E225 Unfolding Into Kindness with Cole Baker Bagwell
Cole Baker Bagwell, 51 needed to “unfold herself’
At 48, Cole Baker Bagwell sat at her father’s bedside in the hospital laser-focused on her laptop. As he regained his speech, he looked into his daughter’s eyes saying, “Too busy.” That was Cole’s Experience 50 Moment.
She so admired how her parents had created a life where their work and lives were filled with passion. They were making a difference in the world. Upon returning to work, she took the first steps to live a life closer to the example of her mom and dad.
During the prior year, Cole had already been feeling the tug to pivot her career in a direction that would allow her to more precisely focus her strategic consulting skills to change the world of business, toward kindness and mindfulness as a path to profits. In fact, her own work pace of 16 hour days and worldwide travel were challenging her own spiritual practice as a life-long yogi.
The pivot pricetag
It should be said that Cole speaks of being able to save enough money from her extremely high corporate salary to fund her pivot. She left her job with an idea, but not a clear plan, and no solid clients. She could afford the luxury of taking some time off to unfold.
I have shared that my own period of unfolding was, let us say, “unfunded”. Each of us needs to make our own decisions based on our resources v. the urgency of our need to unfold. I say NEED, not want. For many midlifers, the decision is easy and the price tag is very high.
In this episode we discuss:
- Her life before the pivot
- How she tried to work with her employer to stay instead of needing to leave
- How she managed the exit from her employer
- Her first “kitchen table morning” of being unemployed
- Why and how she unfolded herself from corporate life
- The unfolding process to recover from finding your life is off-course
- The importance of “unfolding”, for both people and companies
- Implementing a “First, do no harm” philosophy
- How those same steps can help in difficult political conversations
- Her advice to midlifers who find their priorities and values out of alignment with their careers
About my guest:
Meet Cole Baker Bagwell (fondly dubbed CB2 by her Tech friends who love acronyms.)
Cole is an accomplished businesswoman, a trained mindfulness practitioner, and a yogi. She knows, firsthand, about the power that kindness and human connection have to radically improve everything about business. She’s lived it.
She spent two decades in sales and strategy, partnering with many of the world’s top companies from Silicon Valley to Wall Street. She worked mindfully, led with kindness, and paired intelligent business strategy with an unwavering commitment to do no harm.
Her emotional intelligence created deep levels of connection, trust, engagement, understanding, and partnership. Her commitment created award-winning outcomes and a powerful human experience of together for her teams and clients.
She is building a new foundation for people in business by sharing the mindset, tenets, and practices that led to their collective success.
As Founder and Kindness Director of Cool Audrey®, Cole partners with teams and organizations to cultivate accessible and actionable, emotional intelligence to maximize the power of humanity in business.
She’s unconventional in her approach to business and in the way she sees the world. She’s leading a kindness revolution in business and asking everyone to make one powerful commitment- to do no harm.
Learn more about Cool Audrey® at coolaudrey.com
