035: Lara McCulloch, Chief Shift Disturber

Find Lara here:
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Lara McCulloch is a results-driven marketing expert with over 20 years as a Brand Consultant.  She has worked in the corporate world, for her family business and now she runs her on company, Ready2Spark, where her title is chief shift disturber. She also hosts a bi-weekly podcast called Start Some Shift. Lara helps brands and small businesses find their "ice cream truck" moments and stand our in marketing and sales.  She also offers 1 on 1  coaching. But her true joy and passion is being a mother to her 2 year-old son.

Lara shared so many inspiring life lessons she has learned through out her journey to find out what success really is to her. While going to school to be a bookkeeper she landed a receptionists job at an ad agency.  She realized she loved the corporate world and her definition of success became wanting to climb the corporate ladder, shatter the glass ceiling and make tons of money.  She did just that, she went from receptionist all the way to the top, managing a team.  But she was unhappy, unhealthy, and unfulfilled.

After she left that job she got a great piece of wisdom from her Opa {Austrian for Grandpa}, he said, "You go your entire life planning for the future, saying one day I'm going to do this, one day I'm going to achieve this... and then you wake up and you realize that you are in the future and there is no more planning to be done."

This was a huge moment for Lara, she realized she didn't want to always be planning to one day do the things she really wanted to do now.

"Today my personal success is really about joy of life. Loving what I do, feeling like I am making a difference in people's lives. Creating work that has meaning, creating emotional connections with friends and family.  Being a conscious mother and enjoying the small things in life."

Lara also shares about how for her success is a journey that is constantly evolving.  There is no clear end point or clear way to measure success.

"Great success is putting one foot in front of the other and choosing the path that most fulfills you at the time you are in your life."

We talk with Lara about failing and doing things that scare you.  She shares why she thinks we should rename failure.

"One of the best things people can do is rename failure. Nobody wants to fail, but everyone wants to learn."
"To me failure is only failure if you don't learn anything."