Purpose: Pivoting Careers

On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Tammy Alvarez, founder and CEO of Career Winners Circle. Tammy is also an author, professional keynote speaker, inspirational coach, trainer, and epic storyteller. After experiencing firsthand burn out in a corporate career she struck out and intentionally created a work /life balance that resulted in  creating Career Winners Circle, a company offering career coaching, helping individuals figure out what you do that you love and organizations that want to ignite their employees.

They speak about Tammy leaving corporate life in New York, and how to “weather through”  seasonality in your business and your career to come back to your "Why?"

You can find out more about Tammy and her writing at:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tammyalvarez

https://careerwinnerscircle.com/

“Escaping the Career Trap: Transform Your Apathy Into Ambition and Never Hate Mondays Again;”

and the book Tammy mentions in this episode: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/scale-or-fail-allison-maslan/1128886160

You can subscribe to Next Act Advisors at https://nextactadvisors.com/product/subscriptions/ and be sure to use the special discount code "sandbox25" for friends of The Founder's Sandbox for 25% off your subscription.

transcript: 

00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke

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01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you.

01:20 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host in this monthly podcast. We're now into our third season. The monthly podcast reaches entrepreneurs and business owners who learn about building resilient, purpose-driven and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance. I want to assist entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in building those scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. And guests to my podcast are founders, business owners,

01:49 themselves who want to use the power of the private enterprise, be it small, medium, or large, to create change for a better world. Through storytelling with each of my guests that are going to touch upon resilience, purpose-driven enterprise, and sustainable growth, my goal is to provide in a fun environment where we can equip one startup founder at a time the skills to build a better world through great corporate governance.

02:20 Today, my guest is Tammy Alvarez. Tammy is joining the podcast as founder and CEO of Career Winners Circle. She also is an author, professional keynote speaker, inspirational coach, trainer, and epic storyteller. So welcome, Tammy, to the Founder's Sandbox. Thank you, Brenda. It is such a pleasure to be here today. I do feel a bit intimidated. You know, you're an epic storyteller, and I thought...

02:49 So we have two storytellers in the sandbox today. Should be good. Excellent. So in prior conversations with you, Tammy, and I did take some time to listen to some other podcasts where you've been featured. You, like me, share a mission. And you're very mission-driven. And you've experienced firsthand burnout in the corporate world. And you intentionally created.

03:18 a work life balance, which we're going to learn about more today that resulted in creating career winners circle. And it's a company that's offering coaching, career coaching, helping individuals figure out what you do that you love. Every guest and I we choose a title for the podcast, our title for this podcast with Tammy Alvarez, CEO of career

03:46 is purpose pivoting careers. So Tammy, you are joining us from Mexico City. I am. But your journey actually started years ago in New York and Wall Street. And then you took a little jaunt over to Belize. And I found some commonalities, my own work.

04:13 is informed by a major life change that I made back over 20, actually 15 years now, I moved back to the US after 25 years in Europe. And I work with companies, not necessarily individuals, to be fit for purpose, poised for growth, and made for resilience. What made you leave the Manhattan, Wall Street life and go offshore before it became fashionable?

04:41 in the post-COVID world? It was an interesting culmination of activities, if you will. I grew up in and around Wall Street. So my whole career was really around financial services and I loved the corporate career. Throughout my corporate career, I made 11 different changes in terms of the jobs that I had, everything from sales to audit and everything in between.

05:09 in five different industries and around Wall Street, because I had this mindset that if you don't like it, change it. And that's kind of how I navigated through my career. And I remember this one day, here I am, top of my career, managing director, the height of my career is managing like over 2000 people in 35 countries, like all these big girl things that are going on. And I remember sitting in a boardroom, we had missed earnings again.

05:39 And we were just waiting for the bloodletting to begin, right? So our boss comes in and every quarter it would turn into a game of hot potato. Of whose fault was it? Like, it's not my fault. It's sales fault. It's operations. It's this, it's that. And it just was actually, you know, became comical. And then we'd all go out for a few beers after the meeting was over. And so this time was particularly brutal in terms of how difficult the analyst call was. And I remember having this.

06:07 out of body experience it felt like in the movies. You know, when you're floating over the table and you're associated to it, but you're not really there. And I didn't realize it at the time, but my career had received its death sentence because I developed this disease that I call I don't give a shititis. And so, you know, six months later, I had found myself, I had cashed out of Wall Street.

06:32 I had moved to a tropical island off the coast of Belize in Central America and started this business, which was by far the most terrifying thing I've ever done. And I just really needed that reset because I had stopped learning. And it felt like I had just seen everything and to go to another company would have been the same, you know, the same thing with a different shade of lipstick. And I needed to reignite my desire to actually learn.

07:00 fail successfully and move my business forward. Say that again, you wanted to reignite. I needed to reignite my desire, my ability to learn, but also how to fail successfully. Okay. And continue to start a new chapter. Right, right. And we did speak about some of your intentional choices. All right, you leave, you had it.

07:28 What would you call that? You had a disease? Oh, yeah. I don't give a shititis, right? So yes. I think a lot of us have that disease, and we just don't realize it's, you know. Right. Well, by speaking your truth, which is what I'm hearing, and my listeners will as well. I was struck, though, Tammy, because you landed in that tropical island, but you really didn't yet know what you were about to do, right? I had no idea.

07:58 you age out of Wall Street, you just do. And so part of my plan, soft plan, the extent of my business plan, Brenda, was I'm gonna coach someday and sit on a few boards and do some academic work. That was the extent of my business plan. So when I pulled the plug, I think I've made every mistake an entrepreneur could possibly make, probably twice, because I'm a slow learner. And so I just fumbled my way through in the dark and just.

08:24 kept trying things and kept failing at things until I finally figured out the secret sauce, but it took several years for me to get to that point. And it was terrifying, right? In terms of feeling like I had lost the skill to learn, I'm like, oh, this is taking a lot longer than it used to because I purposefully stayed at a corporate. I did not wanna have a business to business company because I knew I was still addicted to the work. Yep.

08:51 And if I'd gone right back in, I'd just be in the same rat race under my own flag. And so I purposely sent myself to serve consumers and I didn't know anything about mailing lists or drip campaigns or marketing funnels. I knew none of this stuff. And so that, that journey was absolutely one of the most frustrating and rewarding journeys I think I've had. And, and you know, did you, um, you're six years into

09:17 this almost seven now. Yeah, exactly. auspicious number. Do you really believe that you've removed the golden handcuffs of a corporate life or and you are the best operator to actually be working with people that are leaving corporate life in Wall Street? Yes. And yes. Excellent. You know, since the day I started the firm, I've never worked more than 30 hours a week.

09:45 Right. We would go scuba diving a couple of days a