3 Lessons I’ve Learned Building My Dream Career with Danielle Cobo

Welcome to another episode of “Dream Job with Danielle Cobo”!

I am constantly asked the question, "How did you get to where you're at today?". It's an interesting story and I sometimes forget the progression of my career and some of the lessons I've learned along the way. In today's episode, I share these lessons in hopes that will help you land that dream career for you. Tune into today's episode!

"I wouldn't be where I'm at today if I didn't just say YES" - Danielle Cobo

Listen on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube https://www.daniellecobo.com/podcast

Highlights

💫 2:42    A little about my background

💫 12:40   Do you add any of your personality when applying for a job?

💫 15:55   The importance of personal development

💫 18:20   Don't be afraid to explore other opportunities

💫  28:09     The only limitation that exists for you is you


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My Unique Story and Continuous Journey

I get this question all the time. How did you break into medical sales? How did you get to where you're at today? And it's an interesting story that sometimes I forget the progression of my career, and some of the highlights and tribulations and, and the successes and challenges. And I'm going to share this story with you. You know, if you've tuned in to previous episodes, you've probably heard a little bit about my background, and my background, we all have a unique story. We all come from different backgrounds, and they really shaped us into who we are today. And in a lot of ways, my upbringing, in a lot of ways supported me because it fueled my passion and my fire and my drive and resiliency. And then in a lot of ways, I struggled a lot with self doubt. And I struggled a lot with doubting what I could do. And it's taken a lot of therapy, it's taken a lot of soul-searching, it's taken a lot of investing in myself with leadership courses and personal development courses to get me to a point where I'm at now. And the reality is that it's still a continuous journey.

I was raised by a mother who suffered from bipolar disorder, and I didn't know it at the time, when I was two years old, my mom kidnapped me. So my mom had actually taken everything out of our house and moved us from an area about an hour and a half away from where I was raised. And my dad showed up at our house one day, and I was gone. He didn't know where I was, he didn't know how to get in touch with my mom. I mean, I was just gone. Eventually, after going through the court system and filing reports, eventually he did find me. However, the lawyers basically said, if you continue to fight for custody for your daughter, it's not going to turn out well, this is going to be a very brutal fight. My dad fought as hard as he could. But I didn't know any of this at the time. So what I was raised to believe was, I was raised to believe that my dad abandoned us that, you know, I was told that my dad cheated on her that he abandoned us and chose another family. Now I know now, I know now that that's not the truth. And obviously, there are two sides to every story.

The reason why I share this with you is because that was the foundation, to a couple of things. It was the foundation to resiliency and learning resiliency. Because when I was raised by my mom, all I saw was this mom, who was a single mother who had at the time, a three, four-year-old and he was getting her bachelor's degree, she went back to school, and she was working as a waitress. And so I saw this model of my mom of just being this rock star. And what she modeled was perseverance and resiliency and drive and motivation. And so that's what she modeled for me. And that was part of the foundation of my upbringing. And on the other side, there was many times that I felt unworthy. I felt unworthy of love and unconditional love. And I always doubted myself. When people would try to help me in my life, I was, why why are people? Why are people helping me, I just didn't understand it. I really didn't understand conditional love. Even though I've been married for almost nine years, and I have an amazing husband. I don't think I truly understood unconditional love until I had my kids that really go through it. That really does open your eyes to a lot. 

And throughout my upbringing, I've had these moments in my life that have really shaped me into who I am today where they've taught me skills that have supported through me and my success, but I've also created some barriers that, you know, I could have maybe been a little bit further along if I learned some of the things that I do now that I have now.

My Early Days

And so, you know, I My mom raised me, and then 15 years old, my mom and I got I actually when I was 15 years old, I was in high school at the time. And all of a sudden one day, the principal called me out of the school and said,

There's a man here, who says he's your dad. And would you like to meet him? And I said, Yeah, I don't know, what do you say, as a 15-year-old girl in high school, where this man is saying that he's your dad. And he showed proof he was. And but that was a moment in my life where it was kind of it. I experienced, I don't know whether to trust people. You know, here's this man saying, He loves me. And he misses me and he's crying, and he's excited to meet me. But at the same time, in my head, you abandon me, you took off you, you took off on me, you took off on my mommy, all these things that I had been told that weren't true. So I met my dad, when I was 15. I didn't actually build relationship with him until I was in my 20s. But, you know, a couple years after that, when I was 17 years old, I was in high school, I was working full time. And my mom and I got in one of these big blowup fights. And when I see when I say, fights, my mom, as I said, suffered from bipolar disorder. So you never knew what you were walking into. It was one of those things where it was a roller coaster. And someday she'd be, you know, someday she'd be happy, and she'd be out conquering the world. She was a region manager for a pharmaceutical company. And she'd won multiple awards. So she was very successful. And then other times, I'd walk into the house, and she'd be on the couch, and she be laying there just completely depressed, and no motivation to even get up off the couch. You just never knew what you were walking into with my mom. And the times that she was depressed, it was almost as though I was the parent in the relationship.

Because she relied on me a lot when she was unhappy. It was almost as though you know, if she's unhappy, she sourced me to be, say, like, make me happy. And so I felt a lot of times I was the parent. So I was 17 years old, my mom and I get in this blow up fight. And she kicked me out of the house. And this, I think, was a very pivotal moment in my life and where it's helped me in my career. Because in this moment, I left I piled all my clothes into four trash bags. But you've may have may or may have not heard this story before. But I piled all these clothes into four trash bags, and I left. Now I didn't have anywhere to go, I didn't, you know, I didn't know what to do. So in my senior year of high school, I was working full time, right, I needed money to support myself, I was working full time, I was how my clothes piled into these four trash bags. And I would stay at one person's house for a couple of weeks and stay at another person's house for a couple of weeks and kind of rotate through until I was able to graduate high school. Now, when my mom initially kicked me out, the next day, the school counselor came to me and said,

Mending and Molding Relationships

If you don't go back to your mom, if you don't mend things with your mom, you're not going to amount to anything in life. And really let that sink in for a second. Could you imagine being a 17-year-old girl and hearing that if you don't go back to a toxic home environment, you may never amount to anything in life?

And this is a very pivotal moment. And I reflect a lot back on this because I was one of those things where I said okay, that's your opinion. I can either take it or not. In addition to that really fueled my fire, it was kind of like, well, if you say I can't, oh, I'm definitely can. And so it was one of those moments where it was it was is a blessing and kind of also a curse. It's like understanding that people can project their self-doubt on you. And it's also for you to decide whether you want to believe it or not, and let use it as an as a way to fuel your fire. So I ended up you know, graduating high school, I didn't go back home and went to college, I worked two jobs in college, I was able to graduate college and gratefully debt free because I was working two jobs through college. And I knew I always wanted to be in medical sales. 

I always knew that I like I said, my mom was my super woman in a lot of ways and she had a very successful career in medical sales. And so I knew that that was something I possibly wanting to do. How do you break into medical sales? It you know, obviously, the degree is a must because that's what they required and that's what I was told. But if you don't have sales experience. How do you break in? So I said, Okay, well, I need to get outside sales experience. So then I did copier sales, hated that job. It was the worst job in the world. It was pounding the pavement. It was, you know, selling copiers, if you've ever done it before you completely understand where I'm coming from, hated it. But I knew I needed outside sales experience, I did that. And I only did it for about eight months. It was like, Okay, get the experience, I'm gonna go. And I had a friend, a mentor, sit down with me and said, Okay, if you want to get into medical sales, you have to have a performance book says, What's a performance book. And it was basically a book where it has all of your performance highlights what you've accomplished who you are, well, knowing that I didn't have a lot of sales experience. It's not as I had a lot of, you know, hadn't won President's Club, I'd only been in copier sales for eight months, I got creative. And this is where it's beneficial. No matter where you're at in your career, being creative and coming up with solutions to get to where you want to be, is extremely beneficial. So I had a performance book. In there, I had my driving record, because I knew that if you were going to have a company car, you needed to have a good driving record. So I had a perfect driving record. I had my credit score in there. Because I said, Well, if I am going to use my credit score to show them that I'm responsible, I had letters written from, you know, the managers of the retail companies that I had worked for when I worked in the mall and retail sales. And when I was a server at restaurants I had, I was nominated for the Alumni Hall of Fame when I was in college for my marketing course. 

Writing My Book (And Self-Doubt Creeping In)

And so I've compiled these all together into this performance book. And then I also had a section in there as to just get to know me a little bit more and to show that not only am I driven and motivated my career I'd also put in there are some of my highlights as just a person, you know, I had snowboarded on most of the top mountains on the West Coast. I'm an avid snowboarder. It's been a long time since I live in Florida now, but I used to be really good at snowboarding, I used to go off the jumps and off the boxes, and I had knee surgery and a broken arm from it. But I used to be really good at it. And so I had pictures of that in there. I had pictures of like, who I was as a person and my hobbies and my why. And so I took this performance book, and I had a friend that was in dental sales. And so I took this performance book, she got me into a trade show. And I said, Okay, here's my opportunity. I took my performance book, I had piled in with a bunch of resumes. And I went to every single booth at the trade show. And I said, Who's the hiring manager,

I want to meet them, handed on my resume, got their business card, wrote a little note about them on their business card, so I can follow up with them. And it ended up being that I got an interview on the spot at the trade show. So I was 23 years old. And I interviewed for this company, Carestream Dental. And I'd interviewed with them. I got an interview on the spot. And then I had a couple interviews after that. And I got the job. I could not believe it. I mean, really I and it was for among the top dental companies, capital equipment. I only really had about eight months outside sales experience. But I was successful in copier sales. I just didn't like it. And so I got my first job into medical sales.

And this is where self-doubt came in. I'm 20 years old, is anybody going to take me seriously? Are my customers going to take me seriously? I would dress very business with slacks and a suit jacket kind of stuffy, not really my personality. But I dress like that because I was scared that people wouldn't take me seriously. And what I learned during my time, there was two things. I learned that to just be yourself. And when you have success and you believe in yourself, others will believe in you too. Because when I started to earn president's trips, and I started to earn top performer awards, I began to truly be myself and know that people aren't going to judge from an outside appearance. Yes, there's an aspect of that. But when you really get to be who you are in your personality and people get to know who you are. They don't necessarily buy what you sell, they first buy who you are. And so that was one thing that I learned in that job. Yeah, other thing that I learned in that job is the importance of development and personal development and professional development because

The first couple years that I worked for that company, there really wasn't a lot of courses like sales courses. Every time we go to the national sales meeting, there was a lot of product knowledge and teaching you about the products, there wasn't a lot of training on leadership or sales. So when I got my first dose of sales training, it catapulted my success in sales, I had earned multiple, multiple presidents trips, top performer awards, you know, I was able to go on these lavish vacations. But there's this one Pinnacle Award, where is the top the top of the top with this company. And I remember when I had, when I had taken that sales course, it changed my income drastically. And so that was also one thing that I learned from that company was the importance of development. And it's interesting. 

Now where I'm at now, because while I was with that company, I had created this business proposal, and I created this position for a national sales director. And I presented it to the VP of sales and told them like, this is a miss, we don't have this in our company. This is why it's valuable. This is why it's going to drive revenue, right? We're talking about employee retention, we're talking about accelerating new hires, that they're hitting their numbers faster and sooner, taking your top performers and making them even greater, also promoting within because you're doing leadership development. I was 25, when I presented the thing. And so I presented it to them, I ended up you know, they were 100% on board, the position does exist now, I just happen to have left before they implemented it. And this goes into the next point when it comes to those pivotal moments in your career, and the learning lessons that you have. And that is I was not looking for another job. I was very happy. I had earned multiple back to back president's trips, I was happy. I was making great money I was making, you know, six figures right, right out of the gate at 23. And so when a recruiter reached out to me, and she said, Would you be interested in going on this interview? I was like, Well, sure, I guess, right? 

Looking back, the advice I always give everybody is explore other opportunities. Two things can happen. One, you go on the job interview and you're going, Wow, this is amazing. This is what I want to do. I had no idea that you know, I wasn't even looking, but I'm going to pursue this right? Or you go on a job interview and you go, don't necessarily for me, but you explore the opportunity. And then what happens is it kind of reinforces you, it gives you like a little boost of motivation to be where you're currently at. Because it reassures you that you're in the right place. And so always explore opportunities, no matter what always. It's also great networking to expand your network when you're exploring opportunities. So that was one thing. I was recruited, this recruiter reached out to me, I went on the interview,

I turned the job down, turn the job down, which, in retrospect, when I look back at this, I cannot believe I ended up getting this job because I turned the job down. I worked then with the company I'd been with for about a month.

Something had came up where there was kind of some rules changing about commissions, it was going to be a big commission check. I wasn't going to earn and I just wasn't believing in the direction that the way that the company was going when they were handling the commission for the sales that these performers were doing. So no going back to the manager that I had had that interviewed me and I said Well, would you his position still open? He said, Yeah, he's like, Okay, well, can you interview me? Again? I'm interested. And I did. But wow, did I need to prove myself because I turned it down initially? So I then flew up to the corporate headquarters, I had six back-to-back interviews in one day, with everybody from HR to the hiring manager to the VP of sales to the training manager to the marketing director. It was, it was intense, because I woke up about four in the morning, flew up to the corporate office, did six back-to-back interviews and then flew back that night. I remember being so tired. And I ended up getting the job. And that's what brought me into medical esthetics and even know this world existed. I had my career in dental that was where I was at, that's what I knew. So I'm grateful that I explored that opportunity. And I invite you to do the same thing because you just never know what's out there. And I had worked for this one company for a year and a half and I enjoyed it. But I realized that I was done doing capital equipment I was done, I just kind of was burned out from painting the payment all the time and constantly looking for new business. And, yes, I was very good at it. But I just wanted something different in my life I was burnt out. So I ended up interviewing for this one company, it was a fortune 500 company. It's one of the top esthetic companies in the world. And I was interviewing for a rep position.

And I go to interview for this rep position. And I'm, you know, going over my value proposition as to why I am a great candidate for this position. And I'm going through not only my successes, in addition, I'm going through that business proposal that I had created for the National Sales Director position previously with the dental company. And I'm walking her through it, and I'm going through, you know, how did I come up with the, the salary and the compensation for this, and the why was gonna bring value to the organization with the ROI and what the job description would look like. And it was it was a, it was a big book of like, a full business proposal. And I remember I'm going through this, and she looks at me, and she says have you ever thought about management? And I was like, thinking in my head? Yeah, yeah, I definitely be management. That's my goal. But I also recognize, I was under 30 years old, I was an outsider to the organization, I didn't know anybody that worked at this company, didn't have relationships. And this company is historically known from promoting within, which is also speaks to the culture of this organization, and that they really value their employees. I also didn't have any direct management experience. So I said, I said flat out. Yes, I'm interested in this position. I also acknowledged I've got no direct management experience. I do have experience mentoring people. You know, I've mentored several people throughout my career. But I've never directly managed people lead people. And she said, Well, would you consider interviewing anyways, I was like, so I want you to imagine yourself in times throughout your career, where people have seen things in you, that you may not have seen in yourself.

And if you're in these moments, this is where you can either listen to that self-doubt. Or you can lean into your you're outside your comfort zone, like lean into it. Because one of two things could happen, right, I can do three things, actually. I can either go for the interview and get the job. Or I could go for the interview and don't get the management position, but maybe get the rep position that I was originally interviewing for. Or I could just not work for the company at all, but I had already had a job. So those are kind of the three possibilities.

I would not be wearing out today. If I didn't just say yes. And go for it. So I ended up I, you know, took a couple weeks to prepare for this interview because it was a three-hour interview in front of six of the executive leadership team.

And I was presenting this SWOT analysis of how I was going to approach this team. It was historically kind of the poorest performing team in the nation. There were some people that had been there that weren't performing. There are a lot of new hires, there had been some turnover. There wasn't a great culture amongst the team just kind of based off some previous experiences. And so it was tough. It was a tough interview. I mean, I was terrified. And I and you know, prior to the interview, I reached out to my mentors, I reached out to all the mentors that had helped me throughout my career. So people that were in VP sales, people that were in directors, people that have been in management, right? Always, always align yourself with people that are two steps ahead of you so they can guide you on to where you want to go. And so I reached out to them, I had about an hour call with each of them. And ask them like, what's the one thing you didn't anticipate being a manager? What was the failure that you learn from? What were some successes, what advice would you give to a new manager? And so I compiled all of this information.

I also read a book called first breaking all the world all the rules by Marcus Buckingham all included in the link for the podcast notes. I read that week, too. I mean, I was all hands on deck and preparing for this interview. I got the job. I could not believe when I received that call I was, I was in tears. I couldn't believe, that I was being hired with as someone who didn't have direct management experience, I was an outsider of the company. And I was, I was just shy of that I just turned 30 years old.

Kicking Self-Doubt to the Curb

And so, again, it's like, there's these moments in your life where you doubt yourself, you know, I don't have, I don't have management experience, or I'm too young, or I hear things, you know, I hear, I don't know anybody in the company, I'm an outsider, the company. It's when we listen to these self-doubts, and I look back at my career, and I listened to these self-doubts. That was my only limitation. It wasn't me, it wasn't my skill sets. I have the skill sets, I have the drive, I have the motivation, I have what it takes to get anywhere I want in life. My only limitation is me.

And so when you're thinking about where you want to go in your career, and what your goals are, ask yourself, what's limiting you? What is it? Because often it's us. And I wouldn't be here where I'm at today if I just didn't like lean in, not listen to other people's, you know, opinions on what I can or can't do. You know, I used I use the that kind of fire of saying you that when people tell me I can't I go oh, well show you I can, which is good. But then a lot of ways what I've learned and where I'm at right now in my career is you know, for a lot of years, I would compare myself to others. And I would compare myself to say, you know, I look at these VPs of these big companies and saying, Well, how do they get there? Oh, well, they must be smarter than me. They must be more successful. Maybe they just had the right connections. And, and even as I was starting this business, and where I'm at now, as a career coach and a speaker, I would compare myself to, you know, I was, I look at some of I'm following the top 40 Female keynote speakers, right, I find them so inspiring. I love to hear their journeys. I love to hear people's career journeys. It's what sparked me in starting this podcast is just to hear how people got to where they're at, and just taking little nuggets and learning from people. That's what sparked this podcast is sharing this information.

And what I've learned is through this journey, is when I start to compare myself and I start to look at these career coaches, or these big VPs of companies or these top keynote speakers, what I've learned is, everybody has self doubt, no matter how high you're up there, right, the most respected people in the world, Oprah has had self-doubt. And also, to stop comparing myself to others, you've may have heard me say: comparison is the thief of joy.

I believe it also comes when we compare ourselves to others, we put limitations on ourselves. Because then we start to think that I can't be as successful as them, they must be smarter than me, they must be prettier than me. They must be better at writing, therefore, I can't write a book, or oh, they're, they're so confident on stage. I could never do what they do. And the reality is, is most of the keynote speakers out there have had a lot of training, we invest in training for pressure, professional speaking skills. A lot of people that are business owners invest in business coaches, a lot of these VPS, and directors of these top organizations have career coaches. You know, it doesn't always come natural to us some, sometimes it does, but it's also about refining these skills. And that's where a lot of the people is we see where they're at and the top, we don't only see the journey of what it takes to get there. And so what I've learned through my career and where I'm at today is that my only limitation is myself. Your only limitation is yourself and not to compare yourself with others. At this point. It's like my only competition is myself. My only limitation is myself. My only comparison is myself. And I think if anything that I've learned through this through this journey. And where I'm at today and where I get to continue to go. And in leaving this with something is it's kind of the three takeaways, right is