Fact or Story ft. Barbara Boselli

Welcome to the Career Slee podcast, the show where we talk about career growth, courageous leadership, and life work alignment. I'm your host, Kelly Pokeysburg, and I'm here to help you achieve sustainable success and slay the fear and career. [music] Barbara Bostelli is a leadership expert speaker and executive coach with over 15 years of experience leading and developing teams at Fortune 500 companies, including Google. She helps professionals and organizations thrive by integrating emotional intelligence, mindfulness, and neuroscience into leadership development. Barbara holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, certifications from the Search and Siderself Leadership Institute in IPEC, and a degree in spiritual psychology. Her work focuses on building self-awareness, resilience, and the kind of leadership that inspires trust and drives performance. Based in Westport, Connecticut, Barbara lives with her husband and two sons. She finds joy in meaningful conversations and discovering new places through travel. Welcome to Career Slee, Barbara. Thank you. It's so nice to be here. I'm really excited to have you. We met at a speaker program called Heroic and have spent the past 10 months creating keynote speeches, which we hope will change the world. How's that going for you? It's going. It's still in the development. I think it always will be, but it's going well. We'll talk more about what you speak about, but let's start from the very beginning. Tell me a little bit more about what you were like as a kid, what was your childhood like, and what was the family dynamic? So I grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I was there until my late 20s and grew up in a. Like me, though, class family, my parents divorced when I was very little. So I lived with my mom mostly and my two older sisters, but my father is still very present in our lives. And had a very happy childhood, always like local there, then went to college in Brazil. When I was kind of deciding what to do for college, I kind of took the path that I thought was going to be the most convenient, I guess. My father was a businessman. I always. It was easy for me to do project management and I was really good to know numbers and all that. So I decided to study business and went to kind of have a career in large organizations there. And then I eventually moved to the US to get an MBA. So that's how I ended up here. Wow, that's incredible. So being born and raised in Brazil, what was your experience like transitioning to the United States? Well, it's definitely very different. And I remember when I started my MBA, they had a week of orientation for the international students. And it was really funny because there were some. And there were people from Brazil, from China, from India, from all different. So all different cultures. And they were talking about how. The cultural differences and some things that really stuck with me that they talked about to us. You know, in the US, when you're talking with someone, you always keep at least one arm length distance between you and the other person. And also, when you're in an elevator with people, you don't look at them. You just look at the door. What they thought of. It's totally funny because, you know, of course, coming from Latin America, it's different. And I imagine. And also, they, of course, talked a lot about how in the US is totally appropriate and even encouraged for you to kind of market yourself, talk about yourself, which for countries like China, for example, it might be really against the norm. So it was really interesting to go through that. And, of course, I still, to this day, sometimes face challenges that are related to culture. That's so interesting, just like the nuances. And I love the story about the elevator and the arm. So to take a step back, if we can think about the beginning of your career, like what was that first job that you got out of college in the business world? Yeah. Well, my first job was. It's probably was at L'Oreal, where I started as an intern and I worked in there, kind of finance department. And it was. I mean, it was a great experience. I was given a lot of responsibility and I got to understand how a company works, right? The structure of a company, how to interact with people at work. And they had a very unique culture because it's a French company. But it was a great first step. And then from there, I went to. I think after that, that's when I went to work for Valley, which is where I had my major work experience in Brazil. Valley is a mining company. And it's one of the largest companies in Brazil. I did invest in relations. So I got to interact with people from the outside world, from banks and investors. I mean, it was great. So what was it that. It sounds like you got some amazing global experience. What was it about the MBA that really prompted you to make that pivot and make that change? There was a personal component and a professional component. From a professional standpoint, I had been working in finance for many years. And I wanted to try something different. And I thought the MBA was a great way to make a career shift. A lot of people use an MBA like that. Also, it would give me exposure to studying in the US, which is totally different than studying in Brazil. And then from a personal standpoint, I also wanted to have that experience of living abroad and just kind of expanding my horizons. That's amazing. What did you end up doing after you got out of the MBA program? So I went to work for a Google. I did my internship there during my MBA and then they hired me full time. So I moved from Chicago where I was at the time to California, to the Bay Area. And I worked in there in their strategy and operations team. So I started managing a team that. And that was really fun to do. It's what I ended up realizing that's what I most loved. I bought my job was the aspect of people development and human development in general. And Google was an amazing company to work for. It not only had all the perks that probably most people have heard about, but just I was surrounded by really smart, amazing people. And I was reading the papers about the people I was working with. So it was a terrific experience. If somebody doesn't know what strategy and operations is, can you kind of explain what that would look like on a day-to-day, like what types of projects you'd be working on? Yeah. At Google, the way Google makes money or at least at the time, it still is. It makes money to advertisement, right? And so there's a whole sales team that's working with advertisers to have them book their spots on Google, et cetera. My team was in charge of giving the support that the sales team needed. So we did everything from figuring out which clients to go to, how to segment the clients and things like that. Two more of the operations, which actually the part that I personally worked more was the operations. One thing we were in charge of was the company had its CRM system, which is the customer relationship management system. My team was in charge of working with the engineers to develop the system. So understand, you know, how can we best equip the sales team with information and a workflow that will help them support the advertisers that they were working with? So you worked in strategy and operations and did you do any other types of roles within the organization? Because I know Google is, you know, people who stay at Google tend to work in different job functions across their career. Yeah. So I stayed in the overall same area, but within the area, I did different roles. So there was a time, actually, when I just started, I had a role called product specialist, which was, we were the bridge between the customer, so the advertisers and the product managers who developed the products that the advertisers used. And we would understand what were their needs and then translate that to the product team, so that the product would keep evolving in the direction of what the client needed. So what kind of lit this fire to start working more on like people development? I know you had mentioned that that's what you were really passionate about and it kind of became the next step in your career. Tell us more about how you moved into that. So I always had a lot of interest in human development. And starting with my own development, I've, you know, since before Google, I've always invested in my own personal development and fun story. And I was getting my MBA at that time, which was like almost 20 years ago now. Mindfulness and meditation were really like, woo, it still is a little bit, but at that time was like, you didn't talk about that in the business world. And I remember that I was already into it and meditation and mindfulness and I signed up to meditation training in the town, Evanson, where I was, but I did not tell anybody from school. So I would just kind of disappear in the afternoon and go to my meditation training because it was so like out of context, right? These days, I think even there are a lot of MBAs that talk about mindfulness and they teach that, but at the time it was in the case. So anyways, I've always been very interested in human development. And then at Google, I was managing a team and I love that. I really invested time and energy in getting better as a manager. And I ended up taking a role as an internal career coach at Google. It's like a voluntary job you can take on top of your day-to-day job. And you help coach Google employees that are looking to change areas or to relocate or kind of trying to figure out their next steps. And I took a training called Search Inside Yourself. And this training was developed by Googlers and delivered only internally at the time. And it was an emotional intelligence training, leadership training. But founded in mindfulness and all backed up in neuroscience. And this training for me was very transformational. I remember that it was really the first time in my life that I kind of really realized that all the leadership skills that I really admired in people, some of which I had, some of which I didn't have, that they could be taught and learned. Up until that point, I felt like either you were a natural born leader or you weren't. But that's when I really learned that all those emotional intelligence skills, they can be learned that our brain keeps evolving throughout our lives. So we can retain it to respond to situations in different ways. We can create self-awareness, all those things. And during that training, I remember sitting there and looking at the teacher, the facilitator and thinking to myself, you know, in my next life, I would love to be that person. But it was so far away from my reality that I didn't even consider the possibility that this could happen in this life. But then, you know, I, you know, sometime after that, I ended up leaving Google. I was pregnant with my second son. My first son was two years old. And there were a lot of different factors that kind of make that move to leave. It was really, really hard to leave Google. It was a stable job. I had a good role. I was getting, you know, a good salary. And really, like my identity was very much tied to, you know, being a working professional and working for Google. But then I decided to leave and just be a mom for a while. I mean, not just like focus on being a mom. It's a lot. And I was really lost to be honest. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I took some time. And during that time, I decided to take a train called a training in spiritual psychology at the University of Santa Monica. And that training, when I took it was really for my own personal development. I never, in my wildest dream, thought that I would add that training to my resume. Can you explain what a spiritual psychology. And how to use that in your consulting? The basic idea is that we all have our goal line, which is what's happening in the physical world and things. And, you know, how do we grow in our goal life? We get a promotion. We travel. We build a family. Whatever it is that we want to accomplish in this realm here. And then there's also the soul line, which is really our consciousness. And if we are kind of stuck in our soul line, everything that happens in the goal line isn't really appreciated as much. It can be, we can be happy for a moment when we get a promotion. But before we know it, we are ready looking at the next promotion. Or, you know, we buy the house. We are very happy. But then we look the neighbor has the pool. Oh, now I want the pool. And there's nothing wrong with that. We all want to grow and get more in the physical world. But the soul line, which is, you know, they call it the spiritual world, the consciousness, is where you grow in a way that you start understanding that everything is really inside of us. And as we grow internally, we grow our consciousness, our understanding. We are able to really, it comes down to love, right? Love ourselves, love others. Then whatever happens in this goal line is less important. Because we are able to stay more in a state of equanimity that we are not as impacted, right? And the way to do that is by just be more aware of ourselves. And letting go of stories that tell us that our worth comes from what we achieve, that, you know, knowing that we each have our own value and that we are in this world to learn that Earth is a school in the end of the day. And we're all here to learn. And everything that happens is for our growth and our development. That life is happening for us, not against us. We are able to see that, we can take ownership for how we relate to life, so we can see the opportunities, we can see the challenges as opportunities. So it's kind of like this different way of relating to life. That's what we learn in this training. And they give us like very specific tools and concepts that we can implement and practice to become more conscious and able to do that. Wow. That is fascinating. I want that. I was also definitely the person who wanted the pool. I mean, me too. But and it's a process, right? Of course, but and there's nothing wrong with wanting the pool. It's great to have a pool. It's less than if your life becomes about having a pool. Either I have a pool I'm happy if I don't have a pool I miserable, then that becomes a problem. I bet. I was learning about human skills, like how to listen to people, how to take responsibility for your life, for how you respond to situations. And I was like, okay, this is amazing. And I want to bring this to companies. But I had no idea how to do it. I was kind of trying different things. And for a while, I was very stuck thinking that you have the whole plan. So I could, you know, for me to start something, I need to know where that was going to lead. And then I learned that that search inside yourself training that I had taken had actually spun off from Google. It had become its own organization and it was training new teachers. Cool. So I was like, that's it. I jumped into the opportunity. I took that training. And then from there I started my career as a leadership coach and a trainer. It's amazing. Thank you for sharing that story. It's a powerful one. So between, because I hear this a lot from especially women who are at that age where they're corporate professionals who have built a really successful career and are told that you can have it all. And then you get to this point where the same time when you're supposed to be raising kids is the same kind of point in your career where you're like climbing that ladder and then having to make a choice that is it's seemingly so difficult in that moment. So between when you decided to leave Google and then when you decided to become a consultant was kind of that time frame where you kind of went on this journey and and bound what you're you're going to do next. When I left Google, it was a really hard decision because my identity was tied to it. I felt that I had invested all this time and energy and money and to get my education right to get to this point. So it was hard to leave and for me I knew it was the right choice at that moment. And it took a lot of different signs for me to make that move. and I to get into it. But it was like I wasn't in the right role and there was a lot of things happening at Google that kind of helped me, helped make that decision more obvious for me. And I wanted to be with my kids and they are a little bit also of the excuse that I needed to leave corporate because I had been feeling for a while that that was not what I wanted to continue doing. So I think that's an important aspect of it. And between when I left Google and when I opened my company it was about four years. And during that time for the first year or so I was never thinking about working. Thankfully our family was in a financially stable enough position where it was okay for me to not to bring a salary. And I was able to give myself that time. And then when I did start thinking okay I'm ready to go back because I do like to work. I missed it very much when I would put my kids. And again I adore my kids. I love being with them but for me personally and everyone is different I felt like I wanted to have also something in my life that was mine that was not just like about the family which is again not just it's it's amazing. It's a lot and for some people that's already drive but for me I wanted something else. And so it took me a while to figure out. And I was paralyzed and stuck for a while. But every time people asked me what was your big learning from making the career shift. And for me my big learning is that step two is the enemy of step one. Because when I was like okay I want to do this business I I was stuck because I felt like again I had to figure everything out all the steps instead of taking one step and not just step and not just step. That's how I kind of look like for me. Yeah no thank you for sharing that and I love what you said about step two is the enemy of step one because it is that step one that like catalyzes the change and it catalyzes the transformation taking it one step at a time is how you make progress how you make movement. So tell us more about being out consulting. What is it and what do you do today? Well I company does leadership training and coaching and really my goal and our goal is to support individuals and organizations in achieving their best potential in transforming the way that they live and they lead so that they can be their best selves and also get the best out of the people around them. So the trainings are really based on emotional intelligence and the goal is to bring to improve the collaboration, the trust within teams, the culture of the organization and then from a coaching standpoint it's really to help people figure out their blind spots, figure out the beliefs that they're having that are not helpful and then change what's not working so they can be who they want to be, achieve what they want to achieve, make the difference in the world that they want to make. So how has your approach changed over the past seven years? When I started was really mostly with search inside yourself which was a training that I had learned how to teach and I was delivering it and then over time I started developing my own programs based on all the different learnings from my life, the personal learnings and also all the different trainings and courses that I've taken and I also expanded to coaching because even though at first I wasn't a coach as I work with people in trainings it's very natural that people will come and say you know this is great how can I continue working with you or how can I go deeper on this topic so I got a certification in coaching as well. So it's been really fun to see the kind of height evolves. That's amazing and now you're a speaker so what do you hope to achieve with your speaking and your business? You know really the goal is to help people maybe realize things they haven't before that will help them experience life in a way that is more fulfilling, more joyful, more effective. Yeah what are some of the facts and the stories in your career that really shaped it? You know I'll give you a quick example from when I started my career right? When I started this business I was like 42 and that's a fact I was 42 years old. The story in my mind is like I'm way too old to start the business right and that story was not helpful for me at all. So I and the way our brain works is that we find what we look for right? All I could find was that I couldn't find people that were my age that were starting business and thriving. I only saw people in my age that were having a very stable career and then the young people started new businesses. But when I was able to notice that you know how true is that? That 42 is old to start a business. I mean we are now living to 89 years old. So I was able to see that and then reframe a story. Reframing away that was more empowering for me. Well I'm 42 that means I have a lot of experience. So I'm starting you know in a place much better than someone that's like 20 years old, have no career experience, no life experience. So just reframing that story for me. A big difference. Wow that is so powerful and I think what's funny about that is that we glorify the you know the college dropout who built a billion dollar tech company and we only hear about those stories. But most of the people who are starting businesses do have more experience. Have seen you know have had the notches on their belt and the experience to then go build something that the market really needs. So I loved that example. What advice do you have for leaders and managers who want to level up? Who are growing in their careers and you know maybe they're at a point where they're telling themselves certain facts but there is a narrative that is not you know different from the fact that they're telling themselves. Self awareness is really a key leadership skill and it's actually the first domain of emotional intelligence and it's the basis for everything. So when we start having awareness about how some of these thoughts might be getting in the way of our development of our growth then we can start changing them because for most of us and that's what's really interesting about this factor story thing. We don't realize that our story is a story. We believe that's the truth about the world and it's not until we kind of step back and look at it and question how true is that you know because anything can be true you know the most opposite things can be true and they usually are true that's why we are very per and ask oh you know and so we choose a lens and then we get stuck to that lens and that sometimes is for our own benefit but often it's not those are limiting beliefs that we that get stuck so you know going back to your question starts with self-awareness people can develop that by journaling by you know taking time for a reflection by working with a coach by having a mentor because it's very easy to get sucked up by the day-to-day tasks and not stop and and reflect and see how you know I cannot level as a leader as a human being. Yeah I love what you said self-awareness is like the starting point. What role does passion or purpose play in building a successful career? I think that it's really important to to feel like you have purpose and passion and I think there's a caveat to that because this can can also get people stuck when they feel like you know I need to find my passion so I can follow that road because a lot of us especially when we're younger we don't know what our passion is and it might feel very challenging to believe oh I need to know what I'm passionate about so that I can I can go there. I think that sometimes the passion comes from the work and I've experienced this when you do work and you really put your whole self into it you do your best and you see the impact that you're having how you're serving people how you're serving the world that brings passion in my experience and that brings purpose. I think that's a key one for sure. Another thing that's important for me is the people I work with in current role in my company I I don't have like as big as a team as I used to have when I work for organizations and I do miss that but I do have a few people I work with and of course I love working with my clients and so that feels like you know the people I'm around but I think it's really important to surround ourselves with people that would feel are adding that we look up to that we learn. from and I think in a career like we spend so many of our hours at work so being surrounded by people that we admire that we enjoy is also important for the full film in there. Yeah that's an important thing to talk about because as an entrepreneur there are a lot of lonely moments. You're building an isolation so how do you get that kind of create that community or the community of collaborators that you have around you so how do you find those people? Yeah so I really make a concern that effort to be you know sharing with other people. I have from a few of the different trainings that I've taken in this career we exchange experiences we ask questions either in person or through chat so we're always supporting each other. I also am part of a group of entrepreneurs women entrepreneurs from all over the US that we meet also on a monthly basis I actually am meeting with them right after this call. So I tried to keep you know cadence of of engaging with people that we can know so that we can support each other and when I can work in partnership with other professionals I I did that too because I love developing content together and just brainstorming ideas and even delivering training together I think that's really fun. You build your own team right you build your own group of supporters I love that. So looking back what advice would you give your 20-year-old self? So my advice would be to just trust life more you know I think I was very cautious many times in my life and you know changing careers was a big risk for me and I took it and it totally paid off so I think I probably would have said that just kind of trust life maybe take a little bit more risks because you know life gets you get you at the time. Love it love it. If you had to sum up your career in three words what would those be? Growth people and service I think those would be my three three words. That's beautiful. Tell me a little bit more. So for me I always like to be feel like I'm growing in my in my role. Anytime that I felt I was stuck I wanted to do something more to to find new projects because that's what really motivates me to feel like I'm always learning something new. People as I said for me it's you know I am still friends and in touch with people from three jobs before four jobs before and it's it's all about the people in the end of the day the relationships that you build and you know those connections and service the real satisfaction from where it comes from seeing how we are serving other people how we are being productive and how we are making a difference. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing your career story Barbara. I'm super excited for people to hear more about you and your work and where can people find you? While my website is been out consulting.com I'm also pretty active on LinkedIn. Those are the best places. Awesome. Well thanks again Barbara for joining us on CareerSlide. Thank you so much for having me. It was really fun. The CareerSlide podcast is a co-production of CareerSlide and Wild Reply. This episode was produced by Agilaine and Michael Burke with editing by Tyra Greer and Michael Burke. If you like the show subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and if you're ready to level up pivot or lead with confidence book a coaching discovery call with me at careerSlide.com.