From Wall Street to Entrepreneur: How Emily Sexton Has Mastered The Art of Pivoting

While the podcast showcases the specific steps and tactics people used to start over in new careers, my goal is to actually demonstrate the mindset that you need to take the leap. 

Because without the mindset, all of the tactics in the world won’t help you start over. If you get stuck in the fear and the doubt, you’ll be stuck forever. 

Through my own journey and talking with over 90 quitters, I’ve come to realize that the most important mindset shift is in truly understanding that you CAN figure anything out. Once you become comfortable with the unknown, not because you’re certain, but because you’re confident in your ability to figure it out, you become unstoppable. 

No one embodies that mentality more than my guest this week, Emily Sexton. 

Emily started out on Wall Street as Vice President of Communications and Change Management. Feeling like something was missing, she quit without knowing her next move. When Emily discovered the opportunity to open up a pop-up retail truck that would combine her love of fashion with her desire to support female vendors from developing countries, a cause she was passionate about, she jumped on it. 

With no retail experience, Emily leaned on her community to make the pop-up shop a success. A year later, she turned the Flourish Market into a brick-and-mortar shop. And when she was presented with the opportunity to move to a bigger space, she seized that too. But the space was actually too big for just a retail shop. Emily had to figure out what to do with all the extra space. So in the Summer of 2019, she launched The Locality, a co-working space + incubator for 60 female entrepreneurs, with membership spots selling out before construction even started!

And now with the Covid pandemic, when so many businesses are struggling, Emily took only a couple of days to pivot her co-working space into an online membership.

She is such a testament to the fact that opportunities are all around us, if we’re willing to see them. Her outlook and attitude are infectious. And she provides the hope and clarity we need in this time!