Reading: Reinventing to Get Unstuck with Julien McRoberts

Julien McRoberts needed to get unstuck, but looking at her past careers, she couldn’t see any common thread to propel her forward. Finally, she had an a-ha moment.

“It was that I’ve been producing my whole life!” That’s what stitched together her early years in L.A. as a casting director, a decade of running animal shelters, and 12 very successful years as a top-flight print photographer (check out her website at JulienMcRoberts.com).

McRoberts tells Lesley that as print publishing fell apart, she had to pivot again, investing $3,000 in a coach to find ‘internal change.’  “Once I changed my mindset, I got control back,” she says. Now McRoberts markets her photography and producing skills in a new way to create packages for all kinds of clients with visual and content needs. “Being stuck meant I wasn’t pushing myself or trusting in myself,” she says. “I’m packaging the producing and becoming more vertical.”

Julien’s Top Tips for Reinvention

1. Don’t just show up for a job – look for more opportunities of what you can do. Work is more vertical now, and you have to think of multiple ways to help a client, not just the one thing you’re used to doing.
2. If you’re stuck, try taking pictures. Photography has been such a gift and it’s made me push myself more than any other career. So I really encourage your listeners to play with photography. It makes you see differently. It expands interests you may not have had, and makes you meet new people. We all get so stuck in work mode or survival mode, and forget to have fun. We end up curling inward, instead of expanding outward.  Photography takes you out of your head and makes you experience life differently, and that mindset can really help you get on the right path for yourself.
3. Get help if you need it. Find a coach or a mentor.

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