Join host Lynn Debilzen in Part 1 of this fascinating interview with Nicole Greene on Redraw Your Path! In this interview, Lynn learns about Nicole’s journey from defense and national security, to pastry school and chocolate entrepreneur, to startups and coach of high-performing women. Their conversation touches on:
Tune in for a dynamic discussion on life and growth!
About Nicole:
As an early-stage ops consultant and innovator, I geek out on business model evolution + building systems that scale, with proven success creating and leading product and ops verticals across multiple industries, from artisan chocolates to digital health.
As a performance & lifestyle design coach for women founders and executives, I focus on sustainability not just productivity to help my clients define, pursue and achieve success on their own terms.
I am most alive when I am celebrating women realizing their personal and professional dreams or when I'm spending time on my bike with my guys -- my husband, our two boys and our pup!
Connect with Nicole:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timebydesign/
Get Nicole’s Dream Calendar Setup Guide: https://timebydesign.ck.page/dreamcalendar
Connect with Lynn:
Join host Lynn Debilzen in Part 1 of this fascinating interview with Nicole Greene on Redraw Your Path! In this interview, Lynn learns about Nicole’s journey from defense and national security, to pastry school and chocolate entrepreneur, to startups and coach of high-performing women. Their conversation touches on:
Tune in for a dynamic discussion on life and growth!
About Nicole:
As an early-stage ops consultant and innovator, I geek out on business model evolution + building systems that scale, with proven success creating and leading product and ops verticals across multiple industries, from artisan chocolates to digital health.
As a performance & lifestyle design coach for women founders and executives, I focus on sustainability not just productivity to help my clients define, pursue and achieve success on their own terms.
I am most alive when I am celebrating women realizing their personal and professional dreams or when I'm spending time on my bike with my guys -- my husband, our two boys and our pup!
Connect with Nicole:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timebydesign/
Get Nicole’s Dream Calendar Setup Guide: https://timebydesign.ck.page/dreamcalendar
Connect with Lynn:
Hey friends, I'm Lynn Debilzen and welcome to Redraw Your Path, a podcast where I share stories of people who have made big changes in their lives and forged their own unique paths. I talk with guests about their moments of messiness, fear, and reframing on their way to where they are now. My goal is to inspire you about the shape your life could take. So let's get inspired. Hey y'all, it's your friend Lynn and I'm so excited to share with you a new episode, actually two episodes. This conversation is so juicy and good. it is just, it blew my mind and I'm so excited to share with you, Nicole Greene's journey. A little bit about Nicole Greene. As an early stage ops consultant and innovator, Nicole geeks out on business model evolution and building systems at scale, with proven success creating and leading product and ops verticals across multiple industries, from artisan chocolates to digital health. As a Performance and Lifestyle Design Coach for Women Founders and Executives, she focuses on sustainability, not just productivity, to help her clients define, pursue, and achieve success on their own terms. She is most alive when she's celebrating women, realizing their personal and professional dreams, or when she's spending time on her bike with her husband, her two boys, and her pup. I so enjoyed my conversation with Nicole and I'm really excited to share it. with you all. Like I mentioned, we are breaking this conversation up into two episodes. So if you're liking what you hear today, definitely tune in next week and you'll hear the rest of her journey and how she redrew her path. Enjoy! Hey, Nicole, welcome to Redraw Your Path. How are you today?
Nicole:Thank you. I am great. Super happy to be here.
Lynn:Me too. I'm, I'm very glad to have you as a guest and I can't wait to get into your story. So where I start with everyone is tell me where and how you grew up. Give us some context about the setting for your life.
Nicole:sure. So I grew up in Miami, Florida and after 20 years of swearing I would never live here again. I am also calling in from my home in Miami, Florida, so I'm sure we'll get to that. but yeah, it was a pretty conventional suburban existence in the 80s. I lived with my mom and dad who were grad school sweethearts and are celebrating their 54th anniversary next month. so it was me, my mom and dad, my older brother, Jonathan, who was three years older, and I went to Montessori school, had a really tight group of friends, we rode bikes around the neighborhood, and that's how it was back then for us. I'm a third generation entrepreneur, which is something that has really shaped my identity and approach to life over the years. So I remember when I was in elementary and middle school in particular, my dad was really working hard to grow his business. Years earlier, prior to my coming into the world, he had gotten a 5, 000 loan from my mom's parents to start a knife sharpening business. And so he started that up and he would go to commercial kitchens around Miami. and collect the knives from the chefs there and bring them back sharp. And over time, he, learned from them about commercial kitchens and eventually taught himself how to draw blueprints and turned it into this incredible consultancy where he designed some of the most beautiful and functional commercial kitchens in the world. So, that's my dad. And my mom started off as a public school teacher. She was teaching at an inner city school here in Miami. When my brother was a toddler and went during her pregnancy with me, she went to law school at the University of Miami. And actually she missed her opportunity to take the bar exam with her class because she was in labor with me.
Lynn:Oh my gosh.
Nicole:She used to talk about her like study group partners massaging her feet during the pregnancy, while they were studying together. So, so sweet.
Lynn:That's a study group. Find study partners that will massage your
Nicole:feet 100%. Life goals. so and then after a few years of working as a public defender, she spun off and started her own practice. So, from a very early age, I saw the model of redrawing your path or drawing your own path and then also, How much work it took to make that successful. really hard work was a core value in my family from the very beginning. I understood loud and clear that my job was to be good at school. I was not.
Lynn:Oh
Nicole:and I was just more interested in being funny and making people laugh and drawing attention to myself in ways that were problematic to the classroom. I got kicked out of the brownies in second grade. No, I wear that as a badge of honor, Lynn. I've been, you know, kind of just forever not super compliant, and I knew if my report cards were coming home saying, B's and C's, but Nicole's trying really hard. That would have been one thing. Instead, they were always saying, Nicole is not living up to her full potential, and that was a, it was just a, it was an issue as a source of tension in the family. I remember my brother and I used to take our report cards out of the mailbox when they came in on a Thursday or Friday, just to have one more weekend of fun before the hammer came down.
Lynn:Can I ask, Nicole, what do you think that was about? looking back, what do you think that was about in
Nicole:hard work.
Lynn:Okay.
Nicole:work. It was, it's just this idea, in my, again, third generation entrepreneur, I came from a line of generations that created what they had. this idea of always doing your best and working hard to have options. So my dad's whole thing was, about working hard to create options for yourself so that you would never be in a position for other people to decide for you. So like for him success was freedom and yes financial freedom but also choice. and I think that those two things were so closely linked for him. That he felt that the best thing he could impart to his kids so that they would have a successful and good life was hard work, hard work, hard work, work. And again, like when, when you're a kid, school, right? My parents bought the house that they bought so that we could go to the school that they, that we went to. It was just always a top priority. and, Yeah, so that's, that was my early childhood. When I was 13, things took a tough turn. So, my brother was killed in a car accident a month into having his driver's license. And then six months after that, our house was destroyed in a hurricane, Hurricane Andrew. And so that is the end of that chapter because, I mean, certainly life was never the same after that.
Lynn:can imagine and that is so tough to lose your brother and for your parents to lose their son and that must have been really really hard for you as a teenager.
Nicole:It was. And I mean, 13 is so awkward to begin with. I don't know how it was for you, but the braces, my curly hair, like the whole thing was already such a disaster. But yeah, it was tough. I mean, for sure. Anytime there's a tragic loss like that. Yeah,
Lynn:Yeah, and then, and to pile on that, the, the loss collectively as a community, the, hurricane coming through and losing your house, thank you for sharing that.
Nicole:sure.
Lynn:Based on That upbringing and those messages you got from your parents, in addition to hard work and doing well at school, were there any other expectations you were feeling as a child or as a teenager in terms of what your life should be looking like?
Nicole:Yeah, I mean, the hard work expectation or any expectation comes with the other side of it, which is the not enoughness, right?
Lynn:Mm hmm.
Nicole:so for me, it was because I was clear that the expectation was hard work and performing well in school. And the fact that I wasn't, then the other side of that expectation for me was I'm not working hard enough, I'm not trying hard enough, not good enough, right? And I think that's really a shared experience. Like everyone that I work with, all the women that I coach and hang out with, have that not blank enough reality that we're either still carrying from our childhood or we've done the hard work to separate from. And even though the blank is different for everyone. That experience of not feeling good enough and the implications of that are with us and really shape our lives in such profound ways. So once you're in that mode, you're always proving, right? Trying to, Prove your worth, earn your worth, seek validation externally. And that really shapes the decisions that we make. But so that was definitely, my experience. And it ended up being the anchor of one of the Most impactful lies that I told myself throughout my professional life, which was, I'm not smarter than anybody else. I just work harder. And so that became a core belief of mine. And that core belief combined with my sort of desperate proving behavior. Is what caused me to work, work, work, work, work myself right off the cliff, like right into burnout. so yeah, those expectations, I mean, certainly not what my parents intended. And it's never, whatever, whatever, not enough feelings I'm creating in my children now are certainly the opposite of what I would want. We do our best. but we, we have that, that shared experience and I think, Coming to terms with that, and really doing the work to find our value within and end that proving cycle is so much of, what it's all about, ultimately.
Lynn:Yeah. Oh my gosh. And it's so much of what probably brings you to the present day and doing that understanding and analysis of all of that.
Nicole:For sure.
Lynn:Can I ask, did you feel that expectations changed at all pre 13 and pre losing your brother and Hurricane to after that or? Yeah,
Nicole:definitely know for sure that I internalized a belief that now I had to be good enough for both my brother and I, and that definitely did not come from my parents. It was never spoken, of course, but I felt, number one, like just this amplification of the pressure to perform, that I understood what they wanted I understood. What they had in mind for the family that they had created and built, and I felt this pressure to perform at that level, which of course was above a level that one child could perform at. and then to, As part of that, to work hard enough, to be good enough, to be impressive enough for both my brother and myself. So I really felt that as a huge shift and it definitely, again, fed into that core limiting belief that I internalized that fueled the next 30 years of my life.
Lynn:And set you up in an impossible situation, right? Where you were never going to reach those expectations for yourself.
Nicole:but yes, and that's true for all of us, right? That is a fundamental truth that if we are seeking our value outside of ourselves, if we are trying to prove that we are enough, there will never ever be enough proof. Because the only way to really feel your value and to feel worthy is to find it inside of yourself. So yes, in my case, there was this doubling down, right? This sort of intensification of that not enoughness that I that story that I told myself, but that's the core shared experience of anyone that is seeking their value outside of themselves. It's never enough. until it's inside you.
Lynn:I mean, you're hitting me right in my heart, Nicole, is when you said if you're seeking it outside of you, it's never going to be enough. You're not going to find that until you find it inside. thank you for this because it is a great reminder every day how do you internalize. That value and that, that sense of worthiness, not looking for it outside.
Nicole:It's already there, Lynn.
Lynn:it is!
Nicole:It's been there all along. I'm like, I, I
Lynn:tissues.
Nicole:30 years I chased it.
Lynn:Yeah, it's, it's so hard. We'll get there. We'll get there. You're there, Nicole. so let's fast forward a bit because I like to bookend where did folks start, where are they now, and then we'll go back through your path. so you mentioned you are calling in from Miami, Florida. tell us a little bit more about what you're currently doing now or how you're currently spending your days.
Nicole:Yeah, for sure. So I'm here in Miami. I live with my husband and our two boys, they're 10 and 8, and our puppy, so can't forget him. and professionally speaking, my time is divided into two, major focus areas. As a coach, I work with high performing women founders and executives. Who are struggling to hold space for multiple non negotiable roles. because I love the challenge of opportunity costs and that, experience that so many of us feel of being fragmented, pulled in multiple directions. Focused here, failing there, then focus there, failing here. and so it's whether it's an executive or a founder, who's also a mom or who's also a caretaker, who's also a student, whatever that combination of non negotiable roles is, I help them design a new operating system for intentional living. that gets, them out of that survival mode, out of that experience of fragmentation and this pursuit of balance that doesn't exist, and focus on optimizing life at the system level. And there's three pillars that I focus on within that. One is work life integration. So how do we show up in our whole lives as our whole selves? all at once. second is habits for healthy high performance. So for example, sustainable productivity, right? There's so much emphasis on productivity, that doesn't contemplate the whole person. and then the third is mindset management. So what is that internal narrative and is it setting us up for success or not? and so I do that work in a one on one capacity with my coaching clients. I also teach workshops. I'm an entrepreneur in residence at the University of Miami. so I do workshops there. I do workshops at startup events and in corporate settings. and then the other side is I do a ton of founder mentoring and Early stage ops consulting. So that's where my business brain gets to play. I love noodling around in a business model. I love doing the ideation and model evolution work. and so that's my primary outlet for that type of work and. I mentor within a couple of different organizations, several of which are in a pro bono capacity. So when I'm able to do that, it's like head and heart are so happy. and so that's my professional day outside of that. I'm a super hands on boy, mom, in with the soccer, in with all the things. And I love to ride my bike. So as often as possible, I try to combine those two things and do rides with my kids. Although I also love riding without my kids. And yeah, that's my life these days.
Lynn:Awesome. It sounds full yet intentional and very, very full of joy is what I'm hearing.
Nicole:it is. And really, a long time and hard path coming because, I think, and again, we're circling, but, there was definitely a time when they were younger where I was showing up physically, but not emotionally and not mentally. And to be fully present and really actualized in the moment is such a gift. And it's really amazing.
Lynn:Absolutely. That's beautiful. so yeah, so let's go there about how you, Redrew your path you were growing up in Miami. you had expectations of hard work always every day. and then this message of, I need to succeed for both my brother and myself. yet. You had this part of you that was Nicole, like the, you didn't say class clown. You might not be class clown, but you loved making people laugh. You pushed back a little bit on the hard work is what I heard. let's talk about what happened next. What, where did your path take you and what was the first way you redrew it? Ah,
Nicole:I love this question and when I go all the way back to what I consider that first intentional redraw, it was a summer between ninth and 10th grades. I was at a summer college program in Amherst, Massachusetts, and there was a college fair. So I really hadn't put a ton of thought into college. At that point, I mean, There was never a question that I was going to college because that's the, again, the culture that I grew up in. It was definitely that's the next step after high school, but I hadn't really started to think in that direction and I ended up for whatever reason completely falling in love with Cornell. whoever was at the table for Cornell University that day was like enchanting
Lynn:they were probably an intern, right?
Nicole:I don't even know. But I, so two things happened. Number one, I'm, I completely made the on the spot decision that Cornell was the place. By the way, I didn't end up even applying there. So it was, it served its purpose. Because the second thing that I knew immediately was, I don't have the grades to get into Cornell. and in that moment, I decided, and I have always had this ability to like, Once I click into something, once my willpower is engaged, I am full on. And that works to my advantage and my disadvantage. But I realized I don't have the grades that I need. I, again, map that to that early lesson from my father of, you have to work hard to create options for yourself. And I was like, I don't have this option. I haven't worked hard enough, and I went back to school for 10th grade like a completely different student. I went from B's and C's, maybe a D in Spanish, for sure a D, to B's and C's, B's and A's after the switch, and then A's, and I think starting my senior year I never got anything less than an A, straight into college and grad school the first time around. And so that, intentional decision, because when I think of redrawing, it's I'm choosing, I'm choosing a path. that was a really impactful choice that I made that set me on my journey.
Lynn:Wow. I'm very similar. So that resonates a lot, where it's just like you decide something and then you make it happen. Right? I don't have these grades. I can be a way better student and I'm gonna show up differently. So that's really powerful that you did that.
Nicole:Thank you. Yeah, I always say that my, my approach to coaching is very head led, it's head led and heart centered. And that's because everything in my life, including my recovery from burnout and this whole transformation that I've, undertaken in the past couple of years has been because I realized I had the power to choose. And it's once I realized, Oh, I'm defaulting to this behavior, but I can choose this other path. That's such a powerful realization for me. And that's the approach that I take with, with the women that I work with. It's not about finding your value within because suddenly you're capable of doing that. If it had taken me, if I had started trying to start this journey with emotional awareness, I would still be in a puddle on the floor. But it was like the fact that I got to it by making choices and then adopting the behaviors that reinforce those choices, right? Classic habit formation and conditioning stuff that set me on a path to give me room to breathe. And then once I had that room to breathe,'cause I wasn't in survival mode anymore, I could do the work on the emotional front, but. It's always for me been, Oh, it's a choice. Then I know I want to make this choice and I can get myself there.
Lynn:Yeah, like taking yourself off of that autopilot default and into here are the actions I'm choosing because these are the results I want.
Nicole:exactly. The default behaviors get us. It's what keeps us stuck. And yeah, I know the podcast isn't about philosophically, what does it mean to redraw your path?
Lynn:It's
Nicole:all right, let's go there. it's that, okay, what, what are we defaulting to? That is rooted in a reactive mode, right? Versus what are we choosing? And that is proactive, that is self led, that is The path to choose. So yeah, anytime I recognize a default that doesn't serve me, I feel like, okay, again, that, that awareness is the hard part, I think.
Lynn:Yeah, it's like the snap, like getting to that point where you snap in.
Nicole:I love that you said that because I always experience my life as a series of blinding flashes of the obvious where I'll be like default, default, default. And then Oh, like the lights went on, And now I'm like, I got it. Okay. I know what to do.
Lynn:that was the moment that changed everything. Yeah. Yeah. So once you became that A student, what happened from there?
Nicole:So I went to the University of Chicago. Like I said, I never actually applied to Cornell. went to U of C. I did my undergrad. at that point, by the time I left high school, I was so deep in proving. and that's the other thing about proving, is that's rooted in insecurity.
Lynn:Mm.
Nicole:Because if we're not finding our worth within, it's inherently insecure. We need, as humans, to feel worthy. That's It's how we feel we are in, we are held, we are safe, we are loved, right? and so the insecurity for me was there throughout high school. I mean, really, from my brother's accident and the experience of coming back to school. After, such a profound moment for me was like my first steps on campus when I came back after the funeral. and that seeded a social insecurity that then became just deeper insecurity. And I compensated for that by proving, I just started performing the crap out of everything. So I ended up graduating, college in three years. without trying. I literally went to register for my fourth year and my advisor was like, you double majored. So I was like, oh, okay. and then my parents, I'm so blessed, my parents committed to paying for four years of school. So I had finished my, my bachelor's in three and decided to do a master's program. And, I ended up doing a master's in international relations, which is its own pivot that we can or cannot get into up to you, dealer's choice. But, coming out of, grad school, I applied for a presidential management fellowship, which is an executive branch fellowship, anywhere in the executive branch of the federal government. It's an incredible program. You're eligible in your last year of grad school. I was really committed to civil service at that point. I had worked for the mayor of the city of Chicago on education reform, and education policy and I wanted to Go into that work. I ended up with an offer from the Department of Education and an offer from the Department of Defense, and I tend to follow my curiosity. So at the time I was 20, you don't know anything. And I'm like, Oh, I could always go back to. Department of Ed stuff. I have some experience there. when am I ever going to have a chance to do DoD again? So I chose the Department of Defense job and zero background in the military. They had to teach me the uniforms on my first day at the Pentagon because I had no idea. And I started my career, my like first real job. in the Defense Department and three weeks later 9 11 happened. And so really what I was expecting to do and the culture that I thought I was going into, even though my understanding of it was completely naive, in the first place, but it was very, very different after that. so I spent actually nine years working in the Defense Department. So, you know, the thing, life has path dependency, right? So that part of the naivete was like this notion that I would start this job and then if I wanted to go to the Department of Education again, I would just be easy, but it's not, right? And that's why we have to be careful with our choices. in this case, the sort of ethos The patriotism, the movement that bubbled up, particularly in that world after 9 11 took on a life of its own. And, and I was, really pulled into, the path. nine years later, I felt really, like my soul was being crushed. I, that's a very dramatic way to say it, but I, it was two things. One, even though I wasn't directly involved, I felt complicit in two major wars that I wasn't personally aligned with, not to get into politics, but it wasn't what I thought I was getting into. And I have so much support and for people who serve in the military. So that's not it at all. Really, really deep appreciation that for that level of commitment, it just, for me, was not aligned with my worldview, the policy level decisions And then the other thing was I was this creative person and I lost that along the way, but like when I was a kid, I made these ridiculously elaborate birthday card projects for my grandparents and for whatever. Like I literally for 10 years, if you asked me what I wanted for my birthday, it was some form of Crayola extravaganza,
Lynn:Some new kit in the arts
Nicole:400 markers. Yes. If there's 500, I want the one with the fiber, all the colors. And I, through the course of that work and really through the course of, University of Chicago and being so committed to my academic life that I finished so quickly, I had really lost that. And I started to feel the loss of it. so I decided to get out of the DOD world
Lynn:Can I ask, Nicole, did you have any creative outlets during college or during that DOD time at all? Even whether it was like fitness, yoga, something like that creative? Were you journaling?
Nicole:No, I was cooking. I had started to cook. so I would have dinner parties for my friend. I was dating a chef toward the end of my DoD time. I loved hosting. I loved crafting. I would make, invitations for my friends showers or whatever it was. I would do stuff like that on the side. When I was around, I mean, part of the problem with, with the DOD work was I was out, I was traveling and away from home quite a lot, which actually led to that, habit or practice of hosting, because whenever I was back in DC, I would want to have everyone over. and so yeah, that was my primary outlet which then makes sense because I decided I would take a year off. Six weeks into the year I realized I'm not good at being off.
Lynn:it's hard.
Nicole:I know it's not hard for everyone, it's definitely hard for me. I love to have goals and achieve them, right? I'm just that, that way. not that you can't do that and not work, but at the time I associated achieving with. work, right? That's part of the issue was that proving behavior. It's if I'm not working, how am I proving, right? So I, decided almost on a whim. It was a little bit more calculated than a whim, but it was pretty close to a whim to go to pastry school. at that point I had been cooking, but I had really never baked anything that didn't come out of a box. It was like, at that point, boxed brownies, and then I had this one bread pudding recipe. That I would crush. And that was, that was like my dessert contribution. and so yeah, I moved to New York City. I went to pastry school. my grand plan was because I had this amazing experience with the DoD. It really shaped how my brain works to this day that I had the opportunity to see strategic, operational, and tactical all at the same time because I was able to, get into the really granular tactical level details on the ground, but then I would be back in DC sitting in on these very high level policy, meetings. And so seeing all of those interwoven. really shaped how my brain works. I also was always, when I lived in Hawaii, I worked at the Joint Intelligence Center out there and my, one of my responsibilities was to herd the cats of the executives that came from the Pentagon out to Pacific Command. I was in charge of shepherding them to the various meetings and, making sure everybody got where they needed to go. and so I was like, Oh, I'll be an event planner.
Lynn:Which is, because that is very much you're hosting, right? Like, you're, chief of staffing. You are like, I'm going to welcome you and I'm going to make sure you have everything you need to succeed.
Nicole:Yeah, you're curating an experience. Absolutely. This is so funny. I want to anchor my event planning business in, another function. So I was like, should I just be a florist and learn floral design, or should I do wedding cakes and go to pastry school? I was like, pastry school, let's do that. I learned very early on, like my first midterm was a cake. That was such a disaster. I cannot even describe, I wish I had a picture of it to send you, like how immediately I knew that my career, like my future was not in wedding cakes, but I ended up falling in love with working with chocolate. It's a super demanding medium. It's very finicky, very technical. You have to move the ingredient through this like temperature arc within a period of time. And I love that level of rigor, because I want to perform,
Lynn:Yeah. And the systems, seeing how all the ingredients work together at all the different levels. So
Nicole:100%. Yeah. So I fell in love with chocolate. And the next step in my career was ultimately I started and grew, and successfully exited from a chocolate business.
Lynn:Oh my gosh. Okay. My brain is swirling mostly in chocolate, which is never a bad thing. can I ask, so early on at the Department of Defense, you talked about this patriotism after 9 11 and, everybody being swept up in it. was there a point there where you thought, yeah, like I might be a career government, or government person. I might be a, civic leader. I might be career Department of Defense. were there points where you were like, This is going to be my career forever, and I'm really loving this idea, or,
Nicole:No, I think for a couple of different reasons. I loved the shared sense of purpose.
Lynn:Mm hmm.
Nicole:And this experience of we're all pulling on the same rope, it really matters. I mean the, the stakes are so high, right? The, word propaganda comes to mind, but I definitely don't mean it just in that derogatory sense. But it was like, okay, we are defending the honor of the nation, whatever.
Lynn:hmm. Mm
Nicole:feeling like the work that I was doing was contributing to something bigger than myself. And that was always the feeling that motivated my desire to serve. Again, I had, done like hospice training when I was in college. education policy, urban education reform, like that was always the thing. It's just I want to work on something that makes the world a better place, that, is going to have an impact, right? That was the underlying motive. I had a mentor who was really jaded. And it's tough not to be the DoD is such a bureaucracy and there's so much, I mean, now that I'm in the startup world, the ability to just go and try and test and pivot. And that's me, the Oh my God, we're having another conversation about whether or not to do the thing. Let's just do the fucking thing. You know what I mean? It's what are we talking about? That was never a good fit for me. And it wasn't for my mentor. And so yeah. I was super young when I came in and possibly had, I had a mentor that was themselves more caught up in the positive aspects of impact and purpose and service and look what we're doing and this is going to work. but the mentor was very fatalistic about everything because their experience was that it never got anywhere. And then I started to see that pattern. years of the same, meetings of the same conversation over and over. So no, I don't think I ever got caught up in the notion that I was going to be a careerist. And then, I got to, Hawaii. And when you, transfer from one position or command to another, you have to transfer your clearances. And so I got there, I was told my clearances would take a couple of weeks to transfer. And then they ended up taking five months. So for five months, I sat in a tiny room. at first I was so motivated. I'm like, I'm going to learn all the things. I'm going to read all the things I'm going to write. I'm going to be so ready. And I was like, so ready. I had so much fire. And then like months went by and I just really lost the drive. it's really hard to recover that. once my clearances came, I only stayed in that position for maybe a year as I was just so over it at that point. I felt so wasted. I posted today about Underwhelm and this is like the most classic case. That's why I thought about it last night. Just being underutilized, uninspired. Talent and passion squandered. It's like, how much of that can somebody like me, who's so driven, so ambitious, so wanting to make an impact, how much can you take? So I left Hawaii, I moved back to DC, and I was, on a team that I felt really good about. We were doing good work, but again, that pattern emerged of, oh, I'm in year two and now year three, and we're still talking about the same thing.
Lynn:hmm.
Nicole:was just not dynamic enough.
Lynn:Yeah. It started to feel like a time warp or some sort of, trick being played.
Nicole:And I'm like, wow, some of these people have been having this conversation for 15 years. It felt to me like, I can't imagine it. I cannot, I just, absolutely. It was just so not for me
Lynn:Awesome. okay, you took us through the next turn. So you spent, was it nine years total at the DOD? And then as you were getting ready to leave there, were you just thinking, okay, I'll just take some time off? And that was your plan, right? Was take time off.
Nicole:travel.
Lynn:Travel and and then was a big question mark, right?
Nicole:Yeah. I, I figured I would spend the year figuring it out and. to some extent, I wonder if I had given myself that whole year, I would have gotten to the point that I got to 30 or 25 years later when I took the 18 months hiatus from my career to do the healing work. I don't know that I was ready for it then, but I certainly didn't give myself an opportunity to know myself. I was so stuck in that proving mindset and I, again, I was absent from the. context in which to prove, and I felt really rudderless, so I was like, I gotta, I gotta get back in. I gotta, I gotta find some way to prove myself. I'm gonna make some cake. Exactly.
Lynn:Awesome. Okay. So then and then that brought you to chocolate, right? Okay. tell me about as you were going through that program and figuring out what was next, what fears were coming up, like what questions were coming up for you, was going through your mind.
Nicole:great question. I definitely remember in the moment, I was, in a class with some really talented pastry chefs that you knew. They're these, they, they are where they belong, and I really. knew that this was it was an overcorrection, right? It was like, I, I see it very much now as a trauma driven response. So partly the unresolved trauma from my brother, from, the hurricane, not having done the work to integrate that. And then the sort of protracted Lowercase t trauma of the DOD experience, I got out of the DOD and came back from Costa Rica. that was my first trip and decided I'm not gonna go on the rest. I'm not gonna go to the next phase of the trip. I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do next. I was like, I just wanna make people happy. I was so over war at that point. I was just so burnt out on war and everything that attends to war that I'm like, what can I do that will make people happy? Which is like that plus the event planning. It was like, Oh, flowers make people happy. And sugar makes people happy. And so that was like, definitely The motivation that led me to pastry school and I remember like being in the program and thinking this was a little bit of an overcorrection. It's Because when people were doing the work that would inform their careers, and like I said, like the, I have students that were in that class with me that are incredible pastry chefs right now and that are absolutely crushing it. I was like, what am I going to make for my next dinner party? You know, it just, it wasn't the thing. It was not me I like to work with my brain. And creativity and, certainly I ultimately started a business with it that engaged my brain, but not in the way that is actually the way that I love to work. The thing is I didn't know my real self at that point
Lynn:Ah.
Nicole:had just been busy proving the whole time. So, it's like, Oh, I can figure out how to prove myself. I'll prove myself, prove myself, prove myself. But I didn't know myself. And it was literally years later, I, it was a revelatory moment where I was like, Oh, I know what I'm good at years, years, years later. But I had the sense that it wasn't this.
Lynn:Mm hmm.
Nicole:I meant to be clear. my chocolates were delicious. You know, my company ended up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal nine days before Christmas, which was quite an experience.
Lynn:Insane, I bet.
Nicole:that wasn't the thing. it just wasn't me. It wasn't a choice that I made because I knew myself and I knew my worth, and I know what I wanna do with my life. It was like, oh, I'm here. Let me be the best version of this that I can be. And now I'm over here and I got to prove myself. So let me be the best version of this that I can be. But again, when you're chasing, you're not choosing in that powered way.
Lynn:oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm just letting that sit with me. When you're chasing, you're not choosing because it's really that needy, that needy energy. Validate me.
Nicole:Desperately proving. Desperate. Yes. That was for me. That describes a really, very tragically huge change in my life.
Lynn:yeah. when you look back now at that time and you know, oh, I didn't really know myself at that time. Is that the only indicator? that's telling you that? Or were there other things going on that make you, sure that you did not know yourself or understand yourself at that time?
Nicole:Um, yeah, like every relationship that I was in.
Lynn:I don't understand what you're talking about at all! kidding.
Nicole:No, but right. I mean, it's the exact same thing. It's if I don't know myself and know my worth, can I possibly choose the right partner? Not a freaking chance. Not a freaking chance.
Lynn:That was the perfect answer.
Nicole:Yeah. I mean, when I look back at that, I was always rushing to the next milestone again to prove or to validate, right? It wasn't, I want to move in or whatever the next step would be because I know that this is the right thing for me. It's because that's the next thing you do, right? That behavior. And in fact, when I met my husband, the thing that made me so sure About him was that I didn't give a crap whether we took another step or not. I felt so rooted in my knowing So that sort of that proving behavior or like, how can I stack accolades or take the next step, take the next step, Get the next promotion. And in the relationship context, it's those steps. It's You get the ring, you move it, whatever order it is. I mean, we don't need to go into that, but it was exactly the same. So yes, it was happening in both major facets of my life.
Lynn:Love it. And how could it not happen in both facets of your life, right? yourself is not divided into work and personal, right? we are a whole human.
Nicole:that is the, yes,
Lynn:Yeah, yeah, I love that. Okay, so you came out of pastry school loving chocolate and deciding to build a chocolate company and it sounds like it was incredibly successful. Tell me more.
Nicole:I mean, that is like the most favorable version of the story. I didn't come out of pastry school knowing that I was going to build a chocolate business. I came out of pastry school and took a job in Philadelphia running a pastry kitchen.
Lynn:Okay.
Nicole:And I felt Is this really what I'm doing? again, I was really lost in my journey at that point. what I felt was like, I am a very well educated pastry kitchen manager, and that's okay if this is what I want, Right? I mean, who cares what degrees you have if your heart is with you when you are in that? But I knew my heart wasn't. So I was like, what am I doing? what is this? And, but you know, I just showed up and did my job. I mean, to some extent you have to do that. And, over that winter, I, was making a bunch of different stuff for friends and family. Totally, I mean, Martha Stewart style, the gift box with the different packaging and the tags and I love that crap. So I was super into it. And I mailed it off and one of my friends who got one of those boxes had an aunt who owned a candy store. A confectionery shop in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And that woman called me and basically it was like, Oh, I got your box and blah, blah, blah. I want to order six dozen of these, 10 dozen of those. whatever it was. And I was like, okay, so I, I started it. I mean, I, I figured out how to fill that order. totally, like make it till you make it, but it was at the time, very fake it till you make it. It's like figuring out packaging in real time. And then I kept going, you know, it was like, okay, those did well. Then somebody wanted some for their wedding favors. And I did that. And then I had a breakup with the person that I was living with at the time that I, again, we've already discovered, not the right person, but that I had moved to Philly with, and, my dad features actually heavily in this particular redraw because I was really Lost after that breakup, I was in a career situation where I didn't have a compass. And I think at that point, as a result was over relying on the relationship to be a compass. And that wasn't the right relationship to be my compass. So when the relationship broke, and I was in this job that I didn't feel connected with, or it wasn't purpose led, I really felt lost. And my father's discomfort With seeing me lost, I remember him saying to me, this is not you. Because I was basically on my couch watching MSNBC, just shell shocked. And the thing that I was doing, that you could attribute to being me, mine, was the chocolate work, like that had been in this ad hoc capacity. And my father is so like, go. I get it from him, by the way. And he was like, we're going to the fancy food show in New York. pack your bags. I'll meet you at the Javits Center.
Lynn:What?
Nicole:Yeah. Yeah. So, and again, it's another moment and I love my dad for doing that. it wasn't the right thing, but I, it came from the right place. He was very affected by my rudderlessness. And I get it because my father wanted to feel like he had set me up and I was on a path and I'd created options and I was, at that analogous point in his life, he was building his business that ultimately became this huge success. So he was really struggling with what the hell I was doing with my life. so we went to the Javits Center. I, what I was going to say is I wish, just like the pre pastry school moment where I didn't give myself enough time. I wish I had just stayed on that couch a little longer. We're so uncomfortable in those moments of. Lack of clarity of those moments of uncertainty. It's so uncomfortable, especially when you grow up with my father, but even in general, it's we want to know what the next thing is, but sometimes we need to sit with that discomfort because when we don't, we end up reacting to it. And when we react to it, we're not necessarily making the choice that is self led. We're either defaulting to those patterns that are not good for us, or we're making choice that's motivated by proving. Or whatever it is, it's not rooted in self. And so, that's a moment where if I could go back, and again, I so appreciate my dad for how he showed up for me. But I really just wish that I had stayed there. In that lostness long enough to just get over the breakup, which was the literally best thing that ever happened to me. But I needed to get there and feel it instead of what I really did was let me pack all those feelings away. And this is also how my family responded to my brother's death and general sadness or trauma is Oh, you pack it in a ball, throw it over your shoulder and go forward, right forward. So we went to the Javits Center, which is the massive convention center in New York. I picked out packaging. I moved to Chicago like within a month. I packed up Philly. I moved to Chicago. I started my business.
Lynn:Why Chicago?
Nicole:I loved it. Yeah. So when I left Miami, I alluded to this a little bit like the, the insecurity, the social insecurity, and then just general insecurity that I felt here in Miami really precluded me from having an association with place, like a connection with place. When I got to Chicago, I was like, this is my place. First of all, University of Chicago is full of nerds. I was like, these are my people. I am exactly where I need to be. And I felt super connected there. And so when I, I always wanted to live there again. And especially at that point in my life, I think I needed something that felt. I could be myself in or whatever that version was at the time. So that's what motivated that. I mean, at that point, I could have started my business anywhere with Chicago. so that's where I moved. And, you know, at that point, I'd ordered packaging and like I was in it, I had to go for it.
Lynn:Yeah.
Nicole:I, early on, what basically what happened was I had the first confectionery product in America, at least the first one that got any sort of press, that incorporated craft beer. And it was at the time when the craft beer movement was starting to take off. I was smart enough to see the pattern, oh, it's the beer can, it's the, it was a beer and pretzel truffle. I was getting all of this notice and early press. And so then I'm like, oh, beer and pretzel, I'll do a beer and pretzel caramel, I did a beer and pretzel brittle, beer and pretzel s'more, da da da da da. By the way, I never drink beer, it's never my thing. So again, Not, it's a little bit out of body, but it was that, that really like almost in spite of myself, I was able to create a successful business because I rode on the coattails of this movement and all of this press and recognition around the novelty of incorporating craft beer into chocolates and candies. Um, so yeah, by the time the Wall Street Journal Journal article ran, I would pull up to the building where the commercial kitchen was and just fantasize about firebombing it. I was I was still over it. I mean, again, when you do something that is not yours and it, and it's not heart led. Really yours. And it takes so much work like a startup does.
Lynn:Yeah.
Nicole:It's not a good relationship. That's not a healthy relationship.
Lynn:Yeah, you and it sounds like you were really you were putting one foot in front of the other, but you had all this unresolved, unhealed trauma and stuff going on inside of you. And what I what I'm thinking when you say like, this wasn't mine, right? It was because someone's aunt called you and was like, hey, you're good at this. And then your dad was like, Hey, you're good at this. Why not just do this? And you didn't have enough time to really figure out, what was yours or what was next for you?
Nicole:A hundred percent. And I was so desperate to prove myself because without the ability to prove myself, I couldn't feel worthy. and I always knew I can show up and work. Like that story going back to the start of the conversation that like core lie I told myself that I can outwork anyone. I proved the crap out of that. And you're exactly right. I could put one foot in the front of the other. I could work 20 hour days in the kitchen day after day after day. I could get the orders out. I could do all of those things. And I was proving, I was proving. And because I needed to, because I hadn't found that worth inside myself. And I certainly didn't want to feel anything. I never learned to do that.
Lynn:20 hour work days do. Yeah. It keeps you from feeling.
Nicole:Yeah. And it's so funny that you said that because that unfortunately carried through my early motherhood journey. And what I realized when I finally took the break was that time management was my number one coping strategy to deal with trauma and, or to prevent myself from dealing with trauma, better said, it was the way that I avoided feeling my feelings. I kept myself so busy and my family so busy that we could never just pause to feel, right? We had to get from here to there or we had to do the next thing. And yeah, that's a huge part of what it was. And it was like, okay, I, I always had the next. Milestone to hit, the next benchmark to hit, the next impressive thing to do, and that's what I did. I mean, that's what I knew to do was perform, achieve, excel.
Lynn:Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Just keep doing that. Rinse and repeat. I have so many questions that I'm like refraining from this isn't a business podcast, but I like, tell me about how you built the chocolate company. I want to focus on that moment or maybe like series of moments where you pulled up in front of your building and you really, dreamed of firebombing the place. Can you talk about what was going on there? Mm
Nicole:That I was exhausted and unfulfilled. I was pouring myself into the business. I felt like I was pouring my energy into a sieve. It wasn't feeding me back and this gets to, I think, what can be described as a trend. I've always been confident in my ability to show up in a new thing and, crush it, dominate it, right? I can figure things out super fast, my brain processes really quickly, and I can outwork everyone. That's why if you look at my career, it's okay, defense to chocolate, chocolate to b school, b school to CPG baby products, then to health technology, I never went deep in a vertical or in an industry. I was always bouncing around and it's because I Was really confident in my ability to do the, the setup to do the, the startup phase. But then when it came to sustaining, I'm like, Oh, I'm not going to be able to keep this going it's going to come to light that I'm not good enough. I didn't figure that pattern out until years later, pretty recently, but that was what, and it was my father asked me like, what was it? What was that all about? you know, and I was like, okay, there's the obvious answer, right? Which is the, I didn't know myself or have a way to feel good about myself. So I was chasing. Yes. But why the always starting over in something completely new. And it's, that's how my version of imposter syndrome showed up. So for a lot of, a lot of people think about imposter syndrome as, keep holding them back from doing something, right? They'll be found out if they try. So I'm just not going to try. For me, it was what impelled me forward. It's Oh, I can be really impressive if I go into health technology, having never done it before. And I can blow people away with like, how quickly I can assimilate the information and say smart things about, Health tech, right? that's impressive. I can prove my worth, but then after a period of time where that newness is no longer a foundation for impressive and I need to be impressive in my own right, that was terrifying for me. And so anyway, going back to chocolate, I think that was part of it was like, I'm on the front page of the wall street journal, or I was in the New York times twice, food and wine magazines, I had done those things and then it was like, okay, I've got to take this the distance. I don't know if I can do that. I didn't. And part of it was like, my heart wasn't in it. I wasn't fully in it. It wasn't, it didn't feel like it was truly mine. And part of it was, I don't believe in myself enough. To sustain it over time,
Lynn:And other people might find that out.
Nicole:right? And then what, if I'm not proving my worth, what am I,
Lynn:Mm hmm. yeah, That's hitting, that's hitting me really hard, Nicole, because I've jumped around a lot and it's that if I stay too long, I mean, lots of things. Boredom, I want to keep growing, stagnancy, but also that. Oh, what if people find out that I'm not going to be able to hack it over the long term? I can hack it in the short term, but over the long term? That's so interesting. All right, if you're liking this episode, so am I, and I can't wait to hear more. We are putting this into a second episode next week, so definitely tune in to hear the rest of this guest's journey, and I'll see you next week. Thanks for listening to Redraw Your Path with me, Lynn Debilzen. If you like the episode, please rate and review. That helps more listeners find me. And don't be shy, reach out and connect with me on LinkedIn and sign up for my e-newsletter at redrawyourpath.com. I can't wait to share more inspiring stories with you. See you next week.