Transformation

“Human transformation provides a clear path for each individual to live up to their full potential and to live their lives with greater purpose, clarity, and passion.” - Allaya Cooks-Campbell

Transformation is a big word that starts with a small step.

It’s not something that hits you like a bolt of lightning. Transformation happens over time. One day you wake up, lift your head up and realize that you feel different. Lighter. More focused. Present. Connected. That’s transformation.

Transformation is what happens when you choose to be happier.

When you commit to walking the path will lead you back to yourself. 

This new path will feel uncomfortable at first, it will take you away from other people’s goals for you, and it might ask new things of you that you’ve never explored. But once you get on the path, it will feel right. It will feel exciting. It will give you energy and inspiration. It will open doors. And those new doors will give you the motivation you need to stay on the path, even when it gets hard.

There’s no checked box, no one thing that will make you say, ‘ok that’s it, now I’m happy.” But when you commit to the process, with all of its mess of change and healing, you will find yourself and start standing up for what you need. You will say goodbye to the things and the people that aren’t healthy; to the things that don’t allow you to stand in your truth. 

Happiness is the byproduct of your truth.

After years of trying to figure out how to talk about what I do and how I help my clients, this is it. This is where I landed. Together we co-create their path to happiness. We start with their work, we retrain their brains to give them the permission to have success without the grind, we align them to careers that inspire them, and by going through the process, all of this focus on work transformation has the halo effect of aligning them to the other parts of their lives too.

My clients spend years in jobs that don’t suit them. They feel disconnected. They feel pain. And they can’t see a way out.

When it takes years of hard work and discipline to get to where you are in your career, it’s hard to pivot ‘just because’ you aren’t feeling happy. So they try to make it work. Their identity is tied to their career after all so it’s especially scary and unnerving to think about stepping off a path of security for something unknown. 

My clients finally get to the point where they wonder why they are suffering and for who. All of that pain, anxiety, stress, and sleepless nights finally break the camel’s back so that they can decide that it’s time to commit to a change.

This is the first step in their transformation. When they have the courage to admit that they aren’t happy and choose to do one thing towards their change. 

When I was working in the U.S., in advertising, the agency I worked for had a large global client that was opening its European headquarters in Amsterdam. I pitched my agency’s CEO on the idea of opening up a small office there to support them (this was far and away their biggest client). I did the research, made a solid presentation, and talked to them about the idea of me running that office.

They didn’t go for it.

I forgot about that pitch when I found myself living in Amsterdam three years later. And I forgot about that pitch when I was hired to run a small office in Amsterdam for a different American advertising agency.

I had put an idea out there three years prior, forgot about it, and here I was, living the dream. 

But a lot changed for me over those three years. 

I went from the agency to running my own business. My mom died. The US became a place I didn’t recognize. I moved to a new country. My kids were older and I constantly reflected on how much of their childhood I missed while chasing promotions and growing other people’s companies.

And despite all of it, when the Managing Director job was offered to me, it felt safe. Stable. On paper, it aligned perfectly with my career trajectory; after all, it was my dream. I had worked hard for this kind of opportunity. How could I turn it down?

What I didn’t realize in accepting the job offer, was that my truth had evolved, and the things I needed from my work and life had shifted.

But instead of standing up for my truth and for my values, I put my head down and decided to make it work.

I would do my best. I would put my dreams aside so I could be a diligent wife and mother, and bring home the bacon. 

That decision hurt. It kept me up at night. It elevated my blood pressure. I put on weight. I stopped exercising. My skin was ashen, my wrinkles more pronounced, and the bags under my eyes were an even darker purple. I was living on coffee and sugar and hiding my unhappiness. I couldn’t admit to myself that I was unhappy because I didn’t know what to do about it.

But somewhat out of the blue, I decided to do something non-commital but forward-moving. I registered a business. I had no idea what I would do with that business, or if I would even use it, but the act of registering a business in the Netherlands, a process I was completely unfamiliar with, was enough. I walked out of the registration office taller because now I was a business owner. It felt good. And it started to shift the way I thought about things.

It took me a full year (almost to the day), but one year later I was working for myself. And that was three years ago. Now I sleep, I exercise, and my undereye bags are less pronounced, but most of all, I am happier. I am out of burnout and healed from years of thinking my value came from grinding away at work and never looking up.

Transformation takes time. It takes commitment. But most importantly it takes one first step.

For my clients, that first step is calling me.

I believe in them when no one else will, especially when they are having a hard time believing in themselves. I see their path when it’s cloudy for them, I keep them aligned to it and connected to their truth while being completely grounded in the steps it will take to get where they want to go.

Today, after meeting with a client in person, for the first time since Covid, I looked up. I took this moment to appreciate where I was three years ago and where I am now.  I am so grateful to my past self for admitting that she was unhappy and for registering this business.

That day changed me and my life’s trajectory. I want the same for you.

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

― Carl Gustav Jung