Jossie Haines on Engineering Leadership, Burnout & Executive Success

In this episode of Success Leaves Clues Podcast, host Pedro welcomes Jossie Haines, an executive coach, former VP of Engineering at Tile, and former engineering leader at Apple, to discuss what it truly takes to grow into senior leadership without burning out.

Jossie shares her journey from leading engineering teams at Apple and Tile to building a coaching business that helps engineering leaders navigate promotions, imposter syndrome, executive transitions, and career growth. They explore women in tech, leadership confidence, the first 90 days in a new executive role, personal branding, coaching, and building a business with intention instead of burnout.

Whether you're an engineering manager, VP, CTO, founder, or aspiring leader, this conversation is packed with practical leadership lessons and mindset shifts for long-term success.

Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jossiemann/
Website: https://jossiehaines.com/

Transcript

Jossie Haines 0:00

First, I left my corporate role. I had also led DEI. I was the head of DEI at TILE on top of being VP of Engineering. And so I, my first like out the door, I was like, oh, I'm going to help companies create more inclusive and diverse workplaces. Late 2022, as we might know from a historical point of view, is when kind of all the DEI work just came crashing and burning. And I was like, well, that's not the strategy I'm going to go for. This is not working. And so then I was like, well, most of the people showing up in my world are women in tech. I love supporting that space. You know, I ran Women at Siri, like I created Women at Siri. It's now become one of the largest Sub ERGs at Apple. And I was like, I'm passionate about this. So then I shifted to, all right, I'm going to work with women in the tech industry.

Davis Nguyen 0:55

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues, the podcast where we interview business owners on how they built their businesses and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is David Swin, and I'm a business coach and a founder of Purple Circle, where we help business owners achieve their first six-figure, seven-figure, and eight-figure year, all without sacrificing their quality of life. Before becoming a business coach and before founding Purple Circle, I started to scale with several seven and eight-figure coaching businesses and have been a consultant at several businesses doing over $100 million each, including some that are publicly listed and doing over a billion dollars each. In every episode of the podcast, you're going to learn lessons that took our years to learn, and you'll be able to learn that in. No matter if you're a new business owner or an established business owner, every episode is going to give you the clues in order to elevate your business.

Pedro 1:39

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by Josie Haynes, whose 25 plus years in engineering leadership, including leading the Emmy winning Siri Media team at Apple and serving as VP of engineering at Tile, gives her the rare credibility to coach senior engineering leaders through the moments that define both their careers and their companies. Josie works with VPs, directors, and CTOs, navigating the specific challenges that come with stepping into bigger roles, more complex organizations, higher expectations, and fewer people they can be fully honest with about what they're actually navigating. Her clients, including the head of ML at Netflix and Senior Director of Engineering at Salesforce, describe her coaching as nothing short of transformational, moving from frequent frequent burnout to leading with strategy, energy, and self-prioritization. Josie's deep technical credibility combined with her ability to drive 10,000-foot strategy and coach, the mindset shifts underneath makes her uniquely equipped to support engineering leaders at the moments when impact simply cannot wait. Welcome to the show, Josie.

Jossie Haines 3:10

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to chat with you today.

Pedro 3:13

I am excited to chat with you also. Great to have you, by the way. And I'd love for us to rewind a bit. You know, I am not sure if you know that, but I'm kind of a comic book nerd myself, you know? So love the first editions, the origin stories, because every coach has that moment where they look at the life and say, yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now. Right? So when was that for you, Josie?

Jossie Haines 3:40

Yeah, because you know, if you'd asked me 10 years ago, was I going to like leave the tech industry and my like VP roles and uh become a coach and run my own business, I would have been like, what are you talking about? Um so when I joined Tile, it had been after a period of burnout at Apple, where I had actually almost left tech entirely. Um and I joined Tile very much under, like I'm doing this under my roles. I want to work somewhere where um inclusion is not lip service, and you know, we really are trying to leverage technology to make the world a better place. And one of my goals was really getting to the executive table. And so I worked with a leadership coach, and she really showed me that you could not just get promoted into an open role, like you could create a role for yourself. And so while I was at Tile, we I saw an opportunity. It was the middle of COVID. We had two large architecture initiatives that required a lot of technical challenges to be dealt with. And then we were going to double the size of the engineering team, which meant we were in an inflection point where we had to reorganize how the team was structured and functioned. And I'd known my boss since 2005. We'd worked together in multiple roles and we complemented each other very well. He was really awesome and great at the deep technical side of things. And my superpower is really leadership and organizational design. Well, I can I can build architectures for you all day, every day. Like you bring me on to think about the big picture and how are we going to get this done. And so I created a proposal for the CEO and said, like, if these are your main two goals, the best way to do this is actually promote my boss to CTO so he has a smaller team and can focus on driving the technical initiatives, and then make me VP of software engineering so that I can then scale the organization and redesign it. And, you know, it took some back and forth, but we did that. And we uh, you know, I doubled the engineering team in four and a half months, reorganized everything, and kept our inclusive culture. And I was really proud of being able to do that. And if I hadn't worked with a coach, I wouldn't have even known that something like this was possible. And I was very passionate about helping other women in the industry be able to do this too. And so I said, well, instead of doing this one company at a time where I work, I could actually have a much larger impact on the tech industry overall if I actually became a coach and started helping other engineering leaders and figuring out how to do this for themselves.

Pedro 6:53

Sounds like a natural evolution. Sounds like even organic. Like you were exposed to that leadership coach. You were almost like already tackling with the leadership. You were like, oh, there's something here that I really love, you know, the big picture and people. And then we talk about women, right? And how to empower them in that scenario, which is a very, if I'm not mistaken, you can wreck me, can correct me, male-dominated uh area, the technical field.

Jossie Haines 7:18

Absolutely. And over 50% of women leave the tech industry by the age of 35.

Pedro 7:25

Interesting data. Appreciate that. Okay. So it's up there is purpose here, as I can tell. Okay. Which is always great to have on the ups, but especially on the downs. Now, I wouldn't understand the shift that happens. And I'm gonna add a side note here. Uh, I worked in corporate banking and I worked uh also in consulting firms, right? Ernest and young here in Brazil. And um I am a coach too. So whenever I went to those birthday parties and someone asked me, because I was doing like uh 10 plus years, hey, what do you do for a living? I was like, automatic, right? Oh, I do X, Y, and Z. I'm at banking, blah, blah, blah. And then I became a coaching, uh, a coach uh business owner, and then someone asked me that on a birthday party and was like, wait a minute, right? What do I do again? Right? So there is an identity shift that from employee corporate to coach. And also at the start, it really we're not sure it's your case, but we're almost testing waters from yeah, this is happening, advice giving him helping people to this is a real business. I'm building a real business that I'm gonna charge people. Okay. So can you walk us through that evolution for you on the identity part? And also, when did you realize for you, right? Uh, oh, this is actually a business. Was it like the first paying client, the first invoice, the moment you felt like, ah, this is happening, you know?

Jossie Haines 9:00

Yeah, so the identity shift is real. Um, you know, especially here in Silicon Valley, there's a lot of street cred to be able to say I was VP of Engineering, you know, I led teams at Apple, I've built products that have been used by billions of people multiple times, right? And so it was a huge identity shift going from, oh, this is my role to like, I run a coaching business where I help other people, right? Um, and I I truly do believe I can make a bigger impact this way. But there is just like the mental shift of really realizing just because I'm doing something else now also doesn't mean that all that street cred goes away. So I think that that was that was one of the things that I really needed to to work on, um especially in this valley, being being in the middle of it. And um then the second question was around oh, but the money piece. Like when did I realize this was gonna be a real business? So I I obviously like had a nice well-paying job as a VP of engineering, so I wasn't going to just leave on not being sure that I could do something real with this, right? And I mean, I always knew I could go and get another job again, like that's not a problem, but I I needed to make sure there was something there. So there were a few things that actually really helped with this. First, is I had referenced that when I had left Apple in 2018, I I had gone through a bit of burnout, and part of it was also imposter syndrome. And part of that phase made me realize that one of the reasons I was I went through a lot of the imposter syndrome is I didn't have a network. Like I didn't have people to lean on to talk to. So between 2018 and 2022, when I had started my coaching practice, I had actually very intentionally built my network. I was building my personal brand, I was doing a lot of public speaking. I gave over a hundred talks and podcast interviews during COVID virtually. And so when I left my corporate job, I was very easily and quickly able to lean on my network to grow my practice. The other thing I did was I also coached on the side for about a year before I left and realized, oh, I really enjoy doing this. And so I pretty quickly like had paying clients, I had a few advising roles for tech companies who wanted to leverage my skills to help them build different technologies. And so I was pretty quickly able to scale and grow my business. But scale in a way, like this is the other part of the identity was it was very important to me to not just build a business where I could make money, but to build a business that let me step back and slow down and enjoy life a little bit. Um I have I have a few personal stories. My my mom had passed away when I was 35. My brother actually passed away a few months before he retired. And he had always lived this life where he was like, go, go, go, and I'm going to enjoy life when I retire. And I had spent my entire career just like go, go, go, like doing the next thing and accomplishing the next thing. And I was like, I love accomplishing things, I love creating things, but at the same time, I'm like, there's more to life than just building things in the tech industry. So I want to part of my identity shift was like, how do I do this in a way that's with alignment of like slowing down and also like truly enjoying life at the same time?

Pedro 13:24

Couple things, right, that come to mind. Well, first of all, sorry about your losses, right? Your brother and mom and all that. So sorry to hear about that. And um another thing that you mentioned that really caught my attention is that I had no one to talk to. And I I mentioned that in the intro, right? Uh, because here's the thing if you're in corporate, sometimes talking with family, they don't get it. If you have a a therapist, she doesn't get it also. She's a therapist or he, whatever. Uh then you have people that get it. And usually they're people in the same industry you are, and sometimes there's competition, right? Are they trustworthy? So kinda, not sure. So I understand the the safe space you're you're mentioning, right? Just for being corporate myself. So I understand the value also that you you bring, because we're talking about someone who gets it, right? But it's not directly connected to the industry, it's like industry adjacent, right? So there's that. Now, I'm curious about another thing too, because after you got rolling in the early days, and there is also an evolution about that in the coaching space, is like sometimes I'm not saying that's the case, we're trying to help everyone, right? We're just trying to make it ends meet, we're trying to make it work. Um, and then uh you're you're almost what four years, right? We were talking about in the pre-podcast talk, uh, four years in the game. So I understand, I imagine there's also an evolution to it. Like you start attracting a certain type of people you like to work with. So it's a two-folded question. First, the evolution. How did that look like at the early days? And who do you serve now?

Jossie Haines 15:08

Yeah. So it was really interesting. When I first left my corporate role, I had also led DEI. I was the head of DEI at TIELE on top of being VP of Engineering. And so I, my first like out the door, I was like, oh, I'm going to help companies create more inclusive and diverse workplaces. Late 2022, as we might know from a historical point of view, is when kind of all the DEI work just came crashing and burning. And I was like, well, that's not the strategy I'm going to go for. This is not working. And so then I was like, well, most of the people showing up in my world are women in tech. I love supporting that space. Um, you know, I ran Women at Siri, like I created Women at Siri. It's now become one of the largest sub-ERGs at Apple. Um, and I was like, I'm passionate about this. So then I shifted to, all right, I'm going to work with women in the tech industry. And I love that. I'm I am I'm a very big supporter of keeping women in this industry. And so that's that had been most of my focus till about mid-last year. I also do some technical advising, like I said, and then um in between 2024 and basically February of this year, I should on like a fractional software engineering role. My hackathon project from Tile, we turned it into a real company. We I built the team, launched it, got us to revenue, and then uh in February realized, no, I don't really want a full-time job, and this is kind of turning into that, and I really want to go back to coaching again. Um so I got back into like just coaching full full-time again in February. But around the end of last year, I realized like 90% of the people who show up in my world are engineering leaders, given my background. Um, because going back to what you were saying earlier about having somebody to talk to, with engineering leaders, it's actually even more important because, you know, in pure coaching, they can say, well, you can ask any questions you want, and like anybody can coach anybody. But I find that in the tech space, especially for engineering leaders, it is also really helpful to have somebody who can talk the language, who understands, like, hey, here's an architecture I'm trying to roll out. Does this even make sense? And how do I break this up? And then, like, oh, what are the organizational challenges? And so there it might qualify a little bit more as mentoring than coaching, but having the combination of being able to step in at whatever level ends up being really powerful for my clients. Like, I joke with people that in one 50-minute conversation, we can be diving into your technical architecture and then talking about nervous system regulation all in the same 50 minutes. Um, because the you need to have somebody at all of those different levels. So I decided just to start supporting um in all engineering leaders, including men, because hey, men in the engineering space need support too. I would still say about 90% of my clients are women, and I love supporting the women in this space, especially since there are not that many of us. And uh yeah, so that's that's kind of been my evolution. And where I'm really focused on right now is really helping people getting into transitions, right? And you were talking about this in my introduction, like, especially like those first 90 days right now, is with AI and how things are evolving and changing, like how you have to behave as a leader is so crucial. And the research shows that 40 to 50 percent of executives, depending on like what research study you're looking at, basically fail in their first 18 months and get let go or fired. Um and so companies are not really investing and setting people up in those first three months. And it is those first three months that are like that crucial time period for success. Uh, and so I love helping folks who are, you know, stepping into the biggest role they ever have or just got promoted, or maybe they're just navigating a crazy re-org and they need somebody to help them. Like these inflection points are really where I think coaching can be so powerful.

Pedro 20:16

Hmm, interesting. A lot of points. Okay, appreciate you sharing that. Um I'm gonna hold my thoughts because I want to do a game of pretend now, so they may show up later down the road. Okay. The game of pretend, well, it's funny. I have a cousin here in this game of pretend. She her name is Pedra. She's your ICP, your ideal client profile. She's uh a woman, tech industry, right? And uh, she's the avatar, she's the one you can help. Okay. So, how would she be able to find you uh in the first place, like marketing-wise?

Jossie Haines 20:53

So the main place I am is on LinkedIn. Uh so lots of people find me on LinkedIn. I also do a lot of podcast guesting. So, finding me on my podcast, I have a newsletter and a blog on my website. And most of my clients recently have been finding me because ChatGPT brings me up as a coach for engineering leaders and women in tech.

Pedro 21:16

Okay. Okay. Now we're still in the same scenario. Uh, let's say Pedra uh listened to one of your episodes on the podcast, or even reached out through LinkedIn, saw your content out there. She was like, you know what? This Josie girl, she gets me. And she reached out, right? She was like, I like what I see. Uh let's let's say she goes through the you we can speed up that or not, the sales process, up to you. I would simply put that there is alignment, right? You see you can help her. She sees you can help her too. Um, what I would love to to understand is is for you to give us a little peek behind. Curtain of how does it look like to work with you, right? And uh the potential outcomes she can expect.

Jossie Haines 22:06

Yeah. So the way I start a lot of my coaching engagement, it's especially because a lot of people, like I said, are finding me through Chat GPT. So they might not have spent six months like consuming my content and building that trust that is necessary. So, and so committing to a six-month coaching engagement can be a pretty big leap for somebody who just met you. So, what I offer is a 90-minute, I call it strategic leadership roadmap call. And in that call, it's a diagnosis, like we deep dive into whatever topic and it's customized to the person, right? So, for example, I recently started working with a VP of engineering who was starting a brand new role. And so we really defined what her first 90 days would look like. And what are the conversations, what are some of the difficult conversations she's going to be having potentially based on some of the challenges she's going to be facing? What are some of the questions to ask? Like how to think about the what where to prioritize when it feels like there's a million things going on. And so we spend those 90 minutes, it's a diagnosis, and then we I go away, think about basically everything, go through all my notes, think about everything that happened, and then we do a 30-minute debrief where I walk through like, hey, here are your three next moves that you need to do. Here are the things that might be the gotchas for you that are going to keep coming up that we could work on in coaching. And here's a plan for you, basically based on the diagnostics, kind of basically a report of what I heard. Here are some of the things to think about and work on. And then if they're interested in coaching, and coaching makes sense as the next step, because sometimes you do the diagnostic and it's like a complete thing for them, and they want to go take it off, take it on themselves too, and that's fine, right? Then it is basically a stepping stone into coaching. And I actually give them a discount on the six-month coaching package based on the what they paid for the 90-minute call. Um, you so that's that's kind of how the coaching process works. Then in a six-month container, I I love going deep with folks. Like that's my jam, is like I I love going deep. And so we do two 50-minute coaching calls a month on Slack on Zoom. And then we have a Slack channel between the two of us. And so I'm in Slack Monday through Thursday, and in there, people prop in like, what's going on? You know, what are challenges? They're gonna have a conversation that need they need support. Hey, they're gonna do performance reviews, like, how do I think about dealing with this situation? And for me, one of the things that's very important is celebrating our wins along the way, especially in this industry. We love just go, go, go. So celebrating, I think, is an important point, and that's part of the Slack too. And so what can happen during the six-month period? Well, I've had people get uh promotions from when they started a company to six months afterwards. I had a client actually, when we did her 90-minute session, she was getting negative feedback and she thought she had to leave because she thought she could potentially be getting fired. And two, three weeks later, her boss was talking to her about a promotion because we completely shifted how she was showing up in the conversation she was having. I've had clients, you know, be able to like start their jobs and within the first 90 days go from, oh my gosh, I need to reach out to you and ask you every single thing because I have no confidence to feeling like not only do I have the confidence, like I'm getting recognized and rewarded for the work that I'm doing, and the executive team is praising me for the work that I'm doing. And because my goal is not to create a dependence, right? Like I want my coaching clients to like obviously when somebody comes to you, like they have a need, right? But my goal is within this period to have you be able to level up so you can do this yourself. And that doesn't mean I don't have some clients who love the support and don't resign, like I have clients who resign because they just love having somebody there as a somebody to talk to and the support along the way. But like my big thing is like I want you to gain the confidence that so you can show up and do this yourself, and then I can help other people do the same thing, right? To me, it's very much a place of abundance and helping others really step into their true leadership potential.

Pedro 27:14

Okay. Interesting. You know, I am a coach too, and I help the tech guys in Brazil to land jobs in the US market. And I'm not sure if you agree with me, but I see that coming up a lot. It's like it's like huge, huge imposter syndrome and low confidence levels. Like almost people, it the feeling I have is that people in that industry went to tech because they're trying to avoid people. Like that this is almost the feeling I have. I might be totally off here, but just by talk with my clients and and well, I did a a little bit of tech too and studied that, and um that's the thing, right? It's almost like I like I had clients not showing up for interviews because they just lacked the confidence. They they were like, I'm scared of it, you know. I don't know they're gonna if they're gonna get what I what I'm gonna say. So, how do you overcome that if you have someone that you're feeling like, oh, this is like huge imposter syndrome? Um, because the clients I had are like and I have are almost like they have this idea of who they are and what they cannot do, almost solidified to a point that I cannot talk in meetings, I'm not confident, you know. How do you navigate that?

Jossie Haines 28:28

Yeah, and imposter syndrome is a huge thing, right? And it has nothing to do with your level of competence, right? I have clients who have are amazing, 20-something years, like track records, go through imposter syndrome. I as I said, I faced it myself. I when I left Apple, I thought I was a terrible manager, despite the fact that I had people tell me as I was leaving that I was the best manager they'd ever had. And so it starts with having somebody see, like, I I like doing this assessment called the saboteur assessment, because we have there's these, like, there's this research, it's from the Stanford professor, Dr. Shazad. It's called positive intelligence. And he talks about the fact that we have like nine saboteurs in our brain that basically are like the little voices in our head that hold us back. And there are things like the hyperachiever and the controller and the pleaser, right? So, one of the things I do with my clients is I have them do a saboteur quiz to see what are their top saboteurs, because very often the imposter syndrome comes from their top saboteurs running out of control and needing to realize, like, and because they're there to keep us safe, right? And often our saboteurs are actually tied to our superpowers, right? Like, if you're a hyperachiever, right, you've most likely gotten really good at doing things, but doing too much is a detriment to you. And so with the imposter syndrome, often it's about working through like, okay, what are the voices telling you that is saying you're not enough? Right. And really looking at like, what are some of the little experiments we can try, right? To get you to the point where you're stretching your comfort zone bubble and seeing some success and wins without it going so far into fight or flight where you completely shut down. And often even just having somebody who reflects, like, hey, here are these, here's your evidence that you're not seeing of your successes. And here's like it doesn't mean you have to have the end goal already achieved. Like, look at your little wins along the way. Like having somebody to reflect those and really hold space for that. And also just even being somebody who you can talk to about this, right? Like if you're showing up as a VP on your day one, you certainly can't tell anybody at that company that you feel an imposter syndrome and that you don't feel confident, right? Like that's not gonna happen. And so having just even having somebody that you can admit that to can be a huge release on being like, okay, then like let's work on like what are the exact things to do so that we can start building that evidence for you quickly and showcase like, oh, I'm good at this. Like one of my recent clients, like she was going through, like, she told me on her first day of work, she was like, I go to work and every day I'm going from like, oh, I think I can do this, to like, oh my God, I don't know why they hired me. Right. And four weeks later, she's like, I'm getting this. There's still like a lot, but she's like, I now really know why they hired me.

Pedro 32:19

Right. It's almost like I'm the best in the world, I'm the worst. Like, it's like a roller coaster of emotions. I really like the fact that there is a reality check you're making, right? It's not just about talking about like showing them the accomplishments too, right? Yeah. And also having like a neutral perspective of someone who is not an outsider telling them, hey, take it easy, man. Like you're good at it, right? And uh now I want to shift gears for a second, right? Uh, I'm curious about where you're taking all this, you know, looking ahead, what future looks like for your business, you know, are you thinking about scaling, hiring people? Is there an next step you're excited about?

Jossie Haines 33:01

Yeah. So I want to grow my revenue, but I don't want to go into traditional scaling. So I I call it I want leverage and not scale. And I my goal is to help thousands of people someday, right? Like that that is definitely my goal right now, especially because I'm being very intentional about building a business that's not working crazy hours. I'm I'm doing this in a very intentional way. So, and I also, as I said earlier, I love going deep with people. So, to me, I truly enjoy the one-on-one. And so I'm going to be designing a group program around the first 90 days and that experience, but it's going to be a small cohort, like where we can really go deep. And it's not going to be something where there's like hundreds of people in the program, right? I want to keep it small, like where we can really go deep and really help people get true transformations. And so that doing it that way will allow me to scale my revenue while also continuing to support my one-on-one clients and also giving myself the freedom I want in my business.

Pedro 34:34

Okay. And you know, where whenever we're aiming towards something new in the next chapter, like the group setting and all that, uh, there's always something we're refining, right? Yeah. So what are you currently trying to build or refine in your business, like right now?

Jossie Haines 34:49

Yeah. So it's really these processes, right? So I've helped tons of people through these first 90 days. I've got a ton of IP, you know. And so right now, the big thing is like, let me get this all organized. Let me turn it into a program. And also thinking about from my marketing and leverage perspective, how do I do this in a way that again is a makes it as easy as possible for me, right? So if my marketing is all around first 90 days, somebody could come out to do the group program, but they could also want to work one-on-one. And that makes it easy for me from the perspective of like, I'm not just creating like multiple completely disparate things, right? Because here's the thing, right? Like my biggest challenge is honestly stopping myself from creating a million and one things because like I build, like, I build software for myself to run my coaching business. Like I could easily be selling that to other coaches. I've taught a bunch about AI. I could be teaching AI workshops to small businesses, right? And so the biggest thing for me, honestly, is just keeping the little focus while giving myself enough space to play. So like my engineering brain gets the play and building time, but like really staying focused.

Pedro 36:15

Honing in laser focused. Let's do the coaching. Okay, interesting. Now let's move towards really quick a sci-fi scenario here. Okay. Let's pretend we have a time machine in front of us. Two sp two stops. We're gonna have two stops, okay? You can go back in time. This is the first one, and you can give yourself four years ago one piece of business advice you wish you knew back then when you started your coaching business. What would that be?

Jossie Haines 36:53

Ooh, just trust yourself more. I mean, I I tell people like running your own business is the biggest personal development journey that I've ever been on. And four years ago, I was a very logical engineer. Now I joke that I'm the most woo engineering leader you'll ever talk to. Like, really, like if you get at me into geeking out on like mindset and the universe and like creation, like I will geek out with the best of people on this sort of stuff. And if you had met like four years ago, I would have been like, you are crazy if you're talking about those things. And so I think part of it is just like lean into this, like you don't have to do it all, right? Like, really lean into the trust piece, trusting yourself, trusting the universe, trusting the support showing up, like trusting in abundance, right? Like that has been the biggest mindset shift for me.

Pedro 37:56

Dude, that that really hits home for me because I I see I had a shift like that, right? I uh not that I'm a crystal bro 100%, but it was more towards faith. And I realized I was already believing on the wrong side, right? I was as like an imposter, and I'm like, I'm gonna give it a shot on the positive side, right? I'm believing in the stuff that is not working for me, that really doesn't exist. So why not? Right? So okay. Second stop, moving forward, you can go back in time for you can pick the time between that four-year time frame. Uh the moment, if you have one, that would be like the the moment you realize, okay, this is why I'm doing this. You know, like such a great moment that you can continue.

Jossie Haines 38:43

Yes, I I I actually have exactly this moment. It was so this was, I don't know, in the first year of running my business. Um, this woman I knew reached out to me and she was like, Josie, I think it's really inspiring that you went and started your own coaching business. I would really love to chat with you. So we hop on a Zoom call, and you know, I share with her my story. I share with her the story of the fact that I left oh first when I left Apple, and I was just like, I'm taking off for six months, I don't know what's next. Like, I don't know, whatever. And then my story of like creating my VP role and then leaving that and starting my coaching business. And you know, she she really loved hearing my story and was like, oh, thank you for sharing. Then I didn't hear from her for six months. And you know, like people appreciate my story and they're like, they really resonate. And I was like, okay, like, and so she's like, six months later, she reaches out and is like, Josie, can we hop on a Zoom call? Like, I I want to catch you up on what's been going on in my life. And when we had met six months prior, like she was a very successful VP at a very large tech company, making lots of money, but she was unhappy. She was just generally like, I don't enjoy what I do every day. And so we hop on the call and she said, Josie, I just wanted to thank you. You inspired me to quit my job, start my own startup. I'm I'm loving it. I'm I'm coding every day, and even though we're not getting, I'm not making a penny yet, like I am happier than I've been in years. Not only that, you were able to give me a story that let me convince my daughter, who thought I was crazy for wanting to leave my job, a story that inspired her to say to me, Mom, I know, like I actually really think this is what you should be doing. And so just hearing that, just how one 30-minute call could completely change somebody's life and trajectory, like that was huge for me.

Pedro 41:09

You know, this is one of those that you whenever we're talking about imposter syndrome, I think about a cornerstone, right? I think about something that anchors you that brings you back to why you do it. And I think that type of story is the like the fundamental thing to go back to whenever like ah, this is not gonna work out, you know. And I talk with that about my with my clients, too. It's just like you have to have those moments and you have to savor them. Like, so that's pretty cool. I love that. Now, if someone listening and wants to connect with you or follow your work even, right? And by the way, we're gonna have all the links in the description, so there's all that. But where can people find you best, you know, and connect with you?

Jossie Haines 41:52

Uh follow me on the LinkedIn or visit my website, josyhaynes.com, and from there you can book a clarity call if you wanted to learn more about working together.

Pedro 42:03

Yeah, so if you want to have your life changed, that clarity call can do the trick, right? Now, yeah, there were few moments from this chat that really stood out to me. Okay, Josie, I'll I'll highlight them. Um there's one thing that you mentioned, the origin straw story. It's like the street cred doesn't go away, right? That's still part of your story. And I think whenever we're talking about career coaching or even looking bad at our own careers, uh, we have this, like I worked at banking, 2008 happened, and I was like, ah, I cannot work at banking again. Like I'm in Brazil. It's not even my fault they're loaning whatever in the US, but hey, it it hit me, right? Uh the mortgages and all that. Um and how that is not true, right? And how that is still part of who I am, and how that the how the storytelling is key to career coaching, whatever fuel you're in, right? It's not because you left Apple, you don't own what you did there, right? You do own it. Well, there's that, I really like that. Um moving forward, when you were talking about the losses in your family and all of that, and uh how purpose-driven you are to life, then you also mentioned like just it's there is more to life than just building stuck stuff in tech, right? So there's that. Uh that is very aligned with what you said after, which is the intentional growth, right? It's not just about when we're talking about future, oh, growth by growth, scaling by scaling. No, there is intentionality to whatever you do, right? You want to do it in a proper way so you can keep your integrity, you can keep your way of doing things, right? So there's also that. Um to wrap it up, the thing that also I'm thinking about is like when you were talking, um, for example, and how you help people in transitions and women in tech. To me, Josie, it sounds like you're helping past Josie in a way because you did that, right? You you I'm not saying you struggled, but you've been there and you've done that, you know, uh VP and tech. Uh I imagine it's not easy for women, so there's a reason for it. Also, the transitions like, oh, I'm gonna go to a job, and then you're like, ah, this is not working. Back to coaching, right? So the pivotal moments, they're all there in your own story. Okay. Now, this is just my long-winded way of saying that. I appreciate what you do, Josie, and I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today, you know. It was great having you on.

Jossie Haines 44:45

Uh, thank you for having me.

Davis Nguyen 44:47

That's it for this episode. This episode, as well as this podcast, was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help business owners elevate their business through six, seven, and eight figure years all without burning out. If you're looking to grow your business, as well as get the time freedom that you are looking for, visit us at joint purplecircle.com and see what we can do to help you end your business.