Career coaching that doesn't shy away from the life stuff

Something shifted.
Let it move you.

Sometimes life shakes things loose, and your curiosity about different work gets harder to ignore. This is career coaching for finding your way forward after your own catalyst for change.

Start a conversation Read Mondays in July

A new baby, a divorce, a layoff, a diagnosis, or something else.

Inertia is powerful. So is a catalyst.

For a long time, staying put made sense. The job was good enough. The timing was never quite right. And the thing you used to wonder about slipped into the background.

Then something happened that you didn't choose. A birth, a loss, an ending, a diagnosis. And the wondering came back, louder and more direct.

That can feel disorienting. It can also be the most honest information you've had about your work in years.

If you're here

Maybe some of this sounds familiar.

  • A little unsettled, maybe even embarrassed, that you're questioning a "good" career you worked so hard to build.
  • Feeling a pull toward something different, without knowing quite what it is or what to make of it.
  • Unsure whether you want something new, or just want things to stop feeling this way.
  • Weighing real constraints: money, a family that depends on you, years of training and experience you don't want to waste.

Instability can create a powerful opening for change.

My job is to help you use it well, whether that means a new direction or a deeper commitment to the one you're on.

Isabel listening during a coaching conversation

How I work

Three months to understand the pull, and decide what to do about it.

One-on-one coaching, career design and strategy, with a clear structure and paced around everything else you have going on.

  1. 1

    Coaching

    Get the full picture

    We start with what happened, where your career stands and what's been on your mind since. You don't need to arrive with a plan, or even a clear question.

  2. 2

    Career design

    Get specific about the pull

    What exactly is drawing you toward something different? The work itself, the people, more flexibility, more meaning? The answer is usually more precise than it first seems, and that changes what's possible.

  3. 3

    Career strategy

    Make a realistic plan

    Then we test it against your actual life: your finances, your family, the experience you've built. You leave with concrete next steps. Sometimes that means a new direction. Sometimes it means staying where you are with updated information.

The engagement

Three months, one-on-one

  • Starts with a free 30-minute conversation to see if it's the right fit
  • 6 to 8 sessions over three months
  • Support by message between sessions

What this can look like

Not a total reinvention. A truer version of the career you already have.

A finance director with a young child at home lost her corporate role in a restructuring and was certain she should retrain as a teacher.

We didn't talk her out of it. We looked closely at what pulled her there: making complicated things make sense, and helping people feel less lost. Then we looked just as honestly at what starting over would cost her family right now.

What emerged was a path that uses both. She's now exploring financial planning for people going through major life transitions, and teaching money basics to new parents on the side.

Details changed to protect privacy.

The newsletter

Mondays in July

Named for the two Mondays in July when my boys were born, and my own catalyst arrived. Each issue is about the career questions that surface when life changes: what people have done with them, what the research says, and something small to try.

  • Stories
  • Research
  • Things to try today
Read along on Substack

July

Isabel, founder of Catalyst Careers

Hi, I'm Isabel

I learned early that work and life are never really separate.

I grew up seeing, up close, how much the right work can shape a life, and how much the wrong work can, too. That stayed with me through my years in corporate roles in tech and finance, where the part I cared about most was never the numbers. It was the people.

Then my two boys were born, and I had my own catalyst for change. It led me to executive coaching, and now to Catalyst Careers: coaching for anyone who feels that same pull toward something different or new, and wants to take it seriously.

Education
Harvard MBA
Coaching
Certified executive and organizational coach, Columbia University
Experience
Operating and advisory roles at Jefferies, LinkedIn and Lemonade

Looking for leadership coaching? Visit C3 Growth Partners

Let's talk.

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