Lata: What is all of those gifts that they have that are really unique to them. Everybody has that. Everybody has a unique path. Everybody has unique experiences, skills, hobbies, interests, passions that they are able to use to actually create that kind of almost like a melting pot that create that is their unique selling proposition and their expertise. But for a lot of women that I work with, they don’t even see the expertise that they haven’t even reached that first step, which is recognizing just how much experience they have, just how much expertise they have. They don’t need to go out and get another degree. They don’t need to go out and get another certification of a course. Like, they literally have all of this experience and expertise behind them.

Lata: And it really just comes down to confidence and really seeing themselves for who they truly are.

Stacy: Welcome. Welcome. I’m so excited to be here today to talk about a topic that I talk about all the time with aspiring authors, with clients, with colleagues, and that is around change and freedom. A lot of the people that I work with are people who have hit a certain, not maybe like a ceiling in their career. They’ve hit the place where they were aiming for. Maybe they ended up in the C suite or they had a certain level of expertise and they get there and they look around and they’re like, okay, I made it, quote unquote, now what?

Stacy: And a lot of the people that I get the honor of working with are then looking out and saying, okay, what’s next? And that often looks like an impact goal. And for many people, that looks like starting their own business. Building a business that is location, independent and traveling and doing work that really aligns with their expertise, but also their mission and purpose in the world. That is a big change and that requires a lot of bravery, a lot of introspection and a lot of really stepping into a new way of thinking and a new way of operating in the world. And that’s why I am so excited to introduce this week’s guest. Latte Hamilton is a change leadership and confidence mentor, author of Pioneering your career Change and the creator of the leading successful change program.

Stacy: After tripling her salary in just three years to almost $200,000, her mission is to help women carve their own paths for change in career, leadership and life and find the confidence and authenticity to truly earn their worth. Lata has worked with some of Australia’s biggest companies on changes that have impacted over 100,000 people, operating model changes impacting thousands, global cultural transformations and digital transformation that is changing the way we work. Welcome Lat. I’m so excited to get to speak with you today.

Lata: Hi Stacy, it’s so great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Stacy: Change is a big topic and we’re going to be looking more at the personal side and how you make changes that lead into personal freedom. I would love to learn a little bit of your backstory and what led you into this work that you do today. I mean, I imagine that there was maybe a young pivot point and maybe a later in your life point of awareness. So maybe you can tell us a bit about your backstory and the work you do today.

Lata: Yeah, sure. So I did meeting communications at university and I sort of thought, not that I really wanted to go into journalism or like the news or anything like that, but it was a very journalism heavy degree. But I was actually more interested in sort of the creative side, like the digital side, websites and, you know, online TV and radio and magazines and things like that. But then when I came out of my university degree, I was like it was so journalism heavy. And yeah, there just wasn’t a lot of job security. There wasn’t great pay in sort of that field. And so I ended up moving into advertising, worked there for a little bit and again the pay was quite low.

Lata: So I actually moved into marketing where that was kind of my first corporate role and I spent a couple of years in marketing and then somebody was like to me, oh, I think you’d make a really great change manager. Because I was kind of thinking to myself, where do I go next? And you know, like, I guess for me being compensated fairly and appropriately and adequately for the work that I do was really important. And so moving into organizational change management, which is a highly Paid female dominated career was absolutely everything. Like that literally was life changing. I tripled my salary in the space of three years to almost $200,000. And then that’s probably what really set me up with the ability to choose what that next step would be.

Lata: So if you don’t know what it is, organizational change management is moving people from doing things in one way to doing things new way. And we do that through communications training and business readiness. So I was doing that in organizations, in corporates, working on really massive organizational changes and helping the people get informed, inspired, confident and ready. But at the same time, around sort of that same time period, I actually became a neuro linguistic programming, so nlp, neuro linguistic programming practitioner and coach. So I sort of had this side hustle going like as I was building that change management career, I’d actually started it in marketing and then as I moved into change management, so as I was building that change management career I had this side hustle.

Lata: But what I was finding was that because I was working full time, I would spend you know, like all my like evenings and weekends and I didn’t even have that many clients. I think it just felt like I was just constantly working on the weekends and on the evenings and really just burning myself out and again, sort of like not making enough money from my side hustle to actually make that worth it. So then when I was, I think I was kind of making like, I don’t know, like. So in my career I was making like almost $200,000 a year. But then in my side hustle, even though I was spending all this extra time, I think it was like 12,000, 13,000, 14,000. So I was like what am I doing it all for?

Lata: And even a couple of roles, I worked four days a week. I didn’t take a pay cut to work four days a week. I actually, there were different ways that I was able to do it. One way was that one organization that I worked with allowed you to accrue minutes. So I would just work extra on four days of the week. And that gave me a day off per week to work in my side hustle. And another time it was because I was on this really generous day rate contract and that meant that I could earn, you know, the equivalent of a great full time salary while traveling overseas and working four days a week most of that year. But it was still so much and I was still burning out.

Lata: And so I was kind of about maybe four or five years into my change management career and really loving it. And what I really found was that colleagues who had been working in change management for so much longer than me, like for years, sometimes longer than me, they would be like, how do you do what you do? And I was like, doesn’t everybody do it this way? Like, like I don’t know, like, I’m like doesn’t everybody do it like this? And they’re like no. And I realized it was because I was bringing that neuro linguistic programming and that coaching into the change management work. And nlp, like kind of really briefly, it’s the study of excellence in behavior, communications and psychology or our emotions. And so with NLP we can do really incredible things.
Lata: But when you go and do become like do NLP training, it’s to become a practitioner, like working one one with people and maybe in groups, but sort of more like a therapeutic setting, like more of a coaching setting. And I was also an accredited coach as well. But because I had built those skills in my side hustle, I was just naturally bringing them into my change leadership work. And so I was using different practices that get really to the heart, like really engaging the hearts and minds of people, really tapping into people’s subconscious and unconscious, really articulating benefits in such a powerful way that there was this emotional reaction and emotional connection. And that’s why people were like, how do you do what you do? I had this like marketing background. So everything was really creative and fun and vibrant.

Lata: But then I had this real sort of substance, emotional substance behind it. So I, because I had so many people asking me like how do you do what you do? I ended up running a pilot for a course on change management. So that was my leading successful change program. And because I was working five days a week in COVID 19, because I was working from home. So I had saved all the travel time. I had built up like a really good cash buffer. Like I built up like $200,000 in savings. And then I ran this pilot and it was just so successful this pilot.

Lata: It was small, but it was really successful where I literally just taught people how to do change management delivery in a really practical, fit for purpose way and how to make the career change if they wanted to interchange management or just bring change management into their leadership. So that kind of is what gave me the confidence, I really think to make that leap. And I in July 2021 I finished my last change management contract. I was already, you know, at sort of like the change lead role. So I was getting quite senior and I was kind of looking at the people who were ahead of me. And I was like, I don’t want to be them, like 5, 10, 15, 20 years time. Like I don’t want to be starting work at 7am, I don’t want to be on calls at 10pm at night.

Lata: And like I was like, how can I set my life up differently so that I had that freedom and I had that choice and I had that flexibility in lifestyle. So it might not necessarily be that I work less, it’s just that I get to choose when I work. Like I’m doing this call, you know, on a, on in the evening. But that’s fantastic because I got to choose to do that and I take a lot of other time off during the day, during the week, during the month and during the year. I usually take December, January off from my business and from consulting clients. And then I usually do a trip to Europe in the European summer. So sort of June, July, August time every year. So it’s that kind of that choice, that flexibility.

Lata: So I finished my last contract, I spent some time creating the course and launched that in August 2021. And then I kicked off my own consultancy, my own independent change management consultancy in October 2021. And I’ve been going in that ever since. And I actually just won best independent Consulting Consultant from the Change Awards 2025. So a few weeks ago I won that.

Stacy: That’s incredible. I bet that felt amazing. After your journey to get that acknowledgement, it’s interesting. As I was listening to you tell your story, I was thinking about my own story and how it parallels with yours. And just this morning I was thinking about. I was doing yoga on my. We have an upstairs patio here in our home in Portugal and I was just doing a little yoga before I started my day, after I dropped the kids off at school. School and I was thinking about how at this stage of my life, as much as I. I still work really hard and I value, you know, my hard work. I’m also really protective of my energy and that choicefulness.

Stacy: And when you were talking about, you know, these like the hustle that you were doing without much return, it brought me back to this moment. I’ve talked about this on the podcast, but before when I was pregnant with my first child and it was like 10, 11 o’ clock at night and I was going to emcee an awards ceremony the next day and I had volunteered to like put names on the awards like the plaques on the awards. And I was super pregnant and I was so tired and I was like, what am I doing with my life right now? And, and yet also it, I, as I was thinking this morning during my yoga, we also, I think, have to go through these stages. And your career maturity and your development as a professional evolves over time.

Stacy: So you do have these periods where you have to hustle, like it’s part of your journey and your career. And then there’s these places where you need to start to recognize that you have more margin and that you can make some change. This is where I think a lot of people miss because they don’t read the room. Like, they don’t lift their head up and go, I don’t have to do this anymore. Like, I am at a place where I have the expertise, I have the margin, I have the ability. But they’re feeling like stuck or stymied. You know, they’re like not loving life. They’re apathetic and they know that they need to change, but they kind of aren’t recognizing the choicefulness that’s available to them. I’m sure you meet a lot of people like that.

Stacy: What would you advise somebody who’s in that place where they’re feeling that, but they haven’t yet kind of clicked into the energy of moving into the next place in their life.

Lata: Yeah, I mean, I guess for me, a lot of my community and followers and students, they’re more looking for career change. I think it is a really big leap to then actually start your own business, to move into entrepreneurship, to become an independent consultant particularly. And you know, independent consulting is quite an important term. Like it’s growing independent consulting, fractional consulting. In some countries it’s called freelancing. And I think it’s just going to grow and it’s just going to explode and expand because companies need, and clients need us to work like, sort of faster and get results faster than being able to spend six months or 12 months working on a project or an initiative or a change. So I can see it just growing and expanding.

Lata: Saying that, like, I feel like we’re kind of at the forefront of that wave where probably not at the bleeding edge because there’s been plenty of consultants before us, but definitely at the leading edge of kind of this new wave of sort of consultants. And it takes a lot of courage, I think, to make that leap. And for me, what I notice, you know, most of my students, clients, community are women. That’s definitely who I focus on and serve. And for a lot of them, they just don’t even have the awareness of their own expertise and experience. They can’t see the value that really they can provide.

Lata: And because I run this retreat, the Instant Change consultant retreat, where I sort of am helping them work through what is all of those gifts that they have that are really unique to them because like, the same way that I had that advertising marketing background and then the NLP and coaching that I brought into my change leadership to create this kind of new flavor of how to do change and how to lead change, everybody has that. Everybody has a unique path. Everybody has unique experiences, skills, hobbies, interests, passions that they are able to use to actually create that kind of almost like a melting pot that create that is their unique selling proposition and their expertise. But for a lot of women that I work with, they don’t even see the expertise.

Lata: They haven’t even reached that first step, which is recognizing just how much experience they have, just how much expertise they have. They don’t need to go out and get another degree. They don’t need to go out and get another certification of a course. Like, they literally have all of this experience and expertise behind them. And it really just comes down to confidence and really seeing themselves for who. Who they truly are. And that’s kind of. I guess what I will often do is give them that boost of confidence, that courage, that support to help them see what value they actually bring to the table and then help them craft that into what they want to do moving forward. The interesting part, I think, is that I’ve had men in sort of program transformation, change management. It.

Lata: Some have even been my own clients, like my own consulting clients. And often they’re sort of Gen X, so a bit kind of older. Like, I’m Gen Y, they’re often Gen X and they’re looking at me and like, I inspire a lot of Gen Y women to have the kind of lifestyle that I have. Like, they. They’re like, so impressed by the lifestyle and the way I show up. But it’s really interesting that a lot of these men are the ones who actually are reaching out to me to go, oh, I’m really interested in actually having that lifestyle. So I don’t know whether it’s an age thing and a gender thing, but it’s happened at least three times. And I have had women do it as well, because most of my marketing is women.

Lata: But I just find it really interesting that, you know, when I don’t center men in my work, I find it really interesting that at least three different men that I know from three different arenas have reached out personally to me. Sort of curious about how I made that move and whether or not they could do it too.

Stacy: Yeah, it’s interesting. I find that I do tend to work more with women these days than I did in the past, which is kind of interesting because in the early days, my business was mostly men, and then that shifted to being. It’s kind of shifted a little, but I still have a pretty healthy male clientele. But what I’ve noticed about the men that tend to come into my ecosystem is that they. They seem to be like a certain brand of men. Like, they’re more open, they’re curious, they’re. They’re very like, in touch with themselves and really seeking personal development, personal change. And it’s. And it’s kind of beyond the. It’s almost like, you know, how I’ve noticed that women, when we seek out, you know, personal development content, a lot of that is inward.

Stacy: Like, we are really trying to kind of understand ourselves better, work on ourselves, show up in a bigger, better way or more aligned way or whatever that is for the individual. Whereas I’ve noticed that a lot of men tend to consume content that is around, like, practical, logistical things that they change in their lifestyle. It just seems to be an interesting. An interesting break between the type of content that the genders, our genders consume. Not across the board, but I have noticed that a lot of the men that I end up working with or that come my direction, they’re like, kind of blurring those lines. Like they’re still interested in this one side, but also the internal part. What I think is interesting, and this leads me into my next question, is that there are some practical things, too.

Stacy: A lot of it is around confidence. I know that’s a lot of what you. What you teach, what you coach on, but also it requires action. Like all of these, all of the things that we’re talking about today does require some practical things, some ways that you need to show up, some ways that you need to take action. And I’m curious if you could offer a couple of things to our listeners that they could start to do or start to think about or start to take action on if they are interested in change, Whether that’s stepping into consulting or making a career change or shifting something in their personal life.

Lata: Yeah, absolutely. I think one big one that was quite funny for me was before I sort of started my consultancy and I thought it would be really smart to put, like, some branding on my car because I was Always driving around Sydney. And so I was like, okay, I’m going to put like the brand name of my business Passion Pioneers. I’m going to put that on the back of my car. And I was like, who are the kinds of clients that I want? Who is the kind of people? And so I had this stock image of this kind of youngish lady in a suit kind of like there and then like my brand name Passion Pioneers. And one day my friend is like, to me, like, he’s got an Indian background and I’m. I look Indian, but I’m actually adopted from India.

Lata: So I was raised in a white Australian family. But he goes to me one day, he’s like, why is there a white lady on the back of your car? And like just that one thing. I was like, oh, yeah. Like, why is there a white lady on the back of my car? Like, I actually consider myself inverted commas, white because. Because I did grow up in a white Australian family. But I don’t know what it was. Like, it just like, why isn’t that my face? Why. Why am I not being visible in my own business? And really, like, that was kind of probably a big turning point for me.

Lata: Like, another thing that I used to have was when I worked back in marketing, I was working at a bank and I was working in the marketing team at the bank and they did all of our headshots, you know, like they did for the whole team. So we could put it on internal Internet. It was beautiful photo like this. This colleague of mine was amazing photographer. But I straightened my hair that day and I had like a black dress and like a gold necklace and I straightened my hair and I look completely different with straight hair. If you’re listening to this podcast, my hair at the moment is freshly washed and blow dried. It’s like curls galore.

Stacy: It’s beautiful.

Lata: I love it going on, like very bouncy and very full. But in my head back then I was like, you know, to be taken seriously in career in corporate, like, I need to look. This image is kind of like, you know, black dress, straight silky hair. And I had that as my LinkedIn photo up until I started my own consultancy. And then I changed it to like a picture that has me in a bright, colorful dress, which is what I pretty much wear all the time, is bright colors and really long flowing curls. And I actually just took the branding off my car. But if you go to my website or you go to my LinkedIn or my Instagram or just anywhere, like, you’ll See photos of me.

Lata: And I think that’s a really like big first point is like, if you’re trying to, even if you don’t know if you want to do it in the future, there is no harm in building your personal brand now. And a big part of that is people seeing who you are because that is ultimately who they’re going to be working with. That is who they’re going to be learning to, like, how to trust. And that is who they want to be served by. They want to be served by you in all of your unique glory and authenticity. So it’s that and another big one as well. Like, kind of like a stepping stone to getting there is in your LinkedIn profile. If you don’t have. First of all, if you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, get a LinkedIn profile. If you. It’s free.

Lata: As far as I know, at this point in time, I pay for premium, but you don’t have to pay for premium. It is literally the best and biggest professional networking platform in the world. And it’s not as saturated as other social media platforms. But also it’s like that is the first place that people will go often and it ranks really highly in search engine results as well. So if you don’t have a LinkedIn profile. Oh, or again, you don’t have your photo and your LinkedIn profile, I mean, that might be a privacy personal choice, whatever’s going on for you. But it’s like, get that LinkedIn profile. Your career history in LinkedIn can just be your job titles, but your headline on LinkedIn can be anything you want it to be, absolutely anything you want it to be.

Lata: So you can put into your headline where you want to go, the path that you want to go down, whether that’s a career change, whether that’s, you know, starting your own business, moving into your own independent consultancy, whatever it is, you can craft that headline to be whatever you want. And as you start doing that, two things happen. One, you start becoming part of that identity that you’ve now put out into the world because people see you as that. And then whenever you see your see that written there for yourself, like, let’s just say for me it might be like change leadership and confidence, mentor. Let’s say I put that into my headline. It’s almost like that self reinforcing. Sorry, rein. Self reinforcing. Self fulfilling prophecy. But the other thing as well is that people start to see you as that.

Lata: Even if you don’t yet, people will start to see you as that so like for example, like if I’m helping people make the move into change management, I’ll often just be like, put the word change in your headline somewhere. You’ll come up in search results. People will just automatically link that word change to you even if you’re not currently working in change. Like your title in change might be Change manager, but in your headline you can absolutely say, you know, like leading organ, like leading, like passionate about leading change. It’s not lying. You are passionate about leading change even if you don’t have that formal title or even if you haven’t started that consulting business yet or whatever it is for you, whatever that change is that you want to make.

Lata: So I would really say like those are two of the really basic things that you can do. And then just starting to share or just commenting even on other people’s posts that are in your industry and in your area, it just starts to build up that personal brand and that level of expertise and starts to get you recognized and visible in front of the people who you know, could either be your future employer or could be your future clients.

Stacy: I love all these examples and it’s, I mean what I’m hearing is you’re curating your story or you’re telling your own story for other people. And it’s interesting that you brought up the photo piece too because I have seen with my clients across the board that they really don’t want to do their photos. So I’m always super excited about it because I have a vision for them of like, you know, I want you go do this lifestyle because we’re working on their books but I’m also guiding them and advising them on their author platform as they’re building it. So I’m like, okay, go do this lifestyle photo shoot. Here’s some things that you’ll want to capture. Let’s talk about where you’re going to do it. And it’s like I’ve literally more than once had people go just like make that sound at me.

Stacy: And I’m like, no, this is your opportunity to show who you are. And this online presence exists whether you curate it or not. If you’re non existent then the Google like or ChatGPT now will tell people about you. They will decide for you if you’re not curating. It’s been interesting lately because I’ve had a number of people find me through ChatGPT recently and that’s been an interesting experience because now we have this things scanning and multiple, you know, long language models, scanning the whole Internet and then curating for you. But they can either curate from what you’re putting out and shaping and telling and naming, or it can curate based on hardly anything or what other people have created. So I think, to your point, now more than ever, it’s even more important that we are putting our own messaging and our own stories.

Stacy: And I think for women especially, historically, we have been, like, we have allowed other. Not allowed is maybe not the right word, but we have been in a society where other people tell us where, like, what we can do and shape our stories for us. And this is really an act of personal autonomy and personal power, I think. To claim. To make a claim to tell your own story and to, like, boldly hold that for other people.

Lata: Yeah, absolutely. And also, I think it really comes back to what you were talking about in terms of how do you want to live your life? Like, I kind of say, like, career is the launch pad to the rest of your life because it allows you to set up your life and your lifestyle the way that you want. And so, like, I’ll often share parts of my lifestyle that in the past, I definitely would have just been like, oh, well, that’s only for Facebook. Well, that’s only for Instagram. When I share something about my personal life, like, a picture of me and like, a personal story, a personal anecdote, and then often ones where, like, there’s been a challenge or a failure or vulnerability or something like that, those are the posts that resonate the most with people on LinkedIn.

Lata: On LinkedIn, like a platform that you think is completely professional. It’s like, those are the. Those are the posts that get the most traction because it. Regardless of what arena you’re showing up in, people are people, humans are humans, and they want that connection. They want to know that you’re just a regular person, a normal human. And I went to a change management conference on Friday last week, and I had people coming up to me being like, oh, my goodness, is it you? Because they’ve only ever seen me and know me from LinkedIn, and they’re, like, fangirling over me and they’re like, I’m such a fan girl. And I’m like, oh, thanks. Hi. And the interesting thing is I get so many people being like, I feel like I know you.

Lata: I feel like I’m up to date with your life because of what you post on LinkedIn. And I’ve only just recently started posting my, like, professional and business stuff on my Instagram because I Wanted my Instagram to just be filled with my passions of flowers and food. And then I was like, well, you know what? Like my clients, my students, my community are here on Instagram too. I’m like, I might as well post the stuff that I’d Normally post on LinkedIn, like more of the business change, career confidence stuff. I might as well post that on Instagram as well. So now instead of there kind of being these two different parts of me or these two different sides of me, like the professional side and then the personal side, it kind of all melts and merges together.

Lata: And I think that’s really nice because like, Facebook is still just for family and friends and like, I, I don’t kind of like let a lot of people, but anybody can follow me on Instagram. But it’s really nice with like sort of the personal and the professional being blended together because it’s less work for me. Like, it’s easier for me to just be the same person across both platforms. It’s easier for me to just show up in one way, which is the way that I am. And you know, like were talking about me going to this Regency festival, sort of like a Bridgerton Jane Austen type themed festival that I’m going to this weekend, which is in full costume. So kind of like cosplay and yeah, like you asked, you know, like, are you going to post that on LinkedIn?

Lata: And I’m like, yes, like I will definitely be posting that on LinkedIn. Because as much as you think it doesn’t have anything to do with your like how you’re showing up professionally or in business, you know, like a lot of people out there, they kind of talk about this know like and trust factor. It’s helping people know like, and trust you. Like Denise Duffield Thomas talks about this and I don’t know, you know, plenty of other people probably do as well. It’s just helping to build that up and showing that you’re like this kind of rounded human and like that’s the kind of person that people want to work with. People want to work with people who are real. They don’t want to work with the robot, they don’t want to work with the chatgpt. They want to work with real people.

Stacy: It’s so true. And I think we crave that more and more actually as our world becomes more technologically dependent and connected. I know personally I’m feeling a lot of draw to in person experiences. I just went to a TEDx event here in my town yesterday and it was so nice to just sit and chat with new people and, you know, listen to new ideas and expand my thinking. I know so many of us are craving that. And you’re also, as you know, as I told you before we started recording, your Regency event sounds amazing and it’s inspiring me. Like, what would my version of that be? I have to think about it. Sounds awesome. I would love to shift gears a little bit and talk about your author journey, because so many of our listeners either want to write a book or they.

Stacy: Or they are authors. And actually a lot of what I specialize in is change through their books and helping them make a transformation or a shift into whatever that next thing is. So a lot of my clients are making the shift from corporate to being self employed and doing their own thing. Some people are really happy in their. In their leadership roles in whatever corporation or whatever nonprofit that they’re in, but they want to expand to a personal mission, for example, while still continuing on their career trajectory. And they want to really make a difference and make an impact. And in my experience, that journey of authorhood is one of the most introspective and meaningful experiences to help you really clarify your mission, your message, maybe not your mission.

Stacy: You might have that when you come in, but I mean, your messaging around that and how you communicate it to other people. I’m curious for you how your author journey has impacted your business, your work in the world, your impact. I’d love to hear about that.

Lata: Yeah. So my author journey. So I published my book pioneer your career change in November last year. It became a global bestseller on Amazon in Australia and the US In a few different categories. And people who have read it are like, I really liked it. And people who know me, like, including my own mother, were like, wow, it’s given me so much insight. Like, it’s helped me understand you better. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, people who have known me for years, sometimes my whole life, they’re reading it, going like, wow, I like, really get you now. And it was a very personal book. It actually started because I wanted to write my memoirs. I was like 30, and I was like, I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday.

Lata: How am I going to remember the first 30 years of my life? And so I was like, I’m going to write my memoirs. And I kind of just thought that I’d just publish my memoirs, like, self publish them. And I was like, yeah, whatever. Like, it wasn’t really a huge goal to be like a published Writer or published author. I just like. I was just like, I’ll just publish my memoirs, whatever. And as I wrote them, somebody actually in a group said to me, like, write your memoirs anyway, even if it’s just for you. Because I was trying to write my memoirs for a reader. And they said to me, they were like, just write your memoirs just for you.

Lata: And that was the best advice that I got given because I just wrote them down for myself whether or not they got published, whether or not they were ever read by anybody. It was so therapeutic and it was so healing and cathartic to just write out different stories. And what I did at the start of a notebook, I just put all the stories that I could remember and think of from my life that were kind of meaningful, worth remembering, whatever. And then I’d kind often write in the mornings and I would sit down to write and I would just look at the list of stories and I’ll just go, what do I feel like? Which one do I feel like writing today? And then I would just write that and then I’ll just do one story a day.
Lata: And then when I got about three quarters of the way through, I started getting this kind of almost this real momentum, itchy feet, urgent feeling that I wanted to start writing the book. And it was kind of like the energy was already there for the book. And so I actually paused my memoirs. I wrote, finished the stories that I knew I wanted to put in the book. So mostly career focused, but some of them were more personal. And I finished those stories and then I started writing the book. And the really interesting thing I. A friend of mine, a business buddy of mine, she gave me. Published by Chandler Bolt, she gave me that name.

Lata: And I read that book and it was so, so helpful because it really taught me how to like start a book from start to finish and how to actually get it to be a bestseller on Amazon. So I followed it quite religiously all the way through. But it also just really gave me that comfort, like confidence and comfort to, of what to do the book on. Because originally I just planned to do it on my memoirs. And that’s when I realized that I actually had so many of these stories and these themes and topics and stuff like that were really around career and around like, you know, I changed careers five times. By the age of 35, I got a pay rise every time I changed careers.

Lata: I pretty much almost immediately, from the moment that I moved into coaching and into my side hustle, I started focusing in, on career because that was the clients that I was attracting were often professionals who were wanting me, and they were men and women. And then I kind of more moved in towards women. That was what they really wanted. And then I’d moved into executive coaching, and then I’d sort of parked a lot of that and more focused on change management, change leadership, and helping people make the career change into change. So there was still a bit of a career change in what I was doing. But, like, my book, like, the kind of the content of my book was really like the five years prior, it was almost like stepping back in time.

Lata: But it was so beautiful because all that stuff really resonated. And I’d been talking about some of it in sort of 2018, 2019, about, you know, career change and job loss and things like that. And I feel like it was a bit too soon. Like, I was a bit ahead of the market and I was a bit ahead of the times. And then Covid happened, and now with AI and automation and the job loss, it’s kind of almost like this. This fresh time again to talk about the power of career change and the. The ownership that you can take and the freedom and the choice that you can really have when you take ownership of your own career and carve your own path. So that’s what I ended up writing the book on, was pioneer your career change.

Lata: But it really is a very personal book. Like, I talk about my adoption, I talk about relationships that I’ve had, I talk about becoming an NLP practitioner and coach. I talk about every career that I’ve had and the good and the bad and the ugly. And it was just really a beautiful book to write. And again, like, I never necessarily wanted to be a published author. I just. It kind of happened. And I was a bit naive about how much effort and work a book I would actually be. So having somebody like you, Stacy, I would recommend it because I actually was a bit naive. Like, I kind of just thought, oh, whatever, like, how hard can be, can putting a book together be? It was so hard.

Lata: I like, it was so much work and a lot and a really big investment of money and time and soul, and I’m so glad that I’ve done it. But, like, I was looking at potentially working with somebody on the publishing of my book, and they were like, oh, well, you can just do another one next year. I’m like, I am not doing another. Need at least a year’s break, especially because I still have not finished those memoirs. Like, the book took so much out of me. It was so much work. And because I did the audiobook, I released the audiobook two months later. Like it was just so much work to just get that published. But now it is published, it is out in the world.

Lata: And yeah, I do have ideas for other books in the future, but I’m just giving myself that little rest and that little break. But like, I would say that to everybody, whether or not you want to have your own business, whether or not you want to be a published author and sell books, like write your memoirs, write them for you. Like it’s not about writing them for anybody else. And here’s another tip that I would really recommend handwrite them because it changes the experience. And I really didn’t want to write them into Google because I didn’t want like the big ten companies reading my work. Like I kind of wanted it to be for me. And there were stories that will never be published that I wrote down in my memoirs. It was almost like, you know, Dear Diary, Dear Journal kind of thing.

Lata: And I didn’t want that actually on technology or on the interwebs or whatever, anywhere. I didn’t want anything in the future trolling that. I wanted those stories to just be for me. So hand write them because it’s so worth it, just doing that for yourself. But I would also just really say do it the way that you want and really think about what could happen with any stories that you do write down.
Stacy: I love that physical connection to writing and certainly we don’t do that enough. And I’ve had a few clients who really enjoyed handwriting some or most of their books and then, you know, putting it into word after. Of course it takes a lot longer if you know, if you’re a fast typer, I could type way, way faster than I could handwrite. But there’s certainly, you know, the tech thing is an interesting, that’s interesting. But there’s also that experience of writing. So I’m glad that you shared that. And I also echo, you know, your point about it being such a big effort. And I think that’s why, you know, authors are so excited when their book comes out, right?
Stacy: Because it’s, you know, the readers or the people that are following you, they just see that you have this beautiful book coming and they don’t see all of the mornings and all of the like overcoming self doubt and overcoming tiredness and like your brain deciding it doesn’t want to be able to read a sentence anymore. And like it does, you know, nobody sees all of that. But I think that’s also why when you get that book in your hands, your first copy, when you’re celebrating, like, it’s huge. It’s such a huge accomplishment.

Lata: Yeah. And I think exactly what you said. Like, people see the end product and they don’t realize just how long it’s taken to get there, just how much work’s gone in how many other hands touched it. Like, I had a whole team of people, you know, editors and book cover designers and things like that who helped me get it to market. Like it was still self published and I, I made sure I was the final reviewer of everything, but there was this whole team. Like I had. I hired a lawyer because I was talking about, you know, previous workplaces and employers and things like that. I hired a lawyer to flag any. Anything that could be, you know, troublesome in my book. So I had this whole team behind me.

Lata: And I think that was also what was really nice about it as well, was that it meant that you weren’t doing it alone. And, you know, if somebody was to hire you, for example, Stacy, it’s like you weren’t doing it alone in something that can feel very lonely and can feel very overwhelming and can feel very daunting. Having those partners, like the. My legal partner, I used Nina Rossi in, she’s based in Australia and she’s very much like an IP solicitor, but she does general law too. And I, oh, I can’t even remember my editor’s name, but I’ll have to flag her later. But you can find her on my LinkedIn or in the back of my book.

Lata: And yeah, like, I just, I really kind of like, so appreciated having those people, especially if they’ve done it before, because there’s so much that you don’t know. Like, I remember it was the night before I was flying. I was leaving for Christmas or something like that. And my audiobook producer, so the guy who had, you know, recorded on my audiobook and he edited it and everything like that. But I was doing the final review and I had to upload it onto the platform for audiobooks. And for some reason this one file, it just would not take it. And I was like tearing my hair out, I kid you not. It was like 8pm at night on like a Friday night before.

Lata: I’m about to fly out the next day for Christmas break and I’m like texting him going, please tell me what the problem is. Like, I have tried to put it through this converter and I’ve tried to do this and it just refuses to take it. And I could not publish the audiobook, like send it off for approval for publishing without this file. And he jumped on, like he was out and about or whatever. And he jumped on, fixed it, sent me a new file, I uploaded it and boom, it was done. And like that, like those little things that you don’t know about. The other thing that happened was when I went to put a book up in printing, I just thought it would be really nice to have cream colored pages.

Lata: And again, it bounced back at me like Amazon, kdp, like Kindle Direct Publishing bounced back at me saying, your book cover is the wrong size. I’m like, what? I’m like, I know this is the right size. I’ve given all the right measurements, I’ve gotten back the right files. So I asked the team who was doing my book cover design and they’re like, oh, did you choose cream colored pages? And I was like, yes. And they’re like, oh, yeah, that changes it. I’m like, who would know that? Like, nobody would know that the decision between cream pages and white pages is going to change the dimensions of the front cover.

Lata: So just having that team was like, really valuable because, yeah, there’s just a lot of little bits and pieces and things and it makes like a lonely, daunting process just that little bit less lonely and daunting.

Stacy: Yes. I’m so glad that you shared all of that. I’m sure that’s similar to how your clients feel when they come to work with you on something that’s huge for them. On the topic of books, I’ll ask you our question that we ask all of the guests, and that is if you could recommend one book to listeners, it’s one that has profoundly impacted your life, what would it be?

Lata: It would be the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. And the reason why is because magic always seems to happen whenever I read that book. So I once caught a flight and I was reading that book on the flight. And when I got off the flight, my very first NLP client had submitted an inquiry and that was the very first sort of NLP client who paid me. And so, yeah, every time I read it, I just like, magic happens. It’s like kind of almost like a manifestation tool for me. Stacy:
I love that. I love that book too. I taught it when I was a high school language arts teacher. Teacher before I moved into the work that I do now. And I taught that book to my 11th graders in the Dominican Republic. And yeah, it was such a profound it’s such a profound book because I feel like it’s so accessible even for kids. But then every time I reread it from a different life stage, I have a deeper experience with it. And I don’t think I’ve read now all of his books, but I’ve read most of his books as well and they’re always so insightful. So I love that you brought that up. Now I’m going to need to reread it and get my magic. I love, I love that idea. Lata, where can our listeners find you?

Stacy: I’m sure that they want to follow you on LinkedIn @lata hamilton. Where else can they find you? Learn more about what you do? Maybe, maybe if they’re interested in your retreat that you’re having this November 2025, tell them where to find you and how to reach out if they’re interested in connecting with you.

Lata: Yes. So absolutely do come find me on LinkedIn and you can find my book pioneer your career change on Amazon and on all audiobook platforms as well. And then yeah, if you want to kind of find out a little bit more about me, come to my website latahamilton.com I am running my Instant Change consultant retreat at the end of the year in November. The invitation period for that is going to open up in a couple of weeks time in May and it’s just really amazing.

Lata: Like if independent consulting is something that you want to move into and something that you want to do, like I really sort of take you all the way from like just starting and how to really like start and grow your own consultancy, but also how to really do it in a really authentic way and how to do it with confidence and how to do it with clarity and how to do it with authenticity and purpose and a real kind of worthiness behind it as well and a real sense of luxury.

Lata: And then I’d also just say like regardless of where you’re at, I would always recommend that people go and grab my underpaid and overlooked coaching action guide because while it is really focused on career, I just think that the process that I share, my five step career change process is so, so simple and so powerful that you can really use it for any change that you want to make in your life. So you can get that at latahamilton.com/worthit, because you are worth it.

Stacy: Oh I love that URL Lata, thank you so much. This was such a rich conversation. I really enjoyed connecting with you and I know you added a ton of value for our listeners and viewers today. So thank you for joining me.

Lata: You’re so welcome. Thanks for having me.

Stacy: And thank you to you, our listener, for joining us, for hanging out with us all the way till now the end of our conversation. I always am grateful for your time and energy and I know that you grabbed a lot of value today and I’m really glad to have you in our ecosystem. I want to thank as always Rita Domingues for her production of this podcast. She is absolutely the reason that you are listening or watching this right now. She makes sure everything gets out into the world with excellence and I am so grateful for her. And if you have 30 seconds, if you could just take a moment to rate and review this podcast or share this episode with a friend who has mention that she or he is ready for change, I would be so grateful.

Stacy: Sharing and Rating Reviewing the podcast makes a huge difference in helping me reach more listeners who want to build a life that’s not just better, but beyond better. And I will be back with you before you know it.