Our yoda and guest contributor, Julia Wuench, MBA is a leadership and career coach, corporate trainer and keynote speaker with a mission to enhance human connection and fulfillment at work and in life. Using positive psychology and her blueprint The Authenticity Guide, Julia provides critical “soft-skills” training to individuals, corporate and university teams. As a graduate of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, Julia focuses on the 3 C’s of culture: connection, communication and collaboration. She is a regular contributor to Business Insider and some of her clients include Marriott, Lenovo, Cisco, Women Business Owners Network, Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and more. Julia holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics (magna cum laude) from Brandeis University, and a Masters of Business Administration from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and is credentialed as a strengths coach from The Marcus Buckingham Company through Cisco.
No two people’s social impact journeys are alike, but there are certain archetypes or patterns I’ve seen over the years. I believe I fit one very specific archetype: and that is of the person who moved away from social impact as a paid career, and leaned into social impact as community engagement. I’m going to tell you about my journey and I’ll share some things I learned along the way.
Low-stakes trial and error
I went to college at Brandeis University, a small liberal arts university in Waltham, Massachusetts. I planted my activist roots at Brandeis. The student body comprised so many smart, studious, curious, liberal, open-minded people and it opened up my world.
I studied Economics and Gender Studies and spent four years trying different activities, internships and jobs to see what I liked. (A smattering of said roles were: intern at the university’s office of investment management, economic empowerment intern for South Asian survivors of domestic violence, advocate for custodial workers’ rights, writing for a microfinance publication, a weird internship at major bank, making PowerPoints for a boutique public relations firm… you get the idea.) At the time I remember having the sense that I was aimlessly meandering, indecisive and lost. I felt passionless and professionally behind my peers. In hindsight — I was doing exactly the right thing. Trial and error is often the best way to find out what we’re passionate about and good at. And, these low-stakes trial and error gigs can be a great way to find out if you hate something too (a data point just as valuable as loving something).
I graduated from Brandeis in 2011, and the job market wasn’t exactly burgeoning at that time. Inspired by a class I took my senior year of college, I wanted to work for a foundation or philanthropy. In said class, we (a group of 10 students) received a $25,000 grant from the Sunshine Lady Foundation (Doris Buffet’s foundation). Our charge was to spend a semester acting like a family foundation and ultimately give the money away in its entirety to a nonprofit in the Boston area. Giving someone else’s money away to a good cause was, well, awesome — why wouldn’t I want to pursue that as a career? The other thing I loved about philanthropy was that I didn’t necessarily have to pick a cause I cared most about. Many philanthropies gave towards lots of different issue areas.
But, as it turned out, there were 0 jobs in philanthropy for new college graduates at that time. It turns out I wasn’t the only one who wanted to work in philanthropy. So I made the decision to leverage my economics degree and took a job as a financial analyst in corporate finance at a large healthcare organization. I did that for two years and learned a lot, but admittedly it wasn’t a fit. I learned that I can be a “quant,” and I can do data analysis and I can nail Excel but it didn’t bring me any joy or satisfaction. I started paying attention to the activities that drained me versus ones that energized me. By the end of those two years, waking up in the morning was the worst part of my day. When my alarm went off, I would check my phone and pray for a “snow day” like an elementary school kid. I would pray for snow days in August. I was existing, not thriving.
I ended up switching jobs within the company. My new job was in outpatient ambulatory operations working for the chief operating officer. I had a great six months in that role, and then the other 18 months were pretty miserable. I was working for really toxic men who were just given more and more power by other men in the company. By the end, I felt cast aside by leadership: I wasn’t given important work and I was bored. I knew I needed a break from New York and the healthcare industry: I needed a reset.
The funny thing about those years post college: there’s no roadmap. For me and for my circle of friends, it was a given that we’d do well in high school, go on to good colleges where we’d get good grades, and then get good jobs. But, after that? No instructions.
Since I didn’t know what my next steps should be I embarked on what I would call an informational networking extravaganza. I essentially cold emailed CEOs of cool companies, executive directors of nonprofits I liked, family, friends, and anyone who I respected professionally. What I wanted to gain from these conversations was an understanding of how to pivot from healthcare into the social impact space. My goal was to collect diverse perspectives and data points, and then make a decision on what to do next.
Get a master’s degree
Interestingly, most of the advice that I got was to go to graduate school. When I applied to jobs in the impact sector around this time (and got turned down for every single one), I asked for feedback. The response most of the time? Get a master’s degree. I received mixed advice on what kind of graduate school was the right decision, though. Some people said an MPA was great for the nonprofit sector. Some people said I should double down on healthcare and get an MPH. Others said MBA. I had a particularly pivotal conversation with Deborah Brooks, co-founder of the Michael J. Fox Foundation. (I couldn’t believe she agreed to talk to me; she was amazing.) Brooks went to Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and she was sufficiently compelling about how an MBA is crucial for careers in the impact space — enough so that I was signing up to take the GMAT the following week.
Fast forward about a year, and I was moving to North Carolina to attend Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. (As a New York Jew, you better believe I never saw myself ending up south of the Mason-Dixon line… but read on for some fun twists.) I ended up being attracted to business school because of a belief that business is a critical lens through which social change should occur. I was interested to learn more about how businesses were contributing to bettering people and the planet. I also felt like I could easily leverage an MBA to work in the public or private sector. And, in the unlikely event of going back into healthcare, I could use an MBA there too. I was impressed by Fuqua largely because of The Center for Advancement in Social Entrepreneurship, founded by the late Greg Dees. Also, the students were genuinely down to earth, unlike some other top business schools that will remain unnamed.
I got my MBA (full-time program) from Duke with a concentration in social entrepreneurship. I did my summer internship at a well-known nonprofit in Boston working on social impact bond deals related to healthcare, particularly in the pediatric asthma space. I thought the work was interesting but it still didn’t feel like a fit. I had the same feeling of dread every morning about going to work. During my second year at Fuqua, I threw myself even further into the social impact world. I intentionally pursued roles wherein I could mentor first-year students who were interested in the social impact space. (I loved and was good at mentoring and coaching, a fact I conveniently ignored for a few years — this will come into play later.) I was the Careers Co-Chair for the Net Impact Club and I loved that role more than anything I had done at b-school.
Social impact consulting
After graduation my husband and I decided to stay in North Carolina, to the chagrin of our family and friends back in New York. (We could do things in NC like buy a house and open a restaurant, things we wouldn’t dream of doing in New York.) I went to work for a social impact consulting firm. The firm was based in New York and I was charged with heading up the North Carolina office. As director of the North Carolina market, I had ten consultants working for me on projects ranging from portfolio analysis for impact investing firms, to developing metrics and measurement for nonprofits, and lots of projects in between.
I enjoyed the work more than any job I’d held previously, but again was confronted with the idea that I loved mentoring and coaching my team far more than I enjoyed the consulting project work itself. As these feelings were becoming more of a reality for me, the CEO of my company cut my salary because of a lack of funding to the organization. I took this as a sign: I needed to hit pause, resign (the first time I ever quit a job without a Plan “B”) and figure out what I wanted to do next. It feels crucial to mention I would not have been able to take that time off if I didn’t have a partner with an income who was supportive of my choice.
The “feel good tax”
And perhaps this is also a good moment to mention what I call the “feel good tax:” the idea that the social impact sector pays less than other sectors because of the feel-goodness of the work, or lack of funding, or some combination of the two. For me, this wasn’t talked about enough in business school. Professors and mentors never told me point blank: “You will make ⅓ of what your business school peers make post-graduation. Start thinking about that now.” So, I’m telling you now! You’re essentially paying a premium to help the world — in the form of your salary cut. Yes, the work felt good, but getting paid so below the market rate for my value felt like absolute crap. It wears on you over time. Anyone who says that money doesn’t matter is either lying or is independently wealthy (I’ve learned this from experience).
“What do you really want from your life?”
During the one month I took off, I did a lot of deep thought work. I embarked on a second informational networking extravaganza. I challenged myself with the question, “What do you really want from your life? NOT, “What do you think would be impressive to other people?” It turns out they were two totally different answers, and that was profound for me. Chasing the latter brought me misery, chasing the former was the first time I felt authentic joy.
My coaching firm The Authenticity Guide (TAG) was born from this time of deep introspection. TAG works to enhance connectedness and fulfillment at work and in life. I have individual clients as well as corporate clients. My sweet spot is in empowering emerging female leaders to come into their potential. I do workshops, I speak at conferences, and I write for Business Insider. I’m my own boss and it’s the best.
You may be asking yourself, did she completely forget about social impact? Is that just not a part of her life anymore? And, something I think about often… what happened to that expensive business school degree with a concentration in social impact? My answer to you is simple. It took me years to learn that I will always be passionate about social impact and it will always be in my life in a meaningful way, but… wait for it… it does not have to be how I earn my income.
To say this realization was groundbreaking for me is an understatement. I am still very involved in social impact in my community: I am board chair of an organization called Helius that works to give free business classes to necessity-driven entrepreneurs and help them gain financial independence and earn a fair living wage. I do pro-bono coaching for low-income business owners. I shop locally when I can. My husband and I co-own a restaurant that gives away money to various charities and we pay ethical wages to our employees. I personally give a lot of money to charity. There’s lots of other ways that I have conceived of other than my 9-5 to have a significant impact on the world and on the community. And, I actually feel better about the impact I’m having when it’s divorced from a salary. I find that I’m less bitter and more enthusiastic about the impact I’m having.
What I get paid to do now (leadership and career coaching) — is far more fulfilling to me than tying my salary to social impact. That might not be true for everyone, but it was true for me. What I’m doing now is where my passion and zone of genius meet. And, while coaching is not “tried and true” social impact necessarily, I feel like I’m making significant differences in people’s lives. When I help people get more in touch with their passions and get closer to work that aligns with their values — to me, that’s impact. It might not be impact investing. It might not be case work for survivors of domestic violence. But for me it feels impactful at this time in my life.
Sometimes I wish I had known sooner that social impact could be in my life without being my job. But mostly, I’m just grateful for where my journey led me. I wouldn’t have learned this lesson without all the steps I took along the way. And, I’m even more grateful that I get to guide others on their unique journeys. Boy does that feel good!
Interested in coaching? Reach out to me at wuench.julia@gmail.com. Not ready to invest in coaching but want to learn more? Check out my online course, Maximizing Your Potential at Work and in Life. Want to simply stay in touch with what I’m up to? Join my mailing list by going to my website: www.juliawuench.com. Thanks for reading my story!