Whitney is the founder of Warrior Girl, a life coaching business that is empowering women to design lives they love.  She also is the owner of clothing line, Flan de Coco and founded the urban dance project, The Mecca where she lives in Cali, Colombia. Click here to learn more.

As part of the weekly Unconventional Life giveaway, Whitney is giving away a free 30-minute coaching session. Click here to enter the giveaway for a chance to win!

In Whitney’s episode, you’ll learn:

• How this woman left her 15-year career on Wall Street to live the life of her dreams
• How pain seeds the way for new perspective and possibility
• How an inspiring community is the biggest accelerator to your next big leap
• How to say yes the life you wish to live and thrive

Key Life Lessons from Whitney:

Challenge Conventional Structures and Take the Leap of Faith.

When fear and doubt wash over you, second-guessing your choices may hold you back from living your dream life.  Stepping outside the conventional lines causes you to take a step into the unknown.

Whitney describes leaving her career on Wall Street as her “leap of faith”, she was terrified, but just knew she had to go.  She says, “I was more afraid of life staying the same than afraid of the uncertainty”. After a lifetime of being achievement-oriented and outwardly successful, she’d never stopped to ask what she truly wanted.  

She reminds us that everyone has fears of failure or not being successful, but that it’s important to live life for yourself, not for other people and their expectations.  Give yourself the permission to think about what you truly want instead of what you are told to want.

Anything is Possible.

“It is always possible to pull victory from the jaws of defeat if you believe that it’s possible,” Whitney shares.  After leaving her job, moving to Colombia, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and every fear possible rose to the surface – vanity, fertility, financial, professional, relational, mortality – at once.  Whitney came face to face with herself as everything was stripped away.

It was in this painful experience that it became very clear what her choice was.  As she laid in the hospital bed, she realized that she could continue being miserable and feel like life was over or make the best out of whatever time she had left on Earth.  This is the moment that everything started to transform.

Whitney advises us to get outside our comfort zones and surrender the results.  She sees the pain as the gift that planted the seed for things to be different. What perspective do you have about pain?  Can you see the possibility for growth in any of your painful experiences?

Surround Yourself With an Inspiring Community.

A few months after Whitney’s recovery, she attended one of our Unconventional Life Business Accelerator Events in Nicaragua.  “For the first time I found myself in an environment where I was surrounded by a hundred other people that had the same exact vision and value system, and were going through the same exact issues, the same exact problems, the same exact fears…” she says.  Our community provided a safe space to amplify everything she’d been wanting for her life. It was the container that uplifted and encouraged her to show up in her full potential.

Finding a community you resonate with will provide a support system on the entrepreneurial path.  It also provides immense value when you’re networking with people that are up to something beyond conventional terms.  Beyond business, feeling like you belong and being understood is a vital part of a thriving well-being. Instead of being questioned about your choices, what would it be like if your peers celebrated your differences?

Amelia Broughton is a relational facilitator and purveyor of connection, pioneering a more connected, communication-savvy, and emotionally intelligent planet. She facilitates Authentic Relating and Relational Leadership in various settings and communities. Her expertise is in team dynamics and interpersonal relations. With over 10 years of experience on teams and in communities, Amelia’s vision for the world is one of beautiful interconnection, a place where we put down the distractions and to-do lists to bask in the miracles that surround us. The type of connection that nourishes us internally, externally and has every one of us feel seen, heard and loved with a true sense of belonging.  An active Unconventional Life member, Amelia recently became our Operations Director and will be consistently contributing her writing.