Ep. 29: Carolyn, Owner of Compass Maven, Certified Life & Career Coach

Permission to Grow

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Carolyn Birsky is a Certified Life & Career Coach and the Owner of Compass Maven LLC, a company that helps 20-something women gain the clarity and confidence they need to get unstuck and turn their lives and careers of their dreams into reality through 1-on-1 coaching, workshops and content. Upon graduating college, Carolyn spent the first 6 years of her career working in corporate sales. While she had a very successful career on paper, Carolyn wasn’t excited to go to work each morning and Sunday nights were filled with dread. When she ultimately found her calling in coaching, Carolyn knew she was meant to help women navigate their 20s and make this important decade feel less confusing. And thus, Compass Maven was born.
Carolyn holds a BA in Psychology from Middlebury College and a CPC from iPEC (the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching). A born connector, Carolyn also loves finding opportunities to introduce amazing women to one another and watching the incredible things that arise from these relationships. When she’s not coaching or working on her business, you can find Carolyn traveling, discovering new coffee shops and restaurants, and making the most of her time with friends and family.

What We Cover:

• Growing up Carolyn was always the person in friend groups working to solve problems and she was held as a confident for friends and strangers, She thought the next step to make that a profession was to go to school to be a therapist.
• However, once graduation rolled around she realized she didn’t want to go to graduate school and people around her observed that she could be good at sales so she gave it a try. She ended up excelling in sales for five years before launching her company.
• Carolyn talks about how in each job she went to she was trying to solve the problem of the previous job (e.g. culture, location) and eventually realized that it was the profession not just the job.
• She gives some incredible advice for those of us in career transition, wondering what the next step is, and her advice was to take what is in your head, about what is working in your career and what is not working, and get it out on paper.
• She talks about when we write it out we are getting real with what’s really you, it creates a space where we can think about what are the most important things we are looking for, what are our non negotiable items in our next role, and then make decisions in line with those values and non negotiables.
• One thing Carolyn herself was asked by her coach, that I found to be an incredible reminder of the power of thought was the question, "[d]o you want to stick in this story or do you want to move forward."
• Throughout Carolyn's career one piece of advice she has tried to follow is this idea to give what you can, ask for help, and pay it forward when you are able.
• In looking at what she has learned from her clients Carolyn talks about how blown away she is by the women she gets to partner with, and how when you set your mind to something you can make incredible things happen.
• Final reminder that I think is important as we begin our career searches and transitions - there are ways to work within an organization and be happy, we do not all have to be entrepreneurs.

Connect with Carolyn...

Website: www.compassmaven.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/compassmaven
Facebook: www.facebook.com/compassmaven
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/carolynbirsky