Christiane [00:00:00]:
Well, welcome back to the happy, healthy hustle. We are here with another amazing episode and a true superstar of a guest. Today, I'm going to let Julie introduce herself, but can already tell you there are going to be some true gems in this amazing episode about superpowers, challenges, and of course, how we overcame them. So let's get started.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:00:23]:
Hi, everybody. My name is Julia Delica Collins, and it's such a pleasure to be here. I love this conversation with other individuals that are doing some wonderful work in the world. I am an author, TEdx speaker, and a business strategy coach, and I work with incredible entrepreneurs who are trying to build an authority through podcasting and through speaking and making a difference in the world.

Christiane [00:00:50]:
Let's make this difference in the world here today. And of course, you are already blowing up so much away with your amazing bio. And we all really think, now, if you could decide on just this one superpower, Julie, what do you think that superpower would be?

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:01:08]:
It is a two part superpower, and it's listening and speaking. Definitely one of the things that I have worked really hard on is honing in my listening skills. I believe that we spend so much time in this world trying to produce content, speak to everyone, share everything, that speaking is underrated. And a lot of times it's not about what you say. It's about listening to someone and making them feel better. But I do know that speaking is also part of my superpower. And when I say speaking, the one thing that I love to do is interviewing others. And that is definitely a superpower that I continue to hone in.

Christiane [00:01:53]:
And I think that's why we align so much, because we like the interviews and this kind of intimate format. We really focus on one person listening in and then really speaking and kind of picking up where they were. Because I agree with you, it's so important in life to listen and then kind of react to it, respond instead of just like having already a pre formulated response in your head and getting it out before you even listened. The person's point of view, 100% listening, is just such an amazing thing that podcasting really has taught us, because I can't look at anything else right now. It would be super obvious and everybody would be thinking, what is she doing? And so I'm just focusing on one person and making that person feel like a superstar and celebrating their superpower here. How did you get to where you were? I'm sure there were some dark times in your life, some challenges, and I would love to know the biggest challenge. If you think back and how did you overcome it?

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:03:02]:
This is such a good question because I think that it is very important to look back to see where we've been in order to really be able to assess where we're going. And for me, I started a corporate career in my mid twenty s, and certainly I wanted to be successful. I started to climb that corporate ladder and kept going. And in my thirty s, I was very intent on successfulness, on doing it all, and also just not showing people that there was any weakness in me. And I think that that created a lot of angst. It created a lot of difficulty because I had to kind of spin the plates up. And my first marriage fell apart. And although that was definitely something that I struggled with, I started to evaluate, is this what I want? Is this where I want to be? And as well, what I realized is that when we are focusing so much on doing it all, when we are focusing so much on trying to be perfect in fitting somebody else's box and filling the expectations, then we really lose who we are.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:04:24]:
It got to a point that in my career, I had a lot of success, but it didn't really mean a lot because I had lost and I couldn't really tell what I really wanted, where I wanted to be, who I was. And these are the things that we really had to evaluate. So I struggled a lot after my divorce and again, the marriage. I was married to a wonderful person, but we definitely needed to go our separate ways. He was ready for a new relationship, so there was nothing that I could do in that way, but I had to reconstruct myself but do it in a way that was consistent with my values and consistent with the vision that I wanted for my life. But that was a dark time because I felt alone. I felt I didn't have the right direction. And I also felt like I had failed and I was looking at a failure as a complete negative.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:05:23]:
Whereas now, the more work that I've done in myself, the more that I've kind of invested in forging forward. Right. Despite the challenges or whether I felt like it or not, I realized that that was not a failure. Those were just the lessons that I needed to, to get me to where I am today.

Christiane [00:05:42]:
There are so many tidbits that I see myself with regard to my thinking in using in parallel terms. So the one thing that I thought about myself was totally agree with you, like in the 20s, kind of building this career, being very goal oriented, being very focused, not as much thinking about yourself, where you are really kind of neglecting who are we? What are your superpowers and how can we bring them to the front? And because you are neglecting yourself. I love that you said the word losing yourself. You sometimes feel you're basically just like this shell that's interacting with the world, and you put up an armor because you're like, no, I have to keep going. I have to keep going. One more thing. I have to take care of this. I have to take care of that.

Christiane [00:06:35]:
And because you're putting up this shell, you're never really letting out that you're actually a vulnerable human being with needs that need to take care of herself.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:06:47]:
I don't know if this happened to you, but it became and it started to manifest itself physically. At that time is when I was diagnosed with an autoimmune. But it's because I definitely was not prioritizing my health in addition to prioritizing my spirit and prioritizing my mental well being.

Christiane [00:07:09]:
And we tend to be so good in ignoring those signs to where we think, oh, that's all right. I sometimes compare it to, like, you see some dirt and you're like, oh, I'm going to put a rug on top. Nobody's going to notice this. And when we don't switch the lights on, nobody even notices. And so now you have the rug and you have darkness, and then maybe the next thing is like, oh, and maybe I'm just going to move on and I'm not even going to look this direction. This is kind of how it happens with our body. So we cover things up, we patch things up. Maybe we are basically just feeling like, oh, I love the thumbs up thing there.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:07:49]:
Right?

Christiane [00:07:50]:
Reactions. So maybe we patch things up, we're moving on, and we don't feel like we're the light in the world, but we are rather just putting our head down and we are moving on. And then, of course, our body is so smart in telling us, hold on, something is wrong. You have to correct your course because where you are going, you're going to make yourself very sick. And I'm sending you little signals and you tend to ignore those signals. And then eventually those signals start piling up. And when we are really then feeling, I need to take care of myself, frequently it is too late. And we think, hold on, now.

Christiane [00:08:28]:
Thinking back, there were signals all the way, why did I ignore this? Is that how it was for you, Julie?

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:08:34]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that there are always little crumbs that lead the way. Right? And if we're not in tune, then we're going to miss those signals. The reality is that for each of us, the definition could be different for mental, physical and spiritual well being is. But the reality is that when things are. We're trying to juggle all these balls. There are some of these balls, right, that were half up in the air. And I heard this in a book, the analogy of balancing the balls.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:09:12]:
But your health is the one ball that doesn't bounce, right. It's a ball that if you drop it can break. And it's very difficult to kind of patch together again. So ultimately, you have to really begin to pay attention with your heart, with the different signals. But you need to be in tune with, okay, how can I stop? How can I take a minute out? How can I start to kind of let go of the noise? Because there's always noise around us. There's always something dinging. There's always going to be someone who needs something from us. But this is where you have to learn to prioritize.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:09:51]:
You have to learn to say, okay, I am not going to XYZ. Maybe we need to take a lunch break. Maybe we need to go for a walk. Maybe we need to drink more water. The little things like that start to say no to the things that are somebody else's priority. And find small ways in which you can start to prioritize yourself and get to know yourself enough so that you see the signals, right. You start to see the little crumbs that are maybe leading you and say, oh, maybe I need to recalibrate. Maybe I need to do this, but we're going to miss it if we continue to try to allow the noise of life get in the way.

Christiane [00:10:32]:
It's kind of like when you open your mailbox and there's like some junk mail in there, it just keeps going in. And the problem really is that it's such a time sucker. And if you think about really letting the notifications be muted and dedicating yourself to something else and how much time you used to spend on your email and email box, I would even go.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:10:58]:
A step further and I would say it is the part that we choose to keep in a different way. Right? Who says that we have to be an inbox? Zero. The one thing that I started to do, and by the way, I don't know if you've taken the Enneagram, but I'm a seven in the Enneagram, which I know enough that a seven Enneagram means that I have that fear of missing out. And of course, for someone like me, having all these emails like, oh, but what if I miss something? What if I, whatever, right? I checked email and I typically don't check it on Sundays, but I checked it on Sunday because I was going to an event last night and I knew that I had left my inbox at like almost two or three this morning. When I logged on, I was at 200, even with all of my rules. And I thought, this is crazy. And it could become overwhelming. And that's the mental drainage that we have.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:12:03]:
Things like looking at an email or being overwhelmed by so many of these tasks that people tend to, we tend to put into our to do list, right. So it's very important to be able to curate your experience. I don't make a list of a bunch of things that I need to do. I create one top task for the day and then I move to the next. And then I said, well, I finished it. What else could I do? That maybe I was going to put on my task for tomorrow. And I look at the end of the day and I celebrate, hey, I did it. I did it.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:12:36]:
And that also tends to motivate me and incentivize me to keep going.

Christiane [00:12:41]:
So what or who motivated you to overcome the challenges you were struggling with that you talked about earlier?

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:12:48]:
Well, one of the biggest things that incentivized me to overcome the challenges is I knew that I did not want to grow old and not have mobility, I didn't want to have health issues. I wanted to travel. I wanted to do so many different things for my life. And if I was continuing the road that I was going, I was not going to be able to do all of those things. I sat down and I started to talk about, and this is a concept that I continue to use to this day. I write a letter to myself from the person who I've become in a year, in three years, and in five years. And that person tells me, hey, I've been traveling and I've met some incredible people. I learned to do this and this is how I felt when I did that.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:13:42]:
And that person then creates the picture of the kind of life that I want to be living. Then I take that experience and I say, well, if that's what I'm doing, then what did I need to do today to get me there? And then that helps me mold and create the type of behavior and actions that propel me and get me closer to becoming that person. I let the wisdom of who I want to be be the wisdom that guides me. A lot of people, we look back into our past because it's easy to look at the past. And a lot of times we think, well, it's hard to change. I don't know. But most of us can look at the past and see, wow, I'm not the same person. I've evolved.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:14:34]:
So the reality is that you will evolve. You have to decide which way you want to evolve for the future. Are you doing it by default? Are you moving into the future just letting things happen to you? Or are you making the decisions today that will allow you to be intentional in how you live your life in the future?

Christiane [00:14:52]:
I like the idea about the letter. So when do you do that?

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:14:56]:
I love that you asked this. I do it in December. I do a lot of self development in December. I want to have it done, and I take time. My dad passed away in December of 2014. So this year is going to be ten years. And I was very close with my dad. And I remember as we were together prior to him passing, I did a lot of thinking.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:15:21]:
I did a lot of thought of where have I been? And obviously, this great, very close relationship was shifting for me. So it put me in a position in which I started to say, well, his life ended, but what else do I want to do? He would always encourage me to go after my dreams. He would encourage me to dream big. And he would say, honey, you're so brave. Look at all the things that you've done. And I would think, no, I'm not brave at all. I don't know. But then it created that kind of ritual for me that as December comes and we're celebrating Christmas, and there's a level of me that still misses my dad, but I honor him and I honor his life, and I honor my life, more importantly, by giving myself the space.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:16:10]:
And I start to recap, I like going through my calendar for the year and looking back, and I'll write for each month, what was one thing that really happened? Like the big, maybe I went to a big event or I received a great news for something, or maybe one of the goals that I was setting out to complete came to pass, right. And I reevaluate where my year was. I also evaluate, hey, my theme for the year was, for instance, a couple of years ago, my theme for the year was connection. We were missing a lot of that connection. And I set out to create intentionality in how I connected with people. So when I reviewed my year, I asked, well, did I stay in alignment with what I wanted to do at the beginning of the year? And it's not so much about setting goals. It's about being and creating the actions that allow you to show up in the way that you want to be, in the way that you want to feel. And again, I move through okay, now that I reviewed my year, what are the new things that I want to create? Do I want to continue doing the things that I did last year? So, for instance, connection might have been my word two years ago, but it's still a high value for me.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:17:28]:
I still prioritize connecting with friends, connecting with my clients, connecting with new people, and that continues to be part of the person that I become.

Christiane [00:17:40]:
I enjoy very much that you're not looking at New Year's resolutions, but rather at December, kind of like taking this look back, but also into the future and maybe not even at one year, but rather keeping it fluid and picking up a theme and thinking that's still a current theme, maybe that not so kind of reevaluating because I think we sometimes tend to push things to the side, keep moving on, and there is so much gain that we really have by being retrospective and celebrating those wins and looking at each month and thinking, I'm sure something amazing happened. Let me look through my calendar and you might have forgotten about this, especially early in the year, but then at the end of the year, you realize how successful you truly were, even though maybe in that very moment you don't remember everything. But bringing it up to the surface is nearly like you're looking at all the changes that took place in yourself, in everything that you learned and that came from hard work, of course. Really how your hard work truly paid off in that year.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:18:51]:
Here's another tip that people may not realize on my calendar. Starting in 2014, I created a reoccurring appointment with myself on the first of the month, and it's called revisit my life. And there are some months that I do it, and some months I'm like, oh, I'll do it later. And I don't get to it. But for the most part, it reminds me to look at what am I doing? Am I doing what I wanted to do? Am I in the direction that I want to? What has kind of gotten me off track? And if I need to recalibrate, how will I do it and do it on a monthly basis, take time out to really evaluate where you are. Don't let a year pass you without you noticing what is happening for you.

Christiane [00:19:36]:
Revisit your life. I like that you're using the recurring appointments because I do that a lot on my calendar and you talked about your father passing away in December of 2014. So I'm sorry to hear that. And my father also passed away in December. And actually, that's one recurring thing, that I put those dates on my calendar when people pass away that are very important to me. Just as I put birthdays on there, I also put on there dates when people passed away because I think that it really makes you humble and honor that life happens so quickly, you don't want to miss out on it. And maybe on that day set away some time that you can remember that special person that passed away, maybe making some recipes that that special person in your life really appreciated, and remembering them because we want to keep those memories fresh. That's all what we have usually of that person.

Christiane [00:20:34]:
And it really helps if you kind of make an annual celebration of life.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:20:40]:
Yes, absolutely. We see great minds think alike, and this is why I always enjoy speaking to you. But it's very important to be able to do that.

Christiane [00:20:50]:
Thank you. Julie. How can viewers get in touch with you? What would be the best way to hear even more of your amazing wisdom?

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:20:58]:
Well, thank you so much. Most people can listen to my podcast. It is casa the confidence and you can find it on all the podcasting platforms. If you want to follow me or connect with me, I love getting DMs on social media. Whatever your platform of choice is, you can find me at Julie Deluca Collins on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, you name it, and TikTok as well, I suppose. So send me a DM. Tell me what you loved about this conversation. I always love hearing about it.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:21:29]:
My website is also goconfidentlycoaching.com.

Christiane [00:21:34]:
Thank you so much. And of course, we always want to build community and collaborations might open up. Maybe somebody listened to this episode and there's something that you sparked in their train of thought. With that, we are at the end of our episode. Thanks, Julia, again for being here today. To the audience, I certainly look forward to connecting with you even more in that amazing next episode. Stay tuned because we're getting close to celebrating a big milestone in my life, but I'm not going to give it away right now year because I would like that you tune in for the next episode. So you might find out what I'm actually kind of giving you some little hints at.

Christiane [00:22:12]:
Stay healthy and happy and keep hustling along.

Julie DeLucca-Collins [00:22:15]:
Thank you for having me. Have a great day, everyone.