Life Outside Of Your Comfort Zone: Erica Carrico

Welcome to the Life Outside of your Comfort Zone Series!

I am so so so excited to be bringing you this brand new interview series with beautiful women entrepreneurs from all different fields. We will be chatting all about what it took for them to step out of their comfort zone and into a life they absolutely love. Fueled by their passions and topped off with the perfect dream business!

I am kicking off the series with one of my good friends Erica Carrico! You all are going to absolutely love her and her journey.

Erica is a soul-fueled Career & Purpose coach and it is her mission and purpose to help awakening souls who feel trapped in the wrong career to move into something they are super passionate about. A career or business that unveils their true purpose and allows them to earn a living doing what they absolutely love – what they were put on earth to do!

Sounds like my jam!!! So, have you always known you wanted to be a girl boss or did it take some soul searching to get there? What did you do before you became an entrepreneur?

Oh my gosh for me it took SO much searching! From the time I was a little girl, I knew I was here for something different – that I wouldn’t have a traditional life. I spent my 20’s wild and free – bouncing around jobs, moving countries, in and out of crazy relationships, and traveling the world. I chose the wrong career and felt completely trapped for about 5 years in the corporate world. I finally made the decision to work with a life coach at 28 and quit my job 3 months later. I was fortunate enough to be able to take a year off to soul search, and ended up backpacking through India, SE Asia, China, and Africa. I realized on that trip I would never go back to the corporate world – that I’m here to help people and really make a difference in the world. So I moved back to Australia, got my Masters in Nonprofit Management, and spent 7 years as a non-profit executive. A career that was absolutely perfect for me!

Doesn’t that sound fantastic?! Talk about stepping into your full potential and going after what you love…

My mission on meganseamans.com is to help women reconnect with their authentic self to start living their dream lifestyle, even though taking that initial step outside of their comfort zone might be pretty tricky. Would you say you had to “find yourself” before you dove into your new plan? Did you find yourself starting on this brand new journey and having to learn about yourself along the way?

I would say for me, I really had to find myself before starting my entrepreneurial journey, but the journey of finding myself was a long one and took me all over the world. It was scary, exciting, adventurous, beautiful, enlightening, terrifying, magical, soulful, full of super highs and intense lows and just an overall amazing period of growth. I was living my dreams. Finding myself and connecting with my soul, the universe, my purpose, all led me to an intuitive knowing that this is what I’m supposed to be doing with my life now. Of course I believe we are always learning about ourselves and that it’s a lifelong journey. And since being an entrepreneur is still pretty new to me, I’m continuing to learn so much about myself every single day and pushing myself out of my comfort zone ALL THE TIME.

When did your comfort zone show up for you?

I’m a private person, an introvert, and I’m not one to talk much about myself. I guess that’s one of the things that makes me perfectly suited to coaching – I love (and prefer) to listen to someone else! So starting my own business was absolutely terrifying because I knew I was going to have to not only put myself out there, but actually promote myself, have a website with my face splashed all over it, reveal vulnerable things about myself, and talk about my story and who I am. I’ve had to fight past all kinds of limits and boundaries I’ve set for myself in the past. I overcome them (as they show up) by having a regular spiritual practice – essentially connecting with myself and the divine (universe, God, whatever terminology you prefer to use) through meditation, mindful thinking, clearing any negative thoughts, energy healing, learning to work with fear rather than letting it paralyze me, finding mentors to follow, and honestly, I’ve worked with 2 coaches in the past year and that has really helped me break through my mindset blocks and keep me moving forward.

Once you landed on your dream business plan did the unknown feel a bit scary? Did you find yourself asking a lot of what if’s or looking into the future a lot more than you should have?

Yes yes and yes! I was 100% terrified. In fact, I actually procrastinated launching my website for about 2 months because I was so scared of the unknown. I was totally “future tripping” where I was playing out all these scenarios in my mind, none of which actually came true, about people not being receptive, what was my family going to think, are people going to look at me differently, will I actually be able to make money, am I really qualified to do all of this. It’s perfectly normal for all of these feelings to come up, so I worked to clear these thoughts from my mind, closed my eyes, hit the “publish” button on my website – and now looking back I can’t believe I was so afraid! We always make things so much worse in our minds then they ever really are.

Did you run into any road bumps along the way or have to encounter any particular fears that you would like to share?

We will always hit road bumps, but that’s just part of life. We learn from them, take the lesson we’re supposed to take, and move on a wiser and more enlightened being!

When you did hit road blocks, face challenges or have failures, what was the worst that happened? What did it take to keep you going?

We are always hardest on ourselves, and criticize ourselves more than anyone else would. Failing is really hard for me. When I was little, if I failed or wasn’t perfect at something, I just thought it wasn’t meant to be and I was afraid to try again. It’s taken me a lot of work and learning to understand that failing (or not being perfect) at something isn’t the end of the world, and it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing, it just means you need to do something different – and try again. Consistent, baby steps are what kept me going, and when I was feeling overwhelmed, I spent time in meditation, reconnected with my heart and soul, and remembered why I’m doing this – I remembered why I’m here.

What is one big, amazing piece of advice you would give to our readers about stepping outside of their comfort zone and really going for the lifestyle that they have always dreamed of?

Always remember you deserve to live your dreams AND you absolutely have what it takes to do anything and everything you want to do in this life. The only thing that will hold you back, is yourself. Whenever you get stuck, remember this: you can either remain where it’s comfortable, the path you’ve been traveling down, and your life will stay the same. Your dreams will probably remain dreams. Or you can choose to jump – take the leap – and choose the road less traveled. If you want something to happen, if you want to change the direction of your life, you’re going to have to do something different. Make a new choice and act on it. Pursue your new outcome, pursue your dream.

WOW! You guys, we all start somewhere and finding your way through your own journey is exciting and scary at the same time. And you always have the choice… remain where you are safe and comfortable or take the leap!

If you totally loved Erica’s words and light, you can find her right over here: