Navigating Midlife Crisis & Personal Growth With Anna Urnova

Jordan mendoza (00:02.775)
Hello everyone and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. My name is Jordan Mendoza, I'm your host and I've got a very special guest with me today. Her name is Anna Urnova and I'm gonna have her tell you a little bit about who she is and what she does today.

Anna Urnova (00:20.986)
Hi Jordan, thank you for having me on the show. Well, I am a career coach and I help mid -career mid -life men who are stuck, maybe in crisis, stagnant, unhappy where they are, reinvent themselves at mid -career and have a great second and third act.

Jordan mendoza (00:41.719)
Awesome. Love that. Love that. And we're going to really dive into some more deep context into how you're helping people, some tips, and then of course, exactly what you do towards the end of the show. And my favorite part of the show is really this beginning part where the audience is going to get to know you and a little bit better. So we're going to take a rewind. So if you can share with the audience, you know, where were you born and raised? So we're thinking, you know, adolescent years, elementary, middle and high school. So where were you born and raised? And then...

What kind of kid were you? What type of things did you get into? Were you into more academics? Were you into sports? Were you creative? I'd love to just get some deeper context.

Anna Urnova (01:23.194)
That's great. I'm actually pushing my clients to do that. Think where did it all start at? How is the origin of that? Well, my personal life story is very confusing because I was born in Soviet Union and my family was built of five lineages. And I had a mother who was half German, half English. Her parents ended up in Soviet Union after the war.

And they're basically no one else had a mother like me. And then on my father's side, I have Russian and Jewish lineages as well. And on my mother's side, there's also Irish. There was always an Irish like in the English, I guess. So honestly, you said when you were as a child, looking back, I think I was happy to a degree, but I also very, very confused.

starting with like, my grandfather's story about the war didn't fit with many of the peers, stories about the war. My grandfather wore a different uniform and he wore, English uniform. And, he told, told, you know, stories, you know, of Dunkirk and other places, whereas no one knew the stories, you know, around my peers and so on. So that was a very confused one. And to add to that confusion also, the family wasn't doing like,

It wasn't easy for my family, let's say. There was a number of dysfunctions and losses, and I actually was sent to live far, far, many, many, many thousand miles away as a child, as a nine -year -old. So I spent time in Asia as well, away from my parents, living with people I didn't know. And that was a very valuable experience. So I would say confuse this one, but also I'm just looking at this trailblazing, like blaze your own trail. I think that was, I had to do that.

I had to do that because my family couldn't provide the role model that would help me entirely. And my environment was also, I just knew I'm an outlier, whatever way you look. I was good academically. I had great friends, but I was just an outlier. So I think this blazing my own trail kind of happened to me even before I became aware that having to make my own choices, so to say. Yeah. So I hope that answered your question.

Jordan mendoza (03:43.127)
So how did that, yeah, no, it definitely answered it and appreciate the context there. So how did the journey to Asia happen? One, and then, you know, where in Asia did you go? And then you said it was a life -changing experience, so I'd love to just get some of that storyline of what happened when you were there, how it changed your life and everything.

Anna Urnova (03:56.986)
Yeah.

Anna Urnova (04:08.506)
Okay, that was actually an interesting story and the kind of story I would never ever share or even mention, not just to in a professional circle, and of course not publicly like now, but even to my closest friends. This sort of story I would never even mention. And then it's actually only about seven years ago, I've...

decided that I want to go there and I want to see where I went. Well, that was in Central Asia right now. Back then they were part of a Soviet Union. Now it's a separate country. It was Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. It's basically the border with Afghanistan. I mean, and I was sent there as a child and I didn't know, it was like completely out of context, like a different reality.

Now I understand that it was also Muslim, even though the Soviet Union didn't, you know, endorse religions, but undercover people practiced. And I actually was introduced to, you know, Islam as a religion, because I watched certain rituals, which I did not understand at the time. I do now, like for instance, men gathering in the tea houses and women not allowed in. And we as children, we thought, why not go to the tea house? And then we said, no, no, stay out.

And now I know this is where they practiced undercover their belief systems, which is an amazing experience. Yeah. And I was just completely taken out of my context and thrown into environment, which was completely unfamiliar. And that's what happened. Yeah. And so what happens is seven years ago, I decided I have to go and see it.

So, and by the way, we went down, my father took me there on a train, which took a week. We started on Monday and we arrived on Friday. So I thought I have to take the train. I have to take this trip exactly the same way, because otherwise I wouldn't understand what the child, what's a nine -year -old child saw. And to be honest, Jordan, when things happening, very, very scary things happening to you as a child, you tend to block them out.

Jordan mendoza (06:08.887)
well.

Anna Urnova (06:25.978)
So you just don't remember anything. I didn't remember how I was put on the train. I didn't remember how I said goodbye to my mother, who was by the way, pregnant at the time with my sister. And then I just didn't remember any of that. So I thought I have to re -orchestrate that journey. And I did that. And my husband, I don't know how, but he led me. So all the way from Berlin, I went back to Moscow and I took the train.

Jordan mendoza (06:41.655)
Yeah.

Anna Urnova (06:52.41)
to Dushanbe where I went and I boarded the train on Monday and I got there on a Friday. And wow, was it an eye -opening trip? And then I spent some time there visiting the places that I remembered from my childhood and, you know, which of course changed, but some I didn't, haven't changed at all. And I was just curiously, it wasn't like a trauma thing. It wasn't like a...

I intended to go there with curiosity to see what this girl encountered and how, what the kind of adventure it was. Some of it was very scary and traumatizing, of course, but some of that was very exciting. And yeah, and then I flew back to Berlin from there. And then I actually wrote a story to myself. I didn't share it with anyone, but I just wanted to validate what's happened. And it was incredibly healing experience of owning my own story, right? And...

Jordan mendoza (07:44.087)
Yeah.

Anna Urnova (07:45.882)
let's say, after that I could actually start using it more in my work and in my life, because it became a resource before it was like a closed door, you know, somewhere in the attic, you never go there. Something horrible happened after that. I started actually, sourcing sourcing from that experience. For instance, I realized, well, I'm incredibly resilient and I tend to find love in anywhere I go. And.

Jordan mendoza (08:12.919)
There you go.

Anna Urnova (08:14.17)
how back then, you know, and also the world takes care of me. I realized that, yeah, though I was alone and scared as I don't know what, but the world took care of me and people who didn't know me took care of me. And, and it actually made me discover world as a, as a bigger world, bigger than my family of origin, as a very friendly, very welcoming place. And funny enough, for instance, podcasting, I just want to draw a parallel, podcasting, this is not like,

Easy thing, like it's anxiety provoking. You speak to people out there. You don't know who will hear the story, right? So when I was invited for my first podcast, I thought, my God, this is scary. I mean, who are these people? I don't know who I'm speaking to. I actually took myself back and think, you remember how the world, the bigger world is a very friendly place to you. It gives you this big warm embrace. It's like, it supports you. It loves you. It wants to see you grow. And that maybe, yeah, of course, of course.

And that made me believe, yeah, so that's the growing experience. That's my next step. So that's just an example how this story, which of course was a big trauma, but how then I owned it and now becomes an incredible resource for me.

Jordan mendoza (09:28.951)
Yeah, well, I think it's a powerful thing when you go back and kind of relive something again, you know, because it's not always easy to confront the past, you know, but it's important, you know, it's important so that you can put it behind you and not dwell on it and not have it hold you back, you know, so it's pretty cool that you went there and had such a great experience, you know, learn some new things about yourself, I'm sure and.

Anna Urnova (09:40.154)
No.

Jordan mendoza (09:56.983)
It's great that your husband also was like, hey, yeah, go do this thing. I'm sure he's probably like, well, if I tell her no, she's going to probably do it anyway. So just tell her yes and just go do it. So I'm glad that happened. And so talk a little bit about, after you returned from that journey, you spent some time there. Do you return back home at that point or what happens next?

Anna Urnova (10:08.73)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anna Urnova (10:23.578)
Yeah, I did. But it wasn't the same home because there was losses. I lost my grandfather, for instance, who died when I was away. And then my sister was already a five -year -old child who I never met. Well, I met her a couple of times and spoke to her on the phone, but I haven't known her, which also was a loss. And then I had another sister.

which was great, but what I realized recently, it really was a different family, it was a different experience already. It was not like going back. And it was also as important as that it was already, it was already the end of the eighties and the nineties and the world started to open up. Because what was important part of me growing up in my family, the way it was, was that we had big...

cutoffs and separations from sides of the family. Like for instance, my mother had family in Germany. We were completely cut off from there. My grandmother, my mother's mother, she had four children before she had my mother and she never seen those children after the war, never ever. So they'd never seen her and she never met them. And that was a heartbreaking look. And my grandfather,

Jordan mendoza (11:43.863)
Wow.

Anna Urnova (11:52.602)
had family in the UK, for instance, mostly in Liverpool, but also all over the world. There was a big Irish family that then spread all over the world and we were disconnected from them. Cut off, complete cut off. You know, especially the internet wasn't there, so we couldn't zoom. So it was a very, very deep trauma of cut off. And what was happening when I came back from my...

Jordan mendoza (12:07.895)
Yeah.

Anna Urnova (12:18.234)
very weird journey, kind of journey I could not even share with my peers because they wouldn't understand why, why did you go? So we kind of had a story. Many people believed we went away and then they came back because my family was in the military because you know military, they travel around and whatever. But honestly, it was the kind of thing you had always kind of almost like a spy have an undercover story there like because people just wouldn't even understand.

But what was happening was in the end of the eighties and beginning of nineties is like, of course, the Soviet Union was opening up and then the war collapsed in Berlin. Right. And we could reconnect back to the family that was left behind. Of course, people died already. Like my grandfather, my grandmother died. You know, great grandmother died. So a lot of people died, but there were people who still, for instance, I met my grandfather's two younger brothers in Liverpool. I went there.

And that was the first time they've ever met someone from his side of the family. So it was incredible. So I came there and they would like serve me dinner and they would just sit around and look at me, how I eat. And I was like, okay, hello. And there's like, okay, tell us about Richard. Last time he saw Richard was when they joined the army, I mean, going to war. And they were like, he was a teenager, basically, this uncle, right? This brother of my grandfather.

Jordan mendoza (13:19.927)
Wow.

Jordan mendoza (13:27.543)
Thank you.

Jordan mendoza (13:40.055)
Yeah.

Anna Urnova (13:43.194)
And can you imagine that? That was really such an incredible and the fact that I could go back and meet those people. Then there was a family in Germany as well. Again, meeting people, people who haven't seen our side of the family for years, right, for decades. So that was an incredible healing experience of reconnecting back to the side.

Jordan mendoza (13:59.127)
Yeah. Yeah, that's.

Anna Urnova (14:07.13)
to the side of you as well, right? That you've never known, you've never connected. And to me personally, I believe that this is an important story of my life. It's a very life -forming story of my life, which is about connecting to the side of you that is unknown. Maybe it's kept in the shadow.

and I'm working with midlife by the way, and midlife is, is believed to be the part where we have to own our shadow because we live like in the light half of life, but then midlife we have to, we have to incorporate the shadow. Otherwise we will not be our true self. So to say, so of course I did know it as a child. I did know it as a, I did know it as a teenager when I was reconnecting to then I went to study in the UK. It was very important and now I live in Germany. So I really feel like it's very important to me.

to collect all those parts of myself, all those pieces of the puzzle and pull them together, no matter how traumatic and scary it is. And of course, to be honest, these pieces of the puzzle, they often at war with each other. I mean, the nations were at war with each other. It's not easy to incorporate them. But I know that in me, somehow they're at peace and they're part of the big hole. And I do...

Jordan mendoza (15:19.351)
Yeah.

Anna Urnova (15:25.914)
That's really a story of my life and that's what I also help my clients with as I realized it became a mission as well, right? Mess intermission.

Jordan mendoza (15:34.807)
Yep. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, no, I think that, you know, whenever you can connect with family, especially family that you haven't met, you know, like my background with my dad, I didn't meet him till I was 12. So I had, you know, 12 whole years of life and, and, you know, grew up with my mom and, you know, my stepdad and, and he was an alcoholic, so wasn't a great father figure. And then at 12, you know, my mom's like, Hey, do you want to meet your dad? And I said, yeah, whenever you go. And she's like, no, you're going. And I flew from

Anna Urnova (15:48.218)
wow.

Jordan mendoza (16:04.855)
Oregon to Washington DC and he's from the Philippines. And so I met this Filipino guy and his wife and my other brothers and my grandparents. And it was just a summer of, like you said, just kind of learning, asking so many questions, just not really knowing anything and just kind of being a brand new, it almost felt like your first day on a job, you know, where you just go and you're just like.

Anna Urnova (16:22.97)
my god.

Jordan mendoza (16:32.503)
I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. I don't know what they're saying. I don't know. But now, you know, over the last couple of decades, we've built a stronger relationship and he just retired and moved back to the Philippines and, and, and, you know, as a great grandfather to his grandkids. But, you know, it took time, right? It takes time, some time to get to know people and, you know, and in hindsight for me, as I'm a father myself, and we have five children of our own and we have one on the way. So about to have.

Anna Urnova (16:51.226)
Wow.

Jordan mendoza (17:01.591)
number six. I've learned a few things. My oldest is about to be 20 years old. So I've been a father for almost 20 years now. So I've learned some lessons along the way. Like you said, we learned lessons. And one of the things I learned is that I don't know what he was going through back in 1981 when I was born. I don't know what the circumstances were. And I can't begin to understand how hard it might have been for him to

Anna Urnova (17:01.69)
Well done.

Anna Urnova (17:08.09)
No way!

Jordan mendoza (17:31.511)
give up a kid, you know, and be trapped because he was a merchant marine and traveling and painting ships all over the world. And, and so I don't know, but I, but as a father, you know, I can at least put myself into his shoes, you know, and my perspective has shifted a little bit because I know it's not easy having five kids of my own and trying to raise kids in this world and dealing with everything that's going on. So I have a lot of empathy for him now, but it took time.

obviously to grow stuff like that, but I've always had a lot of empathy for people. And I think, you know, my mom was ill as a kid, was born with one lung, so had oxygen for most of my life and seeing her suffer. So, but yeah, we definitely learn a lot from getting exposure to other cultures, to other people, to other family and just the stories that we can learn about people. It's just really, really cool. And...

And that gives you stuff to be able to share and pass down to your kids and other generations and just keep the timeline alive, if that makes sense. So.

Anna Urnova (18:34.522)
No, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I just, hearing your story is amazing. So from what you say, I can really see that fatherhood, fatherhood is such an important part of your life. Yeah. And your identity, that fatherhood, being a father.

Jordan mendoza (18:52.247)
yeah. Yeah, it's important that you are a good role model. You know, like, yeah, like for me, blazing a trail is not for me. You know, it's for them. It's for showing them like, hey, it doesn't matter. Like, you know, what your background is, your education, like where you, where you grew up, like you can blaze a trail. You can have what you want. You can accomplish your dreams. You can go after them. You can fail and get back up. It's like all of these things that I've.

been doing and trying to model. I mean, I spent 15 years in corporate and tried to blaze a trail there that was basically ending because there was nowhere for me else to go but leave. And then they saw me do that and in the first couple of years weren't easy. They saw me with some struggles and, hey, maybe this vacation wasn't as fun as they used to be, that type of stuff. But that's life, that's reality. And they see you push through that and they get to see you.

Anna Urnova (19:33.914)
Yeah.

Jordan mendoza (19:49.335)
on your highs, they get to see you on your lows. And I think for me, yeah, that's being a father is important, but just trying to be the best example, be present, I think that's important. And I lost a lot of those years in corporate when I was traveling, you know, 10 days out of the month, and I wouldn't get to go to certain things. So I made it a priority when I left that I was going to, hey, I gotta make sure I can bring...

my son to the bus, I can drive this one to here, to this event, and make sure that I, the timeline revolves around them and what's important versus the business side of things, because business will come, business will go, but family is something that's very important.

Anna Urnova (20:32.25)
Mm.

So do you have presence in your kids' lives, right? That they remember you there. Yeah, I think it's important. Yeah, yeah. Stories are fascinating. And I think we really underestimate to what extent those stories are really important. They are reflection of our purpose here. They're not random, let's say. I'm convinced it's not random that I had to spend time like...

Jordan mendoza (20:38.903)
100%.

Jordan mendoza (20:43.895)
Definitely.

Anna Urnova (21:01.466)
almost five years living without my parents, you had to spend 12 years not knowing your father. I'm sure that there is a purpose to that too, because in that we learned something like blazing our own trail for once, right? And then also, for instance, in my case, what you're just talking about, I thought, my father is dead by the way, for quite some time already. And...

Jordan mendoza (21:26.807)
Sorry to hear that.

Anna Urnova (21:27.482)
What I realized looking back is that he was 38, I think, or 37, 38. So he just hit the midlife crisis, so to say, when he sent me away. And I'm only realizing it now when I'm working with guys at that age, and that's already much younger than me now. And I see the challenges. And one of the just said that you have to be present, you have to be strong there for your kids, you have to be a trailblazer. But my dad couldn't.

that he couldn't be a trailblazer for me. And his way was to throw me on my own so I can learn that. You know, and that's also something I had to accept and forgive, you know, and also not take it as a part of punishment or whatever, but I mean, that he could not be there for me for whatever reason, right? And in a way, now when I work with guys and I see...

how it's challenging for them also, you know, to balance all these different priorities and be there for the kids. I have better empathy there, right? For, you know, for the man who's really, in a way I'm grateful to my dad that I think I was better off finding a world outside of family, which was at that time really very dysfunctional. My dad also has drinking problems and there were many other things which really kind of throwing you maybe into the woods and say, okay,

Blaze your own trail there. I know you can do it. You know, you, you are brave. You're a tough girl. And, that that's part of the story as well. Yeah. Owning that and seeing what not just part of the story, it's part of the purpose. Yeah.

Jordan mendoza (23:06.167)
Yeah.

Jordan mendoza (23:10.359)
Yep, absolutely. So, so you mentioned university. So let's talk about that a little bit. You know, what was that always kind of something as you were growing up where you're like, hey, I definitely want to go to university. Was that something that people in your life said, hey, this is something that we want you to do. I'm just curious because everybody has a different opinion and perspective and you can, if you want to know mine on all of it. No, I didn't go to didn't go to school, college at all. I mean, I knew that I wasn't.

Anna Urnova (23:16.218)
Yeah.

Anna Urnova (23:31.801)
And you mentioned you didn't have a degree, right?

Jordan mendoza (23:40.215)
I would not excel there. I just, the, I guess conformity of class and, and kind of being having to sit in a chair, like I was very, very disruptive. I was like the class clown. I was, you know, and it wasn't that I couldn't do well in school. I just did not, you know, I was very, very hyperactive and definitely undiagnosed ADHD. I'm, I'm pretty confident of that because, even like even now I'm the same way, but I actually have found.

ways to actually leverage the positive benefits of it, if that makes sense, like the creativity. And it's why I've got multiple businesses now. And it's why I have so many things going on it and it, and it works. It's like organized chaos for me. And I couldn't get that in, you know, in the nineties in high school, right? Like they were just like, go to the office, like get out of class. We don't, we have time to deal with you or your antics. So get the heck out of here. And.

Anna Urnova (24:13.626)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan mendoza (24:36.663)
And so I didn't do really well. And I was like, if I go to college, like I'm going to be wasting either my money because my parents don't have any or, or me paying this stuff back for a long time. And I was just like, okay, I'm going to go get a job in sales. I love talking to people. Let me go do that. Because if I can do that, I can, you know, I can have a living, you know,

Anna Urnova (24:57.146)
Yeah. Well, I love this about your story. For me, that wasn't an option because it's like in my family, it's very focused on academia. My mother was a professor actually at University of languages, Germanic languages. And my family almost like not going to college, it just didn't exist. You know, skipping a degree didn't exist. And I guess generally the background is like the more degrees, the better and stuff like that.

And so, and I, on the one hand, I knew I didn't want to be in academia and I also knew I don't want to be near language or physics. My father was a physicist. So that was like out of the question. And actually most of what I saw around my family, I didn't like. So I had no idea sort of where to go with that. So the world was opening up in terms of the...

you know, East Europe, West Europe and so on. So there was a lot of, there was a lot of process there where the business from the West was coming and going into the East, where acquisitions in the Eastern Europe and you know, American businesses were coming and investing, you know, and buying businesses and all that. And I just, I guess I was, I was always interested in money somehow. I was, I was interested is like,

How can I use my skills to make money? So the idea, my parents had this idea that money are not important somehow. So, and not surprise, surprise, we never had any and always, always we're in debt. Yeah. So, and there was also a story that money work in mysterious ways. There's many stories like that, you know? And I remember by the way, when I was like seven or eight, that was before I was sent away.

My parents had the budget meetings in the family, which was very unusual, so to say, and they invited me in one of those budget meetings and I was like a first grader or something. And I looked at that and I thought that's weird because numbers, they just don't add up. You know, it's like, I didn't know about budgeting. I didn't know much maybe about money, but I did know the numbers didn't add up, you know? And I remember my mom even telling me, you know, when we do budget, we always see this gap.

Anna Urnova (27:13.21)
But what I found, she would tell me, is actually it's better not to look and just kind of go with the flow and then the gap will somehow be closed. You can imagine that sort of approach to money making was a bit a recipe for disaster. Well, guess what? As a little bit more grown up, I realized that...

Jordan mendoza (27:25.367)
Okay. Yep.

Anna Urnova (27:38.618)
They were just borrowing from relatives and friends all the time and all my life, basically that was borrowing. And that's how Miraculous Gap was closing.

Jordan mendoza (27:48.567)
Yeah, they had to figure out a way to close the gap.

Anna Urnova (27:52.026)
I know you know, but for me it was, I felt that. I felt that constant pressure of money, even though my parents tried to be very generous with me, but I felt this constant pressure and I knew, no, no, I had to do something that paid. And so I was, and I didn't even understand how the corporate world works, but I started asking people, what do they do in businesses? Because in my family, no one knew about business, no one knew about corporate world. So I was talking.

like American people, British people, German people, but what are they doing in business? Literally, what are they doing there in the businesses, in offices and stuff like that? So anyway, so I found a degree in the UK and one of my grandfathers died and left some money for my parents and my father actually used the money to pay for my degree, which was very, very generous because they could not afford that at all. So it was one of those gaps.

Miraculous gap, so to say. Right. So in a way I was like, I benefited from the fact that my father always like believed he still could do things he couldn't afford. So anyway, so I had an amazing time in the UK and I learned about business, how business works and about HR because I wanted some way you can combine business and people.

Jordan mendoza (28:51.255)
Yeah.

Anna Urnova (29:14.202)
about HR, so I did this very weird degrees called industrial relations and personnel management. It just sounds horrifying, but it's really about, you know, HR, how to do HR in a corporate world. And also about, we also did consultancy, learned how to be a consultant because as I said, a lot of businesses then they were bought, they were converted, organizational development and all that. And that's...

It was actually, I was curious about it. It was interesting, but I have to say, I was very consciously thinking, okay, I have to do something that pays. I was very, very, so to say, I told myself that purpose or whatever, they can wait. I have to deal with that. So when I started working in corporate and I, well, I tried to, I wanted to work for consultancy, but it didn't work out. I did a little bit for Ernst & Young.

as they were called back then. But then I started working corporate in HR and funny enough, in HR I also was in charge of money. So I always was, Excel was my best friend and I was like compensation and benefits or calculating the budgets or consequences or plans for restructuring. And that was my life in corporate for a while. But...

It did work from the money side.

Jordan mendoza (30:46.871)
That's good. That was the goal, right? The goal was the money side. Okay.

Anna Urnova (30:48.826)
Yeah, until it didn't.

Yeah, then it started just.

Jordan mendoza (30:55.575)
So what happened next? So you worked in HR, you worked in, you made some money of course, and then did they let you go or did you move on to something else?

Anna Urnova (31:01.498)
Yeah. Yeah.

No, no, unfortunately not. If they let me go, that would be so much easier. No, I was doing actually quite well, but I really started hating it. Well, actually accidents start happening in a way that I was progressing through the ranks quite well and I started working with a coach. I think it was in the UK, I was working in the UK and I got a coach to work with. And I said,

And by then I already heard about coaching because we were taught some coaching skills as leaders and managers, you know, so I was like, okay. And I, you know, had to coach a junior managers, but I've never worked with a coach before myself. And then I got a coach and I thought, that's fascinating. I loved it. And I thought, well, and this guy makes money with it. So I have to, I have to get on the other side of this. Yeah. So that was,

That was my idea that that's how I should get out of corporate and become a coach. I had no idea how to do it.

Jordan mendoza (32:09.047)
And so what were your thoughts? Yeah, so you're like, I know I want to do that, but what vehicle do I have? What skills, what strengths do I have to deliver on the coaching? So where were you at? Were you just kind of ground zero at that point? Like, OK, how do I monetize my expertise? I mean, that's below that.

Anna Urnova (32:17.434)
No vehicles.

Anna Urnova (32:28.442)
Not even ground zero below that, because it was a fantasy, but part of me was saying, come on, it's not realistic. I have to say that I was curious. I was asking, for instance, I asked that coach, then we had a bigger structuring and we had other coaches on board to provide a placement to people. I wasn't the recipient of that, but I saw how they operated. I was curious, I started asking them, how did they become coaches and all that, started doing my research online.

But what I did mostly, whatever coaches we hired, I would get, I would then ask them, how did you get there? What's that? And I would do my research. But yeah, you're right in a way that I had no idea. It's not even ground zero. Ground zero is just, okay, I am starting somewhere. This was like, I was in kind of fantasy world and doing this research from time to time, reading some books from time to time, but my reality was so different from, and I just did not see it's.

It's like I see with my clients as well. It's like I am on the one side of the river. I see there's like a nice party, like a circus going on on the other side of the river, but there is no bridge. So I can, whoever comes to my side, I ask, is it fun over there? It's like the circus is really great. Yeah, it's fun. It's amazing. You'd love it. Yeah. How do I get there? Well, we don't know.

Jordan mendoza (33:33.687)
Yeah.

Jordan mendoza (33:40.471)
Yeah.

Anna Urnova (33:49.754)
And, but then I started to do you. How do I get across to that circus called, called what I really want to do, but it was calling me. I have to say, that it was calling me and, it kept sending me messages. It kept sending me people across in the boat. And every time I was like, how did I get there? How do I get there? Sometimes I got lucky and this one guy.

Jordan mendoza (33:52.119)
I know that feeling. I've felt that before many times. Yeah.

Anna Urnova (34:19.77)
said, hey, I'd recommend the program. It's really great for like executives like you, corporate executives like you. And he knew what I was looking for because that's what he said. You can, you can ask your company to send you on that course pretending you need it for your job, you know, as a senior chairperson, because you're like senior leader, blah, blah, blah. But actually you will figure out there how, because you are at the same time, you will get the skill sets that will be, you know, you can basically then monetize it as a coach, right? So you kind of.

hits both birds with one stone, and it will be valid for your employer. This is very important, by the way, for career pivoters and people who try to find this bridge from corporate, which I learned later on that program and then later when I was coaching people through that, is that the gap is so wide. They're looking for these transitional spaces, basically, the bridge time experience that would provide the steps, but it has to be valid.

Jordan mendoza (34:49.207)
Sure. Yep.

Anna Urnova (35:18.458)
You need to be able to explain to the world why all of a sudden you, I don't know, senior marketing officer, someone, I don't know, doing program on, I don't know what it's like coaching, like mentoring. Nowadays it's actually more common because people are, you know, taught that skills back, back then when I started doing it was early 2000s. It was still an early stage for coaching as well. So it was weird. I got a lot of.

In a way, it was this whole trailblazing thing started to happen because a lot of people in my world were like, why, why are you doing this? And I also, the company actually was very, very kind. They paid part of it because it was, they wanted to retain me, but I had to also invest in people like, why would you invest in this? Why would you pay for this and things like that? And yeah, but that started providing a bridge, not by itself, by itself, it wouldn't help. But there I actually met people.

I made the right connections and I started formulate my own system back then, trial and error, trial and error, trial and error, of how this actually could work for me. And what's very important in career transitions like I know now is what this prototyping, so to say, how it could look like for me. And to build those, let's say, prototypes, we need to see someone else doing it.

Not maybe entirely, but elements of that. So I can say, okay, I can imagine if I do something like this person did and then add this and maybe that add that, that could actually work for me. And then you actually see someone who's done something similar, maybe on a different scale, in a different way, but it actually happens. It gives you ideas. So, I started to, you know, build my system of transition, even though it was still early days and I actually did it the wrong way for, for a while. And it's, I still kept very stuck.

But I already was learning it. And yeah, and eventually I did make this transition.

Jordan mendoza (37:18.199)
Yeah. Well, I think he did some important things. I think he did some important things, which were, A, you started to move, because without action, you're not going to create any momentum. So you started to put one foot in front of the other, which meant networking, going, getting around people. So that was important because that created a mindset shift, but an actual shift shift because things were happening, if that makes sense. And that was...

Anna Urnova (37:47.545)
Yeah, exactly.

Jordan mendoza (37:47.735)
helped position you and put you in a position to start to meet people that now you can kind of take all the knowledge that you've been learning and go test it. Like because again, if you don't test something out, if you don't test the waters and see if this is going to be viable, then and then you just start doing it and then there's crickets, well, you should test it. I tell my clients all the time, you've got to test things out.

Anna Urnova (37:59.13)
Exactly.

Anna Urnova (38:12.794)
Exactly.

And that's what a lot of, actually, that's one of the big myths. Speaking about degrees and university degrees, a lot of people I work with and mid -career people, they think that in order to change career, they have to start with a degree. I do a degree first, basically I'll start all over, I do a degree, and then somehow the path will follow. And that's not true. But degrees kind of give you this time, degrees give you this space where you meet people, you know,

relevant people. Yes, but what often happens, people invest in these degrees, then they come out on the other side and they actually, and they start maybe even doing that, but they don't enjoy it. They start hating it three years in, Ian, they're hating it again. So it's like, my God, I've just orchestrated this whole career pivot and I hate it. And that was important because, you know, like speaking of the circus on the other side, it may look great from across the river.

Jordan mendoza (38:53.975)
Yeah.

Anna Urnova (39:08.634)
But I think what started happening with for me is that I had those chances to actually make the trips to the circus with some of these people where I actually was involved in coaching experience. I was involved in coaching others, working in coaching programs, being a recipient of coaching, working in individually coaching, group coaching, all sorts of things. So I started testing it and I realized that's exactly what I want to be doing. But many people actually, they invest in a lot on this side of the river.

Then they get on the other side and they hate it.

Jordan mendoza (39:40.791)
Yeah. Well, you got, you have to put in the reps, you know, like those reps are so important. The reps of actually coaching people. That's, that's huge. And I did that in corporate. I taught a six month leadership program, and then I coached all 15 to 20 people on a monthly basis. And there's a lot of value that gets extracted. And there's a lot that we can add to people in that amount of time. And the fact that you were,

in doing it, but you were also in programs yourself and then learning it. And then, you know, those different iterations of it, you know, that all kind of helped mold and shape your problem. I'm going to assume what your eventual program is today, which we're going to get into here in just a minute. But one thing I wanted to just point out, because I think this is important for everyone that's going to watch this or listen this investing in you is huge. Okay. If you're in a corporate role,

You've got to invest in you and there are companies I know because I did this same thing when it comes to professional development. If you can figure out a way like Anna said to align it with their goals for the organization, they will certify you in whatever you want. Okay. I mean, I'm certified in Myers -Briggs from my corporate role. Got certified in sales enablement. I got certified as an advanced instructor. I got sent to conferences and, and, and.

Anna Urnova (40:57.082)
yeah.

Jordan mendoza (41:04.182)
they will invest in you as long as you are willing to invest in you as well. You know, and Anna, you know, you did something really cool, which was you said, Hey, I'll even take part of my hard earned money and I'll meet you guys and, you know, pay that. And, and like you said, there wasn't a lot of people in early 2000s, definitely not coming out of their pocket, but also there wasn't a lot of organizations that were investing.

to the extent of what we see now, like professional development now is huge. And most companies, like the company I was with for 15 years, we had our own internal programs and our own certifications and things like that. So that was a big piece of the puzzle. And so I'd love for you to just, we've really learned a lot about you today, which has been really, really cool. And I think it's definitely a great time to transition into how you are helping.

you know, people, you know, these mid -level leaders or, you know, mid -level age men, I believe you said, and kind of getting them unstuck and helping them, you know, be able to be the best versions of themselves.

Anna Urnova (42:13.398)
Yeah. Thanks Jordan. Yeah. And by the way, yeah, that was actually a great idea asking my company to sponsor me, which I would probably be too shy, but this man who I asked for help and who was advising me because he helped others, he told me, and he was working for the business school. He said, absolutely do a business case for your company, show how you will add value. So I actually did a business case and company approved it.

So just say that that's something I maybe would be shy to do, but it was actually, it provided me with resources to do that. And I did add a lot of value to my company through that program as well. Yeah. Well, what happened next is that if we fast forward, then eventually I did become a coach, having made a lot of, lot of mistakes. And where I started working as a coach was for programs like that, for executive education programs, business schools, where I worked with other corporate executives because that's what I knew. And the important thing there was for me, I realized,

As the same as I did get there, that people have two agendas, you know, and that's what a lot of, and that's what's key for mid -career change. People have, all of these programs were full of people who had two agendas. One official one, I'm here to, you know, become a better leader, a better corporate, more effective, blah, blah, blah, make my next career step. But, the undercover agenda was.

I, this is a legitimate space where I'm trying to find a different path because I'm stuck in corporate. I'm not living my dream. I'm not utilizing my skills. I've reached a ceiling. It's a dead end. I actually dread the promotion because I do not want to continue there. Or, you know, but I don't know what else I want. That's the worst thing. If I knew I'd do it, but I don't know. So I'm hoping in this time in between while I'm doing this two year program.

And going away on this business trips, I will somehow figure it out. And that's what I realized as a coach, that that is a much bigger and more interesting for me problem to solve rather than really actually teaching them some leadership competencies or coaching them on having a conflict resolution discussion with the boss or something like that. That the career pivot that they came in, but they're not sure, it's like hidden, but they're looking for it.

Anna Urnova (44:28.442)
Having those conversations were more important. And actually I found clients actually starting these conversations. But because I was through that journey and I played that dual role, right? I could pick up on that and I say, yeah, exactly. Let me tell you what you do now. And then I started coaching. And so that's how I realized, well, that's what I'm supposed to be doing. And then when I needed to specialize a bit more and already go into more having my own clients rather than coaching clients for corporate or for business schools.

Then I asked for my own coaching help and consulting help and I realized that the sweet spot, let's say where I'm best effective, I know what I'm doing and also where the clients need that help like that is mid -career. Also, most of them are men and it's not to exclude women, but women also get great coaching help with women, but actually men and women have somewhat different needs at midlife and mid -career. That's also what I realized.

And I started specialize in men and so for the last decade almost I am specializing there. And I also, it was also a lot of trial and error, but yes, this is where I basically helped men to navigate that gap between where they are stuck in their career, maybe doing well, but kind of having lost their module, having lost the drive, lost the motivation. They cannot imagine doing it for another 20 years. They want more out of life emotionally, impact wise and income wise often.

They want to have their own thing. They want to become their own man. They want to be like you, Jordan, right? Running their own show. And I'm helping them now that I've already been through so many trial and errors. I build the system basically how that takes you from this side of the river to the other side when there is no bridge. And it saves a lot of time, saves a lot of suffering and it basically like five main steps. Of course, it's. It's.

Simple but not easy, as we say, right? But at least it...

Jordan mendoza (46:25.815)
Well, I think we can we can rename your program live on the show and it's going to be called five steps to get to the circus, you know, and it's just, you know, the five ways to get over to the other side of the river when you're stuck on the other side. Right. So, hey, listen, where can where can the men write that one down? You can have that. That's for free. OK. So where can folks get in touch with you that are dealing with this circus that they can't get to?

Anna Urnova (46:40.794)
Yeah, let me write it down.

Anna Urnova (46:57.018)
Guys, if you want to have a circus in your life and you want to start it as soon as possible, seriously, well, basically it's my name, AnnaRonova .com. That's where you should go and there would be free training there. So just watch free training, which is basically my masterclass. I've redone it about 55 times. So now it's really as short as possible. It's just only 45 minutes. It has all the symptoms that how you know, yes, it's your time.

Jordan mendoza (47:23.799)
If you've done it 55 times, Anna, you can definitely be called master class, okay? Because it's got to be 55th iteration. Yeah.

Anna Urnova (47:29.178)
It is actually called masterclass, but people tell me that if I show masterclass, people are more likely to click on free training. Yeah. Shall I do it? Shall I call it masterclass? It's actually is masterclass.

Jordan mendoza (47:38.751)
Well, you can say it's free and it is a master class. Yeah, that's fun. But we're going to also link it. We're going to put it in the show notes for you as well. So that way everybody can click. Definitely, guys, if you want to take control of your life, if you're just kind of feeling lost, you're just feeling like, hey, I know there's meant for more, then definitely reach out to Anna. I know she'll be a great resource. Hey, I appreciate.

Anna Urnova (47:45.978)
It is Masterclass, we're basically...

Yeah.

Jordan mendoza (48:06.039)
Your time today, keep blazing your own trail. You definitely have done it, but you're continuing to do it. And I'm excited to continue to stay connected and hear more about how you're helping men all around the world.

Anna Urnova (48:19.29)
Thanks Jordan. Really loved being on your show. It was great fun.

Jordan mendoza (48:23.607)
Thanks so much.