In her second appearance on TheEdge podcast, staffing industry influencer and innovator Lauren Jones gets us up to speed on her big move from three years ago: when she left her corporate and suburban lifestyle to manage her own farm. Lauren shares that this massive shift stemmed from having the “wrong focus on the wrong goals,” and thinking that material things would take up positive space in her life. This mistaken assumption led to what Lauren recalls as a feeling of heaviness and suffocation from consumerism, which pushed her to trust a slow-burn rising inside her to consume less and give more.
This slow-burn from her personal life naturally transitioned into her work life. This encouraged Lauren to make the same changes in her career in search of professional fulfillment. She committed herself to being uncomfortable and made a point never to leave a “what if” unchallenged. She put this into practice when she was asked to leave what felt like home, a small firm in Northern California doing what she loved with an amazing group of women, to work for a previous employer. She ended up rising to the challenge only to realize that corporate life was restricting her need to make the positive impact she was craving. She needed her voice heard, and there was no better way than to go off on her own.
When asked what we should know about her newly formed company, Leap Consulting Solutions, Lauren gets emotional and shares a piece of entrepreneurial advice: “The difference between just ‘doing’ and ‘doing what you love’ is profound.” Lauren shares that she wakes up feeling a combination of terrified and excited each morning in anticipation of what the day will bring. She also notes that although her focus is on the abundance of technology (specifically for small to medium-size firms), her main goal is to find tools that prioritize the candidate.
As the conversation continues, Lauren and Leslie discuss her experience with mentoring and why it has fueled her need to help rise up others, how she relied on her resilience and expertise in navigating the unknown during the pandemic, and how to find your spark, fan the flames, and end up on fire!
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