The Ultimate Creative

The Career Rebel

• Emily Milling / Rachel Despres • Season 2 • Episode 62

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So you want to have a creative career but you’re stuck in a grey, lifeless cubicle. Who better to talk to on todays episode of The Ultimate Creative Podcast, than The Career Rebel Coach herself, Rachel Depres!

Rachel helps 9-5ers break out of their conventional careers to pursue their dream careers, and earn great money while they do it. Originally she started out with a blog to inspire people to pursue creative careers, but she discovered that although her clients were intrigued at the idea of a “creative career,” they didn’t actually consider themselves creative.

In fact, Rachel didn’t totally recognize herself as a creative until she considered that her writing was her creative superpower. 

“As long as you have that barrier up, where you say "I'm not creative," it's pretty hard for creativity to express itself when you're just kind of hell bent and determined on making sure it doesn't.” - Rachel Despres, Host of The Career Rebel Podcast

Tune into this episode to learn:

  • How Rachel helps clients to tap into their creativity and earn money from it
  • The biggest hurdle people face when leaving their 9-5s and starting their unconventional career paths
  • What Rachel thinks is the most important step to take to get started

About Rachel Despres

Rachel Despres is a Career Coach for Rebels who, after successfully escaping her own cubicle, began helping others break free of their desk jobs and build unconventional careers that truly fit with who they are—from creative work, to side hustles, to starting a business.

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Emily: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of the ultimate creative podcast. I'm your host, Emily milling. And I have very fascinatingly wonderful person here with me today.

A rebel coach. She's a rebel loner. She's a, well, not a loner, but like I'm thinking of Pee-wee Herman, I'm a loner, Dottie, a rebel. Anyway, this is Rachel Duprey and she is a fantastic person who I met on Instagram. And that was a weird interest. I'm going to read her bio so that I can D we're defy. What I just did.

Rachel did prey is a career coach. For rebels, who after successfully escaping her own cubicle began helping others break free of their desk jobs and build unconventional careers that truly fit who they are from creative work to side hustles, to starting a business, to randomly introducing people with a Pee-wee Herman quote.

So, Rachel, thank you so much for being here. I am so excited to have you on the show. How are you doing.

Rachel: [00:01:34] thank you so much for having me, Emily. I'm so excited to be here and be chatting with you. Not over Instagram this time. 

Emily: [00:01:40] Exactly. Yeah, we got started talking on Instagram. I think I posted like some sort of like, I don't want to do work anymore today. Kind of a story. And then we got talking about how life is hard as an entrepreneur. How's your entrepreneurial life hashtag entrepreneur life doing these days.

Rachel: [00:01:57] you know, it's really good. It's really good. I mean, despite the challenges, especially with the last year and a bit because of COVID and everything it's affected people in various ways, but I can honestly, yeah. Say that I've been very fortunate. And also as a result of the pandemic, because of the line of work that I'm in, which we're going to talk a whole lot about today, but it really helped people to sort of shift their thinking around their careers and their work.

So the past year and a bit has been very busy for me now that so many people are rethinking, you know, is this corporate thing really for me, is this something that I really want to continue doing for the rest of my life? 

Emily: [00:02:35] Exactly. Well, I can tell you from the other side, everybody probably not. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about your coaching business. Tell us the story of how it came to be and what inspired you to get started. 

Rachel: [00:02:47] becoming a career coach is not the thing that I decided I was going to do when I was like 17 years old in high school. And it certainly wasn't the thing that I went to university for. That's not the journey that I went on. So. How I got into career coaching was really as a result of my own career and my own career journey.

So I actually spent the first six years of my career working in the corporate environment first in marketing, and then in the publishing industry. And. During that six year period, I really struggled to find work. That was a good fit. I bounced from job to job, to job, and just couldn't find anything that felt like I thought a career should be, you know, I was young.

I had just come out of university and I had this ideal of what I thought a career should look and feel like. And at minimum, I thought I should be getting up every day and feeling excited about the work I was doing and being engaged with what I was doing, but I just didn't, and it didn't matter what job I was doing or where I was going.

I just never felt that way. And it took me that entire six year period of time to realize that it wasn't. Just the jobs or the companies I was working for that weren't the right fit for me. But it was where I was doing this work, This office environment, this nine to five desk job life that I was getting up and going to every day.

And I couldn't, I couldn't understand why everybody else around me seemed totally cool with this. Like all of my coworkers seem perfectly content and I was this outlier. I was the one who wasn't normal for, for questioning like. Are we really just going to do this for like the next 40 to 50 years of our lives?

Like it was flabbergasting, this is flabbergasting to me. I could not comprehend how that was, how that was just, you know, people were just okay with that when I really, really wasn't. so that's when I decided when I finally came to that realization that, just the corporate life wasn't for me was when I decided I'm going to go out on my own and do something.

And at that time. I was going to pursue freelance writing. And I also had a blog that I had started on the side about a year before that to actually encourage people to pursue creative professions. And I was sharing all these stories from my career journey and trying to encourage people to. go for their dreams.

And so I finally did I quit the corporate thing to do the freelance writing and continue with this blogging thing. And when I was on my way out of the corporate world saying goodbye to my coworkers, telling them what it was I was going to be doing next, they were like, oh my God, that's so great.

Rachel, I'm so happy for you. Can you help me get out of here too? And I was like, what, like completely taken aback. Right? 

Emily: [00:05:26] You hated it here too.

Rachel: [00:05:28] Exactly. Exactly. I was so just floored because I had spent so many years thinking I was the only one that there must be something wrong with me for not being happy with a normal job when turns out.

A whole lot of other people I was working with had been just as unhappy with this corporate life and they want it out too. So that's really when the seed of career coaching was really born into me. And I knew when I was going to set out to do this work that I wanted the focus to be on helping people get out of cubicles to pursue unconventional work, because there are, there's a dime, a dozen coaching programs out there.

That'll help you go from desktop to desk job, but. There are no coaching programs out there to help you, if you don't want to keep doing desk jobs. So that's what I wrote. That was the, that was the pocket in the market. The niche that I really wanted to fill was I want to help people get out of this corporate thing like I did.

So that's how I became a career coach for rebels. And I built this coaching program called cubicle Renegade. And now I get to, I mean, I spend every day for the last four years and counting, helping people to get out of their cubicles and pursue. Unconventional work that's on their own terms, a career that they've created for themselves. 

Emily: [00:06:39] That's amazing. And I wish that I had come across you three years ago, four years ago, give or take when I was leaving my job.  Story the entire path is like, so similar to mine, like the bouncing around the feeling like, why are people okay with this? This is the worst thing ever of all time. So I really connect with this.

This is so great. And also like the expectations of like what a great career should look like. Like when I thought about. Oh, I'm a career person and I'm like, I'm getting into taxis and out of taxis, nowhere business suits. And I feel fulfilled. That was my vision. And I'm like, why is this? Why is this that has nothing to do with work?

It's just me getting in and out of taxis. I don't know what that vision is about, but like, obviously it does not get you anywhere. And something you brought up that I want to kind of define for the listeners too. What would you define as an unconventional, like unconventional work? What does that entail?

Rachel: [00:07:41] that word I've discovered has it really does mean something different to every person that I talked to and every person that I work with, but generally there are like three categories. Of work that fall under that umbrella that most people tend to pursue. So self-employment is the big one. A lot of my clients will end up pursuing self-employment in some capacity and then gig work is the other career path.

So that's when you're pursuing more than one kind of work that collectively makeup. Full-time hours and a full-time income and the difference with like the gig work. Some people start out that way cause they'll have like their full-time job and then they'll have a side gig and then the side gig eventually grows into the thing.

But for some people intentionally having like three things on the go at any given time. Is how they thrive. They love having that variety. So gig work is, is kind of a booming category as people realize, oh, I don't have to just do one thing. And one thing only as my work, I can do all of the things that I want to as my work.

And then the last category, which has grown tremendously over the last year and a bit is remote work where You're either working for an organization, you just get to do it from home or wherever you want to maybe travel the world while you're doing it, obviously in non COVID times. But also just working in environments that are not office related.

So I, I use that remote work term broadly to, also describe things like people who work outside during the day, like people who work for like, Con like conservation areas and things like that. Like they're working but re remotely. They're not, they're not at a desk every day. In fact, they might not even have a desk that they can go back to at any time.

Like, all they do is work out there in the world. So unconventional really is a personal word and it, it can take on a definition, a different definition for every single person, but generally, most people that I work with, what they end up doing falls into one of those three categories. 

Emily: [00:09:38] That's really neat. What kind of creative roles do they pursue for themselves? Because I'm guessing you don't work with a lot of accountants. So what are some of the like specific creative careers that you find most of your clients have?

Rachel: [00:09:52] are a lot of people. I work with a lot of people and I think because of the blog and how I started and how I got into the line of work, I do work with a lot of creatives. So I work with a lot of people who want to go into freelancing or creating art. I don't, I don't even know if there's a term for this yet, but like, the, the artists that you see on Instagram that like write those cute little quotes that you like, but they also have?

like book deals where they create those quotes and they get to paint murals and things like that.

So they're a working artist, but in uh, the 21st century definition of that, I work with a lot of people who want to go down that road. And oftentimes freelancing is like the gateway to getting into that where they're just sort of developing that confidence to go out in the world and. Do their art and get paid for it.

And then they will eventually grow into the artist that creates murals and merchandise and things like that. But I also work with a lot of people who want to go into helping professions. So that might be coaches that coaches like the umbrella term that a lot of these different things fall into.

But a lot of people, what I find is when they come to me and they wanna, they want to work together. The big thing, the theme among a lot of the answers that I hear is that people feel unfulfilled. They feel like their work doesn't have meaning they want to do something to make a difference in the world.

And. For a lot of people, the way that they want to do that is by directly helping other people. So I help people get into like working in the nonprofit sector or people who end up doing coaching of some capacity, just depending on what their personal interest in passions are. But it's generally some kind of helping profession or some kind of artistic creative profession would probably be like the two.

Big areas that I help people generally get into. 

Emily: [00:11:41] that's super cool. That's like me in a nutshell, all the things, all of the fun things. I know a lot of listeners too are like, Like they have businesses, they are content creators. And they're like, how are some other ways to feel fulfilled? Well, guess what? We got an answer for you right here. Go talk to Rachel, because she's going to help you figure that out.

If you need help figuring that out. That's super cool. Okay. I feel like I had a question and then I lost it and that's, you know, that happens from time to time. So whatever, I think I'll just, I'll move. I'm gonna move on to the next question that I have for you, because I'm really curious to know. What is your creative superpower or perhaps it's plural.

Maybe you have many superpowers. I'm assuming you probably do.

Rachel: [00:12:22] I think that the superpower that I would probably identify with most or the way that my creativity best expresses itself has always been through writing. that's been my thing for. I dunno guess going on about 20 years now that I really found and like leaned into writing as the thing that I love doing, but I will preface that by saying that I didn't always see writing as creative.

I didn't own that as a creative superpower for a long time, because I had this misconception about the fact that I associated with the word creative with art. 

Emily: [00:13:00] right.

Rachel: [00:13:01] so, because I didn't see writing as art because I, I interpreted art as being like visual art or music or something like that, that I didn't consider myself to be creative for quite a long time in my life, until I realized, creativity Is a term to describe function that happens in the brain.

But art is one of the ways is one of the avenues that people tend to express that creativity. So my creativity best expresses itself through writing always 

Emily: [00:13:30] that's really, And I was talking to another client of mine too, who. She's always debating me. Like, she's always saying I'm not a creative person. I'm not a creative and, and this isn't like a thing and I'm like, okay, everybody's creative. You just have to figure out what it is.

And so finally we got on the topic of her writing and she writes lots of different articles and columns and different things. And she's got a podcast as well. And I'm like, how do you not see yourself as a creator? You are creating things. You're putting it in the world. These are your thoughts. And it's just like, The act of making a thing is creative in and of itself.

And I feel like also with writing, there's kind of that, like there's creative writing. Like there are creative writing classes, quote unquote, and then there's like persuasive writing classes. And that can kind of get you in like a, a head space where like it's one or the other. And it causes that duality like, well, I'm not actually a creative person, but like, but you are persuasive.

Writing is definitely creative.

Rachel: [00:14:28] exactly. And you know, what's interesting is that when I, when I first started coaching, I actually called myself a creative career coach because my blog was all about helping people pursue creative work and. I ran into that all the time. That same thing that you are experiencing with the client is I would introduce myself to people and I say, Hey, this is what I do.

And they'd be like, that's incredible. I'm just, I'm so not a creative person. And I kept coming up against this wall of people saying, I'm not creative. I'm not creative. When, like you said, everybody is creative. It's just a biological functioning of being a human being. You can't not be creative.

but. It was, it's hard to convince people when we've been told for so many years of your life to rewire the way that you think about creativity.

even for myself, it took me a long time to rewire that in my brain and like own my creativity and step into it and say, I do have a lot of creativity and even just. Having that kind of mantra helps it to just flow so much more freely in just a multitude of ways that you can't imagine.

But as long as you have that barrier up, where you say I'm not creative, it's pretty hard for creativity to express itself when you're just kind of hell bent and determined on making sure it doesn't. 

Emily: [00:15:39] Yeah, exactly. There's also that like, that thing where people are like, are you left-brained or right brain, and one is creative and one is logical and I'm like, you've got two halves of your brain, unless you don't possibly, 

Rachel: [00:15:52] It's also like, like from an anatomy perspective, it makes it. Absolutely no sense like your creativity doesn't live in one side of your brain or the other, like that's not how the brain is actually functioning. So we latched onto these things that sort of support this belief that we have, that we're not creative.

And then, you know,

it's hard to flip that around in your mind, but incredible opportunities will open up once you step into that. And once you accept and, and proudly state that you are creative. 

Emily: [00:16:20] heck yeah, I'm going to proudly state that right now. I am a creative and if you're listening do with me, I am a creative. This is fun. I like this activity. This is a really great lead into my next question too, which is how do you help your clients to tap into their creativity and earn money from it? So like, if they're feeling this block, they're feeling like, oh, maybe I could, maybe I couldn't, it's always been a dream of mine to like, have some sort of a creative career in some capacity.

In, in many of the different ways that you described specifically the multi-passionate one, I'm a big fan of that one, all the different. Things all the time. How do you help people to kind of move through that and tap into their creativity and understand that they can make money at it? Like they can make a living at it.

Rachel: [00:17:03] my program really centers around self discovery, which I. Often describe as like the foundation on which you build the house that is your career. It's pretty hard. Although, you know, many, many people do it to have a career without knowing who you are. So self discovery is like the first step in that process.

Cause you might have some kind of inkling or gut feeling that you really want to pursue something creative. But for a lot of people, they just don't know what that would look like or what that could be for themselves. They just have this inner knowing. That that's something that they want to do. And that's the situation I was in many years ago now it was like, I knew I wanted to do something different and outside of cubicle, I just didn't know what it could be.

And so that's where the self discovery piece comes in and just really getting to know yourself and like, what do you do? Well, what do you love? What are your talents? And your gifts like lean into those things. Through the process of working together. We also do a lot of dispelling of those myths that we've been talking about, about what creativity is, so that they can start seeing the value that their creativity has to offer them.

Because what I find a lot of people will do is they'll do an activity like a strengths activity, and they give me on their list of strengths. They give me like all the super, like corporate-y businessy things. Right.  and then I'll be like, okay, what do you do for fun? And they'll be like, oh, well, I knit and I just happen to write music and I really into like acrylic painting.

And so people have a lot of people have taken their creativity and they've pushed it off to the side as just a hobby. It's just a thing that I do when I've got a few spare minutes. the self discovery piece really helps them to step into and see the value of that activity as being more than just a hobby and.

Part of that is as I challenged them to look out in the world and find people who are doing that kind of work for a living, because once you can see that there are people who are out there doing the thing that you think you want to do and doing very well at doing that thing that you think you want to do, it feels legitimate.

Now it feels like a real path. It feels like something that you could actually, path you could actually walk down yourself because somebody else is already doing it. And then. Once they see that, then it's really about tuning into like their life and how they want to create their career around their lifestyle.

And what's important to them so that they can do this work that they really want to do, make good money from it, but also still maintain these other elements of their life that they really enjoy and love because a lot of people, I think, have this fear that, If they monetize their creativity, that it will become like this painful thing, because we have this association with work being hard and like, it's gotta be hard and it's gotta be, you've got to suffer through it.

Right. And so people have this fear about, turning the things that they love and they're creative. And they're passionate about into income streams because they are worried that they're gonna make it into this, Demonic kind of thing. it's really about rewriting a lot of those stories challenging a lot of those belief systems so that people can not only tap into the creativity that already exists within them, to take ownership of that and see the value in it so that they can go out in the world and say, this is what I have to offer, because if you're going to go out and do that thing and monetize it, you have to be confident enough.

To say, this is what I'm selling. This is what I can offer. And it takes some time to, to work through it, to build up that confidence. 

Emily: [00:20:26] Well, I really like what you said about finding people in the world that are already doing the thing that is super powerful. I do a lot of comedy. I do sketch comedy and I do a lot of music and I don't look up to, or I didn't previously look up to musicians and comedians that were like, attainable, I guess, if you want to call it that attainable people.

But then I started, I went to second city, do you know, second city and Toronto. So I went there and started studying sketch comedy and improv comedy. And all of the teachers are performing on the main stage as well. And so I started interacting with these people and I was like, oh, like, I could actually get there.

If I wanted to , it does make it Really attainable, which is awesome.  I really like that. I think that's, that's a super awesome way to look at it that I never really thought about. Like, if your ideal people are so famous that only a very small percentage of people ever actually accomplish that. Of course, it's going to feel overwhelming and daunting and like, you can never actually do it.

But when you look at people who are like, your next door neighbors who are performing around town, that's so much more attainable. I love that. That's really 

Rachel: [00:21:37] And have, like, you made a really great point there, Emily, because it's important to have. examples of what you want to do that are within reach that are not so far away from being possible, that you don't see yourself as being able to get there. But I also challenged people to have kind of like.

a staircase where it's like the first step is like the people that you, you know, or, you know, through somebody or you see, like you said, your teachers that you were on stage with at second city, like that feels attainable. You can see that person, you can see them doing the thing that you want to do.

But then like have step two where it's like, it's a little bit farther. It's a little bit more of a stretch and then have step three, right. Be the, the person who's painting murals on the side of, giant. Corporate Buildings. and stuff like that. Right. And they're getting paid a very healthy sum of money to be able to do that.

Right. Like that might feel unattainable to you from where you're at this present moment. But that doesn't mean you can't get there. That person didn't get there overnight. And so if you make that an expectation for yourself, you'll never start because you'll just be like, well, there's no way I'm going to get there, but that person didn't get there that way either.

So it's important to have like, Those different steps or those checkpoints along the way to be like, okay, I've made it to this point now, what are my examples for the next leg of this journey? Who can I, who can I model myself after for this next leg of my journey? And like you said, at some point along that journey, you might be like, okay, I like it here.

I like it where I am. This feels good for me. Or you might want to keep going and pushing forward to that next level, but that's entirely within your control. And this is where the creating of your own career really comes in is you're the one who's responsible for that. And you get to say, this feels good.

I want to stop here. And I want to really enjoy this. There's nobody that's like pushing you along. There's no corporate ladder. You need to climb. There's no one responsible for your development and pushing you along. Like you're doing that for you. And so it's a really empowering place to be in to say, I like this, this feels good.

I want to keep going. 

Emily: [00:23:31] Yeah. pulling on that, that corporate path that you kind of just described, like there's predetermined job descriptions that you feel like you have to get towards. But the opportunity to create your own new job descriptions. How cool is that? That's so awesome. I love this. This is my favorite conversation today.

This is so fun. What are some of the other barriers that people come up against? Like aside from like, I know for me, like, it was just getting started, like getting the heck out the door and feeling confident enough, but what do you think the other barriers are? Or the biggest one for people to take the leap?

Rachel: [00:24:08] the one I hear over and over and over and over again is money. People don't know how they can make money from this thing that they want to do. And it's interesting because. Everyone who comes to me, says I have no idea what I want to do with my life, but I've been doing this long enough. Now that I've noticed that in almost every case, people already know what they want to do.

They're just afraid to say that that's what they want. And they're, they're seeking a permission slip. And one of the elements of that permission slip is like, How they're going to turn that into a career, how they're going to make it something legit, so to speak right by societal terms. And so the big thing for a lot of people is money.

Like money equals legitimacy, money equals success.  But once they do the activity where they they're looking for examples. And then also like, as part of the program that I help people work through, they also talk to people. They do field research and talk to people who are doing the kind of work that they think they want to do.

So now they know that the money thing. Isn't the big deal that they thought it was going to be, because look at all these other people that they've talked to who are out there making money from that thing. So once the money barrier starts to come down, what I've discovered is that underneath that money barrier is a fear of failure. 

Emily: [00:25:28] Hmm.

Rachel: [00:25:29] that money barrier is actually rooted in failure. This fear of failure and. That's a hard one. I mean, we've all got it. Right. We've all got some kind of fear of failure. It's wired into us, but with any kind of creative profession, especially every profession in general, but with creative professions, especially failure is part of the process.

Failure is how you hone in on your greatness. That's how you become the best at what you can be. And so barrier that fear of failure is what stops a lot of people from going out and doing what they really, really want to do. But it's important to remember that failure is part of the journey.

And so almost, every entrepreneur will say it. Like you just got to fail fast and fail forward. You just cut out, fail and keep moving, fail and keep moving because it won't. Stop you and it shouldn't stop you. The only thing that's gonna stop you is you, like, you will only fail when you say I'm done.

I mean, I read lots of books from people who've gone through entrepreneurial journeys and they'll all, they always on the other side of that failure, like, the world opened up for me. I failed, but this happened, I failed, but I met this person and that changed everything. failure is just the gateway to greatness.

Really. 

Emily: [00:26:42] nice. It's a gateway drug failure. I'm high on it right now.

Rachel: [00:26:48] Reframing it that way, like for people to understand that failure, isn't, meant to stop you. It's momentum to keep you going. you develop a different relationship with fear so that it's not this big, scary monster. it's just like gassing up your car so you can keep going on the road trip.

It's like, you need it. You need it to keep going, because if we're all being totally honest, we learned very very little from our successes. We learn almost everything we know from our failures. 

Emily: [00:27:13] Very true. 

Very true. It's like process of elimination too. Right. And it's success via process of elimination. Okay. The thing doesn't work, I will stop doing it. Great. But eventually you get there. And it's like a time thing. And it's hard when you're like, I don't have the patience for this, or you have other commitments in your life that require you to have all of this additional cash for the things like children.

I don't have one yet. I'm going to get one. So let's get out of my weird brain for a minute. And I want to talk about your podcast because you have a new podcast coming out.

I'm very excited about it. Tell us about the career rebel podcast and all the fun things.

Rachel: [00:27:53] I'm so excited. This has been, it's been an idea in the making for a number of years. It's always been something like even way back when I was doing the blog, I always had this vision of interviewing people who were pursuing creative professions. And then eventually that idea sort of evolved into the podcast.

And so now here I am finally, finally getting it up and going. the goal with career rebel is to help. Listeners really start thinking differently about work than they ever have before. Because as we've been talking about today, there's this sort of societal norm of what careers look like. There's a, box of what, what the expectation of that should look like this, the corporate nine to five, the corporate ladder, the C-suite thing.

And that's just. Really one sort of fraction of the job market that exists out in the world. And so career rebel is really there to help listeners really start thinking differently about work than they ever have before and show them what career paths exist beyond the cubicle that they might not know about, because this is what I run into with a lot of people, is that.

They want to do something different, but they just don't know what it could be. They don't know what exists beyond the cubicle, because that's all they've ever been trained to know, and to look for is careers that exist within a cubicle. So I'm going to meet talking to and interviewing a lot of people who are pursuing unconventional work so that people can start to see what does an unconventional career look like?

What could it look like and showcase those people's journeys so that. Other people can see just like we were talking about before, how it's possible for them to do it too, that these people are just, you know, they're the people who have businesses downtown in, in the town that you live in. And the city that you live in, these are just average people doing amazing things with their lives because that's the path that they've chosen.

So that is going to be. Part of the podcast will be those interviews. And then I'm also in my solo episodes going to be doing a lot of like myth-busting and like breaking down a lot of these like barriers and these misconceptions about what it is that work is supposed to be, you know, quote unquote, supposed to be in societal standards and help it take on a new life form for people so that they can see.

Just what unique paths exist and what kind of career that they could create for themselves on their terms. 

Emily: [00:30:18] that's so cool. I want to listen to it.  I will drop a link to that in the show notes here. And I think we're, this episode is going to come out right around that same time. So if you're listening to this now, head on over to the other feed that I am dropping in the show notes and listened to the career rebel podcast.

As soon as you're done here and make sure you subscribe to it because it's going to be so good. Rachel, this has been awesome. I want to get your final thoughts here. What is one thing? That you think someone considering taking the leap out of the cubicle should do today to get started?

Rachel: [00:30:51] well, if you're someone who knows. Already knows what it is that you want to do. If you're pretty clear on the direction that you think you want to go in, then, I mean, you said it earlier, I'm only, but you got it. Just got to get started. You just got to put yourself out there and it's scary. It's so scary.

I remember when I first put myself out there as a career coach years ago now, and I was working with a coach at the time and I was in a session with her and she was like, listen, you're going to write. Post about this right now on social media. And I'm going to sit with you here and I'm going to wait until you hit post.

And because she knew I wouldn't have done it otherwise. So it's really just about getting started. And if you need somebody to be that person for you, the way that that coach was for me, talk to a trusted friend or family member and say, listen, like I need your support. I need you to help. Kind of nudge me out of the nest and encourage me to put myself out there and share what I have because sharing is this is the scariest part, telling people what you're doing, or if you are a visual artist of some kind sharing what it is you're doing, or musician like putting that out there for the first time.

It's so scary. But on the other side of doing that is. Just possibilities that you can't comprehend from where you are right now. Like that vulnerability to share what it is that you have to offer is the scariest part. But it's the first step to, to building the connections that will then become your clients or your customers.

You've got it. You've got to take that first step. Nobody is going to know what you have to offer. If you only ever keep it for yourself. So you've got to put it out there, but if you're someone who has no idea what you want to do, if you're still in that totally unsure, stuck phase where you're just like, I know this corporate thing, isn't it.

But I don't know what it is that I want to do next self-discovery is the key, like I said earlier, it's the foundation on which you will build what is your career? So self discovery is really key and there are tons of self discovery books out there that you can do tons of workshops. You can reach out to me.

We can work through that together. and it's a really fun process. Like it is the most enjoyable process. Every client that I worked with says that's their favorite part of the program because that's when they really step into who they are. if you don't know what it is that you want to do, then take the time to do that self discovery, because it can be really easy to sort of latch on to what's popular and what you see out there in the world.

But building your own career takes a tremendous amount of effort over a long period of time. So you have to be two feet in fully committed and just fired up with passion for that thing that you're doing. So make sure you take the time to really get clear on what that thing is for you or things.

If you're a multi-passionate person, get clear on what those things are for you that really light you up and you want to create a career around. So that three, four, five years down the line, you still wake up excited every morning for the work that you get to do. 

Emily: [00:33:51] absolutely. Oh, like my partner, Justin, who just walked in and out of here in the middle of recording and now is doing paper cutting, but he's passionate about what he's working on in his creative career. So I guess I can't say to anything. Oh, Justin, this has been so good. So look, I know people are going to be listening and they're gonna be like, oh my gosh, I need to do this.

How do I talk to Rachel? How do people find you?

Rachel: [00:34:14] well, they can head to my website. It's Rachel pray.com. Or you can just come and hang with me on Instagram at Rachel Dupre. If you just want to get comfortable with the idea of creative career and what it could look like and owning your inner rebel hang with me on Instagram, or you can check out my website to learn more about me and more about the cubicle Renegade program. 

Emily: [00:34:34] The cubicle ran gay. I love the titles of all your things. It's really cool. This has been awesome. Thank you so much. You filled me with inspiration. I'm not currently in a cubicle, but if I was, I'd be like shooting right out of it right now. That's so fun. Thank you. I really appreciate your time. Thank you.

Rachel: [00:34:53] Thank you so much for having me, Emily. This has been just wonderful. I love it.