Rachel Leeman-Munk, Career and Life Coach

12/21/2024

If you've come to this page, my business is active! I mostly post on my website and LinkedIn - see comments for links.

08/17/2022

I'm giving a talk soon!

Do any of these sound like you?

- I feel like nothing I ever do is good enough, even though I logically know my work is fantastic.
- I want to grow, but I don't know how to ask for or receive feedback.
- I feel uncomfortable speaking up unless I feel really confident in my ideas (which doesn't happen often).

I'm talking about how to build confidence as a woman in tech using tricks that only take 5 MINUTES A DAY.

Half the session will be networking and open discussion about building confidence, so even if you're confident already please join and provide your insights during the discussion!

I hope to see you there!

Join other women in tech for networking, conversation, and a talk on confidence by Rachel Leeman-Munk, software engineer and career coach

08/10/2022

I am taking a workshop on mindful self-compassion this week led by Dr. Kristin Neff and Dr. Chris Germer and wanted to share a bit of wisdom from class today.
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Next time you make a mistake or are unhappy with yourself for some reason, pause and ask yourself this question:

"How would I treat a close friend going through this same situation/feeling?"

What would you say to that friend? What feeling would you want to convey to them? Would you put an arm around them or a hand on their shoulder?

Try doing the same for yourself. How does it feel to treat yourself in your moment of struggle as you would a friend?

More to come as I continue this workshop :) Wishing you a beautiful day full of self-compassion!


Photo by Hala Al-Asadi on Unsplash

02/23/2022

Feeling stuck in your career? I'm leading a free workshop on designing a fulfilling career this Thursday at 5pm PST. It's focused on women in tech but will be helpful for anyone who wants to devote an hour to career planning.

Hope to see you there!

What if you had the opportunity to create a plan that would help you feel ready to tackle your future in tech, head on?

02/18/2022

💫 What calls to you in your job? What do you want to do more of?

When I work with clients, one of the first things we do together is identify their superpowers.⚡️

And before we go any further – Yes. You do have superpowers. Boat-loads of them.

Understanding your superpowers can help you put them into practice more intentionally, helping you feel more fulfilled and excited to go to work each day.

To identify your superpowers, consider your skills, expertise, and the work you love doing.

👉 For example, I’ve always been a people person and love the social aspect of work.

I love communicating with and inspiring people to see past their obstacles and to create real tangible pathways to achieving their goals.

And while I used to not see the value in these skills, I now recognize them as uniquely valuable and essential for strong cross-team communication, camaraderie, and motivation.💖

To identify your superpowers, consider the work you’re good at and love doing.

💻 Do you love the detail-work of going line-by-line to improve systems?
↳Your superpower may be as an optimizer, helping systems run better and faster.

💗 Are you easily able to tell how people are feeling and will respond to different situations?
↳Your superpower could be emotional intelligence (EQ), helping you to navigate and mediate through personality conflicts. (This is one of my superpowers)

🎨 Do you have an eye for the small details of design?
↳Your superpower could be artistry, helping you create beautiful and flawless end products.

🧩 Do you love diving into a challenging project and trying to find a solution?
↳Your superpower could be as a puzzle-master, creating innovative solutions for “impossible” problems.

Consider the work you have an aptitude for and could spend all day doing.

🌟That’s your superpower.🌟

👉 What parts of your job are you most passionate about? Share your superpowers below!

02/16/2022

👉 For all the software engineers & product managers out there: What does failure mean to you?

A while back I talked about how making mistakes is essential to a successful career in tech.

Today, I want to talk about failure.💥

My question to you is: Why are we so scared of failure?

For many of us in the tech industry, failure means:

⦿ Step 1: Earning a reputation as a mediocre worker (aka the fear of not being good enough)
⦿ Step 2: Getting fired
⦿ Step 3: Being unable to find an equivalent or better job in tech
⦿ Step 4: The end of our career
⦿ Step 5: Total world implosion. 🌎☄️

Okay, maybe you don’t hit step 5. But failure truly does feel like the end of the world sometimes!

So let’s pull back from catastrophizing for a second and look at this from another angle.

First – failure is not the end of the world.

Making mistakes is practically a rite of passage in the tech world.⚡️ Everyone expects them, and no one thinks any worse of you for making them.

➤ I remember in my first year, I completely broke the most used page of our main product for a full day in our development environment (not production thank goodness). Several engineers spent hours tracking down and fixing what caused the issue.

➤ It was a tiny mistake on my part, but it created a big mess. 👀

➤ Did people see my mistake as a failure? Nope. Did I get fired? Nope. Did it slow down my career? I’ve since been promoted to senior software engineer, so I’d say no.

➤ Apparently, my misstep was recognized as a classic and relatable associate mistake and was even joked about in management meetings for a while.

That being said, I want to encourage you to shed the fear of failure – it’s only holding you back from taking risks and stepping into your power and skills. 💫

Plus, if that wasn’t failure, what is? 😉

👉 How do you feel failure should be defined in the tech world? Share your thoughts below!

02/10/2022

🤔 How comfortable are you with making mistakes?

Full honesty: I used to be petrified of mistakes…

I remember the first time I broke the build.

I made a tiny, easy-to-make mistake that impacted every engineer for a few hours.

I was at home at the time, so I promptly helped fix it before spending the next three hours curled up on my couch sobbing.

I felt devastated. 💔 The idea that I was anything less than perfect, let alone that I had slowed down the line-up for the day made me wish I could melt into a puddle and evaporate.

If you think I was overreacting, you’re right. I was. But I also wasn’t, given my mindset at the time.

🧠 I’d spent years internalizing the belief – as many women do – that being anything less than perfect was grounds for dismissal.

The smallest mistake meant being fired, a stalled career, a failed life, the end of the world…☄️

Part of my wake-up call was talking with a coworker about it.

He’d been with our company for a while and had done the exact same thing so many times that he was completely unphased by my crisis.

What was a mortal sin for me, was just another day on the job to him.🤯

🌟 The lesson: Mistakes are expected in the world of tech.

Mistakes mean you’re stretching your capabilities, you’re exploring options, and you’re putting out new ideas.💡 They’re the key to innovation and being exceptional.

And really, the people who go furthest in the tech industry are those who trust their instincts and are willing to make mistakes to test out new ideas.⚡️

So while I know it’s not easy – and trust me, I KNOW it’s not easy – I urge you to fight through the fear of making mistakes. Face that ugly feeling of self-perceived failure each time it pops up. Over time, mistakes won’t feel so world-ending, and trusting yourself will feel effortless. 💫

So trust yourself and your instincts, and tell fear to head for the hills.

🌟 Any mistakes you make as you step into self-belief will be those that hone your instincts and propel you forward in your career (not back.)

Is your fear of making mistakes is stopping you from looking for your dream job? I'm teaming up with Various Characters - West MI Women In Tech to teach women in tech how to design the career of their dreams on February 24th at 5 pm PST / 8 pm EST. I hope to see you there!

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/designing-a-fulfilling-career-for-women-in-tech-tickets-262699229467

What if you had the opportunity to create a plan that would help you feel ready to tackle your future in tech, head on?

01/02/2022

I used to hate New Years Resolutions.

I would always come up with one and then I wouldn't keep to it. And I hated that. So I stopped coming up with them and I actively judged all the people who stayed devoted to the idea 😂

This year, for the first time in over a decade, I am trying a new years resolution again. I have a lot of trepidation, but I am also hopeful because unlike all the other times I am putting steps into place to try and make it happen.

My new year's goal is pretty simple: I want to build a morning routine that I can stick to. The attached image is only the first part - I also include various stretches and writing in a journal as I drink my morning tea. I'm going to stick this on my bathroom mirror as a reminder.

Wishing you luck, joy, and grace in the new year!

If you'd like help making your goals for the new year a reality, send me a dm or comment 'GOALS' to set up a complimentary coaching session.

12/17/2021

If you had 30 minutes of dedicated time with a career coach, what would you ask them?

12/14/2021

Happy one-year anniversary of my journey!

One year ago I was miserable and felt completely , so I hired a life coach to help me find a way forward. Working with her led me to my first life coach training class. We both found that funny. 😄

Fast forward 4 months and I'm in my first life coach training class with the training program. I fell headfirst in love with coaching and regained some of the energy I'd lost. I signed up for the next 4 classes with the plan to get certified by the end of 2022.

Fast forward another 4 months. I'm 3 classes in and decided to take the leap and start a business! I had NO IDEA what I was doing. Especially with to the - like me - who I so wanted to help the way coaching helped me.

So I hired Hailey Rowe to teach me to effectively market my business AND figure out how to do it on top of a full-time job. Like life coaching, learning to market has taught me more than I ever expected to learn about myself.

In the past year, I've gone from...

🌟 Constantly doubting my worth as an engineer and a coach to seeing the power that being a coach brings to my engineering skills and my clients.

🌟 Seeing my need for social connection as a negative in the workplace, to seeing how my love of people connects my team and creates a more positive, fulfilling workplace for everyone I work with.

🌟 Constantly overwhelmed and questioning whether I am cut out to be an engineer to knowing a million different ways to prioritize and turn chaos into order and most importantly, knowing the ways that work best for me and my brain.

🌟 Feeling like a fraud every time I consider posting anything related to my life & career coaching business to seeing the value I bring to and with my unique combination of gifts.

🌟 Feeling incredibly guilty even considering charging coaching clients to knowing that my time and skills are way more valuable than I give them credit for and understanding that coaching works best when the clients are fully invested, emotionally and monetarily.

🌟 Lost in a fog of frustration, confusion, mediocrity when I thought about my one career to fantastic and powerful in TWO careers and SO excited to help others feel the same way.

I still have a long way to go - my whole career in fact 😀
- but I am so grateful to all the coaches and women and mentors who have helped me get to this place.

I love muffins, but getting frosting is SO FUN. Thanks for the picture Hailey 😄

12/13/2021

Interviews are terrifying! If you’re feeling this way, read on for an exercise to help you deal with that fear and keep prepping. :)

I’ve spoken to a few people recently who are struggling with anxiety and around interviewing, especially for their .

When prepping for an interview, many of us have some self-doubt that results in thoughts like “can I really do this?”, “what if they don’t like me”, or the hardest - “what if no-one wants me?”. It’s pretty similar to going on a first date, actually. There are so many unknowns and the result can feel so personal. No wonder interviews cause so many people so much stress.

I have a visualization I use frequently as a career coach to help with some of those nagging self-doubt thoughts in my clients' heads.

Grab a piece of paper and a pencil.

This is going to sound counter-intuitive, but take a moment and let the negative voices in your head get REALLY loud. Listen to them and write down everything you hear.

Imagine the negative voices belong to someone else - picture that person telling you all the reasons you should be terrified of this interview.

Do you have all those hard thoughts written down?

Now shut the person in a closet.

Yes, you heard me right. I want you to imagine that you’ve pushed your negative friend far away and into a closet. Their voice got softer and softer and softer and now you can’t hear them at all.

Grab a new piece of paper - or fold over the negative thoughts so you can’t see them anymore.

What do you hear now, with your negative friend away? Close your eyes and listen for a moment.

Some people just hear blissful quiet and peace that comes with it. Other people start to hear their hopes and excitements around their interview.

What if you DO get the job? What are you learning from this interview experience? What are your hopes and dreams?

Write down what you hear now.

If you got some positive thoughts out of this, I highly recommend grabbing a sticky note, writing them down, and putting the positive thoughts somewhere you’ll see them frequently. When you’re hearing your negative again, look at them try to remember this feeling. :)

Happy interviewing! You can do this! What are your best interview tips?

Side note - If after doing this exercise, the negative voices are still loud and clear for you, this article has some more tips to help. For those of us who struggle with anxious thoughts on a regular basis, it’s totally natural that those thoughts can be extra hard to get rid of when we’re faced with something high pressure.
https://lnkd.in/g8bfHc22

If you need a booster shot of self-confidence to help you prep for that next interview, comment BRAVE or DM me to set up a free coaching session!

12/10/2021

One of the most common phrases the women professionals I work with say when we first meet is “I’m lazy”.

They believe the reason they’re having trouble keeping up with the house and personal/career goals is that they are not putting in enough effort when in reality there are SO MANY things sapping our energy on a day-to-day basis.

In case you have called yourself lazy recently, I want to gift you some reframes.

You’re not lazy, you’re:

👉 Exhausted from constant multi-tasking between your various roles/relationships at work and home.

👉 Out of decision-making energy after being the decider at work the whole day (product owners, I’m talking to you).

👉 Empty of emotional energy after holding boundaries with challenging coworkers and clients.

You are keeping up with SO MUCH in your career and personal life. It’s completely understandable if some goals or plans are slipping through the cracks.

What do you wish you had more energy for?

If you’d like to take some time in the new year to make sure you’re putting your energy in places that will fulfill you, comment ENERGY or DM me to set up a free coaching call.