Unlocking Your Right Brained Gifts as a Left Brained Thinker with Juanita Molano Parra

Catherine A. Wood  00:02

Juanita, I’m so excited to have you on the podcast today.

Juanita Parra  00:06

I’m so excited to I’m a little nervous. I realized just now because I’m like,

Catherine A. Wood  00:15

Well, it’s funny, I don’t usually have coaches on the podcast, like I have other types of service providers. So it’s fun. Like, I wonder if we’re gonna get all cocci?

Juanita Parra  00:24

I know, I know, we’re gonna go deep into the mindset some beings ready?

Catherine A. Wood  00:31

Well, I’d love to just kind of maybe go back to the beginning and start off by having you share your story with us and how you got to be here.

Juanita Parra  00:41

Yeah, um, well, I think maybe this is also I’m a little nervous, because I think you are, I think now, because you are such a big part of what got me here. The head, it feels a little surreal to park with you being the podcaster. So I don’t know. I’ll share more about it. But I think that’s kind of there to hold my story. I am from Colombia, I think that’s usually where I always start. Because that’s such a big part of who I am of my identity, my everything. So I was born and raised in Colombia, I’m from Bogota. So big city, up in the mountains, came to realize too late that it has perfect weather. So I never fully appreciated it until now, when there’s winter and no sun. I’m part of a family of five so and brother and sister twin is the eldest. And part of a really big family, I’d say like really very much Latin style. More than 30 cousins and uncles and aunts and everything. So I think that was a big part of my growing up, because everything was always a lot of people. Like, we would say, kind of like in my Na, like, everything is just all together everywhere on top of each other like this thing of like personal space is not really a thing, which I came to realize after was a thing here, I learned that through my husband, he does need the personal space, and realize that I am really good at creating my own personal space wherever I am. And so I’m really good at adapting to spaces and kind of like, I was creating my own little bubble, even if there was a gazillion people around me which, again, just like the weather in Bogota things that I took for granted, and I thought that was a thing for everybody, but I can’t able to create that for myself. Um, I went to a French school growing up 14 years of French education very strict. But a very fine in the end, like I think it gave me a different cultural side that I don’t know if I would have gotten otherwise. I did that I did, I think something about me is I always did very much like very traditional paths and very step by step of what one is supposed to do, and step by step of what successful young people do. And so I did my French school, which, back in Bogota, it’s very, it’s known for academics and stuff. And so like, I excelled at the academics, they’re going to college. I did industrial engineer, which is something that a lot of people do, actually, or like a lot of people did around me. It was fun. I love numbers. Totally love numbers. I love the look of things around industrial engineering that are not things that I would like to work on, particularly, but I think are so cool, like, shows, I think is awesome. Like, the factories and how things work like cars factories, automaker, or you go to a brewery and you see like how everything is like glued into the things and then the thing is put on and like everything flows. It’s just so I think it’s incredibly magical. Even though it’s, you know, like some people might say like, it’s a factory. It’s wonderful. I think those things I love about hiring. And after that I worked at some a couple multinational companies. So again, very, very traditional. Got great opportunities. I got awesome managers. My first company was amazing and I’m still in touch with my managers from back then and learn so much that so many. Yeah, I think opportunities, that’s the way to say. And after a few years, I don’t remember maybe like five years, four, six, I don’t know, a few years of working, I decided to come to the US to get my MBA, again. That was the next step in my career, like, you go to get your MBA, and then you get a better job. And I came to NYU, living in New York was a dream for me. I grew up watching Friends obsessively. And I got into NYU, it was awesome. I met my now husband there, I met my best friends there. It was a very interesting time, because there was both exciting and I don’t know what the word for is, but like, stimulating, maybe, like, it was really the first time in my life that I felt out of my shell. Because up until then, I was always the very shy person, they’re very quiet person. They’re not super social, like it kind of like all this labels, and I had very taking them a little too seriously. And it wasn’t until I got to start at NYU. And until I got, I remember when we started orientation, it was very easy to talk to people. And I think part of me was a little confused that like I was able, but most of me was just really excited that I was like talking to so many new people and meeting new people. And just like, it really felt like bursting out of my skin. So that was a fantastic, fantastic experience. At the same time, the whole thing was very challenging, because there is a lot of competition because you are recruiting for a job and international students. So like getting a visa. And I wanted to stay in the US. So getting a visa was a big deal. And I realized then that I had planned all my life to get my MBA. And that was it. And so the okay, but for what and what comes after. And yes, I wrote I wrote the essays and did the things but like, what came after was we’re not

07:51

inspired.

Juanita Parra  07:54

It just was a path that some people had trays of what you do after the MBA, but it wasn’t really mine. And it was hard like recording, I thought it was really challenging. I wasn’t the best, I didn’t have the best grades I like all this labels that I had had, as part of my identity really, are so many years, we’re not there anymore. And so all those things are really challenging. And looking back, it’s interesting to see that in that contrast, because it really again, like my best friends are my friends from there, my husband I met there, like the bubbliness and connectedness that that I that you have experienced of me now like it really came out a lot then. And the challenge of everything else too. So it was a very interesting time. Can we pause around that? Yeah,

Catherine A. Wood  09:00

pause there. Because I just feel like that is such a beautiful explanation of a point. So many people that I think eventually find coaches reach in their life where they’re so practiced in meeting someone else’s expectations. And in filling someone else’s box, you know, disguised as their own boxes. And they kind of have like, they’re, they’re on this trajectory that they think they’re supposed to be on. And then they get to the end of the road and they’re like now what you know, and at what point do they stop meeting someone else’s expectations whether their caretakers their parents societies and start crafting their own? Yeah. And gosh, I mean, I have I have my exact same experience of that, you know, like, and I knew all growing up that I wanted to be a resident assistant in college. I wanted to be A student body president of my college, and I wanted to join the Peace Corps. That was it. Those were the three boxes, I checked them all. And then I was like, now what? Okay, back to you.

Juanita Parra  10:16

There’s a, there’s a word that you use of like a game. Were very well practiced in that. And I think that’s a key piece of it. And for me, it was, it’s, it was such a well practiced thing that it’s kept coming afterwards. And so, I mean, after that I, at that point around that time is when I met you, when I just moved here. And we met at my cousin’s wedding. And I, we connected on Facebook. And I put this in because it was a little after that, that I remember, you started your coaching training. And so I started to see this things of what you were doing on my feet. I like and I remember we did it, and conversation, and you were sharing all these things that you were doing. And it was just something that I was seeing there. And I was so curious about and it was just like, Oh, that’s so that somebody would do that. Let me go and continue to do my MBA and my team, because that’s what one does. And so that of that, after, after I graduated, I got a corporate finance job kind of same traditional I worked at as a subsidiary of Amazon technology. It was fun. I mean, I was living in New York. A it was it was good. And I think that’s the other part of like, that whole well practiced dynamic is that it works when it gets I think it’s, quote unquote, easier to shifted when it doesn’t work. When you feel like it’s just, you’re you’re you’re miserable, or you’re not, I don’t know, there’s there’s something big that you’re not getting are some big needs that are not my things like that. But when things are fine, well, they’re fine. And so you just continue that. And it was a matter of a few years after that were some things started to get a little rocked in my world where my company got shut down. My partner had moved to Indianapolis, where he’s originally from, and so we’re talking about, like, if I should move there. And around that time is the first time that I reached out to you. And at this point, you’re maybe I don’t know, for you in coaching. And I reached out because I was like, well, here I am, again, kind of like a possible transition. I did. I finished with the company was working, I did move to indeed, what do I want to do? Or something else I don’t want to do that is something that I want and something I choose and something that that I really, really am passionate about. And I was at this point for four years stalking everything that you’re doing, but not really asking any questions. I was like, Well, how does one do what you do I remember that when you were doing the retreats, and that was always like, I It’s still on my radar. Like That sounds fun. Oh, there’s one day of that. And so again, I think it wasn’t until something kind of like wasn’t so fine. That it got me to ask myself more questions and be like, okay, like how what can be and at that point, it was an evolution of a few years or like a year or two off starting a my coaching training thing. So did accomplishment coaching, starting to work with my own coach, which I realized I hadn’t worked with a coach before I had worked with somebody that said was a coach but was more of like something different. And really a starting to experience that for myself. And it was very cool because I was I was talking about like the factory and everything, like everything I did. And when I was in corporate it was so much like processes and systems and reports and numbers, but all really connected to connecting people. So like having people from different departments, different areas, being able to collaborate, share information, that kind of thing. And to make people’s lives easier, right like why should you have to like Wait 1000 days to get a report that you can get in three like things like that, like making people’s lives easier, enacting plans, like that kind of thing. And in a way that’s what coaching is to It’s taking me a few years to realize the connections of all that but really looking back it was kinda with coaching I found ways to also do what I was doing. But more human having people’s lives better having people connect to others having collaboration like all those things, just with a different tool that is that is coaching that is leadership and that I don’t know I think the the humanity, humaneness human of it is what, ah, what, what caught me the most. So I left my job, I decided to go full time coaching. I didn’t call myself an entrepreneur, because that wasn’t something that I was I was a full time coach. So it’s not the same intrapreneurs are like people that like have, you know, like to get the dollar, they have that great idea they detect. It took me like, a good year, year and a half to say as an entrepreneur, which I think is funny now. Um, and it’s been now, I don’t know, four or five years. Maybe? No. Six? I don’t know, maybe like five or six years maybe?

Catherine A. Wood  16:16

Well, let’s see we weaves first chatted about coaching in 2014. And then you Yeah, started your journey. And when what year would that have been? 2018 2017?

Juanita Parra  16:31

I did my training. I graduated 2019 My training 1819 23. Geez. Yeah. Yeah, so far, six years. That’s crazy. That’s crazy. There’s sometimes this includes pandemic year. So that’s why everything feels weird. But for sure. But I think to what to do, we’ll practice that we were talking earlier, I think that, that that will practice of doing things with an external a, I’m gonna say like an external measure measuring stick, or an external? I don’t know if expectation, yeah, maybe expectation and external definition, an external measuring stick that kept coming back because we’re at first, it was more of like, well, you do corporate, you do your MBA, like I do my CFO. Track, and when they will be a CFO, then it was more like, Okay, I’m a coach. But I’m an MBA, and so I should be an executive coach, and I should cope. It’s good, right? You know, that’s what I should be. And I tried that. But it wasn’t fun. And not for like, I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with executives to just like, that’s not what like, excites me. That’s not where my heart is. It’s not about them being executives, it’s not about the like, see, whatever labels. So it’s just been a progression. And I’ve like, identifying ways that in my business I’m doing that well practice, external measure, stick, and assessing more and more, we’re like, Well, what is it that I want? What is it that I am passionate about? What is it that is important to me. And that also requires practice.

Catherine A. Wood  18:23

I mean, I can appreciate that. Whenever we start a new journey, or a new chapter of our life, that we often revert to those old ways of being. So like, you know, the idea of identifying ourselves based on these labels, or these titles, or these acronyms, you know, we we catapult into a new business or a new, you know, a new opportunity, and then we jump back to identifying ourselves by these old labels or thinking that we need to, again meet someone else’s expectation or judgment rather than just redefining our own. It’s, you know, it’s so funny because like, I, I think about some of my most successful clients who are in the multiple six and seven figures, and they start a new business and they revert right back to being like struggling struggling with what they charge. Right? It’s like they have no issues, charging very competitive rates and one business and then they start a new business and they’re like, ah, am I worth this?

19:35

What am I doing?

Juanita Parra  19:38

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think that

19:44

that,

Juanita Parra  19:46

again, the balance, right, like have the humility of starting something new, and seeing what you don’t know getting curious about things to learn about like, who to talk to, and do things to make better and all of that. But at the same time, the kind of self grown this still, like I know who I am. And what I know or don’t know, what I learned or haven’t learned is not a defined definition or Yeah, a measure of my value. No both things. Yeah.

Catherine A. Wood  20:34

Well, I mean, it begs the question so. So how do you introduce yourself now?

Juanita Parra  20:42

Like, hi, Juanita, nice to meet you know very much in the elderly. I’m like, I’m in that transition. I’m also a, I’m gonna say I’m not. I’m like, into astrology and human design and all these things. But I’m not like a guru about it or anything. But something that I learned is I am in my Jupiter return. So I started my birthdays end of June. So I started last year, ends up next year, it this year. But it’s this whole transition kind of like overhaul your career and, or your identity in your career and what you do and how you do it, and all those things. And I’ve definitely felt it. It’s been a for NATO year, but things that I have confirmed, that are important to me. So this is not exactly the answer, I’ll introduce myself and like, I’m a coach. But things that are that are really exciting to me is work with people that are changemakers. And that’s kind of like a phrase or something that had to come to me before, but it was always it felt very much like, who am I to say, I put this on my LinkedIn. And it took me a lot to put it I remember, like, I got a lot of support, just to write this thing. But on my LinkedIn, it says the changemakers whisperer. And I was like, it’s still amazing courage, I think about it, but like, from my highest and best, like, what I wanted to do in life like that is definitely yet. Like what what lights me up, like what really gets me excited and excited in terms of light me up, but also excited in terms of like, this matters, like this actually, like makes it worthwhile that I do work is helping people that are that are creating things, and that are making changes that are making the world better. However they do it. And so yeah, yeah,

Catherine A. Wood  23:01

one thing I really appreciate about your story, and I’m so glad you shared like so much of the detail of your story because I think that it’s very much a reflection of how it typically goes for so many ambitious impasse. Like I’m sure so many in my audience can relate with this idea of just being driven by achievement, being driven by the next thing, the next tick on the measuring stick the next place you have to get to the next title you need to achieve. And, you know, your background is very textbook left brain thinker, right, like you’re extremely analytical and logical. You’re an engineer, you have an MBA, like we both share that. Not the engineer part right. But both are MBAs and and, and yet, you are incredibly creative. You know, like you’re an incredibly creative person you’re deeply spiritual. Whenever I connect with you I’m always just full of life because you bring so much color and vibrancy and Latina flair to life. And I also am mindful that you know, you’ve really unlocked a lot of that right brain thinking right brain creativity in your career. So how how does someone who is organization industrial engineer and MBA you know, a textbook annal analytic and lover of logic, connect with her creativity.

Juanita Parra  24:47

So I really appreciate everything you just said because I love your question, but I also like it took a lot to to connect to those things. And right now I’m in a season And I’m taking this first quarter a lot slower. very intentionally, because I wanted to give myself space for that. Because I’ve seen how I’ve cultivated how like it’s come. I’ve seen how it’s come up how I’ve like, planted seeds here and there for that, but I don’t feel at all. I’ve nurtured it. Maybe that’s a better word. I don’t feel I’ve nurtured it as much. And I’m doing a lot of that today. And so like, I mean, literally today, but also like through this quarter, I think, a few different things. One, the realization that everybody’s creative. So I think there’s a lot of stories or things that people say, that are very much I was always in finance and think accounting is very interesting. I like, personally, I love models. And it was always like, well, if you’re like a finance person, or an accountant, like you’re not creative, and I’m like, Are you insane? Like, really realizing like, Have you ever seen somebody create a finance model? That is crazy. And that’s insanely creative? Like only with creativity, can you really do a fine as well. And so realizing that and I, I’ll do a plug for this, I think there’s chapters of this in many different parts. And, but Creative Mornings, is one of my favorite events every month. And they have a manifesto at the beginning. And it starts by saying, We believe that everybody is creative. And I remember the first time I heard it, I was like, Sure. And now every time I go, I just like, kind of like stand there. And I feel it. I’m like, Yes. And so that I think was the first first step, which was like realizing, yes, we are all and it comes up in different ways. And noticing the creativity that was already there, because then it I think it often felt like something additional I needed to do. And like a lot of work and bringing the external expectations, perfectionism and all that combo, it’s like, that’s too much like I just I can’t do it. But if I started with what I was already doing that it was like, oh, like setting up a system is super creative. I like that kind of thing. And then from there connecting to things that I’ve been curious about, that I’ve liked, but never really went into as much. So one thing in particular is that when when I was in college, actually I was doing, I don’t know how you call it here, but like in my college and was called by quote unquote, an option. So you did like some classes and you graduated with an option and something. And people usually do things that are connected to their career. I chose a textile design. And so I took different classes around textile design a was patterns and like building on a mannequin, clothing and fabrics, and a few different, like just textures. And those were my favorite classes in the entire in my entire career, which should have taught me something. I love those classes. And after I graduated, I never did anything else with it or around it. And so something that I’ve started doing is taking sewing classes. My sister has been doing embroidery and so I’ve a just started last week and I taking some of her classes to do some embroidery, I actually have my sewing machine right next to me, and doing small things like I’m fixing my partner’s T shirts, or I’m doing a tote or just small things like that that are fun and that kind of like get me stimulated. That is something that I found really, by catalyzer I would say.

Catherine A. Wood  29:21

I mean what I love that answer i That makes so much sense. It’s like losing the and we said we were going to talk about this at the beginning of the podcast but like, even before we started recording like this idea of that it doesn’t have to be an either or that we don’t have to live inside of this fixed way of being and living black and white thinking that like we can actually live and exist and thrive in the gray and the duality of it all. And I I don’t know if you remember this from Martha Beck’s book, The Way of integrity and her definition of integrity. But she defines integrity as in the face of an, I’m going to not get it perfect, but in the face of wanting to react, that we instead we choose to be creators. So creation rather than reacting. And you don’t have to have creative talents in order to unlock that, you know, you don’t have to be an artist, or a painter or a drawer, like having creative talents is so much bigger and so much broader. I that’s what I hear from what you’re sharing.

Juanita Parra  30:35

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think something too. And I think it’s gonna it’s connect the camera to that finishing cap, actually, but like, it’s, I’ve been better at allowing myself to get kind of taken away by things. And so what I mean by that is like, I have random interests like, my, my other favorite class when I was in college, which also had nothing to do with my career was the history of physics. It was an optional thing, like one of those things did make you well rounded or something. But it was fantastic. And Professor was great and stuff. And I love those things. I love physics. I love mathematics. I think that is ultra magical. And I just sometimes found I think this book found me I it was I was telling you before like there’s all this threads that are that I’ve picked up over the last at the end of last year and that I’ve been threading together this year. And one of those this book, I just started it, it found me in the library. It’s called figuring brown Maria Popova. I don’t know if I’m pronouncing her last name, right. But she does this thing where she like, she has this thing. I think it’s called mid pickings or something. But she reads a lot of to connect different stories from everything like science and philosophy and like, and just write and write. And that’s what she does. And this what she has is like in the Congress library. It’s a whole thing. So I had her name in my mind from that. And I saw this book, and it said, figuring and that seemed like such a funny word. And she writes so beautifully. Like you get you feel you’re like in the book, you’re like Harry Potter, and you just like go in it. And it’s like, about physics, like the chapters are read about like a physician, like a physician. That’s not a word in English. Physicists, physicists, okay. So Johannes Kepler, and he was the one that did like discover this three laws that were like, insane in the world of astrophysics. And he discovered that the things were an ellipse, it’s a whole thing that I think it’s very cool and fascinating. So she’s telling the story of him, but also telling the story of his time. And also talking about like, humanity, and also talking about culture, and then connecting that to music and connecting that to our time. And all of this in this little chapter of this ginormous book. And I’m like, That is awesome. Like, that is awesome, that makes me feel alive, that makes me feel connected to the world. That makes me feel that magic is real, like, and allowing myself to get carried away by that. To have even grabbed a book with no purpose, no intention of like, if I’m not gonna do anything with it. I’m not gonna write a dissertation. I’m not gonna go into literature, right? Like, but just being in it. That for me is that like, create, create or creative create like Ray tricks, energy.

Catherine A. Wood  34:10

And we can break what I hear in that is that like when we allow ourselves to be carried away by our curiosity, or our intrigue or our passion or our zest for life, like you just look so lit up as you’re talking about this that we can really connect with all of who we are all of our passions and curiosities and our our right brain and left brain duality.

Juanita Parra  34:40

Love how you put it like that cat because then when you said it like that makes me think like that applies to anything, right? Like when we’re thinking about and thinking about clients thinking about people, you know, like they’re navigating something and maybe they’re navigating a career change me Maybe they’re navigating launching their business, maybe they’re navigating, step up in leadership like anything like that. Sometimes the heart It feels hard to allow yourself that freedom. But allowing yourself for that is really what opens up the opportunities, the possibilities, the options, like just everything I’ve had. But it’s new

Catherine A. Wood  35:26

allowing totally, I, I was having a chat with a friend recently, and we were talking about when people age, I think it’s such a beautiful example. Because we all have people in our life for whom this is true like that, when some people age like they become more set in their ways. Like more kind of like they have more of a fixed mindset, like it is the way it is, this is how it is. And other people as they age, like they have more of a growth mindset. They’re open to new learnings. They’re open to some of these huge conversations that we’re living inside of our world right now about that black lives matter. And gender identity, right? Like our older generations, like these were not conversations out loud. And so you can either have a fixed mindset, or you can have a growth mindset. And I don’t know if I’ve ever put this together for myself before. But like, I think that many of us like you and me who are kind of textbook left brain thinkers very analytical and logical that we often to some degree have to fight a thicker fixed mindset. Because we are much more connected. To use your words, with that measuring stick of where we’re supposed to go, of what path we’re supposed to follow of the next place, we’re spending supposed to get to have the next acronym we’re supposed to add on to our name of the next title, we’re supposed to achieve the next promotion, that it can be harder to slow down, and to really open ourselves up to all the possibilities, and to really connect with what lights us all the way up. So I love that, you know, your journey took, I don’t know four years from when you and I first talked to you signing up for the coach training program. Like I always share that. After I started coaching, it still took me over two years until I submitted my resignation letter for the federal government. You know, like I tell everyone, I was a slow burn a slow burner, like a slow burn, right? Like, so risk averse, so safety oriented, and that’s fine. You know, like, There are pluses and minuses of always of being an always of being entrepreneurs in the world. But when we can really come to accept our default ways of being like, then we can be on purpose around what labels we want to fill, what boxes we want to check and, you know, create our own trajectory forward.

38:13

100% 100% 100% Yeah. Yeah. So

Catherine A. Wood  38:28

I mean, I love that we’re having this conversation. I don’t know if I’ve ever asked you how many how many languages do you speak?

Juanita Parra  38:35

Three. So I’m in Spanish from being Colombian. French from school. And then English from life, I guess.

Catherine A. Wood  38:45

Have you ever coached anyone in French yet? No. Oh my goodness, you totally could.

Juanita Parra  38:53

I feel like I need a French language I practice the lease because I don’t really have anybody to speak with. So I just sometimes I watch Netflix has a lot of French show so I do that. I went to Paris two years ago and it was awesome. It took me like a day to really get it back but it is I think just it was such a big part of my life for a long time.

Catherine A. Wood  39:25

Well I love that you speak in three you speak three languages and that that triples the number of people who you may be a great coach for if people are interested in learning more about you. Oh yeah, where should they follow along?

Juanita Parra  39:40

I think the best place to go along so my website a my business school jump coaching. I didn’t mention that before but it’s called Jump coach. A My website is junk. coaching.co so you can find me there. I know social media but to be honest, I’m gonna take a break But I do have a newsletter that I share every other week. And that’s really the best way to hear from me. So it’s called jumpstart, you can subscribe on my, on my website. And and I really I think that’s something that I’m, I think that it is it is something that I’m really excited about and that I’m starting to put a lot more energy because I realized that that kind of like, longer form sharing is more aligned with me than social media like, yeah, so I’m doing that. So you can definitely hear from me on jumpstart on my newsletter, and you can find it at junk coaching.

Catherine A. Wood  40:45

You love it. And for anyone who’s listening who identifies as a left brain thinker and is interested in unlocking more of their right brain gifts and becoming a prosperous empath. What do you think made the difference for you in your journey? What supported you?

Juanita Parra  41:08

I was thinking about this question about another unit. But what I realized is I think it’s what we were talking about before is the allowing myself to be taken away different things. And so it may be I think, one also knowing how I consume best, I really love listening. Podcasts are a great way for me to consume things. So kind of go from one podcast to another because in this podcast they talked about it was Brene Brown, who talked about Maria Popova. So from there, I went to her and there was a podcast on on being about her. So I went on to on Bing, and then there was this session and I’m being about foundations that has blown my mind. So really allowing those connections to happen. But following your own interest, right, like, if I’m a numbers person doesn’t mean I need to go paint. I can just start by learning about the history of numbers and mathematics which is also fascinating.

Catherine A. Wood  42:09

Juanita, thank you so much for being on the podcast is so fun to chat.

Juanita Parra  42:13

Thank you so much for having me. This was very stimulating. Awesome