Creating Powerful Leaders with High-Performance Coach, Julie Hruska
Welcome to another episode of “Dream Job with Danielle Cobo”!
Today, I am blessed to be joined by Julie Hruska.
Julie Hruska is a high performance coach who works with you to uncover the areas where you are not performing at your fullest potential. Then Julie will create a personalized strategic, forward thinking plan to help you perform at your optimal levels in the areas of career, relationships, emotions and health so you can run to the rooftops and shout at the top of your lungs "I LOVE LIFE!!!"
In today's episode, we talk all about overcoming those covid blues, the three pillars to creating a life that you love, what kind of legacy we want to leave behind and much, much more. Tune into today's episode!
“I knew that I was created for more than I was giving to the world" – Julie Hruska
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Highlights
💫 1:36 A little about Julia's career journey
💫 6:43 What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?
💫 8:20 Some advice for those who feel like something is missing in their life
💫 10:25 The three pillars of creating a life you love
💫 15:57 Some advice for dealing with heavy energy
💫 22:00 Three takeaways from today's conversation
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Connect with Featured Guest, Julie Hruska
✳️ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-hruska-067414188/
✳️ Website: https://www.powerfulleaders.com
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Creating a Life You Love
What I came to understand for myself is that you need three things to create a life you love. You need clarity, you need courage, and you need consistency. And so through that path, I now help people examine the areas of their career relationships, health, and finance. To determine where they're functioning at their optimal levels and where they're not.
That is such great advice as to the three characteristics that you really need to have a high-performance life. And I acknowledge you for looking deep down inside your heart and saying, what do I want from my life? And how do I get to be the best mom in supporting my kids? And acknowledging that because that was a risk to take to leave what you had been doing and do something completely new. And it's also a risk when you give up your benefits, when you do all of that the entrepreneurial journey was never one I really wanted to take. But it's one that I kind of needed to take to be the person I needed to be for my family, but also for myself because I knew I was created for more than I was giving to the world.
I can relate to that in so many different ways. I pushed back on being an entrepreneur for a long time, I had that safety net of being in corporate America for 15 years, and to leave the company car, the salary, the company, you know, the bonuses and benefits, all those things, it's a big risk to take. And you really narrowed it down into if you have clarity on what you want to do in life, and if you're courageous, and you take that step, you get to create extraordinary things in your life.
Absolutely. And that's what's so amazing, that clarity is the foundational element. You have to have a vision of the life you desire. And then you also have to look at it from the other angle at the end of your life. What do you want to look back and have as your legacy?
Yes, because that is, you know, it's so important to think of, especially as moms when we are raising the future leaders of the world – what kind of legacy do we want to leave based on the impact that we make on others, as well as our kids? And so I'm glad you really talked about legacy. So tell us really a little bit about the clients that you typically work with. Is there a common thread that you hear from them as to some of the challenges that they're experiencing in their life?
The Missing Link to Success
Yeah, a lot of my clients come to me because on paper, they have everything they should want. Right? A lot of them have a great careers, things are going well. They have a great family. They're just they're doing what we think of as living the American dream, but something's missing. And so what we do is we dive into the areas of career, relationships, health, and finance, to determine what's missing. What's, you know, that piece of the puzzle that if we get it, everything will be the way they want it to be?
And is there anything specifically where you're saying, Okay, what I guess what I would ask is, is common thread your, you know, you're kind of digging into, like, what's that missing link? So what would you what advice would you give to somebody where they're saying, Gosh, I had a successful career? And I think COVID really brought this to the forefront for a lot of people where they're saying, all of a sudden, they've been career career career, and then they take a step back, everything's shut down their home, and they're going, am I really happy? Is this really what I want to be doing? Or they're happy in their career, but again, something's missing. What advice would you give to anybody who's out there right now, listening and can relate to that?
You know, it's important to take stock of the life that you want, it starts with the vision, like, what is it I really want in my career? What are the types of relationships I want in my life? And it’s the relationship I have with my significant other, my friends, my acquaintances, you know, the people, my colleagues that work with me, looking at relationships in that realm. I think that's what a lot of people had to do during the pandemic is look at how healthy are their relationships. Now I am either alone in lockdown, or I'm with someone that I barely know because I've been so focused on my career, I've been so focused on my children. And so there's a lot to go into relationships, almost always I get hired because people feel like they're hitting a plateau or they're stagnating in their career. And it almost always ends up in relationships because without strong relationships, whether they're intimate relationships, or supportive friendships, without those, it's really hard to have a life that you love.
I mean, relationships can be so instrumental in our life and our happiness and you know, oftentimes what I find with relationships is in order to have a really deep connection with people, the core of it is vulnerability. And are we being vulnerable with each other and really opening our hearts to having these deep connections?
And that's, that's a really tough one. That's where courage comes in. We talked about clarity, courage, and consistency, being the three pillars of creating a life you love. And courage, whether it's in a career, like going for your ideal dream job, or whether it's in relationships to like, open your heart and be vulnerable to someone, it goes to the depth of being courageous. And are there limiting beliefs that hold you back, that prevent you from living the life that you love, from having the career from having the relationships, from having the financial abundance that you were meant to have?
The Importance of Vulnerability and Authenticity in Creating a Life You Love
I'm so glad that you mentioned limiting beliefs, because that's, again, another area where I can really relate to. The pandemic opens my eyes to some areas where there are opportunities to add performance to my life and relationships. And it goes back to what you said, with relationships. I kept hearing most of my life, you're guarded, you're unauthentic. And it wasn't until the pandemic hit. And I really took inventory of my life and said, I don't want to be called on authentic anymore. I thought that by me sharing my story of, you know, my upbringing with a mom with bipolar disorder, and all these challenges I've ever thought I thought that I was being authentic. What I come to find out is, that vulnerability is really allowing yourself to let the guard down – the defenses that we've put up throughout our life to guard our hearts. When you start to let those down and you really start being unapologetically you, you don't fear judgment. And you really show up as just you – the good and the imperfections.
In fact, you just talked about how you posted a very, very interesting video on LinkedIn. And I'll let you explain a little bit more of that. But when you're truly just yourself, your connections are deeper on a much deeper, deeper level. And when you stop caring what other people say about you and you stop fearing judgment, you get to be happy with yourself, you get to live and create the life that you desire.
Absolutely. You know it's really a fine line. And I think women struggle the most because we're told if we're too emotional, right, then we're not going to be successful in a male-dominated business setting. And then if we are more alpha in our energy, then people will say we're inauthentic, and in the end, you have to block out all of it. It's not about what people say you are, and their perceptions of you. It's about who you are. And if you're true to yourself, and you own who you are, without apology, you'll attract the right people into your life. That was a big learning point. For me, that goes back to being courageous again, and knowing in your heart who you are, regardless of people, because there's always going to be someone out there that looks at you and judges you. Unfortunately, I wish it wasn't that way. But it is.
Yeah, you nailed it on the head. I know that when I was in my former job, it got to the point where the company had focused so much on development that it created some of these insecurities; I lost confidence over time, and I started to listen so much about what other people thought of me. And that judgment, that I lost confidence in myself. And when I finally gained that confidence back and really truly understood my power, and I believed in myself, other people started to believe in me as well. And I would invite anybody to really take inventory of whether you are allowing people's judgments to take over your confidence. And if that's the case, reevaluate that and really see who are you listening to? Is it somebody that you trust? Is it somebody that you value and respect? Or are you just listening to the clatter out there that really doesn't matter?
Yeah, and it is, it is the noise. It's all around. When I shifted focus and in-person networking went away for the pandemic and I started living on LinkedIn, I started making videos as my mentor did. And he always introduced himself at the beginning. And so I would introduce myself, and then I would finally get to the point of the video, and it felt inauthentic to me. I was trying to emulate him. And I know when we get stuck, that's okay. But like when I got rid of that, and when I was like, no, what's authentic to you? What do you have to share with the world? That's when my following started to take off. And I really started to connect with my audience because I was owning who I was, I wasn't trying to be someone else. I wasn't trying to fit into a box. I was like, this is me. This is what I have to say, here we go world, let's go.
Making an Impact and Leaving a Legacy
So tell us a little bit about this video you posted. Because it definitely, I would say caught my attention. I stopped scrolling and started reading a little bit more. And I was like, wow, this is a unique one for LinkedIn. And I loved it.
Yeah, you know, today, in life right now, where people are getting freaked out about COVID. Again, you know, it's like this second wave, the masks are coming back, the people that we're talking about going back to the office are pulling back, all of the networking events that we're starting to reawaken are getting closed down again. And there's a lot of heavy energy. Meanwhile, COVID is affecting people's lives, people are passing away. I have friends that I know who have friends who have committed suicide, there's so much heaviness going on. And there are some things in my own life that are going on, related to my former husband and funding my daughter's college, just things that were feeling really heavy. And I was in the shower, trying to get ready for the day trying to pump myself up, give myself that inner pep talk before I made my videos for LinkedIn for the week. And it just kept coming back to me like, gosh, there's so much heaviness, it just kept coming back and coming back. And it's like if I'm feeling this right now, and I have all the tools, I have a powerful mindset and overcome any obstacle that gets in my way. What is the normal person out there going through? Like, what are they experiencing right now?
Because we started to get our hopes back up. And now it's starting to crash again. And so I realized that I needed to share from my heart completely vulnerable. I got out of the shower, I started getting ready thinking I was going to take this message, come into my office, and film it. And then I found the motivation to start, but I started second-guessing. Can I be that raw? Can I be that vulnerable? Can I really share my struggles? Are people gonna say, but you're a high-performance coach, you shouldn't have these, right? And so I was like, do not give yourself time to overthink this and analyze this. This is on your heart. So I grabbed my light stand up, put my camera on, and pushed ‘record’. And I talked about what I'm going through, and how I reconnect with what's most important when I do start to struggle or when I do start to feel down or depressed or overwhelmed by life. And what I shared is what I do and it's two things. It's connecting to the necessity of the situation, and it's connecting to your WHY.
I want to acknowledge something, that you were very vulnerable and you shared exactly what you were feeling. And again, that goes into the power of vulnerability and connection. Because you were saying exactly what a lot of people are thinking right now. And I know that not only when you share your story, but it also allows other people to feel like they're not alone. It supports other people. It's also a healing process for ourselves, too. I mean, there have been times where I've, you know, my mom committed suicide in March of 2020. And sharing that story has been a two-fold power. It's been a healing process for me, and as well as other people feeling like, Oh, they're not alone. They've gone through this as well. And so again, it goes back to that vulnerability. And when we get to be vulnerable, we get to create these deeper connections and we get to heal through the process.
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm so sorry about your mother. I have seen some of the posts that you've shared with that and I commend you for being vulnerable and opening up about that. It's really, you know, her whole situation and sort of very complicated and hard to understand but in the end, I'm sorry that you have to go through all of that.
Well, thank you. I appreciate and receive that. You know, I think that with mental health, there are some things that we’re in control of, and then some things that were not. And you nailed it on the head when it comes to legacy. And you know, by sharing her story, I get to continue her legacy, as well as start with my why. And that is, I get to share that story to support others. So it's, you know, mental health and mental wellness have been at the core of my life in a variety of different ways, through my own struggles, through my mom's, and so, yeah, I just believe in being courageous and share what's on your mind and what's on your heart. Make an impact. Leave a legacy. Know your WHY.
Yeah, absolutely. And that's what I was talking about. When life gets tough, yes, if it's a mental health issue, and it drags on for a while, you need to go seek help, you need to go to a psychologist. But the majority of the people that have these ups and downs of life, right, we have to focus on what we can control, which is our attitude, our effort, and our actions. And we can come back to, how do we get through the tough times, what's the necessity? Who's counting on you to be on your A game? Who needs you right now? For me, it's my children, and it's my clients. And then the greater why, like, why are you on this earth? What's the purpose of your life? What is the bigger picture, and when you can connect with those, can it sustain you and get you through the toughest of times?
Three Pillars of Creating the Life You Love
Clarity
It all starts with clarity, envisioning the life you want. Take time to look at your career, to look at your relationships, your health, and your finance, and determine where you're functioning at your optimal levels and where you're not. And then in those areas, looking at where you are, here's where you want to go. What do you need to do differently? Do you need new skills? Do you need new supportive growth friendships? It’s like figuring out, determining what you need, and then going for it, and that's where courage comes in.
Courage
It's the courage to face the challenges head-on, annihilate those limiting beliefs, and step into your power.
Consistency
And we forget about this because we tend to have these peak moments, right? We're on our game and things are going well. And then something happens and then the valley comes. And so consistency is showing up each and every day, no matter what, determined to accomplish your goals.
