Leaving Corporate, Living Free: How Julie Noonan Took Her Business on the Road | #187

Have you ever dreamed of leaving your 9-5, hitting the road, and building a business on your own terms? In this inspiring episode of the Second Act Success Career Podcast, host Shannon Russell sits down with executive coach and change management consultant Julie Noonan to explore her bold leap from corporate America to full-time RV living.

After a successful career leading transformation at Fortune 500 companies and consulting firms like Ernst & Young, Julie traded in her corner office for life on the open road. She now runs two thriving businesses remotely—while traveling across the U.S. with her husband in their RV.

Julie shares her story of financial planning, navigating change, and building a second act that prioritizes freedom, flexibility, and fulfillment. Plus, she gets real about the challenges of entrepreneurship, remote work, and why the “build your dream life overnight” narrative is often misleading. Listen now to Episode #187 of the podcast to hear Julie's second act success story.

Key Takeaways:

• How to strategically plan your exit from corporate life
• What it really takes to run a business while traveling full-time
• The importance of financial preparation before launching a second act
• Why building a community is essential for entrepreneurs
• How to balance work, freedom, and purpose as a digital nomad
• Why starting over later in life can be your greatest advantage

This episode is packed with honest advice and powerful insights for anyone craving more purpose and freedom in their career.

🎧 Tune in and get inspired to start your second act with intention and courage!

SHOW NOTES:

https://secondactsuccess.co/187

Connect with Julie:

www.intuitivewisdomcoach.com

https://www.youtube.com/@restlesswomen/videos

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Transcript

Second Act Success Career Podcast
Season 1 - Leaving Corporate, Living Free: How Julie Noonan Took Her Business on the Road | #187
Episode - #187
Host: Shannon Russell
Guest: Julie Noonan
Transcription (*created by Descript and may not be perfectly accurate)


[00:00:00] this whole movement of get a side hustle and create your dream life and take off whenever you want. Well, maybe that works for some people, but I have a word for that and it's bullshit.


Shannon Russell: are you ready to quit your nine to five job and start a business of your own? Well, you're in the right place, my friend. Welcome to the second act success career podcast. I am your host, Shannon Russell. I am a former television producer turned business owner, career transition coach, and boy mom. My mission is to help you produce your best life.

This podcast will teach you how to get from where you are now to where you want to be and how to build a business that fits your life and lights you up. Let's get started. 

Welcome back to Second Act Success. I am very excited for today's episode. I have Julie Noonan here. She is an executive coach, a transformational change leader, a speaker, a consultant, and a [00:01:00] futurist. She spent her career working for companies of all sizes, helping people ride the waves of change. But she wanted to make a change. 

Once her children graduated college,


Julie spent years getting herself in a perfect financial situation to be able to leave everything behind, get into an RV and see the world. 


Julie now runs her two businesses. Out of her RV as she travels the country, 


I promise you'll be so inspired by Julia story. I have both her work in the corporate world 

and her work now as she lives the dream in her second act Let's get to it. Julie Noonan, welcome to Second Act Success. I'm so happy to have you here. Well, thank you so much, Shannon. I appreciate it. Yes. We had a wonderful conversation on your podcast and I said, we have got to have you come here and tell us about your story.

You have such an interesting journey, but tell us where your career began. 

Julie Noonan: [00:02:00] Oh, wow. I was in grad school. Actually, I had studied English literature, and I had every intention of becoming a, an English professor in a college somewhere. I got accepted for a fellowship at Ball State, Indiana, went down there.

And on the drive back, my husband and I looked at each other and I said, I just can't do macaroni and cheese for another five years. And so, I got a temp job at a bank, at First Union Bank in Charlotte, North Carolina. Now they're Wells Fargo. I started out as a temp and the woman who was running the department was very, very, very senior, very well known.

She was paying attention. I was just. Kind of on the receptionist desk when there were such things she was paying attention. And one day she called me into her office and I was terrified. She said, why are you here? And I said, what do you mean? And she said, what do you want to do with your career?

She said, you're way over qualified to be a temp. And [00:03:00] so I told her, you know, my story and I said, I'm really kind of looking for, you know, writing communications, things like that. The next thing I know, I'm being marched up to HR and told that I was going to interview for a position as an instructional designer and that's how I started.

I started as an instructional designer, , learned the, the real way of. Doing instructional design from my first boss, who was actually a certified instructional design professional. So, it went from there. 

Shannon Russell: What does instructional design entail 

Julie Noonan: Basically. Whatever subject matter, there is that you need to teach to adults. This is not like children's curriculum design. This is more, designing experiences. And content for adult learners, ensuring that all of the, objectives are, actionable. True [00:04:00] instructional design is you're actually changing the behavior of someone or teaching them actually how to do something. 

Shannon Russell: Right? 

Julie Noonan: And so, at the end of the session, people will be able to. And all of the verbs have to be active, not passive. That's the basis of it, essentially.

And so I did a lot of instructional design for systems, new systems that were coming in at the time. And so I cut my teeth on implementation, did a lot of without knowing what I was doing. I did a lot of. Business analysis work where that is translating from it language to business language when they when those teams were conflicted during their design sessions.

So, I wound up doing that because as a teacher, or as a trainer, I had to know. The, the explanation for things myself. 

Shannon Russell: Oh yeah. You're [00:05:00] learning all aspects of the business in order to teach the proper ways to accomplish those exactly. 

Julie Noonan: I did a lot of leadership development, started out when the techie stuff and then went into and picked up a lot more of the soft skills as I went along.

Shannon Russell: It was 

Julie Noonan: fun. 

Shannon Russell: Yeah. It sounds fascinating. And then how long did you do that before you pivoted into your next role, your next act? 

Julie Noonan: Instructional design is 1 part of the whole training process in a corporation. So, there are instructional designers. They're actually facilitators and teachers and trainers, whatever they call them in different organizations.

So, I had to learn how to do that as well because I. Also instructed, , and facilitated and then there's the curriculum development, which is stringing all of the courses together to make sure that it is. It makes sense for the [00:06:00] audiences in addition, when there is something new that we needed to train. I also had to learn how to do needs assessment.

Skills assessment, so I had to figure out what those different audiences actually needed in order to be able to to accomplish the task at hand. All of that put together, , was what I wound up doing for about 10 years. And then I was hired, , because I had risen in the ranks at the bank, I was hired to be the training director for a bigger bank up in Ohio.

Shannon Russell: And 

Julie Noonan: so I had half of the bank under me as far as delivering learning and development if you think about branch tellers and those people, for each region, there was an actual pair of training people who we would develop the course in, you know, in house and corporate and then.

Teach it to them, and then they would teach it to their folks. Then I wound up going to a big consulting firm [00:07:00] there is where I started developing the idea that I wanted to be a consultant because of the variety.

etc. Ernst Young also gave me my first coaching certification. It was in house to Ernst Young, but that's how I got my first coaching certification. The other thing that happened right around that time was I was realizing that I was only impacting one part of an employee's journey, meaning I was just doing the training part, and there are so many other parts to it from a strategic perspective.

For instance, recruiting was also, you know involved with my audience. The HR business partners were also involved with my audience. And I would try to get us together to say, okay, let's look at the audience holistically, the time they're being recruited to the time they walk in the door, the onboarding.

I had the onboarding, but then the HR BP the business partners [00:08:00] often deliver the onboarding and then the life of the employee. Different people were touching different parts of that journey, and I wanted to be more involved in strategically putting together what that journey would be.

So, at that point, I got into organization development and then change management right after that, because one of the things that happened early in my career was I was in charge of the rollout of a big Customer relationship management system. 



But this experience informed what I really wanted to do. I saw all of the problems with it. I'm kind of a risk assessment person. And sure enough, we rolled it out and it was a complete.

Bomb and felt bad because my training team was on the front line, like, right in front of the people who are struggling with this thing. And it wasn't the training. It wasn't even the system. It was. Helping them understand how to move from how [00:09:00] they used to do it to how they do it now.

Talk to customers is different than they used to because they had to get some more information or how their sales assistants supported them was totally different. So that's when I ran into The idea of change management and got involved with getting certified with pro sci, which is the Gartner of change management, if you will and became a specialist in change management and human capital.

again, the whole employee journey from beginning to end. 

Shannon Russell: You really touched all aspects of. Like you said, employee's journey through a company and you got to utilize those communication skills that you set out to, utilize early on in your career.

how did you like working for a larger corporation like Ernst Young compared to the bank corporation? I'm assuming that that was just a game changer for you. 

Julie Noonan: Yes, it was [00:10:00] mainly because I had not been exposed to consulting and except for at First Union Bank, we hired a very large consulting firm to build the system I was talking about.

And so I watched how that organization worked within our organization and I had some issues with it. So I was turned off from consulting for quite a while until I went to Ernst Young and I saw the difference. Between the two, and I really enjoyed being with Ernst Young. I think the variety was a big draw for me.

The variety in serving different clients, serving different industries. It was never the same from one week to the next. A lot of really smart people to work with. Not that the bank didn't have smart people. Let me just say that, but it felt like I was constantly challenged intellectually. Mm hmm.

And I [00:11:00] really, really enjoyed that a lot of problem solving. And that was the other thing. It wasn't as kind of cut and dry. It was more. Here's a problem. Now, everybody get together. How are we going to tackle it? What is everybody's ideas? It was more problem solving. And I really found that I love that.

I went to a small boutique consulting company. Well, it was regional. Learned to be a consultant there. 

Because at Ernst and Young, I was internal watching the consultants work and supporting them.

I wasn't external consulting. I wasn't the client serving part. 

Shannon Russell: Right? 

Julie Noonan: So, when I went to the smaller company, and I also moved to Nashville at that point, which was tremendous. I love Nashville. But when I went there, I learned how to be a real consultant from an external perspective. Their model was such that it wasn't the leave on Sunday, come back on Thursday model, [00:12:00] because I didn't want that.

I had children at home. So it was consult where you live. Basically, so I got to know a lot of companies, a lot of executives in Nashville while I was there, and I got to really learn a lot of different industries. So anything from, the automobile industry to healthcare was a big one. Well being et cetera, et cetera.

Absolutely loved it. And then change management was relatively new at that point. Not very many companies understood it or would buy it outside of a project that they already had going on. And so the work for, for what I was doing in Nashville wasn't as robust as it needed to be.

And so I would go and do projects for other big. Companies so I wound up being the exception to the rule [00:13:00] as far as being at home and wound up traveling a lot more than I wanted to. It was phenomenal. Great company met lots and lots and lots of excellent people there. I got remarried and after I decided to no longer travel as much, I left that company and went to the state of Tennessee, who was a former client. And what I liked about that was it was a whole different way of working in a government organization, right?

Everything felt like everything took so much longer. Everything was so much more scrutinized because we were spending, citizen dollars, our tax dollars, which is exactly how it should be. Problem is, conundrum, you're trying to spend wisely, but now you're spending twice as much trying to spend wisely.

It's weird. 

Shannon Russell: Yes. 

Julie Noonan: But I enjoyed my time there because what I got to do there was to actually create a change [00:14:00] management methodology state specific that was really suited more for a government organization and how they do business. When that happened, we were able to then consolidate that change management methodology with a project management methodology with a business analyst methodology.

So if you think about it, you've got Project Management Institute, the PMI, what their methodology is. You've got the Bayback Business Analyst methodology. We smushed them all together so that it was really evident that those three aspects my case, I was doing IT implementations.

We replaced a lot of 30 year old systems 

We went from green screen and COBOL. Programming to the latest and greatest at that time, which was web based. 

Shannon Russell: Right? 

Julie Noonan: So you [00:15:00] can imagine the impact the change impact there. It was insane. It was insane. People were like, well, I can't.

You know, I don't understand this web development stuff. I'm a Cobalt programmer. Okay. Let's figure out how we're going to get you the skills you need to move into because Cobalt, it may not be dead yet, but it's going that way. Lots of pushback. I bet a lot of pushback, a lot of pushback, a lot of people worried about their jobs, which I hate.

That's the part of my job that I hate is a lot of times the change is, merger acquisition. And so. People are going to lose their jobs and having to build the communications and coach the leaders on how to handle that change along with involving the HR folks, because, you know, they have to be involved in order to make sure we're doing it all legally,

Those were not the easiest ones. You learn a lot when it's not the easiest. That's for sure. after the state, I decided to [00:16:00] start my company, had a couple of interesting projects that I worked on. This was back in 2018 and then I had the opportunity to go back to the smaller consulting company again, which fit in better with my life at that point.

My daughters were going out. Well, One had already gone off to college. The other one was going and I needed kind of a little bit more steady income to make sure those bills were paid. And so I went back to work for them. During COVID, there was a big, a big layoff there. So Got laid off 

Shannon Russell: like so many people during that time.

Julie Noonan: So many people and I had my company. It was already set up, moved it to Florida and started up was very, very, very fortunate. I had 2 big, big clients fall right into my lap at the beginning. The good thing about that was I was in the black immediately. The bad thing about that was [00:17:00] I didn't. Mhm. Have the time to set up all of my marketing and sales and tech stack and all of that at the beginning.

I had to just start working. 

Shannon Russell: Yeah. I was thinking about that. You're, you're used to creating systems for all these companies and you have a business and you don't feel like you have your systems in place probably. No, no, 

Julie Noonan: not at all. Not at all. One of the clients was fairly large. And I had to hire subcontractors to do a lot of the work with me.

It was just too much obviously for one person. And during that time also decided what I wanted to do, you know, with my life. And as you know, as soon as my youngest daughter got out of college and about. Three years after that 2023 we sold everything and we went on the road in our camper.

I'm looking forward to being in charge of the rest of my life and my [00:18:00] contribution and not having to really take orders or be told that You have five weeks of PTO. that's not enough. That's not enough to do everything I want to do and see everything I want to see. And so now, my business, I'm growing it.

doing change management projects for a couple of different companies. And I got my official executive coaching certification from the International federation of coaches coaching, 

Shannon Russell: and 

Julie Noonan: thank you. That was that was hard. That was an 18 month. Go back to school, practicums and coaching sessions all for free because. But I wanted to add that. Last year in February, I started a separate company intuitive wisdom coaching. And so I have my consulting company and I have my coaching company, and I take clients. In my coaching company as well. [00:19:00] So it's all on 

Shannon Russell: the road, all as a digital nomad.

Exactly. 

Julie Noonan: did learn and I think a lot of people learned this during COVID. I don't necessarily need to be in a crowd of people personally, but I need a crowd of people to help me work. 

Shannon Russell: Yeah. 

Julie Noonan: Right. I need those ideas. I need those really intelligent people who have different perspectives.

And so what I wound up doing was joining a couple of women entrepreneur groups that incredibly supportive. I'm still part of them. They are enormous helps in this, you know, solopreneur kind of thing that I've got going on. There isn't one person in either of those groups that I wouldn't hesitate to call and say, Hey, you know, this problem is, is rearing its ugly head.

What do I do? What have you done before? Do you have anything for this? 1 person in particular does the same thing, exact same thing as I do. And we could easily have [00:20:00] competed. With each other, but she also is a change management consultant like I am and so we'll get on the phone and we'll just share leads. We'll share tools that we've developed.

We'll share approaches. We'll share. Okay. You know this company wants me to do a strategic planning offsite. What, what have you done that has worked really well to get, you know, a sales group engaged? What have you done that's worked really well to help them if they are arguing about something, we have found because we are different in the way we look at the world and our experiences, we wouldn't compete anyway. 

Shannon Russell: Yeah, 

because there are people that are more meant for her than me. And the same. And when we share that information back and forth, it, it just. It makes work so much more fulfilling because I wind up getting the people I'm supposed to have not having to convince [00:21:00] someone that I'm the person for them from a coaching perspective, 


That's fantastic. Yeah. And for you to be able to have the team management business and the intuitive life coaching business as well. I mean, both of those fulfill you in different ways. And to be able to do those on the road, wherever you drive your camper, like, is that the life that you feel like you've always wanted in a sense?

Julie Noonan: Yeah we've been out here now for a year and a half. There are some things that are annoying about living in a, in an RV full time. Some of the things are not the things you might think about. Like, for instance, people are like, how can you have your husband there 24 seven, that's not the issue for me.

The issue for me has been little things. When something happens with the RV and we actually have to take it into the shop, you're taking your house. Think about it. You're taking your [00:22:00] house to wherever and they're supposed to fix it. And how long is that going to take? And while they're fixing it, you have to be in a hotel or an Airbnb or something.

That's very annoying. 

Shannon Russell: Yeah. And all of your stuff is in there. I mean, that's, that is an inconvenience for sure, but hopefully that doesn't happen too often. On the flip side, you're able to travel to any state you want to and, and still be able to earn money and earn, you know, your living such freedom.

Julie Noonan: It is. And the nice thing is when we're on the road right now, we're stationary just for the winter. When we're on the road. there's always something to look forward to, which is the next place. , and because we don't have yard work or any of that kind of stuff it's very seldom that we have a whole bunch of stuff we have to do on the weekend, except for grocery shop.

So even if I'm working a full 40 or more hours a week, The weekend when we're somewhere we can go explore, we can go to a state, [00:23:00] the state park, or we can go to whatever attraction there is in that particular city or town. Last year we went out West.

So we went from Florida all the way through Texas, up and over into Montana and back down to Florida. And that was a lot of fun because that was a lot of places he and I had never seen. 

Shannon Russell: Yeah. 

Julie Noonan: And we also plot. Places we want to see interesting musical reference kind of places.

He's big into music and also friends that we haven't seen in a long time how often do you get to see people that, you know, in college outside of a reunion, you know, that sort of The time is plotting this time more of a family kind of oriented trip. So we're going up the East Coast, which is where most of our family lives and we're going to be stopping at our different family locations.

Obviously, there are [00:24:00] things that we want to see up and down the East Coast as well. 

Shannon Russell: That's amazing. And I'd love to ask about doing this once your girls were out of college. Was that a deliberate decision to start this second act, if you will, after the girls were finished and you were finished paying tuition?

Or did you dream of doing it a little bit earlier? And is it harder to do it at that stage of life? 

Julie Noonan: Good question. I started dreaming about doing this seven years before we actually did it, and they were a big consideration. I'm sure. I knew that this was not the life that they would want. they were high school and college age 

Shannon Russell: when 

Julie Noonan: I started thinking about this because I was thinking, okay, what happens when they leave?

At the time we were living on a farm in Tennessee with ten acres and horses and animals and blah blah blah. It was a lot to keep up with and I didn't want that. 

I wanted to sell the farm. And so it was on [00:25:00] purpose. I wanted to get them through college, not only get them through college, but also pay off our debts. Also I wanted to make sure that they were situated and independent themselves. Now, it's not like, you know, if they got into a big thing, I wouldn't come run into the rescue.

That's just a mom thing. That doesn't matter where we live. But, but yeah, that was very intentional. And so when we had the opportunity and I felt like, okay, We're stable enough. The kids are good. They're going to be okay. If I'm halfway across the country then we left. 

Shannon Russell: and it's great that you did it then too because so many people as you know will put it off and put it off. Oh, that this time, at this time, you made a plan to do it at graduation time, right? When they were graduated and settled. Debt was paid. Why not now? And the fact that you actually did it, I think is so [00:26:00] inspiring because so many of us wish to do it and don't.

Now, life is short. We don't know how much longer we have. So take advantage and don't have those regrets. You're so inspiring that you were able to do it. And I tell my kids, my kids are younger, they're nine and 12, I think about when they go to college, I'm going with them, is what I think, and everyone laughs, but like, I'm serious.

Like, I want to go where they're going to be, and you can do that, Julie. You can, you can go wherever they end up. you can go and just park the RV there and be there as long as you want and that must make them feel so good too, you know. Yeah, 

Julie Noonan: my kids are very independent. We could live next door and I couldn't, I would not see them for a couple of weeks at least.

Yeah. What has changed, however, and this is, this is the hardest thing for me is, of course my oldest daughter is married and they thought they couldn't have children [00:27:00] and surprise, she got pregnant. We got a phone call in May last year. We're in. Utah or somewhere.

And and she says, Hey, I'm pregnant and I'm going to have a baby in November. Oh my gosh. I'm never going to be able to leave that baby. Right? Oh, well, she and they live in Florida. This that's why this is our home base. And so she did have the baby in December. I was going to be traveling around Florida. I can't do it. I've got to stay here because he's so cute and they need me. Yes, they do for the short term. Well, he's still so little. So I've been enjoying babysitting and staying in 1 place for a couple of months. We'll be heading out again in April and.

That'll be hard. I won't see them again until June. 

Shannon Russell: FaceTime. It's worth wonders. You know, 

Julie Noonan: but 

Shannon Russell: you've got that flexibility and you've, you've done the hard work of building these [00:28:00] businesses that give you that flexibility. And that, I think for a lot of my listeners that are thinking about this or are scared to start that second act, it's a way of.

Giving yourself those opportunities that you might not have if you're stuck to that nine to five job, Your retirement plan looming over you and all of that. I think it's important to build the kind of future that you want and with the priorities that you hold close. 

Julie Noonan: Absolutely. One of the perfect example.

Just this past year we were on the road and My two best friends from college. We are three peas in a pod. The first one lost her husband in March I'm 61. He was 60. Wow. Horrible. She didn't get to live her retirement with him. My other best friend wound up with lymphoma and went through chemo this whole past year.

So it just [00:29:00] reemphasized to me that even if we only got this past year, if something were to happen right now, we had that year, right. And I don't have to wonder, or, or regret not having done it. We did it 

Shannon Russell: and 

Julie Noonan: we're still doing it. And I don't plan to to give it up. But I will say word of warning, it's.

Living your dream still takes work. I still have to hustle, for business. this whole movement of get a side hustle and create your dream life and take off whenever you want. Well, maybe that works for some people, but I have a word for that and it's bullshit. 

Shannon Russell: I can second that. I can say, no, 

Julie Noonan: it's work.

It's work, it's not without it's scary times, I lost a contract last year and it, put us behind financially and that, [00:30:00] teaches me lessons. Okay. Even if you are 100 percent but you've still got a market. You still got to get out there and meet people. You still another thing that's hard on the road.

Just just a warning for folks is when a lot of people talk about networking, they're really talking about your immediate community. Or your immediate city. Go out and have lunch with so and so, have a coffee, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it doesn't work that way on the road. I think it's harder to meet people face to face, obviously.

Shannon Russell: Yeah. 

Julie Noonan: And getting speaking gigs. Is a little bit more difficult. Because making those initial connections is a lot harder via the zoom than it is meeting at a, coffee face to face. So that's just another word of warning. A lot of people think that they can make a living just being online.

Leave me alone. I'll process whatever, you know, it doesn't work that way either. If you're not getting out there physically. You better be getting out there, on social media or [00:31:00] whatever. And all of it takes money. 

Shannon Russell: I love going to conferences.

That's where I meet people and make connections, but that costs money. So yeah, I agree with you. It does. You have to, but then you have to spend the money to make the money. And it's just, but it is all work. It's all a hustle, like you said. And it's finding different ways to reinvent yourself. Even though you're still in the same business, I'm starting to speak a lot more on stages and that's a whole, that takes time.

That takes time away from clients and that takes time away from this. And it's a balancing act, but at the end of the day it's our schedule. And as long as you're willing to hustle and put that work in, there's that reward, I guess, that risk reward. 

Julie Noonan: Well, it feels a lot different when you're making money for your own self.



When I worked for the banks, I enjoyed, I enjoyed the people, but at the end of the day, I wanted to clock out and go home and not think about them. And when I had to think about them and was overly stressed because it was too much work and [00:32:00] not enough time I could get resentful because it wasn't, I didn't feel like I was working for my family.

I felt like I was. Working for somebody else's family, 

And I really care about my clients. I understand that, but when, when it comes right down to it, everybody is looking to make sure their family is taken care of and there's nothing wrong with that.

That's what it's all about. It's about creating value in the world and that starts with your family. It starts with you and your family, your community, whatever you call your community. 

Shannon Russell: That's 

Julie Noonan: another thing. It's hard to get to get the, to really can feel like you're contributing to the community.

And so I found an excellent. Way to volunteer that doesn't require me to be in this community, it's a the owner foundation, which is coaching for special ops service members who are getting ready to retire as a whole program just got my [00:33:00] first assignment, and I'm going to be coaching for them.

And it's pro bono. Obviously, it's volunteer, but I feel like I finally found a community that I can really give back into so that I believe in. 


That's a perfect way to give back. 

Julie Noonan: Well, it feels good. 

Shannon Russell: Let's talk about your podcast, because I think a lot of my listeners will want to jump over and listen to the Roaming with Restless Women podcast, 


yeah, you were an excellent guest on it too, so there.

Julie Noonan: Thank you. It started last August. I I ran into a company that produces podcasts and it's also a way to get your message out there. But one of the things that has been constantly in my mind over the last year has been women's wisdom. In that iconic wise woman that lives in every culture that when the guys go off to this is total generalization, by the way, stereotypes, but when the [00:34:00] guys go off to war, it's the women that keep it all together that there's usually a wise woman in a community.

That is the heart or the matriarch of that community. And when things get tough, she's the one that people go to to say, so and so died and she'll take charge of getting all the meals together. That woman, that's the wise woman. And so my thought was. Because the wise woman is part of my brand.

What I thought was I could use a podcast, not for business development, necessarily. I would love the business, obviously, but what I thought about was, you know, it would be great to hear from all of these women who have all different kinds of lives. Who have stories to tell about when they learned something really hard or how they built their business or, you know, when they had the, their first experience with menopause or they beat cancer or whatever the case [00:35:00] may be.

Or they're dealing with aging parents, women's wisdom comes up, not just in their work, but in all aspects of their lives. And I want to capture that. So that's what roaming with restless women is. And why roaming with restless women? It just came out of me when I was discussing the title of my podcast.

I didn't want to name it the same as my company intuitive wisdom. And that just came out. And I thought, because Roaming, my lifestyle and people might be interested in that as you, you know, you've been asking me questions about it. And then also restless, restless occurred to me, not in a negative way, but there's the restlessness that makes you want to continue to learn.

That makes you want to continue to give, to continue to pour yourself into creation instead of destruction. And I think especially during this time when I feel like [00:36:00] women's rights are being chipped away or being discounted more than we have been in a long time We need to continue to share that wisdom and bolster each other up because nobody else is going to do it.

Shannon Russell: What a beautiful message. And the stories you share are, are just that, like you can get those gems of wisdom from others. And that's how we learn and grow and become better versions of ourselves. It's from learning from others and lifting each other up. And it goes back what we talked about earlier with the other woman who's a change management.

Coach as well and how you could have competed, but instead you're lifting each other up and sharing your wisdom. 

Julie Noonan: Yes my generation grew up in the corporate workforce following the example of Murphy Brown and, you know, Barbara Walters and the tough girls, very tough girls.

They had to be. Right. They had to be the unfortunate part about that is in being [00:37:00] tough and in competing against the male dominated, patriarchy of the work world. They also started competing with each other because they didn't know they didn't have another model. And I think with, with particularly since COVID and with the younger generations coming in and changing the way we work pretty dramatically, which I'm very happy about, by the way the whole idea of competing is, is destructive and not constructive.

The pendulum is going to swing too far. And we're going to collaborate until we don't make a decision ever, it'll go that way. And then it'll come back to the middle again. But it's not about competing. It's about holding each other up and advocating for your own strengths at, you know, showing your own abilities without.

Putting someone else down or trying to get there first or using your [00:38:00] ego as a weapon And I think that we're we're going there. We're getting to that place and I'm really happy about that. That's great. I agree 

Shannon Russell: I'd love to wrap things up by asking you What advice do you have for other women who are embarking on their second act and maybe even thinking about Going mobile and roaming and and taking this big life adventure.

What would your advice be? 

Julie Noonan: Oh my advice would definitely be your head what you think you want to do write it down read what you wrote every morning adjust it when you need to But write it as if it had already happened, which is what I did. I don't use a vision board, but I did. I wrote a story about what this was going to be like, Tom and I are sitting at our campsite with the fire going, with our bud and bud [00:39:00] light, 

Shannon Russell: my favorite 

Julie Noonan: and you know, enjoying the night air, et cetera, et cetera, not worried about finances, doing the work that we love to do enjoying our family. The girls come over with their significant others. We hang out. And then the next day we go and we explore National Park.

I wrote all of it out like in detail having that in my mind every day allowed me to when I looked at making a choice, allowed me to make that choice from that perspective and not my current perspective. So, is this a choice I would make if I was living on the road, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you focus on it enough, your choices and your decisions are going to point in that direction.

May not ever, may not be easy. It's not magical. It's just changing the way you think. So make your vision, 

Shannon Russell: make your vision. That is beautiful. And then you're right. The more you visualize it and plan it out, [00:40:00] the sooner it really becomes more tangible than you had ever imagined. 

Julie Noonan: Yeah, yeah, it really forced me.

Particularly I'm not great at financial management. I have to say numbers. I don't do numbers. But anyway 1 thing that it really helped me do was pay down that debt. It made me much. more eager to get that done. 

Shannon Russell: You had that goal. Because I wasn't 

Julie Noonan: living for that right, that immediate thing. I was really living for where we are now.

So 

Shannon Russell: I love everything that you've done and that you're working towards. It's so it's so inspiring. But Julie, I want to make sure that my audience can connect with you. So what are the best places for them to find you, listen to you, all of the things? 

Julie Noonan: LinkedIn is number one. You can find me Julie Noonan.

And then if you want to, to listen to the podcast or watch the podcast, it's on YouTube. Just, [00:41:00] just search for roaming with restless, restless women. And then also it's on the major podcast channels Apple iTunes, Spotify. All those. Great. 

Shannon Russell: Great. And I'll link to those and your businesses and everything in the show notes.

And Julie, this is so wonderful. We really could have talked all day. So I want to let you go, but I appreciate you taking time on the road, to share your journey with us and inspire others. Thank you so much. Thank 

Julie Noonan: you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. 

Thank you for joining us. I hope you found some gems of inspiration and some takeaways to help you on your path to second act, success. To view show notes from this episode, visit second act success.co. Before you go, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss a single episode. Reviews only take a few moments and they really do mean so much.

Thank you again for listening. I'm Shannon Russell. And this is [00:42:00] second act success.