Before I hire any coach, I want to know six things. Not their story. Not their aesthetics. Six specific things that tell me whether this person has built anything real, whether the method actually exists, and whether I can trust the results they’re promising. I’ve written them down here because I think every woman considering coaching should have them.

I built a multiple six-figure business within a couple of years of starting Her Big Leap after leaving corporate. I did it while raising two young boys. And the version of my life I’m living now, being present for my kids, moving meetings when they’re sick, chaperoning field trips without asking permission, is the reason I built it, not the reward I’m waiting for.

The habits that made you successful in corporate are the exact habits that
will stall you in business. Not because they were bad habits. They were the
right habits, for the corporate game. The problem is you’re playing a different game
now, and nobody told you the rules changed.

If you’re burned out but terrified to leave, the fear makes sense. You’ve built something real in corporate. Leaving feels like betting it all on an unknown. What I’ve found, working with hundreds of women in exactly this position, is that the fear doesn’t go away on its own. But it can be outweighed. Here’s the conversation I have with every woman who comes to me in this place.

I work through three pillars with every woman before she leaves corporate and builds a business. Most programs tell you to build the business first and figure out your life afterward. We do the opposite. Here is exactly what we
work on, and why the starting point matters.

What’s more important when starting, building and scaling a business? After a decade in Fortune 500 marketing and years coaching women out of corporate, my answer is: neither mindset nor strategy alone gets you out. Strategy without mindset stalls at the first glimmer of self-doubt. Mindset without strategy is expensive positive thinking. You need both…in the right order.

My first business, a cold-pressed juice company I built after leaving corporate, collapsed one month before launch when manufacturing fell through. I had spent a year building it and had invested tens of thousands on my savings. I was weeks away from leveraging everything I had to salvage it. The failure was the lesson I didn’t know I needed.

I left my corporate career at 35, one year after being named Marketer of the Year at a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company, and shortly after that same company ousted me. At first I was relieved. Then I was lost. Now I look back and am so grateful – I needed the push to do what I knew I needed to do but kept delaying: leave.