Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Hoffman
Hi Lauren, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My story is one resembling the tale of the Phoenix, rising from the ashes and each time soaring into a new sense of power. In my latest reincarnation, I am unapologetically leaning into my innate areas of excellence, which are relating, influencing, serving, and creating impact. My career success is attributed to a myriad of my core strengths; having a service attitude, hospitality mindset, strong focus, personal accountability, showing up (even when I didn’t want to), being open all, forcing myself outside of my comfort zone, and leading with authenticity.
Each moment of life is by series of ripple effects that started long ago. When I graduated from Appalachian State University a decade ago (Go Mountaineers!), I was fascinated with the business side of psychology. I wanted to learn more about what drove people, what motivated them, and what it took for people to reach their highest potential. There’s no doubt in my mind that my strong interest in performance and potential stemmed from my own personal evolution as an at-risk youth turned cum laude graduate.
Over the next decade I focused on building a sturdy career in Human Resources, rapidly climbing the corporate ranks; receiving two promotions and a team award, getting the highest performance review on my team during merger and acquisition, getting involved in my HR community chapter, and being offered leadership opportunities. I proudly and successfully cultivated a reputation of innovation and excellence. My career was my purpose for being, and it made me who I am.
Until one day the carpet was ripped away from underneath my feet, twice, back-to-back.
One day, without any sign or warning, I suddenly experienced my first pink slip. Traumatized was an understatement. I didn’t give myself time to process and I got right back on the proverbial horse. With no pun intended, I fired dozens of applications each day until I found myself in a new, and admittedly better role. Then, a little over a year later, I found myself in the same scene, signing a new separation agreement. Although something about the redundant experience was different this time around.
I had reached a point in life where my focus was changing. I began listening to motivational coaching podcasts and one had deeply resonated with me. It was about having more than one purpose in life. I learned that pivoting, or changing careers, if that’s what a person desired could be one of the most rewarding aspects of life. The caveat being that most people resided in varying degrees of fear and wouldn’t dare shake things up. Afterall, why shake the nest? I knew I had become stagnant. I wasn’t learning. I wasn’t living up to my potential. Truly, I think the universe was eavesdropping on me for quite some time and decided to make my decision for me.
The timing of my self-reflection and my second layoff were so synchronized they could have competed for Gold in the Olympics.
And although I had comfort that life would always have my back, I found myself as an older Millennial, once able to navigate my way around using complex and detailed Mapquest printouts, completely lost without direction and no technical support from google maps or GPS.
This was going to be a hard and long road, but life was telling me something, and I held onto the belief that when life puts you under pressure, something greater is waiting on the other side. The key to navigating challenging situations is to keep exploring the unknown with a heart full of wonder.
This is how and why I created With the Current Solutions, my Coaching and Consulting company designed to support others during a time of transition, setback, and uncontrollable change. The name implies that life is a series of strong currents, constantly flowing. You can either fight the currents and remain stuck or learn valuable skills to effectively flow with the current and become open, adaptable, and resilient.
My new purpose is to empower others- individuals, teams, companies, or otherwise, with resources spanning research driven, best in practice peak performance principles.
Because even for my story, I know how hard it is to get back on track. I work each day at it. I’ve walked the walk. I want to dedicate my life to helping others think outside of the box, learn their innate areas of excellence, and discover new outlets that energize them and fuel their purpose into alignment with their careers.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
By design, I don’t believe that the road to success is meant to be smooth. We tend not to appreciate the things that are handed to us as much as something we’ve worked hard for with passion, sweat, and tears. Starting your own business with your own ideas takes action, effort, trial and error, persistence, and willingness to be a beginner. Many of the struggles I experience are all self-imposed. Our minds are our best friends or our worst enemies. On a bad day, my mind tells me that this dream is impossible, I don’t have what it takes, and I know that I won’t make it. On better days, I start with a grounding morning routine, clear my head, set weekly goals and intentions, chip away at my projects, and eventually accumulate wins and accomplishments. I know that by doing 1% per day it will lead to 100% progress in the future. A guiding principle of mine while on the path to entrepreneurship is to lead with confidence over courage, and progress over perfection. Women, in particular, are less likely to go for what they want in fear that they’re not good enough. Consequently, our faulty self-limiting beliefs may keep us in the same place year after year. I say to leave the fear behind and continue paving the foundation of your future home. No one started as an expert, and all the successful people we see all started as beginners with years of experience now behind them. Once your home is built, and when you start to focus on picking out the light fixtures and the wallpaper design, you’ll know you’ve made it.
We’ve been impressed with With the Current Solutions, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
As a true Creative Generalist, I wear many hats as a Consultant and Executive Coach. I’m a speaker, facilitator, team builder, and career development coach specializing in combining behavioral analytics, strength assessments, and positive intelligence. My mission is to help others lead a life and career with purpose, courage, awareness, vulnerability, and confidence to climb their highest peak.
I’m firstly a seasoned HR professional, committed to helping any size business create a positive culture and employee centric atmosphere.
My services are HR Business Consulting, Positive Intelligence Mental Fitness Workshops, Behavioral Analytics Team Buildings and Culture Assessments, 360 Feedback Assessments, PrinciplesYou Strengths Coaching, and Keynote Workshops. My focus areas are leadership, self-empowerment, and team development.
What has made me successful in my career is my orientation towards results, my ability to cultivate strong business relationships with impact and influence, and my high energy and adaptability. What sets me apart from the others is that I truly have an innate ability to talk and relate to people from all walks of life. I’m most proud of living my life in service to helping and supporting others.
With the Current Coaching and Training Solutions is a one woman show. I ask that businesses needing human resources, training, development or coaching services will invite me as their trusted partner, advisor, coach and friend. Invest in my services because I offer real world corporate experience, hundreds of hours of experience coaching others, and because my services are effectively packaged with market leading data driven solutions. My goal is to offer curated, tailored, and personalized services that match your personal or organizational needs.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
I see Coaching as an exploding industry that is here to say. Companies are indeed gaining the return on investment from creating coaching cultures. It’s a simple formula. Sometimes, managers are not equipped or trained in how to effectively motivate, guide, support, and provide feedback to their teams. Partnering with an executive coach enables the business to continue focusing on their work while entrusting a third party to cultivate trust, psychological safety, increase awareness, motivation, productivity, and improved behaviors among employees. I also believe that with the rapid evolution of AI driven practices, organizations will be streamlining their processes, reducing bias, and creating efficiencies using behavioral analytics to target the right talent who are compatible with the desired culture, competencies, and performance standards. Large corporations already use behavioral analytics to understand which training plans to implement; my goal is to make this practice more accessible to individuals and smaller to midsize companies.
Pricing:
- From $500
- to $2500
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.withthecurrentsolutions.com
- Instagram: @withthecurrentsolutions
Image Credits
Brooke Rosenblum Photography
