#NicheStory with Stacy Campesi, Life Coach

Tune in on Tuesday July 29th at 7:30pm EST, as Kevin O'Connell invites Stacy Campesi, owner of SLC Coaching, a coaching & seminar company to this month's #NicheStory. Stacy will reveal strategies to help get you "unstuck" in your life or career, help you discover your values, and what work environment is best for you. Stacy was born and raised in New Jersey but is currently living in the Washington, DC metro area with her husband Chris and fur-baby Baxter.  She is a self proclaimed “foodie” and is constantly seeking out the newest and best local food trucks to try.

Stacy is a huge supporter of The Niche Movement and shares the same passion: helping young professionals who are stuck in dreadful jobs find passion and fire in their career again. She knows firsthand that navigating the “real-world” as a young professional isn’t easy.  She worked in the nonprofit industry for over 7 years before deciding to make an impact on the world in a different way and became a professional coach.

Stacy loves working with clients who are victims to corporate culture and constantly feel angry, hopeless, and physically exhausted. By cutting through the uncertainty, self-doubt, and fear of change that holds them back, Stacy is able to help her clients make decisions that get them what they want, without compromising a thing!

In addition to her coach training through the Institute of Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC), Stacy holds a B.A. in Sociology and an M.A. in Leadership. She is certified as an Energy Leadership Master Practitioner and is a member of the International Coach Federation.

Follow along and connect with us:

Join the conversation at #NicheStory

Tweet Kevin, Stacy or The Niche Movement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sklV_vZ89zw

Day 30 - I Found My Niche

Have you ever worked on something that you become so passionate about that you can’t put it down? You know, the projects and pieces of “art” that don’t feel like work. After writing 29 blog posts over the last month, I can answer this question confidently saying “Yes - I know exactly how this feels.” During this entire journey, I looked forward to writing each post. All of the people I talked about are incredible and have taught me two major things:

1. Hustle and

2. take the risks to go all in.

As for learning to hustle… Writing has been fulfilling, but not easy. After a full days work, I used every last inch of my spare time writing. The comments and encouragement made the difference so don’t ever think your comment, no matter how small it may appear, didn’t matter- it did (and continues to matter). Writing each story about the people in my life that always went above and beyond in their work has inspired me during the most difficult days over the last month. If I learned anything from the people I’ve written about, it’s that if you want to achieve your most ambitious dreams you need to be willing to put in the work.
As for going all in… If you’ve been reading the posts in this series you’ve heard of mentors, friends, and family members that went all in to support me and believe in me. You’ve heard about the brave people I am lucky enough to call friends and family that went all in on their dreams. Writing their stories was exactly what I needed to summon the courage for what I am about to share with you. It’s time for me to go all in.
I want to dedicate my career to helping others find their niche, and here is how I plan to start.

#1 Launch a Kickstarter campaign to fund the first book dedicated to ending employment unhappiness

. The incredible stories I have shared over the last 30 days need to be shared with the world. I will take all of the posts that I have written and string them together by infusing advice from experts, new approaches to career exploration, and inspirational stories from others that have found their niche. The working title is The Niche Movement: The New Rules to Finding the Career You Love. Want to learn more?

Check out the campaign! It is live on Kickstarter until August 12th!

How you can help: While so many of you have helped so much just by supporting this blog series, I thank you in advance for any support you offer as I begin this exciting journey.

• If you feel moved to donate (and are financially able to do so), that is the best way to help.
• Equally as helpful, would be sharing the campaign with your network. To make this easy for, I created this page with four different ways to share including pre-made social media posts and other good links.
• Lastly, we are already working to be featured in a number of publications over the next 30 days, but if you have any contacts in the press/media please let me know how I can best reach out to them with this story.

#2 Help people identify career opportunities they are not finding through conventional career sites and job boards.

The Niche List will be an email subscription that people can join for FREE to receive a curated list of jobs in the startup community and with companies that have a great culture but are not on traditional job boards or recruiting at career fairs. I will also include career advice and identifying additional resources for those in the job search. If you or anyone you know is job searching, signup here.

How you can help: If you know someone job searching, send them the link!

#3 Launch a series of innovative career exploration events.

Starting this fall, I will be collaborating with a variety of organizations to host events and help people find their niche. The events will flip the career fair model, and help this generation find a job they love. Last week, we confirmed the date and location for the first event. We will be collaborating with the team of Bold: Get Noticed, Get Hired on September 17th at Venture for America in NYC. More details will follow in the next month, but this will be the first of several Niche Movement events and programs we hold.

How you can help: If you are interested in collaborating on an event or know an organization that might be a good fit for a sponsorship (we’ll be attracting recent grads and young professionals), you can connect them with me so that we can work together to help people find the career they love.

#4 Help organizations spread their message with high quality social media strategies, photo and video.

This one may seem like a weird fit as it doesn't mention career exploration in the title. However, I firmly believe that businesses, individuals, and organizations on a college campus, all have a message. That message is amplified when you match high quality video/photo/creative with a well crafted social media strategy. If people are going to find the jobs they love, then organizations will need to tell their story to attract those individuals. I want to use my talents in this area to help people and organizations craft and amplify their message to the world.

How you can help: If you know a business, individual or organization that could benefit from high quality video, photo, or social media content matched with strategies to build a sustainable social media presence please connect them with me. Do you believe we can rewrite the path to employment happiness for this generation? If so, join me in creating the first of many potential solutions for young people to find the work they love. https://bitly.com/nichekick

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I truly want to thank all of you who have rallied around this. I met every word and I can’t believe where this journey has continued to take me.

I have to give a huge shoutout to Camille Sennett, a Rutgers alum, that now works at West Virginia University. Camille is an amazing young professional who is not only a Niche Movement contributor, but the backbone of this Kickstarter campaign. In less than 4 weeks, Camille took on a marketing and press plan that will hopefully lead this to successful campaign. If you’re looking for a go-getter who is self motivated and creative writer then please connect with her.

Second, I can’t leave out my wonderful wife Courtney. She was there every single morning and night as I wrote. She was my proofreader, my soundboard, and the fuel to my fire. Thank you.

#NiceStory with the authors of BOLD: Get Noticed, Get Hired

On Tuesday July 1st at 7:30pm EST, Kevin O'Connell, founder of the Niche Movement, presents a on-air interview with Melanie Feldman and Josh Siva, authors of BOLD: Get Noticed, Get Hired. This book was written to tell the inspirational stories of those who have been there before. We will talk about REAL strategies on how to stand out, create a strategy to land interviews, and how Melanie and Josh wrote this book. 

Joshua Siva is a Procurement and start-up professional from Buffalo, NY. He loves creating new things, watching college basketball (Go Pitt!), and traveling the world.

Melanie Feldman is a Media and start-up enthusiast from Honolulu, Hawaii (Alhoa!). She loves meeting new people, living in NYC, working at Undertone, and playing volleyball.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RawqvJL_xVw

Hosted by Kevin O’Connell, founder of the Niche Movement.

 Join the conversation…

Use #nichestory to participate in the Twitter convo, and if you have a question for Laura be sure to use #nichestory so we can ask it live on air!

@nichemovement @koco83

@boldjobbook

Day 12 - Build Your Network Before You Need It

While working at Centenary College from 2006-2008 I worked hard to build a foundation to build a Recreation department rather than just the intramurals programming I was hired for. When I started, the college had a new gymnasium and recreation center under construction but vision was to offer open recreation, intramural programming, trips and special events. Outside of my colleagues, I needed some help.

After doing some research, I came across NIRSA (National Intramural Recreation Sports Association), the professional development and governing body of collegiate Recreation professionals. Luckily, in February of 2007, I discovered Rutgers University was hosting a NJ NIRSA State Workshop. I registered myself and five of our student employees and this was the start of my professional involvement in NIRSA. I met several colleagues like Diana Clauss from Rider, Jess Ward from Rutgers, and John Mazurri from Stevens Tech.

Less than a year later I attended the Region 1 conference in Ithaca, NY where I brought four of our student leaders who were really interested in going into campus recreation. We got up there early to attend the pre-conference Student Lead-On portion, and I had registered all of us for the mentor-mentee program. Even though I was a professional staff, I wanted a chance to meet some other colleagues so I was excited to participate as well. That afternoon I found out I was paired with Jess Ward, the Intramural Coordinator at Rutgers.

Jess’ welcoming personality and genuine effort to introduce me to other RU alumni that were now in the field and other intramural professionals up and down the east coast has been invaluable to my career. I decided at that conference to volunteer and join a committee to help carry out the 2008 state workshop at Rider University. I had a chance to work with Jess and some other great colleagues while presenting my first workshop. At this point, I was continuing to grow our programming at Centenary while growing my network.

A short time later, I reached out to Jess about an open position within Rutgers Recreation. I applied to the job in December of 2007 but didn’t hear anything until May 2008 when I was invited for an interview for the Special Events position. It turns out, after talking with Jess, she kept me in mind and helped get my resume to the top. Long story short, I interviewed and didn’t get the position. It was ok - I got some experience and got my foot in the door meeting more professionals.

I was sure to send thank you notes to everyone I met and a few months later, I was told there was an opening for Intramural Coordinator. It turns out this was Jess’s position as she was leaving to work at Princeton University. When she was leaving, she was asked if she knew of any candidates she would recommend and she brought my name up again to her boss Paul Fischbach.

That saying, “everything happens for a reason” may be a cliche, but I went on two interviews and landed a job in August 2008 at Rutgers Recreation as their Intramural Coordinator. I owe a sincere thanks to Jess Ward for always helping me out. I remember the day I accepted, my new boss Paul called me that Friday evening to welcome me aboard - a nice gesture I still think about today.

Paul has had an influential role in helping me find my niche as he shares the same values in student development. He always looked out for me and to this day he still introduces me to anyone he knows at Rutgers. Even though I was working as the Intramural Coordinator it was an avenue to facilitate student leadership, development and offer innovative programming to the university population. Paul gave me the opportunity to be hands-on and foster a community on the Livingston campus.

Taking this job and leap into a large public university and department has been one of the best transitions that set up the next few posts in my series.

How They Inspired Me:

In this new role at Rutgers, I was able to combine my passions of programming and development with my knowledge of leadership to facilitate a community where college students could learn real-world skills. Paul always said that we helped develop and bring students together and that recreation just got in the way.

What They Taught Me:

The one thing I learned from both Paul and Jess is to always have a caring and genuine personality and help be a connector.

#NicheTip:

Take advantage of mentor-mentee programs, and professional development opportunities. Rutgers University gets about 200-250 applicants per job opening in the student affairs division. If you don’t know someone it can be very difficult to get your foot in the door. That being said, don’t just network to network. My relationship with Jess wasn’t around getting some job, it was about learning how to build my program at Centenary bigger and better. Authenticity and integrity when connecting with others is critical.

Day 10- Learning Relational Leadership

As I mentioned in day nine’s post, I switched directions and instead of using my marketing degree and going into corporate, I started  working at Centenary College in August of 2006. The job at Centenary gave me the opportunity to build their campus recreation program from the ground up, develop student leadership initiatives, build a network of other student affairs professionals and work with incredible college students. In addition, this job allowed me to go back to school and earn a masters. Now, I didn’t jump right into a masters program - partly because I only started working there in August and it was difficult to enroll and be accepted that fall. Luckily, this timing allowed me some time to determine if I wanted to get an MBA or a Masters Degree in Education. In all honesty, I needed a few more months to clear my head of four straight years of college classes.

By that October though I started finalizing my options because a few of my colleagues, including my boss Kristen McKitish, recommended an amazing program to earn a masters in Leadership and Public Administration. She said the professors were some of the best professors she ever had and she had applied a lot of what she learned everyday. I applied, was accepted and signed up for my first class - Advanced Written Communication. This course was taught by Jeff Carter. It was a requirement in the program because of intensive writing required in order to successfully complete the program (when I completed the degree I had a portfolio of my papers from the ten classes in a four inch binder).

Jeff Carter was by far one of the best professors in the program. He was down to earth, treated us like adults and was one of the most efficient and well-prepared professors I ever had. I succeeded in the next 9 classes because of the discipline and attention to detail he instilled on the class. Our very first class he told us we would be writing a 20-30 page paper which I thought was a daunting task. However, he taught us how to research, how to write accurately in APA style, and chunk your writing instead of waiting until the last minute.

In addition to Jeff’s teaching skills, he captured my attention every class for each of the three courses I took with him. He was a retired police captain and was attaining his doctorate degree where he was doing a dissertation on Toxic Leadership. He matched the style of Ann Huser and Hart Singh, two of my favorite FDU professors, because he brought real-world examples into every classes.

What they taught me:

A lot of what Jeff Carter taught me has framed my leadership style: relational leadership. He was one of the main reasons I succeeded when it came to writing and presenting in each class as well as creating an engaging environment that made me want to go to every single class.

How they inspired me:

In a professional setting, Jeff has influenced me to be the best leader I can and provide the resources for those around me. In an academic setting, I strive to be a professor one day. His presentation style and ability to engage with his audience has spilled over into my presentation style.

#NicheTip:

When you are in a position of leadership, don't stand on a pedestal. People want to connect and relate to you, so give them stories and open yourself up to be able to do that.

Learning to write and present is so important for someone that is carving out their niche. Look for any opportunity to fine tune those skills. This will ensure that when you have figured out what your message is to the world, that you have the skills to share that message.