EP 93: The Art of Pivoting (Personally & Professionally) with Stephanie Ritz | Pt 1

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Before we start today's episode, I want to give you a heads up that this is a two-parter. Tune into part one today, then come back next week for part two. Enjoy. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the Think Happy Podcast. The 93, episode 93 of the Think Happy Podcast is specifically what I'm welcoming you to right now. And I'm excited. 93 is a big number you all. 93 is a big number and it makes me so happy. Thank you for being here. Thank you for giving me time and space in your life, in your ears, in your car, driving to wherever you're driving. Maybe you're in your kitchen or your living room, folding laundry or whatever you're doing. Maybe you're taking a walk. Maybe you're, I don't know, just taking a break and needing something to do that doesn't require a lot of your brain power. No matter what you're doing when you're listening to this right now, just thank you so much. 93, I'm really excited. 100 is going to be here before we know it. I feel like I've been talking about that for like three or four episodes now. But anyway, if you're listening to this on the day that it's airing, it's a Wednesday. And I hope your Wednesday is off to a great start. If you're listening to this any other day of the week, I still hope your day is going great.

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I hope your week's going great. I hope your month is going great. The Cuevas family, gosh, we are gearing up for some schedule/routine changes right now. So come October, James will be going to Mother's Day out three days a week, which means we will not be spending as much time with his beloved sitter who she is just the best. I am going to miss her so darn much. Truthfully, I think I feel attached to her. I really feel like she has become just part of our family. And on top of that, both Eleanor and James love her so much. It's going to be a big change. And I know that she'll still be around. I know she'll still hang out with us. I know she'll still help me with the kids. But just like I just said, it's going to be a change. It's going to be a big adjustment. But as I say that, I'm sitting here thinking... So I do believe that more times than not, the hardest part of change is what I'll call, I guess, the pre-change, aka. So just thinking about the change and dreading it before it actually happens.

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But then often the change isn't as bad or as difficult or as tough as we build it up to be during the pre-change season. So I guess I have that going for me. And I mean, with this change will be coming a new season for the Cuevas family. Of James being in Mother's Day out, he'll be a big one year old. You guys, I'm feeling a lot of feelings right now. So he'll be at Mother's Day out three days a week. Eleanor will be there five days a week. Wow, my babies are getting older. So with him being at Mother's Day out three days a week without having a sitter with him here at home, that means I'll be working on adjusting my work schedule to fit with the kid's new schedule. And yeah, just lots of schedule, routine, changes will be coming. And I'm here for it. I'm here for it. It'll be an exciting new time. So speaking of work schedules, speaking of Think Happy, I do want to tell you that the waitlist for Think Happy's newest program, which is geared 100 % to moms, is open. And that newest program is called Mom Life.

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So I am sitting here calling all mamas who have a never ending to-do list longer than the roll of toilet paper your toddler pulled out. Calling on mamas who want some simple routines more badly than your kiddo wants just one more sip of water before bed. Calling all mamas who feel like her cup is totally empty, like as empty as the snack bowl that just got spilled all over the sofa. The Mom Life program focuses on time and task management for moms and building sustainable routines for moms and families. And of course, it focuses on keeping mom's cup full, all right? So join the No-String- Attached-Waitlist for a couple of waitist perks. The first perk is first DIBs on a spot and early bird pricing. Second perk is a bonus one-on-one kickoff call just between you and me. And the third perk is to be entered to win a free private coaching package. So to get on the waitlist, go to thinkhappyco.com/mom-life-waitlist. Thinkhappyco.com/mom-life-waitlist. Okay, with that being said, let's get to today's episode. Today, I am joined by Stephanie Ritz, a business coach who travels the world full-time. And we will be talking about pivoting.

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So yes, before we get to pivoting, you heard me right. She travels the world full-time. I mean, talk about how cool. Anyway, back to pivoting. The Think Happy community specifically asked for an episode about pivoting. So I had to deliver for you guys. Let me introduce you to Stephanie. She is a business mindset coach and a full-time traveler who helps aspiring coaches and consultants to start and grow their business alongside their nine to 5:00 so they can hand in their notice with confidence and with a profitable and sustainable business. Her experiences in entrepreneurship, corporate leadership and mentoring roles serve as the foundation for her consulting and coaching program. Starting as a teen mom, Stephanie put herself through college. She started two successful businesses and quickly rose to leadership positions in multiple corporate roles. Drawing on her success in the sales, banking, business operations and coaching industries, Stephanie now works with corporate professionals to tap into and build on their strengths, skills and intuition to start and grow their own coaching or consulting business. Now, it is honestly so my pleasure to let you dive into part one of my conversation with Stephanie. Enjoy.

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All right, Stephanie, welcome to the show. I am so happy to have you here. Before we dive in with our conversation, and let's start. Just tell us a little bit about you.

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About how you're literally traveling the world full-time, and your business that supports you and all of this travel.

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Yes, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. My name is Stephanie Ritz. I am a business strategist, mindset coach, and a full-time digital nomad. I travel the world with a business that I love helping people start and grow their own coaching or consulting businesses alongside their nine to five so that they can hand in their notice with confidence with a profitable and sustainable business. Currently, I am in Budapest, and I'm here for one more week before I head to Ireland for a month.

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Amazing. And so I think you told me this last time we were talking, you usually stay someplace for about four weeks at a time, is that right?

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Yeah, that gives me the perfect amount of time to settle in, experience the location, run my business without feeling rushed. It's just like the perfect amount of time.

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Oh, my gosh. Okay. I have a couple of follow-up questions about this because this lifestyle intrigues me. So when you first started this digital nomad life, were you always going four weeks at a time or did you settle into that later on?

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So when I started, I was actually in a full-time job, still growing my business, and decided I wanted to make the shift right now. I didn't want to wait to leave my job to start traveling, but I had to stay in the Northeast area of the US because that's where my territory was for work. I actually stayed in Airbnb for a couple of months at a time because I also traveled for my job throughout the territory. So it was like a constant travel life between Airbnb and hotels. I figured out once I was full-time out of my job what the right amount of time was for me after spending a couple of weeks here and a couple of weeks there, I'm like, now I need a little bit more time. And so I've settled into this pattern.

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Oh, my gosh, that is just so amazing. And so let's see here. At the time of this recording, we're almost seven months into the year. What is your... So does that mean you've been to seven places so far or you're leaving your sixth?

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Yeah. So I started the year at home because I have a son, he's a young adult. And so I go home for the holidays and I spend time with family in Pennsylvania, where I'm originally from, Nashville, where my son now lives, and then my parents are in Florida. I actually spent a couple of months bouncing around there before heading to Mexico City for a month and then Buenos Aires for a month. And then I came back home for a little bit before jaunting off to Europe. I have a five-month stint in Europe where I'll be dancing around to different countries. So yeah, it's a little bit different just depending on what my home needs are. Sometimes I need to go home, sometimes I want to go home, but it seems to have the flexibility. Oh, that.

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Is so cool. Okay, one more question about this and I promise then we'll get into our topic. Actually, I guess I have two questions. The first one, have you gone to the same place twice yet or do you always pick a new place?

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So part of this adventure for me is exploring places I've never been to before. So I have yet to repeat a place, but I will be. I'm going to Florence in October, and I just fell in love with Florence. It was the first solo trip I ever did by myself, and so I couldn't wait and couldn't pass up the opportunity to go back. So that'll be my first repeat place of all the places I've been to.

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Oh, my gosh. Florence and I... My husband and I went to Florence not too long after we got married, and we also fell in love with the city. And I am incredibly jealous that you were going back for a second time. Okay, now this time I do promise it is the last question on this topic before we get into the real topic. What is... This is a loaded question. What's your favorite place that you've been so far?

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Everybody asks me that. It's such a hard question to answer because every place to me is just so magical because it's new. It's something I've never experienced before. And I'm going to say every place except for one that I've been to. I have just absolutely loved for different reasons. And so I think every place is special and unique because of the experience that you make it to be, which I think is just so much a part of this conversation around pivoting today. But yeah, I really have loved everywhere. It's so hard to say. But the fact that I'm going back to Italy and it's the one place that I'm going back to, I think speaks volumes to my love of that country.

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Oh, absolutely. That's so cool. That is so cool. You teed us up very nicely. Thank you for that. One of my favorite types of episodes to record are ones that listeners have specifically requested. I don't recall if I told you this when we first started chatting, but this is one of those episodes. So today we are here to talk about pivoting. And you have had your fair share of pivots in both your personal and professional life. I cannot wait to dive into them. There's so much about your story that just intrigues me. Well, I guess we have to pick a place to start so that I don't just rapid-fire, ask you questions like I already have been. So let's start with some of your professional pivots. Take us back to 22-year-old, Stephanie, when you were in college. Just start your story there.

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Yeah, would love to. So first I want to say that I was a single teen mom. I had my son very, very young and it was just the two of us. No support financially, emotionally, any of the things, it was just the two of us. But I made the very cognizant decision that I was not going to let this define my future. So I went to college full-time while working multiple part-time jobs, and one of those jobs was a side hustle. I started a little business in direct marketing company, and that was just a fun side of passion that I had, but just another stream of income that I could work nights and weekends around school, mothering, and all my other jobs.

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Oh, my goodness.

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By the time I had gotten to my senior year of college, I thought one of the jobs that I had was working for an insurance brokerage, a pretty large one. And I thought, even though it's not my field of interest, I'm already a foot in the door. I know I could grow in this company. That's what I'll do. And then just a few months before graduation, they shut down our satellite office completely, and I was laid off. And by that point, I was just devastated. I was so close to the finish line. And the only other income I had at that point was my little side hustle. I was getting wrapped up and ready to go into the workforce full-time. So I didn't let go of all the other little side hustles. But at that point, I was like, Okay, I have this little side job. Let me see if I can make something out of it and then just look for full-time work once I graduate because I was so close. That little side hustle ended up becoming the thing that allowed me to be a stay at home mom for the next three years.

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That business just... It absolutely blew up when I put all the time and energy into making it work because I had to. I needed the income. So I put that energy behind it and became an entrepreneur full-time and was able to just get so much more time back with my son that I had missed in that season of hustle while I was in college. Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

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That is amazing. Actually, so before you keep going, because I know there's more to this story. The job that I had lined up right before I was going to be graduating college. I got a call from them the morning of graduation saying that they were not downsizing, but they were already going to be eliminating the job that they had offered me, but they wanted me to keep the job and work alongside a kid who is going to be taking the job just as a summer high school job. And I was like, no. I'm a learner.

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That's terrible. Walking across the stage today, I'm not like, That doesn't work for me. And so I so clearly remember, Stephanie, sitting in the auditorium at graduation, thinking how my parents had set up a graduation party for me afterwards and how all their friends were going to be there and asking me, What do you have planned for after school, Kaitlin? I was just not going to have an answer. I was going to be like, Well, I did have a plan literally until this morning.

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That's so frustrating. It's one of the things I think that a lot of people have experienced when they unexpectedly lose their job. Obviously, a lot of people went through that during COVID and other major points in our history. But when you're blindsided that way, it really gives you an opportunity to see different perspectives and opportunities in a new way. So it's like a shared pain point experience, but one that always has a good lesson or outcome to it, which I think is really important for this conversation on pivoting.

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Yes.

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So I was in that job for three years and I loved it. It brought so much lessons, information, lifestyle opportunity. Right after that time, I moved to a new city and it was 2008 and the market crashed. The housing bubble burst and everything changed economically. And this was in the very old school days of online marketing. Email was a thing, but there was no Facebook marketing, Instagram. Those were not a thing yet. So it was a whole different ball game, marketing a business back in the early 2000s than it is today. And I was just at the point where I was like, I worked so hard to get this college degree. Things have shifted in business, in the economy. I'm in a new city. Maybe I'll try my hand at corporate. And so that was a major pivot, major lifestyle decision. But at that point, my son was in school full-time. And I think what really helped make that feel good for me is this is a choice. I'm not doing it because I lost my job. I'm not doing it because my business was failing, because it wasn't. It was like a cognizant decision of like, This is something that I want to try and can feel exciting for me.

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And so I did. I pivoted into corporate with a very entry level job in banking, which was totally random. It wasn't what I went to school for. I knew nothing about it, but I was actually having a hard time finding a job because of the marketplace at that time. So I just decided, you know what? I'll just give it a shot. I was literally like a customer service bank teller. And I was like, I'm going to make the most out of this opportunity. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know anything about banking, but let's just go for it. And in three years, I was a Vice President of the bank, and the year later, I was a senior VP on the leadership team running the entire branch. And it was because I just was like, you know what? This is not what I expected, but it's what I have, and so I'm going to make the most of it. And it just... Yeah, my career just blew up from there.

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Wow, that is amazing.

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So I spent seven years in banking, and I don't know if people... Most people probably don't know this, but I was in a startup bank, and what often happens with startup banks is the intention is for them to merge or get bought out by a larger bank. And that's generally the case. And when that happens, the senior leadership team is often dismissed because two banks can't have two of the same positions. So that happens. My CEO did bring me to another bank, but it just wasn't quite the same experience that I had. And I was like, I never meant to get into banking. This was accidental. Let's try something else. Because why not? I know banking at this point, it's always something I could go back to, but I didn't love it. So I was like, This is an opportunity. Let's try something else. And so I found a completely random career in business operations for an educational staffing company. Something that I didn't even know existed. But apparently, school districts hire outside services to provide their substitute services. And so yeah, that's a thing. I didn't know that, but it's a very, very big business.

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And.

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Now I was a part of it. And I took the same path. I started with a very middle management level position and I was like, Okay, let's see what we can do with this because I know that I'm capable of more than a middle management position. And I just leaned in and made the right relationships and connections. I learned as much as I could. I worked very hard, which is the pathway in corporate generally is hard work and connections. And I ended up becoming VP of the entire New England region of the United States. And so that was my career for the next seven years. Yeah. So it's really been an interesting journey that led me to where I'm at today, which is a completely huge pivot from corporate.

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Oh, my gosh. This is the part I've beenn excited for. So during this time when I was in these 15 years or so of corporate, I got married and then got divorced. It was a very short-lived marriage. It just was not the right person for me. And so it was after that that I really was like, I've been mothering my whole adult life. My son is now grown. He's left the nest to go to college. I'm going to do something for me, and I'm going to take a trip that I've never been able to take. And that was the trip to Florence, Italy. Actually across Italy. Yes. So that was my post-divorce, post-empty nester opportunity to be like, This is my time. And so I took this trip to Italy and just, oh, I just fell in love with it. So I was like, Wow, I can do this. I can travel alone. I don't need a partner. I can make this happen. And so I planned my next trip and planned to use literally all of my PTO to take a two and a half week trip to South Africa. And I was at JFK, air power, like everything through security, bags on the plane, and then I got the call, turn around, go home because of COVID.

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And so I never got to take that trip and I was devastated. And then, of course, ended up in lockdown with everybody else for the next year. And so that changed everything for me. And I think a lot of people experience this during the lockdown, a period of looking inward and deciding, is my life what I wanted to be? Am I really creating my full potential of happiness? Which is why I love the whole concept of your podcast.

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Oh, thank you.

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Yeah. So I started really thinking, I have had a business before, I think I might start one again. And I started figuring out what am I really passionate about? What could I really do that people need and that they're going to pay me for? And so I created a business plan and I just decided, you know what? I'm going to launch this thing. I'm going to stay in my job, but let's see where it goes. I didn't have any intention when I created it to be like, I'm going to leave my job in the next six months next year. I had a great job. I was really good at my job. I didn't love it, but it was getting me by and I did it well. I started my side hustle, and a year later, things had really picked up in my business and I really, really loved it. And I decided to ask my boss if I could relocate to Florida because that was going to be a part of it for me, like finding happiness in a new location, experiencing things differently. And he said no. And I was shocked. I came to him with an entire plan of how I was going to run my territory, how it would work, how I'd been running it remotely for the last year, and I had the most growth of anyone in the company.

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But he still said, No. So I didn't get mad. I created a plan.

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Yes.

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Created a plan, and part of that plan was deciding if I'm really going to create the life I desire, I need to start embodying it now. How can I do that? And so I was traveling all the time for work anyway. My territory was huge. So I thought, My lease is up in a couple of months. I'm not going to renew it. I'm just literally going to sell all of my things and find hotels and Airbnb's all over the Northeast because I'll still be able to do all the same work that I've been doing. But I can now embody this travel life that I actually want to live. And so that's what I did. And making that shift to just deciding, You know what? This is what I want, I'm going to go for it right now, is really what I think accelerated my results in my business, because now I had a very clear intention. I was literally living the reality that I desired. And now I just needed to have all the other boxes checked to really transition out with confidence. So it was one year after that that I quit my job and started traveling full-time internationally with my business.

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Oh, my gosh, Stephanie, what a story. So I guess my follow up question to all of those pivots is, can you walk us through some of your thought process? And you don't have to do it for each of those pivots that you just talked to us about. Can you walk us through your thought process just behind making such big pivots and such really leaps of faith? I just truly admire you so much for having the guts to go back to corporate after leaving and then turning around and leaving again. Can you just walk us through some of your thought processes?

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Yeah. I think the biggest thing for me is what's the worst that could happen. If I'm feeling a polar desire for a change, there's a reason for that, and getting really clear on what my intention is. And I think the reason that a lot of people don't make the pivot or take the action is fear of not being successful or what are people going to think of me? And I think a lot of people experience this in the corporate space. A lot of times when you hear people who become coaches or consultants who had a really successful career, it's because they lost their job or they've gotten fired. And so there's this stigma almost attached to it, like they're doing this because they're not hireable or because something bad happened or something scandalous. But that wasn't the case at all. It was a very intentional decision for me to grow this business alongside my nine to five. And so I had to let go of other people are going to think what they think, and other people are going to be really inspired to do life differently. And so I get to choose how I'm going to perceive that, and if I'm going to assume what other people are thinking about me to guide my own decisions in my life.

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So having a really clear intention on why you want to make the of it, getting really grounded on why that's important to you, and then really considering like, if I fail or if it goes awry, what happens? What is the worst thing that will happen as a result of this? And so for me, it was like, Okay, if I shift into banking and I hate it, then I will get another job doing something else. If I start this business and it fails, I can always get another job or try a different business model. And I've done it in a way that's really responsible for me because I am still the mother of a very young adult who relies on me financially and I don't have a partner to support me. So health, insurance, retirement, all of those things were things I needed to take into account. And so as long as I had a plan for the worst-case scenarios, then this really was very low risk.

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Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of The Think Happy Podcast. I would so appreciate it if you could leave a rating and review. And if you just can't get enough, find me on Instagram @thinkhapp_co that's C-O and online at thinkhappco.com I'll be back in your ears next week with another episode of The Think Happy Podcast.