Episode #711 What If Your Good Life No Longer Feels Right? | Jackie Cote
“We have to learn how to operate without evidence.”
— Jackie Cote
Freedom Mentor • Coach • Podcast Host
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What happens when nothing is obviously wrong with your life, yet something inside keeps telling you there may be more? Jackie Cote believes that quiet awareness deserves our attention.
Episode Summary
A life doesn't have to be falling apart before you're allowed to question whether it still fits.
After 30 years in the restaurant industry, Jackie Cote entered a completely different chapter, building a coaching business, embracing entrepreneurship and eventually creating a lifestyle that allowed her to travel the country by RV. Yet underneath the career transition is a much deeper story about identity, control, receiving support and learning to trust yourself before you have evidence that everything will work out.
In this conversation, Jackie and Audley explore what freedom actually means from the inside out. Jackie shares why awareness creates choice, how her Awaken, Empower and Own philosophy continues to evolve, and why going back to a job or changing direction should never automatically be interpreted as failure.
They also explore something especially powerful: the courage to imagine a future that your current circumstances cannot yet prove is possible.
This is a conversation for anyone whose life may look good from the outside but who can feel an internal nudge asking, Is this still what I want? Listen in and consider what that voice might be trying to tell you.
Key Points:
KEY TAKEAWAY 1
Awareness creates choice. You cannot intentionally change something you haven't yet allowed yourself to see.
KEY TAKEAWAY 2
A decision isn't a failure simply because it changes. Returning to a job, adjusting a dream or choosing a different path can be part of moving forward.
KEY TAKEAWAY 3
Confidence often follows action rather than preceding it. Courage lets you move before confidence has enough evidence to catch up.
KEY TAKEAWAY 4
Freedom isn't only about money, location or escaping a job. It can also mean being able to feel, receive support, choose consciously and live without constantly asking permission.
Guest Bio
Jackie Cote is a Freedom Mentor, coach and host of the I Got It Girl Podcast. Before entering coaching, she spent 30 years in restaurant leadership and management, where mentoring, developing and believing in people became central to her work. Her professional biography says she transitioned out of the restaurant industry after losing her final restaurant position in 2018 and subsequently built Jackie Cote Coaching.
Today, Jackie helps people explore their own version of freedom through her Awaken, Empower and Own philosophy, with coaching focused on vision, identity, mindset, action and creating a life aligned with what matters to the individual. Her work includes individual coaching, group programs and the Destiny Makers community.
Her own journey has included entrepreneurship and RV living, giving her a personal connection to the questions of freedom, reinvention and choosing a life beyond the conventional path.
Audacious Insights
Blog Post: The Life You Chose Years Ago Doesn't Have to Become a Life Sentence
A choice can be completely right for one version of you and stop fitting the person you've become. Growth requires enough self-awareness to recognize that changing direction doesn't invalidate the choices that brought you here.
Special Offers
Destiny Makers
Jackie's resource hub brings together her coaching, Destiny Makers community, free intentional goal-setting training, podcast and ways to connect directly with her.
Personal Insights
Something Jackie said really stayed with me: we have to learn to operate without evidence. I think that's where so much of audacity actually lives.
It's easy to believe in yourself when the results are already sitting in front of you. The harder part is moving when you don't have the proof yet, when all you have is that awareness that something needs to change and a belief that something different might be possible.
I also appreciated where our conversation went around changing direction. Going back, pivoting or choosing something different doesn't automatically mean you've failed. Sometimes the most audacious thing you can do is stop measuring your life against somebody else's definition of what forward is supposed to look like.
Best Point of Contact
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#JackieCote #FreedomMentor #IGotItGirl #PersonalGrowth #LifeTransitions #SelfBelief #CareerChange #IdentityShift #FreedomLife #PersonalDevelopment #LiveWithIntention #AudaciousLiving #TheAudaciousLivingPodcast #LiveLifeAudaciously
