle helped me leave my job, which might not be a ‘takeaway’ but had the biggest impact on my life and I think is worth mentioning. But an actual takeaway is one that should be obvious: you can do what you want and make money doing it; it’s achievable. I know that could be reworded to sound like a cliched quote from the internet, but Michelle hammered that lesson home with practical and reality-driven enthusiasm. And many, many incredible gifs. Was there anything else you tried to do as a career between the time we stopped our sessions and what you do for work now? If so, how did it inform your current career? It’s been less than a year since our sessions ended, and just a year since I left my job. For the first few months after leaving my job I played around with a few ideas: opening an etsy shop/selling paintings, exploring photography, and becoming a doula. While I value that time of exploration, I don’t think it informed my current pursuit of photography too much past teaching me what I didn’t want to be pursuing, which is equally important. What would you tell someone now that was in your shoes when we first started working together?  Whats your best tip to allow them to make a grown-up living doing what they love? Hmmm this is a tough question. Before we started our sessions, a small part of me hoped that Michelle would chat with me a bit, wave a magic wand, and tell me, You should be a ____ ! and then I’d be able to just go off and try to accomplish that. Since we don’t live at Hogwarts, this was unrealistic. She is a wizard but squash that small part of you that hopes it will be that easy! For me, Michelle’s talent and expertise was in listening to what I was saying, and helping me hear myself, too. My best tip would be, as with most things, the more you put into the experience, the more you will get out of it. So JUMP. IN. Nobody is going to figure out your grown up career for you and that’s a good thing. Whats on the horizon for your  business? I’m a photographer whose work focuses on newborns and young families. With A Lindsay Story Photography some of my current goals are to photograph a birth, improve on my storytelling through more documentary-style photoshoots, and to gain a wider and more diverse client base. I love meeting new families and helping to capture their stories; especially in our current age of selfies and camera phones. Parents are normally the ones behind the camera so while I love a picture of a sleeping 6-day-old as much as the next girl (and I do love them), my ultimate goal with my work is to capture genuine interactions and freeze those moments in the form of photographs. Wanna  coach with me one-on-one like Lindsay? We can start working together this summer. I promise you that my GIF game will be on point!