“The whole routine has changed. It’s like I’m just thinking about what I want to do first, instead of thinking about what I want to do last.” – Uma

If you ask yourself the questions, “What if this is it? What if my life now is all that’s out there?” then you’ll love today’s interview.

I have one of my clients, Uma Mani-Babu sharing how she was able to escape the on-going emotional drama in her head as well as pivot her once unfulfilling career to go after and GET a job that’s fulfilling AND makes more money all from coaching with me.

When Uma’s birthday would come around each year, it made her feel sad and disappointed because she hadn’t reached many of her goals set the year before.  

When she decided to try coaching, we were able to work together over a period of about seven months to knock out her blocks, work through spending habits, and help Uma arm herself with the tools she needed to get her to where she wanted to be in her life all before her next birthday came around.

Now she looks forward to life and her birthday because she’s creating what SHE wants out of life and feeling great in the process.

LISTEN TO UMA DESCRIBE:

• What life was like before she started coaching with me
• How coaching helped her get through the tiny things that kept triggering her again and again
• How she cut emotional eating and spending and what opened up for her instead
• How she thought she had to quit her career path but instead learned how to pivot her career to go after and GET a new job she actually enjoys but still uses her education, talents, and skills from her past
• How she was able to make back her coaching investment in just a few months
• What tools she learned from me that have changed her life the most
• How coaching has allowed her to have better personal and family relationships

…and so much more!

Listen to this powerful interview via the link at the top of this page.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

→ Apply to coach with me

→ Continue the conversation in my free online community

→ Get The 4-Day Accomplish Your Dreams Free Training 

→ Connect with Uma on Instagram

→ Uma’s Blog

Full Transcript

This is the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast with Lindsay Preston Episode 40, Uma’s
Coaching Story.

[music]

Welcome to the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast, the show for goal-getting, fearfacing women for kicking ass by creating change. I’m your host, Lindsay Preston. I’m a wife,
mom of two, and a multi-certified life coach to women all over the world. I’ve lived
through enough in life to know that easier doesn’t always equate to better. We can’t fear
the fire, we must learn to become it. On this show, I’ll teach you how to do just that. Join
me as I challenge you to become even more of the strong, resilient, and powerful woman
you were meant to be. Let’s do this.

[music]

Hey, Ms. Unstoppable woman, welcome to the show. So excited to have you today. Today,
I’m interviewing one of my clients. Her name is Uma Mani-Babu and she resides in London,
England. You’re in for a treat today with her amazing and beautiful accent. She’s an
accountant by day and a blogger by night. Uma and I met about a year ago. It would have
been spring 2019 and we had come in contact with one another because we both love a
tool called the PowerSheets. If you follow me for a while, you know I love PowerSheets.
I’m always talking about them. They’re from a tool called Cultivate What Matters is the
company.

We met that way. I started coaching her a little bit on how to make her goals with her
PowerSheets. Then about this time last year, as I said, she posted in that community that
our birthday was coming up and every time her birthday came around, it just made her feel
sad because she would start with her goals and not be able to complete them. She just felt
like she was having the same emotions over and over again, and she didn’t know how to
escape them.

I just gave her some assessments to dig a little deeper. We found out she has a strength
called empathy high, which is very common for people who are sensitive as to feel the
same emotions over and over again. I told her, frankly, that life didn’t have to be where she
was recycling emotions and it didn’t have to be where every birthday came around and she
felt disappointed. She took the leap to start to work with me and over this past year, we
have worked through all of my coaching programs together. It’s been such a joy to work
with her and to see her grow and to see her not have those same emotions over and over
again and go after a new job and get that new job and in essence, make back her coaching
investment and then that investment will just continue to pay back in her pocket.

We also cleaned up some money blocks for her and some spending habits and got her to
some healthy habits with her working out and all this other stuff. Uma tells a story in such
a beautiful way. You’re in for such a treat. I can’t wait to share it with you. Without further
ado, here’s my interview with Uma.
Uma, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your coaching journey
with everybody. I am thrilled to have you here.
Uma Mani-Babu: Yay.

Lindsay: Yay. Uma, one of the reasons why I wanted you to come on the show is because
you had a pretty good life before coaching started. Like there weren’t huge pain points, but
there were some pain points obviously. Tell us about what life was like about, oh gosh, a
year ago before you and I started working together.

Uma: I guess it feels like such a long time ago now, but I actually was reading through
some of my old journals because I was doing a bit of digging. One of the main things I
noticed was the same things coming up again and again, come at the same arguments, the
same feelings, just being on autopilot and then just repeating everything again and again
and again. I was at a point where I was like, “Is this how it’s supposed to be or is there just
something wrong with me?”

I was going between the two questions and then I was just thinking, “Okay, maybe this is
just how it’s supposed to be.” I kept going, but then nothing changed. It was just like a
what was it? It’s like a status quo. I’d be like, “Yes, this is just how life is meant to be.”
Then it didn’t feel right. It’s like being in a film where every day is just the same.

Lindsay: You’re stuck on a hamster wheel.

Uma: Yes. That’s pretty much my life, especially with a corporate job and everything. The
corporate job was good. It wasn’t great. Then I was like, “You know what? I should be
grateful. I have this, I have like my family.” Then it’s like, there’s still that puzzle piece
missing and I couldn’t work out what it was.

Lindsay: Some of the old posts that I found from your posts in our Facebook community
back in the day was one you said in December 2018, and I asked you the question, what’s
held me back this past year. You said, “My mind, self-doubt, and lack of belief in myself. I
was so afraid of failing the end exams or at work. I didn’t try because if there was an
option to fail, this meant I was only setting surface level goals.” You also said, “I’m wanting
to please everybody and ending up upsetting myself the most, allowing myself to be
swayed by others’ opinions and voices.”

The next thing you [crosstalk] was, “I didn’t follow through on a lifelong dream to become
a blogger and write regularly. I started but I didn’t commit. I became afraid of what a
successful blogger might look like.” Then the last thing you said is, “Just lack of time to
pursue fitness goals. I felt like housework and my office job took more time and I had no
time for barre classes that I really love. I just struggled to manage my time productively.”
Then you said at the end, “Wow, this is so hard for me to write, but I’m glad it’s in black
and white now.”

Uma: Oh, my gosh. That feels like such a long time ago like, “Wow.”

Lindsay: These are things you don’t struggle with anymore, right?

Uma: Yes. [chuckles]

Lindsay: Obviously the blog is something that still needs passion, still needs to be grown,
but in regards to wanting to please everybody, tell us what life is like now.

Uma: It’s not hard to explain, but at the same time, it’s completely different because even
with exams, I’m not the most academic person, but if something interests me, I’ll be like,
“You know what? I really want to learn and learn something new.” Then get from knowing
nothing about it to being like, “Oh, that’s really interesting.” Pushing myself through all
those exams, it was great because when I finished it, my parents were like, “That’s
absolutely amazing. You passed everything first time.” Then it was like, “Okay I’m done
with that. Now what next?”

A lot of that, the corporate life doing the accountancy was other people a little bit for
myself as well, because I was like, “You know what? I can do this.” Then it will be an
achievement. Whereas now, it’s like, I spent a lot more time in reflection writing journaling
and it’s just the same questions that come up when I write. What do I want to do now?

Instead of just stopping and being like, “Okay. You know what? I’ll do about tomorrow.” I
actually answer that question and think, “Okay, right now I’m going to go and do some
pilates or I’m going to keep writing or I’m going to just do the outline of a blog post.
The whole routine has changed. It’s like I’m just thinking about what I want to do first,
instead of thinking about what I want to do last.

Lindsay: Do you have tools now?

Uma: Yes. A lot more. The whole coaching business.

Lindsay: Before, you just get stuck and just be like, “Well, I guess this is it. I guess this is
the best I can get.” The other thing I hear in there too, Uma, is that before, your life had
been pre-planned so well. It was like, “I go and do this, then I go and do this.” Then when
you and I met, you were nearing the last checked box in a lot of ways, especially
professionally, it seemed of, “Okay. I go in and take this exam.”

Then I remember after you took that exam and you pass because you had all that mindset
drama going into it of, “I’m not going to pass and all that,” because you and I pulled that
there were so much academic drama from your past that was making you feel unconfident,
but you went and you passed and then you were like, “Well, what’s next?” I checked the
boxes now, what is it?” Then we really had to figure out, “Okay, what is it for you? What is
the big picture?” Do you feel like we did that well?

Uma: Yes, absolutely. I think it’s quite scary when you spend a lot of your life in a
corporate job, that’s all you know, and then like with when I faced the exams and I was
like, “Okay, so I’ve done that.” Then it’s like this massive gap opens up. Then I think that’s
where with me starting Authentically Awesome, it happened at the perfect time. I was at
that point where I needed to find my feet and then be like, “Okay, I need to find the next
step of what’s next.”

Lindsay: Because again, you didn’t have a lot to clean up.

Uma: No.

Lindsay: We had some academic drama from your past, things that as a child you process
from your parents and just a highly emotional way, but when we went back and looked at
it with an adult, with a logical brain, it was like, “Okay, that makes sense.” Right? Would
you agree, Uma?

Uma: Yes, absolutely.

Lindsay: For whatever reason, because you’re so sensitive with your high empathy, you
would just internalize this, remember, and you just have all these negative thoughts that
you said that just kept going over and over again. When really, it just took a couple of
really quick and easy things for us to clean it up. Is that how you feel?

Uma: Yes. I feel like in a way, I’m quite lucky because it wasn’t like I was dealing with
massive trauma. It’s more, I guess like self-trauma, things that I was putting myself under
pressure for. Anyway, I was lucky that I was able to use the tools to just, if I can say, clean
it up instead of just radically change everything. It was like tiny, tiny things to work on a
bit at a time.

Lindsay: You just needed those tools, because so much you’d come home and I remember
you saying, “Oh, I’ll just lie down in front of the TV and eat snacks. I don’t really know how
to intentionally use my time.” We just had to get you past that hump and get you moving.
With that said, Uma, here’s another post I found. It was September 2019. You said, “I’ve
used PowerSheets for the past three years but normally by summer, I’ve either given up or
I start wishing the year away.” I can’t talk.

“This year, I’m looking forward to the final quarter of 2019 to really dig in. Lindsay, thank
you so much for this group. It’s the accountability I needed.” Then you went on. What was
it about coaching that allowed you to finally stick with your goals?

Uma: I remember when I first followed you on Instagram, and you were talking about
empathy, and then the whole PowerSheets process. I think before, when I tried to set goals
on my own, I did this thing where I’d look on Instagram and be like, “Oh, okay, so and so’s
got a really interesting goal, that seems really interesting. How can I add that to my
PowerSheets?” Add it in and then make no progress on it.

Then it was like, “Okay, I wanted something like that for a reason. That’s why it’s in my
PowerSheets,” but I couldn’t get behind the whole what I really wanted, which sounds
really strange, because I was like, “Oh, how do I not know what I want myself?” Then doing
the whole PowerSheets’ powerhouse group, with the whole introduction. I remember you
had this weekly, this first introduction week, and five different slides, and I was reading
them thinking, “Okay, I’ve been doing the process completely the other way around, of
being like, “Let me just follow what other people do and somehow all the goals will come
out of it.”

I did the coaching group, and it was like, “Okay, there are all of these other blocks in the
way that are stopping me from getting to the actual goal and I’m just doing it in a way of,
what do I want, put it down on paper, without really looking at all the other stuff that was
in the way.” I think that’s the bit that coaching helped with, it’s like, “Okay, where are your
blocks, focus on them and then after that–“

Once I’d gone through that whole PowerSheets’ powerhouse process, the goals that came
out of that in coaching was goals I still got now because they’re things that they’ll change
on a year-to-year basis, but the actual root of the goal is something that means something
to me and that’s something I didn’t expect to get out of coaching, especially on
PowerSheets.

Lindsay: I hear two things, Uma. Correct me if I’m wrong. The first thing I hear is you were
just not aware of what your blocks were. You just thought, “Maybe there’s something
wrong with me, that’s why I can’t follow through”. The other thing I hear is, you were
looking externally of, “Oh, that looks good and that looks good.” Maybe even if you were
drawn to it and it’s something you wanted, you didn’t have a deeper why, of why that’s
important to me.

Because like you said, the working out piece of having that strong consistent workout, it
would have been on your PowerSheets for a long time. I remember you really wanted that,
but you could not find the motivation for it and then all of a sudden, it just started sticking
after we worked together for a bit. Now, after I got you to work out every day, it’s so
awesome.

Uma: [chuckles]

Lindsay: You found a deeper why, right?

Uma: Absolutely. I think that was the main thing, because I read a lot and I see a lot on
YouTube about people saying, “What’s your why?” For some reason for me, I couldn’t
connect with what my why was because I was like, “Okay, I’ve got all of this stuff to work
through.” I was so far away from working out what my why was, that I almost gave up.

Lindsay: Because it just seemed too hard?

Uma: Yes, it just seemed too far away. I was like, “You know what? I’m just going to keep
going with the superficial goals and post on Instagram.” Then I’d be like, “I’m not getting
anywhere.” and then I realized because they weren’t my goals in the first place.
Lindsay: Because you hadn’t gone deeper.

Uma: Yes.

Lindsay: I think so many of us can relate to that. I know I can in my past. I would settle
these goals and be like, “Yes, I’m going to accomplish this. I want this so bad.” Then I’d
think, “Why can’t I go after this? Why can’t I get this done? Why is it that I sit around in
these free moments instead of going after my dreams?”

Uma: It’s crazy, isn’t it?

Lindsay: It’s so crazy. Let’s go back to, Uma, gosh, about a year ago, I guess. You’re taking
the leap to invest in coaching. You did Life Lovers first and you also bought Solidify Your
Strengths, I think too, that you did later on. We did Life Lovers together as a group, and
then you went into Becoming Unstoppable Woman and you did that one, technically oneon-one. We had nine one-on-one calls and you also had some group calls that you could
jump in on.

Then we went into Become Authentically Awesome in the fall and we actually started that
one, and then we took a break and then we came back in it with fresh eyes in January,
because you had some family stuff that you wanted to handle. I just want to give everyone
a perspective. Start to finish, it was about seven months, but we had that break in there.
It’s been about a year. Let’s go back though a year and you’re about to make an investment
in Unstoppable. You made that big investment of that one-on-one. What was it that you
said, “Okay, I’m going to invest in myself and I’m going to do this”?

Uma: Oh, gosh, it’s so different thinking back to where I was at the start of Unstoppable.
There was so many different things going on in my head at the time, because I was using
social media, I was following you, I was seeing your Instagram stories and then I was doing
a bit of the personal development work, and learning, but definitely not as much as I do
now. I think the main thing that got me to invest was realizing that, almost like I could
learn the tools, and have someone support me along the way, because I’ve always thought,
“No, no, I’ve got to do this on my own and if I’m going to fix myself, it has to come from
me,” but then the other side of me was like, “But I’ve done this by myself and I just keep
having the same thing come up again and again and again.”

Whatever I’m doing, it’s not getting me further, it’s not allowing me to grow. I was like,
“Okay, let’s have a look, see what’s out there.” Even in doing that, I was like, “Can I really
invest in a coach to help me change my life?” It was like I still had a lot of doubts and
that’s what Unstoppable helped with, but at that time when I invested, I was like, “Okay,
financially, I can do this.” Then there was something that was like, “Oh, I don’t know if I
want to do-” It’s like I was second guessing myself and trying to talk myself out of it at the
same time saying, “I know I need this.”

Then I think a humble way was, I had an argument, the same argument with my boyfriend
and family and I was like, “Oh, gosh, what if coaching could help me through that, to a
point where I’m no longer feeling triggered?” I think that’s the word, so not being triggered
was like, “Okay, now I know that I need to invest in a coach.” It’s been the same thing
looking back. Doing all of this coaching has helped me through the triggers. Now it’s like if
I hadn’t have done that, I would still be getting triggered over the same tiny things.

Lindsay: Yes. You’d be living the same life.

Uma: Yes, exactly.

Lindsay: Which the life wasn’t bad, but you were under the surface, miserable.

Uma: I was telling myself I wasn’t.

Lindsay: Yes. That’s when, I just remember again, I keep bringing the story about when
you’d say you’d go home and you would just sit down in front of the TV and eat snacks and
I just thought, “Oh, man, I hope she works with me. This is not a way to live. It’s just not a
way.”

Uma: The thing is, at the time, I was just like, “You know what? This just– It is what it is.” I
kept telling myself, maybe I’m just being ungrateful because so many people don’t have a
regular paycheck, or access to a gym, because even now, maybe not with the whole
Coronavirus thing, but there’s a gym in my building, and I wasn’t even using it. I was just
thinking maybe I should just accept it for what it is, without realizing that I could change
it.

Lindsay: The other thing too is that, I know you wanted a closer relationship with your
parents, but it kept getting triggered by them, which I think so many of us can relate to.
You didn’t even know it consciously, but so many stories were going on in your head from
the past, that you just needed to be looked at again and healed, because it came from a
child’s perspective and once you did, your relationship has changed. Can you talk about
your relationship with your parents now?

Uma: The conversations I’m having, they’re a lot more mature, they’re a lot more– It’s less
of a parent-daughter relationship and more of like two friends and I think getting to that
point took such a long time because before, it was like I was talking to my parents from a
point of view where they would be coaching me or giving me advice and being like, “You
can do this, you’ve got this.” Then I’d walk away from the phone call and be like, “Yes,
okay.” I needed my parents for the advice and to tell me that I could do it.

Whereas now, it’s very much I can have a conversation with my parents about ordering
stuff on Amazon, or just like whatever exercise they’re doing or whatever exercise I’m
doing, and it’s a conversation. It’s definitely not the trigger point it used to be a year and a
half ago because it’s almost like I’m looking at them as an equal and be like, “You’re a
human being, with feelings, with thoughts and I can always learn something from you
without being like, “You’re my mom, you’re my dad.” It’s such a conversation between two
friends now and it’s a different relationship.

Lindsay: Well into, and I know this is from our other conversations, but what I even hear
from this, what you said is that, A, you’re not triggered anymore. When your mom says
something like, I remember her saying one time, “Uma, you’ve really gained weight. You
better not eat that ice cream.”

Uma: [chuckles]

Lindsay: Before, you would get super triggered by that, as many of us would, but I
remember later she saying that and you said something just really calm, but you stood up
for yourself back to her. You didn’t let it bother you and you just took it as it is. It’s like,
“Okay, yes, gained a little weight, but whatever.”

Those are the little moments that create big changes because in those moments that you
get triggered by it and you go to your room or wherever and then all of a sudden, it just
snowballs and you feel like crap and you have all these other thoughts and then you don’t
go after your habits. Then la, la, la, la, la, you got in a fight with somebody and it’s just one
little trigger creates such a mess. You didn’t have that anymore. It really opened up so
many doors for you and Jay, your boyfriend. I remember you just saying, you guys were
getting closer and all of that stuff. It was just so cool to watch you get closer to your
parents and your boyfriend simply by working on you.

Okay, Uma, can you describe to the listeners out there what the coaching process was like
for you? Tell us some of the highs and the lows.

Uma: I think definitely with this whole coaching process, I loved having the workbook in
terms of doing the weekly modules, having the Facebook group, having the community,
but also feeling like I can go at my own pace. I think that for me was key and not feeling
like it was fixed home and I’m being overloaded, but at the same time, I love following
your videos because it was really easy to go from one video to the next and then have the
weekly calls.

In terms of highs and lows, the highs were definitely things like learning things like
recording wins because I’ve never even known about wins as a process, because I know
about journaling as being grateful. What I really liked was learning about win and then
really celebrating all the small things along the way, which as you know me, I forget the
small things and just remember the big achievements. That was definitely something I
really learned. Now I think, “Yes, that’s something I really want to carry with me for the
rest of my life.” In terms of–

Lindsay: Well, I want to stop you right there because one of the big problems that you had
in the past was that you didn’t even want to get started unless it was perfect.

Uma: [chuckles]

Lindsay: You were so critical of yourself of, “I’m not achieving enough and I’m not doing
enough.” It’s funny that you say that wins because I think having that just daily small
practice of doing that really helped you start to see, “Hey, I am making progress every day,
the little stuff does matter.” That changed the game for you.

Uma: It’s such a big thing, because I think obviously with exams and everything, they were
massive milestones. At that point, when I was doing the beginning of Unstoppable and
then also Authentically Awesome, I didn’t realize how much of a big thing it could be to
celebrate the small things, because I wasn’t even in the habit of doing that.
Lindsay: Can we talk about too your spending and how your spending has changed over
these past few months? That goes before and after.

Uma: I go yes, that’s definitely changed massively. I remember before, my mom, my friends,
anyone who knows me, knowing me from my last year knows that I spent a lot on
stationary, on books, getting my nails done. It was the trigger for me was if I had a bad day
at work, that would just open the floodgate of spending. I’d be on the way home, I’d be
like, “You know what? I had a really bad day at work. I’m going to go and buy myself a pack
of pens or notebook or I’m going to book a manicure for the weekend. That however bad
work gets, I’ve got something to look forward to.”

It’s like any time something happened, the first thing I would think of is, “Right, I’m going
to treat myself to something and it will make me feel better.” What was actually
happening was the complete opposite. I’d buy something, I’d buy like a really nice
notebook, but then I wouldn’t use it. It would just stay on one side and I’d be like,” Oh, that
didn’t actually make me feel better. I feel worse and I spent money.” I don’t know how to
come back from that.

The thing for me was looking back at, if I look at some of my credit card statements from
last year and the year before, I was spending well beyond what I was earning, because I
was waiting for the next month’s paycheck to come in and then be like, “You know what?
I’ll figure it out next month,” or I’ll get to a point and I’ll somehow transfer savings and it
will just somehow work itself out. It’s quite scary when I look back, because I have such a
confidence in being able to work out last minute.

When now, when I think about how much I was spending, I think to myself, “How could I
have been so stupid to keep going and almost be reckless with my credit cards?”

Lindsay: To you, do what so many of us have done or are doing, if it’s a listener out there
and it’s that hit of endorphins by shopping. I remember during one of the hardest parts of
my life of just shopping, shopping, shopping, I had so many handbags and they weren’t
even nice handbags. Signing up for memberships just to get this little makeup thing every
month and it was insane. I remember as you and I worked together, we did all the
emotional work to cut that spending and the game. There was a point when you weren’t
even looking at your credit cards and your finances and just going in and doing that. I
know so many people can relate to that, Uma. Thank you for sharing that with us, because
it’s brave to do that.

Tell us some of the biggest results from coaching this far. We’ve talked about a few, the
first is obviously being able to follow through and not feeling like you’re stuck on a
hamster wheel at status quo anymore, not doing that emotional spending, not doing
emotional eating too, which has been a big one. What else?

Uma: I think definitely something I didn’t expect was I remember you saying this was one
of the original videos for Authentically Awesome that the difference between that and was
it Become an Unstoppable Woman where you’re really working through the blocks, is that
in Authentically Awesome, you were teaching me and other people following the course, to
be their own coach and look at where they’re going and just reflect on things.

For me, I remember when I first started with Authentically Awesome, I was like, “How on
earth am I going to get to a point where I’m trusting my own intuition? My own judgment
and making the decisions myself?” because at that point I was like, “Oh, I feel like I still
need Lindsay. I still need the coach thing to help me, maybe not even fix me, but help me
get to a point where I could make the decisions.”

One of the biggest things with doing all of this coaching is now getting to a point where I
can sit and journal through something and come up with the answers. That’s been like a
lightbulb moment because I was always thinking, “I’m going to need a coach to help me to
fix this, to do that.” I couldn’t see a way past like a different life of not needing a coach or
needing a coach less. That’s what I got from coaching in terms of learning the tool to
really sit, to be still and be like, “Okay, what is it that you’re feeling? What is this block that
you need to move through?”

Instead of just being like, “You know what? Something doesn’t feel right. I’m going to
ignore it or I’m going to coach on it and then everything will be fixed,” which if that makes
sense.

Lindsay: Yes. This is something I wanted to bring up earlier when you were talking about
your parents and your parents would give you advice. You would get up and be like, “Okay,
right.” Or you’d watch a YouTube video or see somebody on Instagram and say, “Okay, their
goals. Right,” because you didn’t quite have a sense of what was right for you. It wouldn’t
follow through and you wouldn’t do it because there were still something inside of you
that was like, “This isn’t quite where I want to take you. This is quite where I want to go.”
By coaching, with journaling and all the other work we did, you were able to, “Start to see
what is right for me. How can I listen to myself? How can I solve my own problems? How
can I guide myself in the way that I want to go?” Am I hearing that correctly, Uma?

Uma: Absolutely. It makes a lot of sense.

Lindsay: That was one of the other results as you’ve become your own coach. You can work
through your own problems and take a no where you want to go a lot more. Can we talk
about the job stuff?

Uma: Yes.

Lindsay: Okay. Tell us about the job you’ve had and what is up next for you?

Uma: It’s weird because when I look at my CV and it’s been “Painful process” because a lot
of the corporate jobs have had the same energy. I’ve worked in media and advertising for
quite a long time now and throughout this whole coaching process up to now, I’ve had the
same job, but packaged differently each time. It’s like I work for the same kind of boss, I
work the same kind of crazy hours. The one thing that hit me was like, “I’m just doing this
over and over and over again to hit the paycheck.” I’m being like, “Yes. I’ve got something
in the bank. Now I can use that money to do something else.”

I can use it for a blog or I can use it for something else, but the actual job itself, I never
really enjoyed it, which is hard to say, because I’ve worked this hard to get through my
accounting exams to be like, “You know what? All those exams are going to help me get to
the next step in my job,” except for I was in a job I didn’t like.

Lindsay: It was just leading down this corporate ladder to where?

Uma: Yes.

Lindsay: I remember so many conversations we had on calls and it would suck your soul.

Uma: Yes, because the thing is it’s not like it was a crappy– oh, sorry, a bad job, but I just
felt like I wasn’t really the right fit. I was like, “Maybe someone else could come in and do
this job 10 times better than me and they’d be happier about it.” It’s just like, I would do it
day in, day out. It just felt like repeating the same day for about two, three years.

Lindsay: A day that you didn’t really like.

Uma: Yes, exactly.

[chuckling]

Lindsay: Who wants that? It’s like Groundhog Day, the movie. I remember that was one of
the big things as we worked together. It was what is the big picture for your career? What
does that look like? It was just causing so much emotion for you because you had said,
“I’ve worked so hard to get to this place in my career. Now, what? Now am I just going to
leave this behind?” Talk about what we discovered with you, where could be your big
career focus, and how you’ve made a pivot to incorporate what you have with accounting
and what you know about yourself, and where you want to go.

Uma: I think one of the big things in Authentically Awesome was realizing there are bits of
my current job that I like as in any job. Coming from a finance point of view, we worked
out that I really liked teaching people. I like being able to educate non-finance people and
be like, “This is how you do something,” and almost simplifying the process because my
life, my day-to-day job is around spreadsheets. For me, it’s really comfortable to take a
spreadsheet from someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing and show them step by
step what to do.

With the whole coaching process, I started to realize there are tiny, tiny bits and pieces of
the job that I liked, training people, teaching them, really guiding them. Then I started to
think, “Hang on a minute, there are bits and pieces that I like.” Then we looked at the
whole puzzle using bits and pieces in the current job that I liked and then looking at the
things that I do for fun, the things that I do regardless of getting paid or not, things like
blogging and writing. Then we looked at all the values and the thing that kept coming up
again and again for me, when we had all of our coaching calls was the whole need to
inspire other people, to help them be positive, and to really nurture that healthy mindset.

That’s played into a lot of what I do on Instagram now and the blogging in terms of it’s
almost like the core of what I do now. It’s like every time I come back to create a piece of
content or write a blog post, it’s always going back to, “Okay, what am I trying to inspire
people to do?” It helped me create a life mission statement.

Lindsay: You’re seeing in essence two things. First off, like you said, what you like about
your job now and what you are called to do, which a lot of that is teaching, right?

Uma: Yes.

Lindsay: That’s what we dug into by doing your puzzle and if you don’t know what a puzzle
is, so that’s where we do your strengths and your values and your passions and all these
different things where you put it together and then you start to see these patterns of, wow,
well, you’re really good at this and you’re really good at that. Then it just slaps you in the
face of, “Oh, this is what I’m built to do. This is why I was sent to earth,” however, you want
to see it. You saw teaching is one of those things and so then she started to look for jobs
where she could incorporate both of those things.

Two, she saw a bigger life purpose and that was something we worked on in coaching. For
her, it was spreading positivity. Now everything that she’s doing in life, be it waking up and
just walking out her front door, she can ask herself, “Am I living my purpose?” She can
even see in these mundane tasks or these tasks that she doesn’t like of, “Hey, I’m still
shining my light. I’m still doing this purpose even in things that seem like they don’t
matter.” Did I summarize that well, Uma, for you?

Uma: Yes, that was perfect. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Lindsay: Okay. Got it. Good. Tell us about your new job, where you’re going to, what is it
like?

Uma: It’s actually quite a good story because even the whole interview process was
different to anything I’ve ever had. It’s the first time I actually had to do a test at the front
of the interview, which when you’re already nervous, it’s hard enough to do. The whole
process of the interview of talking to who’s going to be my new boss, I realized that this
job, it’s not a new office job where I sit down, I do the job when I go home. It’s as close to
a non-finance job as a finance job can be. It’s about teaching people who aren’t in finance,
how to use the systems, doing like me started training, doing the onboarding.

The minute the interviewer said that I was like, “Okay, this feels like it’s the perfect fit for
me.” The other thing is it builds onto what I already know. They use software pieces I’ve
already used, which for me was like, “Oh, okay. I don’t need to hit the ground running. I
already know the software they use,” and I can use my skills to be like, “Okay, I’m good at
communicating. I can teach people who may be might not want to use the system.” It’s the
first time I’ve been super excited to go into something new because it feels really
different. I’ve gotten a little bit of nerves going into the new job and starting what might
be new through it. It’s like it’s so different from anything I’ve done before that I make in
such a good opportunity.

Lindsay: Too, you wanted to work from home.

Uma: Yes. I forgot.

Lindsay: You manifested what you wanted and that was a big thing that I wanted to teach
you in that coaching process was, “Okay, let’s figure out what it is you want, and then
here’s how to go get it.” You did that perfectly, Uma. It was just so awesome. The other
thing too is you’re making more money and we’ve figured out on one of our coaching calls
that just in a year, you’re making more money to pay back your coaching investment. Then
obviously, you’ll grow with that. That’s why I think when some people say, “Oh, well, I
don’t want to make that investment. How am I going to get that back?”

Sometimes it isn’t a black and white money thing of, “Okay, I’ve made it back here,” but in
your case, it was. It was, “Wow. I’ve made this back and then it’s going to continue to grow
from here.” Are you glad you invested, Uma?

Uma: Absolutely. I think more than the financial investment, it’s like you said, it’s all the
tools and it’s all the things that will just exponentially grow in the future.
Lindsay: So many wrong turns I think that you’ve prevent yourself from. With you and Jay,
for example, your boyfriend, there were periods that were tricky and from that, it could
have exploded into something where you broke up and there’s just no need for y’all to
break up.

Uma: Yes, I think it’s funny because I got to a point where there weren’t times where I was
like, “Maybe he’s just better off if I just do this by myself.” Then too many people do that
thing where they’re like, “I need to work on me so I’m going to give up everything else
around me.” I think that is one of the things that I found with coaching. I could have my
life and still work on myself at the same time.

Lindsay: He was such a great testing ground for you of, “Wow. I did that with him today,
look at how he’s reacting,” and all of that stuff. Uma, two more quick questions for you.
The first is what would you tell someone who’s not sure if coaching is right for them or
they’re just scared to invest?

Uma: I guess this could be a concept for anything, but the main thing is to try it. It’s almost
like what I found the interview process to be, in that you’re not trying to win the coaching
contract or get to the point where you sign up. You’re trying to see if it’s the right fit. I
think I can say this from personal experience where I looked into different coaches, I
remember almost signing up with one coach before I met you and thinking, “I’m really
excited to do this.” Then I had like a consultation and it didn’t feel right. Then I was like,
“Oh, okay. Maybe coaching’s not right.” Then I thought, okay, maybe it’s just not that coach
that’s the right coach for me. I think it’s very important just to be really open-minded and
try it but to not put too much pressure on yourself in case the fit’s not right.

Lindsay: Yes. To listen to yourself.

Uma: Absolutely.

Lindsay: Trust is this right, is it not right, right now in this person. Such good advice. Last
one, Uma. Where can everybody find you? I know you have a blog that you’re doing on the
side and it’s starting to grow. Tell us about that and your Instagram and anywhere else.
Uma: I’ve got my blog, which is girlinblue.london. It’s pretty much a focus of where I put a
lot of my positive energy. It’s a mix of mindset, productivity, hacks, confidence, things. It’s
a mix of all of the things I like. I tend to post quotes, books I’m reading, just general things
that people can do that are really small things that barely cost any money but can actually
help them feel more positive day to day.

Lindsay: Yes, and get started on a personal growth journey. Would you agree?

Uma: Yes, absolutely.

Lindsay: Just get inspired. Uma’s story is inspiring. It’s not like she came out of this hard
situation either, but it’s so awesome to see that her life was good and now it’s great and
all it took was just a little bit of clean up and learning a little bit of tools and a little bit of
investment in herself. Now, the opportunities are endless. Would you agree, Uma?
Uma: Yes, I think it’s just realizing that you don’t know what you don’t know and you don’t
know what’s out there until you have a go.

Lindsay: Yes and dig deeper. I think you said this when we first started digging deeper into
you versus your blocks which was, “What if this is it? What if there’s not something bigger
than me?” That’s a common fear a lot of people have and I don’t remember what I said
back to you, but normally, what I respond when people say that is, “It’s totally normal to
feel that way. Let’s just go and explore and see what happens.” Even sometimes I’ll say in
the six years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never had someone go through and be like, “Well,
that was it.”

[laughter]

There’s always something more, there’s always something deeper for you out there. Uma,
you gave your blog. What about your Instagram? What’s your handle?
Uma: Yes, it’s girlinbluelondon. I think it’s girl_in_blue_London. It’s a bit of a long handle,
but that’s my Instagram account.

Lindsay: Cool. I’ll have both the links in the show notes. Uma, thank you so much for
coming on and sharing your story with us and being vulnerable. We appreciate you.

Uma: Thank you for having me.

Lindsay: Yes, of course.

[music]

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