537. Spiritual Insights Guide Her Career Coaching

Evangelia Leclaire

Evangelia was only 13 when her parents separated, each one struggling with mental disabilities. She faced a choice: act out some typical teenage foolishness or chart a course toward her own health and wellness. She chose wisely.

Evangelia Leclaire is an expert career coach at The Muse and founder of Career Ready Set Rock, an independent consultancy for millennial women and moms who want more meaning in their lives and careers. She has gone from campus to a career at a Fortune 100 company, to a start-up called Dream Career, where she spent nearly 15 years helping people pursue their career dreams. Evangelia is a career strategist who swears by the power of strengths assessments and action plans, and believes that the greatest life blessings and lessons come from being present, surrendering and having faith.

How Did You Start Using Your Talents?

Evangelia’s parents separated when she was 13. She witnessed both parents struggle with mental disabilities. “By seeing both my parents’ struggles, I was able to make choices for myself in my teens. I could either fall down a path and do typical, crazy teenage stuff, or choose to take care of my own health and wellbeing. I chose the path of advocating for overall wellness in many areas of my life.” She became active in student activities, including building AIDS awareness and promoting sex education. “I began studying psychology, personal development and self-help from people such as Anthony Robbins, and reading about neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and anything that would help me understand how I can shift my thoughts, achieve success and promote positivity.”

The Most Impactful Turning Point?

“After participating in the University of Dreams program on an internship in college—helping to write the mission statement, shadowing the founder to learn all I could—I became awakened to the concept of discovering and pursuing my dream. Before then, I didn’t even know what that was or what it meant! As a result of the internship, I gained a framework and a context for understanding the direction of my life’s work. I spent the rest of my college years figuring out what other internships would help me define what I wanted to do. I became focused on maximizing the opportunity that college gave me to travel and learn about myself.”

The Most Powerful Lessons Learned?

“I explored several internships, hoping one of them would turn into a full-time job. None of them did. What I learned was this: it’s important to accept a responsibility for what it is. I learned to do a job well, no matter what it is, even if the activity is monotonous. In an internship with the United Nations Associations, my job was to find pictures of people who had lost arms and legs to landmines, and then write effective captions for each one. Doing that day in and day out was very humbling. While I was thinking to myself how tedious the work was, I also experienced a sense of gratitude and love. I would pour that into this activity, because I knew so many people really needed my work to be successful. So, there I was—with all my limbs intact—making this mission known through this one mundane task.”