Hey! I’m Chrissy!
I’ve always had an uncanny knack for overcoming adversity, but when I was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer just seven days after my divorce was final, I was really put to the test. It was quite a challenging and painful time for me, but I learned some amazing things from that experience and others.
I’m now ready to help you and others improve your lifestyle.
We learn best through trial and failure, and I’ve certainly been through some difficulties in my life. I’ve failed many times. These instances taught me something new, something about myself or my world, and now I want to help you learn these same things about yourself.
As a Growth Mindset and Career Confidence Coach, I work with people on:
- eliminating fear of being their true selves;
- overcoming imposter syndrome;
- reclaiming their confidence; and
- living a more resilient, happier, healthier life.
I launched ChrissyTV to share my experiences and reach more people who are struggling with these very things, to help you improve your lifestyle, and even work on your motivation.
My Background
I have 18 years’ experience providing services in risk and regulatory management, accounting, and consulting for the top five financial institutions in the world. In 2010, I earned a Graduate Certificate in Leadership Development, and in 2011, I earned my Master’s of Business Administration from Johns Hopkins University.
While working as a project management specialist, I oversaw the HR integration following the mergers of AOL and Yahoo! and Verizon/Verizon Media. I headed up the Competitive Intelligence office, which is part of the Corporate Strategy team at Verizon Media.
Recognizing that not having led to incremental growth in my career I volunteered as a mentor at Everwise, providing up-and-coming professionals with strategic career advice to help them reach their goals. I’ve also mentored high school students in under-resourced communities to help them gain the knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to succeed in high-school to be college ready. Having a mentor makes a significant difference in one’s success in college and in their professional career.
Additionally, I help link those students to the resources they need to make it to where they need to be to graduate high school and get into college.
I tie all of this experience together with my coaching and my personal trials to help my clients learn the tools and strategies I learned and use to overcome the biggest obstacles in their lives.
The Resilient Mind: A Field Guide To a Healthier Way of Life
In my newly-published book, The Resilient Mind: A Field Guide To a Healthier Way of Life, I share my experiences and my 15 tools of resilience in personal stories and short vignettes to help others develop confidence in their personal and professional relationships and their careers.
In The Resilient Mind, I discuss practical approaches to resiliency and building a resilient lifestyle to help you become happier, stronger, more determined, and more confident in all areas of your life.
I wrote this book because I knew the world was lacking an honest approach to getting your life on track. This is why I chose to be honest and raw about the personal experiences I share in the book.
How did I break out of my career rut?
Let me tell you a personal story: I was once stuck in a career rut, and nothing I did made a difference. I worked hard, I got outstanding reviews, and I still wasn’t getting anywhere. It was like I’d hit a wall.
Worse, I was put up for promotions and given various reasons why I wasn’t ready for senior leadership. My skills were too broad. My skills were too narrow. Etc. I finally realized that it wasn’t my skillset keeping me from getting promoted, and my sense of worth and self-esteem took a nosedive because of it.
How do you move on when you don’t believe you deserve to go any farther in your career, in your life?
I certainly didn’t think I could go any farther, let alone that I deserved to go any farther. It didn’t help that this was about a year after my divorce and cancer diagnosis.
The first thing I did was some serious self-reflection. I took an honest look at why I was going to work everyday, and the answer I was getting summed up to fear. Fear of embarking on the unknown. Realizing this was no way to live. My reflection process centered around getting clear about what I wanted from my next job and the next company for whom I went to work. Also, I got clear on what were deal breakers for me in my next job. In this self-reflection, I learned that consulting in the financial services industry was no longer a good fit for me.
I then began looking at industries and career paths I could easily transfer my existing skill set to, and I searched for leadership roles that would allow me to keep advising without having to go from client to client. From there, I started finding tons of positions where my skills and experience would be an asset.
That broke me out of the belief that I had to stay in the financial industry, which led me to walk away from other damaging ideas, and my confidence in myself began to grow. I revamped my resume and rebranded myself so the brand I put out there aligned with my goals and those of the companies for which I wanted to work.
I still had to get past the resume programs that automatically screen out the thousands of resumes that aren’t matches for a job opening. Long story short, it wasn’t too long before I landed the job managing Yahoo! and AOL’s integration.
I share this story not to tell you how easy it is to break out of career ruts or solve other career or life problems. I know it’s not. I’m sharing it with you now because I want you to know that I’ve been there and I know how terrible it is. What I do is teach you the manner of self-reflection I engaged in and how that taught me to see what I truly wanted out of my job, employer, and life.
In other words, I use my personal experience with trying, failing, re-strategizing, and trying again to grow my career as a way to help my clients achieve the same things. I help you understand why your resume isn’t helping you get interviews and why feeling like a fraud is such a hindrance to your career and personal mental health.
What’s next?
The ChrissyTV Podcast goes into all of these things and more in detail. I share experiences, good and bad, with my listeners, and I work to ensure they understand what I did and how I did it. I’m here to help you, to inspire new confidence, and to help you break out of your ruts and into new frontiers.
