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Episode 21: How a former cop started a thriving financial therapy business: meet Nicole Iacovoni, MSW

Welcome to The Career Clarity Show, where we help you find a lucrative, soulful, and joyful career path for you! Ever heard of a financial therapist? No? You’re not alone.

It’s a real (and rad!) career path at the intersection of money and psychology. 

Even though she didn’t take a traditional path (or get her PhD in “money therapy”), Nicole Iacovoni created a full-time business as a financial therapist and teacher. She’s a great case study on the power of following your magnetic interests (and being unafraid to pivot), and she talked about her incredible, twisty-turny path to career fulfillment on The Career Clarity Show podcast.

Nicole’s story starts in undergrad, when she thought she wanted to become a music teacher…until she realized she didn’t totally love working with kids and thought she might go a little stir crazy doing something so repetitive every single day.

Instead of beating herself up for pursuing a path that wasn’t the right fit, Nicole let herself be agile and adjust. She made her first pivot, switching her degree path to studying psychology so she could become a criminal profiler for the FBI. (Seen every crime TV show on primetime? Yep, just like that.)

Her instinct about psychology was spot-on, but the manifestation of that in a career definitely missed the mark. Nicole went to the police academy. As she says in the podcast, she “hated every minute of it.”

Still, she graduated and started working as a police officer to try to see if there was a way to make it work.

But she knew in her gut it was all wrong.

She didn’t love the police part (not even the sassy uniform) but still felt pulled toward helping people through the lens of psychology.

Following her instincts, she applied to law school. It wasn’t a complete 180: studying law was a new pathway to becoming a FBI criminal profiler that didn’t involve spending her time in a squad car or getting shot at.

Guess what happened next? Nicole had to lean into her resilience and prepare to pivot again: she didn’t get into any of the law schools she applied to. Instead of freaking out and giving up, she just looked for a different path: she searched for schools with dual graduate degree programs in social work and law.

Even though the FBI part of the dream was (almost) sexier than Ryan Gosling, it was actually the psychology part that she kept coming back to.

By letting herself come back to her original passion (psychology) and trying to use that as the entry point to pursue the criminal justice dream, Nicole found a way to end up in a place doing work she truly loved by getting her master’s degree in social work and becoming a therapist — eventually creating her practice around financial therapy and helping people with their relationship with their money.

Just like Nicole, every time you run into a roadblock, you can use what’s working to map out what could be next. No shame or blame, no beating yourself up for having to change “the plan…” just continual adjustment to move closer and closer to the ideal fit career path.

One defining characteristic of Nicole’s journey is that she didn’t get bogged down in the tyranny of the “how” around her interests. As Nicole so aptly said, “We don’t have a crystal ball to be able to actually predict or control the how, so it’s an exercise in futility to even try.”

Instead, allow yourself to be led by the “what” and the “why.” Think about guiding questions like, “What next step allows me to deepen my knowledge and expertise here?” and “Why does this keep intriguing me?”

Nicole’s story wasn’t all puppies and rainbows. She had to pivot even after landing on social work because she almost became the poster child for the stereotypical, low-paid counselor.

As she started building her business as a private practice therapist, she floated business start-up expenses on her credit card and took out a line of credit on her home…and accidentally racked up over $80,000 in debt.

She faced an incredibly scary situation that many aspiring entrepreneurs have nightmares about: back against the wall, in debt, staring down some huge consequences because the risks aren’t quite paying off.

Here’s where Nicole’s story takes the turn toward financial therapy: as a therapist, she had the ability to critically look at her beliefs and separate the stories from the facts. (Talk about having a secret weapon in her back pocket!)

By examining her relationship to her finances — and the stories she’d created about how to treat her money — everything in her business (and life) changed in a dramatic way.

Listen to this episode of The Career Clarity Show podcast to hear exactly what she did to get out of $87,000 of debt in 2 years, 5x her business’ revenue, and create a hugely profitable and joyful financial therapy company.

Want to create a loving, healthy relationship with your money? You’re in luck — Nicole is one of the 15 incredible guest experts and thought leaders who generously contributed one of her favorite tools for FREE to the New Year, New Kickass You freebie giveaway, running now through December 14th.

If you want 2020 to be the year you get a handle on your finances (as well as improve your love life and upgrade your career), head over to NewYearNewKickassYou.com to download Nicole’s Date Your Money Planner (valued at $140!), as well as my eBook, The Roadmap to Career Fulfillment.

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About the Author Lisa Lewis

Lisa is a career change coach helping individuals feeling stuck to find work that fits. She helps people clarify who they are, what they want most, and what a great job for them looks like so they can make their transition as easily as possible. Lisa completed coaching training in Jenny Blake’s Pivot Method, Danielle LaPorte’s Fire Starter Sessions, Kate Swoboda's Courageous Living Coaching Certification, and the World Coaches Institute. In addition to that, she apprenticed with the top career coaches in the country so she can do the best possible work with — and for — you. She's helped more than 500 individuals move into more fulfilling, yummy careers and would be honored to get to serve you next!

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