15: Guest Karleen Wagner's Mantra "See a Need, Fill a Need" Created Career Opportunities
Jan 24, 2024
Have you ever stood at the crossroads of motherhood and career, wondering which path to venture down? Karleen Wagner joins us to share her journey. Transitioning from a physical therapist assistant to a full-time caregiver, she's woven a tapestry of care and support that extends beyond her family to those in her community.
Embracing the mantra "see a need, fill a need," Karleen created a volunteer role which soon turned into a paid position that offered her the flexibility she needed to be fully present for her young children. Her story offers hope and actionable advice for moms finding themselves on the brink of an empty nest or contemplating their next career move.
This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom on how intentional choices and volunteering can be the cornerstones of career development. We dissect the importance of unpaid experiences and how they enrich a resume, potentially leading to paid positions. This is a conversation that will resonate with anyone looking to reignite their professional life, illustrating that sometimes, the most profound growth stems from the simplest acts of giving back.
Have you ever stood at the crossroads of motherhood and career, wondering which path to venture down? Karleen Wagner joins us to share her journey. Transitioning from a physical therapist assistant to a full-time caregiver, she's woven a tapestry of care and support that extends beyond her family to those in her community.
Embracing the mantra "see a need, fill a need," Karleen created a volunteer role which soon turned into a paid position that offered her the flexibility she needed to be fully present for her young children. Her story offers hope and actionable advice for moms finding themselves on the brink of an empty nest or contemplating their next career move.
This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom on how intentional choices and volunteering can be the cornerstones of career development. We dissect the importance of unpaid experiences and how they enrich a resume, potentially leading to paid positions. This is a conversation that will resonate with anyone looking to reignite their professional life, illustrating that sometimes, the most profound growth stems from the simplest acts of giving back.
Hi and welcome to her next chapter's podcast. I'm your host, christina Cole. I'm a mom of three and soon to be an empty nester. I'm also a certified HR pro who restarted my career after being a stay-at-home mom for over a decade. I created this podcast to connect with moms who have an empty nest on the horizon and are wanting to redefine their identity outside of motherhood, which might include a job search. On this show, we'll have raw conversations about our ever-changing roles as moms. We'll hear from women who restarted their careers and share tips for a job search after a career break. So if that's you, you're in the right place. Friend, let's get started.
Speaker 1:
Hey everyone, welcome to this week's episode of her next chapter's. I am so excited because we have a special guest on the podcast today. I'm excited to welcome Carleen Wagner. Carleen and I met at a women's business entrepreneurial conference back in November and I heard her talking about her return to work and she said what was it you said? You said see a need, feel a need. I'm like, oh my gosh, that sounds like right up my alley. Let's talk more. So we connected at lunch and we've connected for coffee and I invited Kathleen on the podcast because I think she has a wonderful story to share with all the listeners about that volunteer role, like how you came back into the workforce and also you're a networking queen, so I'm really excited to have you here, carleen.
Speaker 2:
Well, thank you very much. I'm excited to share and hopefully be able to encourage and equip some women that are kind of in the same stages of life.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, well, let's first talk. I guess start with your early career, like before, before you took a career break or anything. What is your background and what did you do?
Speaker 2:
Yes, so my background is in physical therapy. I worked as a physical therapy aide all through high school and college and then got a degree in exercise and sports science and my intent was to get a master's in physical therapy but, honestly, God had other plans. I ended up getting a associate's degree as a physical therapist assistant and after working for another year I had my first child and decided to stay home. And so I say stay home, but that is a very loose term. For the first couple of years I actually nanny for a friend of mine and then after that I had kids in my house that I watched, just kind of a childcare type of thing, especially one of my girlfriends who I raised her first couple of girls during the week, and they're really, really close friends of mine, and so I always found something to do, but it was definitely more in the stay at home role.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's one of my. Maybe I'll make it my mission that stay at home mom is like such the wrong terminology and like when I was the stay at home mom, I was hardly ever home. It seemed like we were always busy and running kids to different places and doing it and volunteering at school and the sports teams and everything else that, and stay at home. This wasn't a really good description of what I did, and then that's what I'm hearing from you too. You might have been home but you were working, providing nanny services and having other extra kids in the household that you were caring for and yeah, so I thought I'm like, well, maybe it's unpaid caregiver, like there's, it's full time, right, unrecognized. Yeah, that's true, yeah.
Speaker 2:
I feel, the same way by my mother-in-law would get frustrated with me because she wants to meet up or come see the kids or something. But she was very last minute and I'd be like, no, we're on our way to the zoo or no, we've got, you know, mops today, or we're doing. And she's like you don't stay home, you can't call yourself a stay at home mom. Like she was actually a little bit offended by that and I'm like, well, stay at home meaning I don't have a traditional job in the workforce, but no, I'm not just sitting on my behind eating bonbons.
Speaker 1:
Like we're out doing stuff and having fun and connecting and you know, volunteering and being involved in things and creating an enriched environment for our kids and that's with peers and the zoo and the museums and activities, and it's, yeah, it's, it's work, but you know it's I don't know how to classify it but anyway, you opted. When your first child was born, you became a stay-at-home full time caregiver and then you took care of some other, some friends, kids as well. You said you nanny, and how many kids do you have?
Speaker 2:
I have two, two boys, 21, almost 22 and 24.
Speaker 1:
Okay, okay. So you are now in the empty nest phase, or approaching it. Before we get to the empty nest phase, let's talk about your that, that volunteer role that turned into a paid position, where you were with that little catchphrase, where we first kind of connected of see a need, fill a need, tell, tell that story, if you would, yeah.
Speaker 2:
So that's kind of been my mantra. And if you don't know where that quote comes from, it comes from the movie Robots, which is I looked it up today. It was came out in 2005. And it's if you've never seen that movie, it's incredible. I it's.
Speaker 2:
It's a cartoon, but it has so many really deep values in it, and one of it was see a need, fill a need, meaning that you know, when you see some something and you have the ability to do something about it or with it, then do it. You know, and that's kind of my game plan for life too, is you know, if somebody has a need and I have the capacity to fill it, then it's my joy and my honor to do that. So when my first, my second child, sorry went to a full day school so first grade for him, I knew that I wanted to do something. But I didn't really want anything that would prevent me from being available to the kids if they needed me. So I wanted to be home after school. I wanted to be available Should they need to take a day off or go to a doctor or something like that, and those are really hard to find.
Speaker 2:
Admittedly, at the time we were training at a martial arts academy. We had been training there for about a year probably about a year, maybe two years and my instructor had moved from our recreation center where we were holding classes to a like a strip mall area where we had our own space. And during that transition I realized that he could really benefit from somebody taking over kind of the administrative part of the business. He was an incredible instructor, you know, incredible teacher, great with the kids and everything, but I could just tell that the business side of it was not his forte, and so it was that see a need, fill a need. It's like I can fill in here and do this for you so that you can focus on your strengths, which is teaching and curriculum and all that kind of stuff. And so it started out he was a little leery, I think with good reason.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, well, it sounds like you were. Maybe like he had to open up his books to you, as bookkeeping is like his business is back in business to a customer.
Speaker 2:
Exactly, yeah, exactly. And so we did it on a trial, you know, just kind of on a small basis, where I just took out a few of the things you know, caught up people with some agreements and took care of like ordering for the Academy and just some little things. And over time, as I understood the business better and what needed to be done, I took on more and more things that I saw he was not thrilled with doing and that I could easily do in my capacity. And the Academy was only open in the evenings and then Saturdays. So it was great because I could, you know, have that daytime when my kids were in school to go in and do stuff, and then, if I brought them with me at night what they were training to at the Academy, so we'd all go at night and I'd take everyone I need to take care of, they would train, we'd package dinner and eat dinner there, and so it was a really great situation all around. Well, and you would have been there anyway, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, just sitting on the sidelines watching the kids, or if you're like, oh, let me do get some work done over here on the side while you're in that space, exactly.
Speaker 2:
Exactly so. After a matter of time, when I started picking up more of the responsibilities, I just approached them and said you know, I'm really, you know, doing part-time work here and I think that it would be great if I got paid for that. Talk about a difficult conversation. I have never literally asked for something like that ever in my life.
Speaker 1:
That took a lot of courage, I'm sure, yeah, so tell me more about how that came about, like, how long had you been volunteering at that point in time?
Speaker 2:
Um, I don't remember as long time ago.
Speaker 1:
Maybe six months. Okay, so it took you a little bit more and more and more, until you're like Whoa, this is a lie.
Speaker 2:
Well, and I've been teaching, and all of our teachers are instructors or volunteers you, you, you, you you.
Speaker 1:
Carly, you mentioned that your business is marketing, network marketing. Can you tell us more specifically about what it is, what you offer, what your services are?
Speaker 2:
Sure. So I am an independent consultant with Arbonne International and we offer clean vegan products through nutrition and skincare, some cosmetics as well, and I got started in Arbonne because of my kidney transplant, and so I realized that your kidney is one of your organs of elimination and so it filters, just like your liver. They filter everything to ensure that your body is running as great as it can, and I was really looking at a way to better support my kidney so that it would last for longer and that I wasn't harming it in any way by the products I was using, the food I was eating, that kind of stuff and so I just went down the rabbit trail on research of how I can better support kidney, and things that kept coming up was just the products that you use, the foods that you eat, all the contaminants, all the toxins. In fact, anything that you put on your skin that touches your skin absorbs into your blood stream within 26 seconds. So when you think about lotion and shampoo and cleaning products which we don't offer cleaning products but I have great people that I can send you to for that but all those things that you touch day in and day out and that you put on your skin and cosmetics. It absorbs into your body and then your body has to try to handle it and you can get toxic overload from all those chemicals. And same with food. I mean, it's phenomenal to me and this is an entire soapbox I could get on, so I'll make it short but it's phenomenal to me what is allowed in our food products nowadays and if you are not reading labels and if you don't understand what's going on, you can think that you're getting nutrition and you're really not.
Speaker 2:
So, like I said, I went down that rabbit hole and I had a friend who is doing our blood actually a client from martial arts, so connections and I actually went to her to look at the nutrition supplements and really liked them, started using them, started offering them to our martial arts clients and started using the skincare, which I was really not a huge skincare girl, but when I started learning about, oh, it's important to know what you put on your skin, I was like, oh, okay, so I started looking into that as well and yeah, and then, over COVID, I really started picking it up more on offering those benefits to other people, not just for my little martial arts community and my friends, you, you, you, yes, so my, my general website, which kind of covers a lot of everything that I do, including the speaking and bookwriting and stuff, is choosing to thrive. Llccom and that's my kind of umbrella business is choosing to thrive and it's all about your health, your mental health, physical health, living, you know, the life that you want to live, rather than just taking what's, you know, the low hanging fruit or what's right there, you know, there's just so much more life. So choosing to thrive LLCcom is probably the best way. My information's on there. They can follow me.
Speaker 2:
On Facebook is Carleen Vanessa Wagner, they can just do Carleen Wagner or on Instagram is choosing to thrive. Yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:
I'll make sure to add those to the show notes. And in closing, as we kind of wrap up here, I'm just curious if you have any we might have already mentioned them but any final thoughts and recommendations for people kind of at this phase, phase and stage of life where their kids are growing up and they're kind of, you know, figure out what their next chapters are, what? Are some of the hardy words you have for those.
Speaker 2:
I think, is to really sit down and think about what you want going forward. Do you want to get back into your career field? Do you want to maybe look at something new, maybe get some more education? Do you want to expand your networks, your friendships? Do you want to take on a new hobby? Decide what you want to do and also what your needs are. You know your family may have a financial need, so that may be something you need to pursue. Yeah, and just really decide where you want to go and be intentional about it. I think sometimes we just kind of flow through and just think things are going to happen for us and you need to be intentional. Things just don't happen. So kind of have a goal point of where do I want to go and then break it down into okay, how am I going to get there? If you want a career change, what is that going to take? Is it going to take more education? Is it going to take a few classes? Is it going to take whatever? Is it going to take maybe volunteering in that field to see if it's something you want to do? You know, so You've got it in my mind. Yeah, yeah, I mean I there. Oh, there's so much volunteering.
Speaker 2:
I spoke about being part of women's ministry. I put together every year we would have a big Christmas outreach and it was a two night event. It was the same event each night but it ran for two nights and I organized that event two different years and I'll tell you the experience. It was volunteer, but the experience from that I mean event organization and all that kind of stuff. That is stuff I can put down that, hey, I've done this Absolutely.
Speaker 1:
So that's another mantra Is that unpaid, unpaid experience is experience.
Speaker 2:
Yes. So if you feel like you're not experienced, go get the experience. And maybe it has to be volunteer to start with Right, and that's okay because it still gives you the experience.
Speaker 1:
Gives you the experience, gives you the contacts, give you references. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
And be open to helping people. I mean, like I said, I was just helping out my martial arts instructor and it turned into something more. You know, in your environment I have no friends that have just helped at the school and it's turned into like an eight position. So, yeah, I think volunteering people don't consider that as something for the job market, but it really is.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah. Job search strategy number one for me is volunteering, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Well, and by volunteering you're opening your network too, because you're meeting people in that area as well.
Speaker 1:
So actually, I'll put it, I don't know for myself I'm volunteering on Thursday at Dress for Success as a career coach, helping helping the women prepare for their interviews. So that's my way of volunteering meeting new people and all of that. So yeah, so I'm practicing what I preach.
Speaker 2:
Love it, love it, yes. So Colorado Business Women, the group I'm president of, dress for Success is our outreach that we raise money and support for. So I love Dress for Success. There's another commonality for us there we go, there we go Well, Karleen.
Speaker 1:
thank you so very much. This has been really insightful and fun and I'm sure all the listeners are going to get some great value from it, so really appreciate you joining me today.
Speaker 2:
Oh, thank you for having me. I appreciate it Absolutely.
Speaker 1:
Thank you so much for listening today. I hope this episode hit home for you and if it didn't, well, go easy on me I'm still figuring this all out and if you haven't already, be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn and say hello so I can personally thank you for listening. Until next time, remember, your story is uniquely your own, and your next chapters are ready to begin.