How Letting Go Created a Breakthrough I Didn’t See Coming|Eps 19
Julie Cober Intro:
Imagine if you were invited to a room filled with a collection of the most diverse, interesting, authentic women in business leadership and entrepreneurship today, sharing their stories of growth, courage, risk, and change. Women who've declared enough is enough. These rules of success I've been asked to follow no longer work for me and frankly, who made them up. Anyway, while there is such a room and my friend, you're here in it right now. [00:01:00] Welcome to “According To Who?”, the go-to podcast for successful women who are ready to question the current status quo, do things differently and rewrite her next chapter. I'm your host, Julie Cober, former C-Suite, corporate executive term founder, CEO and peak performance mindset. Coach to the female founder on a mission to build, grow, and scale on her own terms. If you're craving more freedom, wellbeing, and true fulfillment both in your work and your life, [00:01:30] guess what? You're going to love being in this room.
Podcast Transcript:
Julie Cober
Hello, hello, welcome back. I'm Julie Kober and I am your host of According to Who. And yeah, we are solo today, just me. And today might be, it might feel a little rambly today. I recently had a really interesting event happen in my life, in my business. And
I've been thinking about it quite a bit and I thought, you know what, I think I want to talk about this on our next solo podcast because not only is it interesting, but I think it's a reminder to a lot of successful women around the concept of control and holding on tight and what we would call in the manifestation world resistance.
So that's kind of the topic today. I want to start out with asking you a question about this because, and this will all make sense as we go through this today, but because I'm to give you some examples, but I want to ask you wherever you're at right now in your journey. So a lot of the people that listen to our podcast, you know, they have a vision for their life, for their business, for their work.
They have goals that they're going after. Often people who listen want to make some sort of change, whether it be in their... And this again, as I say always, this applies to any area of our life, what we're talking about today, your work, career, business, health, relationships, whatever, something that you're striving towards. This is what we're talking about, right? So I too have a very, very clear vision of...what I want to accomplish in my work, why I show up every day, how I want to make an impact in the world. And that actually vision has been very similar. I had a sort of through line thread through it my entire career. You know, I did it in corporate for 28 years and also in my business, my coaching business. Same reason why I show up every day. So the last
maybe six months or so. So we're recording this in March. So I would say probably, you know, early fall of 2025, I started to notice I was feeling a bit different. I started to notice a shift in how I was feeling about a piece of my business. started to feel a little bit harder. It started to feel a little bit less aligned.
And then I started noticing that the industry itself, the coaching industry, that specifically the online coaching industry was also shifting. mean, you know, we have so much going on in the world right now, as everybody knows, there's a lot of, turmoil, there's a lot of instability. There's a lot of uncertainty and that is impacting many, many, many industries, including coaching. So.
I started seeing this about six months ago and then started feeling a different way in a piece of my business. And honestly, if I'm being honest, I was ignoring it. I was ignoring what shifts are happening in the coaching industry because I didn't want them to be happening because it was impacting, it's impacting me and it's impacting my business. And so that can be a thing that I have to watch for myself in terms of ignoring and not you know, really facing things when I need to. That's fine. I'm aware of that. But all that to say, and I'm being a little evasive because what I'm going to share with you is I can't share the whole thing, all that to say, I was starting to feel not as aligned in a piece of my business as I was in the past. And so fast forward to, you know, the end of the year, we go through a reflection process, right? And we start thinking about our new year and our new goals and what we want to achieve in the new year and all the things. And so I was being very reflective of this and I realized, wow, okay. I am back into a mode that I was very familiar with when I worked in corporate. And many of you would be as well. I call it kind of the beast mode where I was, you know,
Striving in a way that wasn't aligned with how I wanted to work, working harder, hustling, grinding, because this piece of my business was not where I wanted it to be. It didn't seem to be going down the road that I wanted it to go down. Again, it felt hard. And when things felt hard, an old way for me is to jump into what I, again, I call the beast mode. So like,
That's like jamming a square peg into a round hole, holding onto the steering wheel as tightly as I can. call it white knuckling, right? Really trying to control the situation, make things happen. You know, all of hustle, grind, work harder, work longer. I was working on the weekends again. I was working like huge long hours again, trying to get this piece of my business to go the way I wanted it to, to reach this vision.
That I have, right? So when I stepped back, I was like, man, here it is again. And I'm sharing this because we can fall into these old patterns, right? And these old ways of being and not really even realize it. But I was being told through the feelings I was feeling in my body.
About my business, about the industry, about what's going on in my business, how I'm approaching it. 24 seven, I just wasn't listening. Okay, so I'm sharing this because there's two questions I want you to ask yourself. Like you might be resonating. A lot of people are in this boat. I'm having conversations with all my clients about this, with people that I don't even, that don't, you know, work with me as a coach, but I know like how tightly are you hanging on right now?
To this goal that you're going after, to this piece of maybe it's in your career and you're trying to get a promotion. Maybe it's, if you're an entrepreneur, it's in your business and some part of your business like me wasn't working the way you thought it should work. I really felt like this is the way I need to go down this road. This is how this has to work. This is how this piece of my business has to work for me to achieve this vision, right? So I was completely like gripping the steering wheel of this part of my business. So how tightly are you hanging on to your steering wheel? Do you see white knuckles as you're driving down this, you're trying to drive down this road? Is it, could be in your health. Maybe you have some health goals. could be in a relationship that you're trying to make work and you know, really in your heart change needs to happen. How much are you trying to control a piece of your life? Those are the two questions I want to really talk about today because I was doing it
like full force, like I used to in the past, late last year. And so that's that's sort of setting up the stage. So you want to ask yourself those questions. And if you're kind of going, right now, as you're listening to this, like no judgment, just observe, just observe. It took me taking the time between Christmas and New Year's to really sit with myself and go into my modalities that I know.
Meditating, visualizing, journaling, lots of journaling. Like, why is it feel, why is my business feeling this way right now? A piece of my business. Why is it feeling so hard? Why is it feeling so misaligned? Why is it feeling I'm not feeling, there's not the flow that there used to be. It's not as easy as it used to be. It's not as joyful as it used to be. Again, it was a piece of my business. And when I started asking those questions, I realized,
Right? It's the shift. It's the shift in the industry. It's the shift that needed to happen in me. I shifted back to the old ways, the beast mode, the way I know how to succeed. And so what you're doing, if you resonate with this, is really what's happening is you're resisting. Right? You're trying to decide and control and manipulate and manage.
How you think you should achieve that goal or how you think you should have that vision come to you. Okay, so my vision has never changed, never, never changed. So that's what I was doing until I stepped back, asked myself these questions, went, gosh. And so then what happened was after that, when I got back after the Christmas holidays, probably mid January, I made a decision.
And I'm not going to share the decision here, but it was one of those decisions in my business. You know, those decisions where they they you make it and it drops right into your body. Like you feel it. It was like I went into another mode where, OK, this is what has to happen next. And every action I took after I made that decision that dropped into my body was a different action. And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden.
And this is what I want to share with you guys, because this has been so powerful for me over the last few weeks. I made the decision, and within three weeks of making that decision in my business, a completely new opportunity crossed my desk. And I can't share totally what this opportunity is yet. I will share more soon.
But what I want to share today is this is a organization that I know well from my whole HR career in corporate, from all my years in corporate. There was an opportunity presented to me that I didn't even know existed in this organization, and I know them well. It is everything that I've been asking for from the universe, from my vision perspective.
Right? So we have this vision and whatever it is, you know, it be a revenue goal, client goal, getting a new promotion and you're, you know, moving to the next level in your job, whatever it is, right? You have this vision of your life, of your work. And that never changed for me. But when I made the decision to stop gripping, to stop controlling, to stop resisting, to stop trying to manage how this thing needs to come to me, that was the decision I made this opportunity landed on my desk and from start to finish, it was three weeks. Three weeks, that's something that's going to be a complete different trajectory in my work. And so I'm sharing that with you today because that's how powerful this can be when we make decisions, when we stop trying to control how the vision comes to us, how the goal comes to us, how what we would love in our life comes to us. And when I thought about this,
One thing, a couple of things I want to share with you guys, how this all came to be as well. Well, first of all, knew when I was in my reflection and I knew, my gosh, I'm like full blown resisting here. I pulled out a book that I had recently read and I recommend it all the time to anyone. So I'm going to do it here. In fact, I think I've probably put it in, I've talked about it in the podcast before, but it's a book that came out in November of last year, just November of last year.
Called Beyond Wanting by Matt Cook. Okay, it's an amazing book. It's the art of true manifestation. If you believe in this work, then I would highly recommend you get this book. But I pulled out the chapter he calls Let Go. And I just wanna read something, because he talks about the essence of non-resistance. And this is what happened to me. I mean, I read this book back in November, so it was probably here somewhere in my mind where I was realizing, oh my gosh, this is what Matt's talking about.
But he talks about the essence of non-resisting and he says, letting go goes against everything we are used to. That there's never a truer sentence in this book, right? Especially successful women, we are used to managing, we're used to controlling, we're used to, you know, trying to make everything happen a certain way. He says, we've been told that to be successful, we must work hard for it.
Put in all our hours, fight, force, stay up late, put in overtime, meticulously plan and worry if things don't happen when we think they should. That is exactly the way I was behaving late last year. And that's the way I behaved in corporate. And I had super success in my life behaving this way. So this was like almost an unconscious way I went, mode I went back into. But he says then, the very way of being
This very way of being creates resistance. This is resistance, right? It keeps you separate from what you want. So when I made the decision to stop resisting, this is the decision I made basically in essence, it was a little more detailed than that. Every action that I took after that was different. This opportunity crosses my desk three weeks from start to finish. So that's one thing I did.
Was in my reflection, I pulled out this book again and read that and that whole, just that paragraph on the essence of non-resistance reminded me and showed me the way I was behaving. And then another really interesting thing crossed my desk after I made this decision to stop resisting and move back into a mode of letting it happen the way it's supposed to unfold, not changing my vision, not changing my goal.
I got this little prayer sent to me by somebody. And listen, I'm not a religious person. I'm more spiritual. So you can take this how you will. But at this point, I was like, you know what, why not? Like I want something to be different. I want this piece of my business to be different. I want this piece of my work to be different. I want it to feel good again. I want it to be in flow. I want it to be aligned. So why not? I said this prayer.
was given and this just came right after like so that none of this is a coincidence right and here I'm going to share it with you today you can use it however you want I mean this the way it was shared with me it starts dear God but if that's not if God is not your thing it can be dear source dear universe dear all you know all knowing whatever you want to use but it says dear God if there is anyone or anything in my life that is not meant for me
Please remove it, make it swift and make it obvious. I said that for two nights and then the opportunity hit my desk. So I thought, whoa, okay, make it swift and make it obvious. It was so swift and it was so obvious. so again, I'm sharing all this because I know this. I know this logically in my mind. I believe in all of this work. I forgot.
I forgot how this works. And when you remember to stop resisting, stop trying to control, stop trying to manage your vision, your goals, how you think this thing should come to you, whatever it is, it will come to you. Sometimes it's super fast. I know the person that sent me this, she used it as well. What she was asking for, um, was removed from her life in less than 36 hours.
So there's different examples. Sometimes it takes longer, whatnot. It takes the time that it's meant to take. So another example I wanted to share with you guys around this because this is powerful. I often, when this was happening in the last few weeks, it reminded me of, and you can go onto YouTube and put this in and you can find it and you should. It's a really powerful speech that Steve Jobs gave years ago. think it was Stanford.
Commencement address and he talks about how you can't connect the dots in your life going looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. And that really struck me again because this this what just happened to me in the business in my business and my work world is going to be one of the dots in my life. And when I started thinking about that, I thought, you know what the biggest what he would call dots connecting the dots the biggest transformations, manifestations that I've had in my life have been all when I've done exactly what I'm talking about today. When I stopped resisting, when I let the universe take control of how the thing came to me, when I stuck with my vision and what I wanted, what I would love and just released how it came to me.
So I haven't had that happen a ton of times in my life, the biggest ones, the biggest events in my life, the most powerful have been when this work is done. So I'll give you another example of when this happened. So this was, and I want to give you a different example because this one has nothing to do with work. So this happens in all areas of our life. years ago, my husband and I, owned, we bought a fixer upper cottage.
I live in Canada, it was in this beautiful Lake Daria and my husband has his own contracting business and so we bought this fixer upper and we fixed it up and we were there for a while and we sold it because we wanted to move to a different Lake. So we sold this cottage but as the time that we sold it for our benefit was the market was all of a sudden going crazy, crazy, multiple offers, multiple bids, all the things. It was just the beginning of this.
Kind of crazy real estate market we're in now here in Canada. And so obviously we benefited hugely from that, but conversely as a seller, but then conversely as a buyer, we, you know, cause we wanted to buy another cottage. were, I thought, we're out. There's no way this market is going so crazy right now. The prices are ridiculous, all the things. So we did one day though, we said, okay, we,
Called our realtor and we said like we'd like to just kind of go look and we had a boat so we went in the boat and we put it in this lake that we wanted to buy on and we went and we saw a cottage and it was on an island because that's all we could afford in this area because they were much cheaper and we liked it it was nice and all the things and we were sitting out in the boat
In front of the cottage, just trying to determine like which way we were facing, whether, cause everybody wants a Western exposure, right? Everybody wants to see the sunset every night. And we were talking and you know, just having a nice time. And then I looked to my left and I said, I looked at this cottage, the next door neighbor to the one we just looked at. I jokingly, said, you know what? I'd like that one. This one that wasn't for sale. And it was very nice and all the things that we joked, ha ha. And anyway, so.
We left the day and I just remember thinking, that's it, we're out. never gonna be back in this cottage market, da da da da. So fast forward, so that was in August. So fast forward to probably around the end of April, the next year. So we've gone on our way. I've basically thought we're out. We'll just visit friends who have cottages, blah, blah.
My husband gets a call from our realtor. He's driving home from Florida. He's been in Florida for the winter. And he says, Darrell, there's a cottage coming on the market. And I think you guys should look at it. And he's like, okay, the ice hadn't even melted on this lake yet. At this point, he's like, as soon as the ice is out, you know, we're going to get over there. It's on an island. we're like, okay, cause we didn't mind being on an island. and he was in Florida for the
for the winter and he went to a cocktail party and he saw neighbors from this area and they were selling. They're gonna sell. nobody thought these people would ever sell. I'm like, okay. So we go, he lines up a whole bunch of properties for us to look at this day. We go out, the ice has just sunk. Okay, it's freezing. I think it was snowing that day. It was like the beginning of May, end of April, beginning of May. mean, Canada, like ice usually goes off lakes around April 15th.
So we see all these cottages and we pull up to the last one and we go in and my husband and I, the minute both of us walk into this cottage, we know, we're like, this is it. And we're crossing and we're looking, we're all kind of walking around and our son was with us, but we're trying to be really cool, right? Cause we don't want the realtors to like, you we're trying to have poker faces and we're crossing each other going, my God, my God, my God. That kind of feeling. And I was standing there in the living room and I was like,
Why do I have this weird feeling? Like it was just, I couldn't figure out why, not just excitement, it was something else. And then it hit me, I was staring down at the lake and it hit me. like, my God, this is the cottage nine months ago that I said, I'd like that one. Like I had no, when I pulled up to this cottage, I didn't remember that. When I walked in, I was starting to get this really weird feeling. And then when I looked at the lake, I'm like, my God, this is the cottage I said I would love.
Right. And I share this story. So lo and behold, we bought the cottage. And the other thing is, is that it hadn't been on the market yet. They were just getting ready to put it on the market. And then somebody else heard that it was going on the market. again, the market was so crazy that he begged our realtor to see it, the other gentlemen. And he said, no, sorry, we already have an offer. And he's like, I will pay more. I'll give you 10 % more no matter what they offer. And he said, nope, our realtor has a lot of ethics. And he's like, nope.
We've got the offer, sorry. Anyway, so we got the cottage. But I say that because nine months earlier, I joked in a joking way. I'd like that one, but I wasn't joking. In my intuition, I wasn't joking. In my soul, I wasn't joking. Somewhere inside of me, I knew that was the one I wanted and that was the one I would love. And that's the kind of thing that we were looking for. And we ended up getting it. Okay. And the same thing actually happened.
Very similar to the house I live in right now. And I won't tell you that whole story because we can go on forever. But I share these stories because there's been about six or seven major life events in my life. that real estate deals, health situations in my work where when I just let go. Like we knew we wanted to be in the market, cottage market. We knew what lake we wanted to be on.
We took action and went out with a realtor and started looking at properties. That was a different realtor. We didn't totally jive with him. We actually changed realtors and did some research and picked another realtor. We did that kind of a thing. Those are all actions that we sent messages to the universe. No, they're serious. They eventually want to get back into this market. And the reason I share the cottage story is because there is no way
that I could have ever imagined that it would unfold the way it did. The people that sold had been there for 15 years. When they left in the fall and shut that cottage down to go to Florida, they had no intention of selling that cottage. Their daughter moved to BC, which is the other side of where we live in Canada, with their grandchildren. The mom was devastated and she said, we're moving to BC. So they sold everything they own.
And moved to BC to be near the grandchildren. Like you can't make this stuff up. You don't know. And I'm sharing all this just because we try to control. We try to decide this is how it's going to come to us. end up, you know, we end up really trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. And that is nothing but resistance and it won't come to you. So that's the moral of the story. And the same thing just happened. Like what happened, what's happening in my work.
I could never have imagined. I didn't even know this existed. And this is, like I said, this is a company that I know. I know well. I'm like, how did I not know about this? I didn't, right? So it's this piece of my business that I've been trying so hard to make work a certain way is now been handed to me on a platter. And honestly, it's better than I could have ever imagined, ever.
And the other reason what I want to say about this, why, what I'm sharing in all of these stories, that's so, so, so important is being in touch with the feeling. Okay. So when I was feeling like it was hard and you know, not the flow wasn't there and everything just felt like a challenge in the, you know, sort of the last six months, that was a feeling that I had in my body that I was ignoring.
Right? So when you have, when it feels hard, it doesn't feel aligned. It doesn't feel like it's going the way you want it to go. Sit back and listen to that. There's a reason it's happening that way. Right? So how can you resist or how can you stop resisting? How can you release? How can you let go? How can you just trust that this vision you have, whether it's in your work and your personal life, your professional life, whatever is going to come to you the way it's meant to come to you and just trust that.
How can you do that? Because this is the thing, have to listen to our, what I'm talking about is intuition, right? And it's our superpower. Feeling, know, one of the most powerful books I've ever read, The Feeling is the Secret by Neville Goddard. That's what he's talking about. Your body will tell you, right? Your body will tell you, this is right, this is wrong. This is aligned, this is misaligned. My body was telling me for seven months, what I was trying to have happen in my business is misaligned.
And until we learn it and until we accept it, until we believe it, it's going to keep feeling hard. And I share that because when the opportunity that just happened for me was presented and crossed my desk, I said from start to finish, it was three weeks. And for three weeks, it was nothing but joy. It was nothing but full alignment, full feeling of, this is meant to be. This is happening for a reason.
Like strong, strong intuition around, wow, thank you. I just sat in gratitude and thanked because once I said, made the decision, stop resisting this, Julie, stop trying to fight this, stop trying to control it, get out of this beast mode you're in again. And it's not easy, it's not easy. have to trust, right? That's the other thing. You're trusting, you're trusting in the unknown.
That's what I'm asking you to do. I'm asking you to trust that your vision will come to you if you just stop trying to control how it comes to you. And you would have heard this many times, anyone in this space, right? We're responsible for the what we want and why we want it, what we would love and why we would love it. And the universe brings you the how and the when. And trust me, like think about that prayer again.
Dear God, if there's anyone or anything in my life that is not meant for me, please remove it, make it swift and make it obvious. You could turn that to the other way too. You could say, dear God, if there's anyone or anything that is meant to be in my life, please bring them to me now. You decide how you wanna do it, right? Make it swift and make it obvious. And the one caution that when this was sent to me, they said, there's one caution, you better be prepared to act on this.
because when it comes, it'll go fast. So what I'm asking you to do this week is trust in the unknown, trust in yourself, trust in your vision, trust that whatever you decided you would love in your life, you are 100 % worthy of having. Trust that you don't have to control it to come to you. And maybe do what I did. Take some time to sit and reflect.
Have you had situations in your life where this has happened? Where it's felt divine? Like what's just happened in my work? Literally, that's the way I would describe it. This has felt divine. This is a culmination of every single thing I've ever done in my career from start to finish. It feels so aligned. I don't even really know how to explain the feeling. But have you had any of those in your life? Can you look back like Steve Jobs says,
At the dots, connecting the dots. Have you had major dots in your life where you thought, wow, what a coincidence? Or you know, maybe underestimated the power of what we're talking about here. Or maybe you realized, no, yeah, that was meant to be. And the minute you walked into the situation, you knew, you knew, because you would have had the feeling that I'm talking about. And I could give you four more stories, four big ones where I'm like.
It's the same feeling. It's a feeling of alignment. It's a feeling of divinity. It's a feeling, it's a calmness. It's a knowing. That's the way I would describe it. And you can't explain it. Same thing happened at the house I'm sitting in right now. And there's a whole story around that. And I've shared it before, but it was a knowing. And that knowing creates peace.
And calm. if you're not feeling that way, you're feeling not aligned. If you're not feeling peace, flow, calmness, joy, ease, fun. These are just words, right? But if you're not feeling that way in a area of your life, you're likely resisting something. It's not likely the vision, because what you want is what you want. And what you would love is what you would love. shouldn't. That's not what needs to change. It's usually us that needs to change. It's usually
How we're approaching this. And when we want something, that's why this book, it's called Beyond Wanting. It's such a powerful book because when we want something really badly, like I did in this space of my business, the wanting is what's actually creating the resistance. The wanting of it so badly and wanting it to be this way and wanting it to come in this timeframe and wanting it to come this way, which I thought was the best way, is
It's just control. It's me trying to control, which I've been really good at my whole life. It was me hanging on too tight. So I share this with you this week because I know there's a lot of people in this boat right now, and especially with all the turmoil and the uncertainty and unsettledness that's going on in the world right now. It's a mode that we go back into, and we've been trained to do this.
We've been trained to succeed this way. It's part of the whole establishment. It's part of the whole hierarchy. It's part of the thing that's actually crumbling down right now. That's why it's feeling so unsettled in the world right now, because there's some big establishments, big ways of succeeding, big ways of being that are starting to crumble. So anyway, that's a whole other podcast, right?
I just wanted to share with you what happened to me recently because it was such a beautiful reminder to me to stop hanging on so tightly, to stop not trusting that you're not in this alone, that you're co-creating with something bigger than you and to stay grounded in your vision, in what you would love your life to be because you get to live your life the way you wanna live it. You get to love every aspect of your life. And if there's a piece that you don't right now,
Don't judge, don't criticize yourself. Sit in it, observe it, right? Observe how you're being in it. Where are you resisting? Where are you controlling? Where are you hanging on tight? Where could you just let go? Where could you make a different decision? Where could you, and maybe you just start with the decision to, I surrender. That's another word you'll hear in the manifestation world, surrendering. That's what this means. I surrender.
This is what I want. I would love this one. Like I said about our cottage, which we've since sold by the way. But you know, that's a whole other thing. But when you what you would love can come to you if you stop resisting and you stop trying to control. So I hope this helps you this week. I hope you have an amazing week. Yeah, just ask yourself those questions and see where perhaps maybe.
Maybe something what you want, what you would love will come to you in ways you could never have imagined that could be better than you ever imagined. Because we can only imagine what we can imagine, right? Just what do you have to lose? I would say just try it. All right, my friends, have a great day.
Julie Cober Outro:
Thank you so much for choosing to spend your time with us. [01:18:30] I hope today's insights have empowered you and given you ideas and tools to start to rewrite your rules of success. If you love today's episode, please leave us a review and be sure to share it with a friend. And if you'd like to hear more from these trailblazing women, be sure to hit the subscribe button so you never miss out on another powerful episode. Don't forget to connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram for daily doses of motivation behind the scenes insight, and to keep the conversation going. For [01:19:00] additional resources and strategies, visit julie cobra.com and subscribe to my newsletter where you'll receive life-changing content delivered right to your inbox. And always remember, you have the ability to create any change you want in your life at any time. You are 100% worthy of living a life that you genuinely love, that's supported by work that you truly enjoy. Keep pushing the boundaries. Question your thoughts. Step into the elevated version of you. [01:19:30] And until next time, always be asking yourself “According To Who?”.
