Get Clear on Your Career

Transformational Lessons to Help You Find Success and Purpose, and Create a Life That You Love

Valentina Savelyeva

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781642796391
• eBook ISBN: 9781642796407
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Careers

Within Get CLEAR on Your Career, Valentina Savelyeva helps readers find their niche and move forward in their life and career.

In Get CLEAR on Your Career, success coach Valentina Savelyeva shares her top insights and strategies to help make these important decisions around work, life, and money. With over a decade of experience working with thousands of MBA students, young professionals, and business owners, Valentina possesses the knowledge to help one navigate a wide range of industries, including finance, consulting, technology, and social entrepreneurship.

In Get CLEAR on Your Career, Valentina teaches in search of a career:

• How to make choices that feel aligned and true to them
• The tools and practices needed for identifying their own unique success formula
• How to detect any blind spots that have been holding them back with the professional success
• The limitations and invisible caps around money and how much they have been able to earn, keep, and enjoy
• How to identify resistance and accelerate progress
  

Chapter 1:

My Path to Clarity

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”

– DALAI LAMA

Journey of Hunger

Come with me to Russia. The year is 1989. It is early March in a small-town square, surrounded by identical gray boxy buildings, piles of melting snow are all around. A line of people is stretching out in an S shape, mostly old babushkas covered in thick gray shawls and school kids. A skinny eight-year-old girl with frizzy blond hair wearing a bright-red coat that is two sizes too small is fidgeting in line. That eight-year-old girl is me. A woman with thick blue eye shadow who smells like cigarettes comes over and grabs my wrist. She scribbles the number 134 with a blue ink and moves on. That is my number in line for today. I look up across the square to read the sign “Grocery Store.” My stomach growls. I hope they will have enough bread and butter by the time I make it to the entrance.

I close my eyes, and for a moment, I go to my familiar fantasy world – where I often escape. There is a table there that is covered in white cloth and on top is filled with food, all kinds of breads, roasted chicken, butter, milk, and, of course, lots of pastries. I imagine myself and my six-year-old sister eating so much we cannot take another bite, and there is still so much food that is left. I smile with imaginary bliss as I feel an impatient tap in between my shoulder blades. I am back at the square with the melting snow. I notice that a gray figure in front of me has moved forward, so I take the next step.

Since I was very young, I was driven by hunger. The physical hunger later translated into the hunger for learning all kinds of subjects and collecting experiences. I didn’t think much about it, and it has allowed me to achieve what most considered a high level of success. But inside I was always hungry for more, and I refused to choose or settle for one of anything. No matter how much I enjoyed something or someone inevitably I would want more of something or someone else.

It was fun at school. I remember at UC Berkeley I loved that I could study finance in the morning, do ballet in the afternoon, and teach a course in women’s leadership in the evening. I had it all – Dean’s List with a 3.98 GPA, full time offer at a major investment bank with a sweet signing bonus, dance performances, a boyfriend who adored me, lots of very interesting friends from all over the planet, and dreams to change the world by the age of thirty.

Then I graduated. And life began to push back. As much as I was stimulated and challenged by my job in investment banking, I quickly began to feel stifled and wanted something more meaningful and liberating and I was craving a way to express my gifts as a performing artist. So once I have completed my two-year program as an analyst, I collected my bonus and moved to New York City to attend one of the most prestigious professional dance programs in the United States while also auditioning and dancing around the city.

I dove into the dance scene in New York, and for several years, I thrived living the life that I had dreamed about since I took my first ballet class at age seven back in Russia. I loved the new “home” that I found in the sunny, airy newly-built dance studio a few blocks away from the Broadway with the floor-to-ceiling mirrors and the long wooden ballet barres. I felt a sense of purpose and belonging as I showed up with a discipline that I had learned in my years as an investment banker to work on my ballet, jazz and modern dance technique for five hours a day. And then I enjoyed a more relaxed vibe in the dingier older studios in downtown New York City, where I often rehearsed on the projects that I was involved in. I was taking in as much as I could – the drama of the auditions, seeing dance and theatre productions on the best stages of the city, running around in the pink ballet tights, and even the crying spurts to pick myself back up from the never-ending physical pain in my body as much as from the emotional pain as I was being picked apart and criticized every single day along with all the other dancers. I loved and welcomed it all, but I also quickly began to feel unbalanced and unfulfilled, so I greatly appreciated my part-time gig of assisting instructors with MBA-level finance courses on the weekends.

As the years went on, I was getting more and more burned out by my dance career, which was not unfolding as fast or as big as I had expected, and I eagerly shifted into teaching finance courses full time, which was a lot more fun for me. Once again, I thrived and I was sure this was it! I was flying weekly all over the United States and Europe. I was teaching at the top MBA programs and financial firms, getting inspired daily by my students, who were brilliant, creative and hungry for life and for learning. I was receiving raving reviews both from the students and from my team. And yet, as I was growing as a finance trainer, being invited to teach at larger and more advanced audiences, I could hear that whisper once again that said, “This is not it; do not commit.”

This time I didn’t want to listen and I let myself enjoy teaching for a while, while at the same time receiving my MA in spiritual psychology from the University of Santa Monica. I figured taking psychology classes would balance me out, and it did for a short amount of time. And yet, I would have moments when I would imagine myself doing work similar to what my favorite authors and coaches were doing, leading workshops, publishing books and supporting people with finding work and creating lives that they loved. These visions and inner nudges always felt bitter sweet. Eventually, the inner voice became louder and louder and finally after almost ten years with the training company, I announced my decision to leave my teaching family and dove into the coaching, writing and speaking on the subjects of success and personal transformation.

What I didn’t realize at the time, but soon became very aware of once I quit, was how much more was tied into my unwillingness to commit to a career. On the outside, I thought my major problem was that I had too many talents and interests and that I didn’t know how to choose and that it was relatively harmless to wait until I was ready. However, once I stopped running and distracting myself, I saw how heavy the price tag was for my earlier indecision.

The Real Price of Indecision

One area of my life where I was paying a very high price for my indecision around my career was my romantic partnership. Even though I had been with my partner for eleven years at the time, I was still refusing to get married because subconsciously I couldn’t see a future with anyone since I couldn’t see a future for myself and my work. I am realizing now how much time I have wasted on trying to solve the problem of not being willing to commit in my relationship. The truth was that I didn’t know how to trust myself with making big decisions, so, of course, it showed up in my personal life. Interestingly enough, as soon as I started to apply the tools that I will share in this book and got clear on what to do, I also became clear on wanting to move on from the relationship, which was very challenging and yet necessary for me to do in order to step into the life that I have now.

Another area where I was paying a high price for my indecision around the career were my finances. To be honest, I thought I was doing amazing. I was earning over $250,000 a year, not including my partner’s salary. We were living in a luxurious apartment on the twenty-fifth floor in midtown Manhattan with floor-to-ceiling windows and a view that was equally captivating during the day and the night. We were dining at great restaurants almost daily, staying at fun hotels all over the United States and Europe for my work and for fun, and I was enjoying the freedom to travel, to take any self-development classes that I wanted, to support charities, and to attend my beloved Broadway musicals and plays. However, when I slowed down after I quit, I also began to see how much money I had wasted over the years on things that I didn’t really want. I was doing so to simply numb the subtle feelings of being unsatisfied or to numb the voice whispering to me to explore doing something more meaningful with my life and my relationship. I also became painfully aware of the many investing opportunities that I had missed, not because of lack of know-how or skill, but because I was too busy keeping myself distracted from the discomfort of listening to the inner voice that kept telling me that I was meant to do something else.

During the last few years as a corporate finance instructor, even though I was very highly regarded by both students and colleagues, I noticed that I often felt slightly jealous of those who were being bold and courageous, who were taking risks with their lives. I remember I would watch many inspirational speakers and coaches give talks on YouTube, and as motivated as I would be, I would feel jealous that they dared to live the life that deep down I wanted. I would talk myself out of doing what they were doing by reminding me that I was loving my life. Add to that, I supported thousands of students every year and I loved everyone I worked with. My team had nurtured me for almost ten years, and I considered them to be my family. So here I was, with a job that I genuinely enjoyed, with lots of love and support, with a ring on my finger from the partner who adored me. And yet, toward the end, I started to wake up anxious in the middle of the night and kept going on Netflix binges to numb out the nagging feeling that this is not the life that I wanted.

I thought my problem was to get clear and choose what to do with my career, but it turned out to be a lot more than that. It was about choosing what kind of life I wanted to live. And as glamorous and exciting as my life looked, I began to feel like an imposter. It was a perfect life, the only thing – or, to be more precise, the only person – that didn’t “fit” was me.

As the inner intensity built, I knew that I had to quit and to temporarily be very uncomfortable as I dove into the unknown.

Turn Around

Thankfully, parallel to the journey I just described, I was also deeply involved in the area of self-development, reading hundreds of books, attending conferences on leadership and transformation, and studying with teachers and coaches since before I was twenty. As I was finishing up my time teaching finance, I began to use the tools that I will be sharing in this book that I have since very successfully used with many of my clients who were going through a career shift.

The turning point in my own journey came when I mastered some of the big keys – learning how to make choices and take action from a place of inner connection to my deeper wisdom, learning how to work with myself so that I could make commitments that I actually kept, and learning how to work with fears and doubts that inevitably showed up.

My own career shift was not an easy one. The transition process stripped me raw of any old identifications of who I thought I was. Tearfully, I said goodbye to my beloved students and the training team, and to the airy twenty-fifth floor apartment in midtown New York City, as I opened my private coaching practice and moved to a second-floor apartment on a quiet block in Venice, CA. Shortly after I said goodbye to my best friend and my life partner of eleven years, dropped off about 90 percent of my possessions at a local Goodwill store and moved again to my new home in Santa Monica, CA. Over the course of a year and a half, I let go of all the major “roles” that I used to identify myself by and now I was facing a completely new life.

Say Yes to a New Life

Life responded with new clients whom I loved, new deeper friendships and partnerships, an improved relationship with myself, better health, stronger finances and a general expansion in all areas of my life.

I am writing this chapter in my Santa Monica apartment, with a light breeze coming through the open balcony door as I watch the leaves on the trees gently blowing in the warm wind. I just walked in from a walk on the beach with a close friend and responded to some emails from the clients. Later this afternoon I will take a yoga class, check in on my clients in the coaching group on Facebook, and speak to a couple of referrals who are interested in the program, before I meet with a friend for dinner. My life feels graceful. It is not easy, as I am continuously stretching myself with new challenges – publishing this book is certainly a long-held dream for me. I am growing as I am facing these challenges, and yet, not a single day goes by that I don’t feel a sense of purpose, knowing that the life that I am living with all its beauty, love, prosperity, joy, messiness, and sweetness, is mine. My life feels so aligned with all parts of me that I feel truly at home in it for the first time.

That is my wish for you in this book: to help you avoid the challenges of my own journey by sharing what I have learned, and to support you to find the work that you love and build a life where you feel at home.

Chapter 2:

The CLEAR WAY Framework

“It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.”

– E.E. CUMMINGS

How to Use This Book

This book is meant to be a guide for the process of gaining clarity around what you want to do, around how you make choices, and around how you want to proceed. I am sharing the tools and practices that I have been using with my clients and in my own personal life. Some of these tools will resonate more than others. Some of these practices may bring forward discomfort, just as I experienced when I started to metaphorically “defog my glasses” and began to see that there is a lot more that I had been unwilling to see besides choosing what to do.

The next eight chapters cover eight keys in various areas that cumulatively will support you in not only getting clear regarding what you want to do, but also in moving forward, and in taking action steps in a successful way.

At the end of each chapter, I will share some suggested exercises that you could practice with, if you choose. You are welcome to dive in as much or as little as you like. In my experience, the value of any idea is in its application and in many ways you won’t know if something works unless you try it wholeheartedly.

If you are ready to dive in, you can either read the book cover to cover and then go back and do the exercises that stand out for you. Or you can take one key area at a time and work with it before moving forward. You can work through them in the order that I have them or you can go back and forth. In many ways, each one is meant to support the other, so I invite you to trust your instincts on how to digest the information. You may want to read this book with a friend to dive in deeper together.

However you choose to do it, I invite you to have fun with the process and give yourself permission to be open, messy, and curious about what may be available for you. One of my friends and a fellow coach often says that “we don’t know what we don’t know.” I love that. I invite you to get curious about you.

* * *

The CLEAR WAY Framework to Find Professional Success

C: Cultivate a State Where Clarity Is Possible

In Chapter 3, you will have an opportunity to begin working with the tools for how to tap into a clarity state in a very intentional and practical way. You will also learn how to distinguish the need for clarity of the bigger vision for your career versus the need for clarity of the next steps. And finally, you will be introduced to various tools for accessing your inner wisdom as you begin to develop practices for how to discern making choices that feel aligned and genuinely true for you.

L: Learn How to Dream Effectively

In Chapter 4, you will explore your relationship with dreaming and setting goals. In my experience, most people who come into my practice have a disconnect in this area and most people don’t allow themselves to truly embrace wanting and put caps on dreams. You will learn tools for removing any self-imposed caps and limitations, so as you choose your niche and your next steps, you will never have to “settle” ever again.

E: Enlist a Vision That Is a Sa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: My Path to Clarity
• Chapter 2: The CLEAR WAY Framework
• Chapter 3: Cultivate a State Where Clarity Is Possible
• Chapter 4: Learn How to Dream Effectively
• Chapter 5: Enlist a Vision That Is a Sacred YES!
• Chapter 6: Access Your Personal Success Formula
• Chapter 7: Receive Maximum Return on Your Energy Investments
• Chapter 8: Wire Resistance to Work for You
• Chapter 9: Align Your Thoughts and Emotions for Success
• Chapter 10: Yield Financial Results That You Desire
• Chapter 11: Get Ready for the Next Steps
• Chapter 12: Tips for the Journey Ahead
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Thank You