Ina Coveney I am joined by business coach Sindy Warren, and I can't wait to dive into her story with you. Hi, Sindy, thank you so much for being here.

Sindy Warren Hi, Ina! It's such an honor.

Ina Coveney So, Sindy, why don't you start by telling us what you do right now, and who you help right now.

Sindy Warren I help budding entrepreneurs start and grow successful side hustles in under five hours a week. And I do that in my group coaching program called Side Gig School. I also work with entrepreneurs of all sizes in my one-on-one coaching work. But really, what I am so fired up about is helping the newbie entrepreneurs.

Ina Coveney And I hear you because those are my people! Like, I love my newbies. We're gonna get into how you chose that niche, how you chose that audience. But first, I like to go way back and explain your background a little bit, because you actually went to Stanford Law School, right?

Sindy Warren I did.

Ina Coveney So, not everybody in coaching starts out this way. I want you to tell me the story. What were you doing at Stanford? What were you specializing in? And specifically, what did you think your life was going to be like when you were in school, studying law?

Sindy Warren Such great questions, and I'm so embarrassed to say that I don't know how many forward-thinking thoughts I had about what my life was going to look like as a lawyer. And why was I going to law school again? I think the beginning of my career was what I like to think of as unintentionally successful. I literally got good grades in college, so I got into a fantastic law school, did well there—law review, honors, all the things—got a great job, and just really, almost on autopilot, went into my professional life.

Ina Coveney Interesting.

Sindy Warren Now, I ended up practicing employment law for a very long time, which is a fascinating area. I really enjoyed it before I ever became an entrepreneur—which happened many years ago—before I became a coach. But one of the things that I really like to help clients with, and I think this fuels my coaching, is: don't be quite as unintentional as I was. Let's actually figure out your vision and your why. What do you want? Why do you want it? Versus, "I think I'm supposed to go to college next. Now I guess I'm supposed to go to law school. And now, okay, I'll go work for the big law firm," and so on and so forth.

Ina Coveney So we're gonna go just back in time, and I want you to embody that person that you were when you started working for the big law firms. What was life like then?

Sindy Warren Honestly, it was overwhelming. It was like, "Well, this is what I'm trained to do. Obviously no one forced me to go to Stanford. This is what I know how to do. These are all the loans I've amassed. So, this is my choice." And the practice of law is not for the faint of heart. No one goes into law firm life knowing what they need to know. They don't teach that in law school. So I think the first couple of years working as a lawyer at a big, prestigious law firm—making great money—were, though they were very overwhelming.

Ina Coveney What was overwhelming about it?

Sindy Warren The amount of things I didn't yet know how to do. And I would say, I also, at that stage in my life—so I was a young woman in my mid-twenties—I didn't really know how to take care of myself. I think my nervous system was in a constant state of overdrive and overwhelm. And I didn't know anything other than, "Well, I guess you just step on the gas pedal harder. You just go faster. You just go more. That's how you accomplish. That's how you succeed." And that's sort of like an accidental lesson I taught myself, being a straight-A student wherever I went. It was like, "Just study harder. Just get up earlier. Just push, push." And, oh well, that seemed to work. And I really thought, so naively back then, that's the only way.

Ina Coveney What did you think your family thought about the way that you were leading your life and handling your job? What was their impression of what was going on?

Sindy Warren I think they were very proud of me. I mean, I think they thought, "Wow, look at you. You're doing so great. You look good. You look like you're happy. Things must be well."

Ina Coveney Tell me a little bit about what was going on at work when you started to realize, "I think I need to make a change." And the reason I ask that very specifically is because, as a business coach, when I work with people who are thinking, "I need to do something else, I need to do something different, I don't want to be in my job anymore," my first question is always: what’s going on at work? Because somebody who is satisfied with what’s happening at work doesn’t wake up one day wanting to just light a match to it and do something else. Usually, there’s something going on that pushes you in a certain direction. Was there something happening around you that was pushing you out the door?

Sindy Warren Yeah, interestingly, that’s such a great question. It was almost the opposite of what I described. So I had just become a mom and went back to work part-time, because I had the luxury of being able to go back, like, 80% time or whatever. And the law firm I was at the time didn’t know what to do with the part-time lawyer. So they gave me exceedingly boring work. It’s funny because I started this conversation saying I didn’t know anything; it was overwhelming. Now I was at a point where I was like, "Why are you treating me like a law student? I’m, like, you know, a lawyer several years out of law school." And I found myself not being inspired or even intellectually stimulated by the work at all. And at the same time being like, "And why am I away from home, away from my daughter, leaving her with a nanny?" The cost-benefit analysis wasn’t making sense to me. So that was what forced me to hit the pause button.

Ina Coveney And the next question is, you know, what we would obviously think is the next logical step, which is, maybe I should just go get another job. Maybe I should just go find a law firm with women-centered values that will treat me better. Not everybody decides, "You know what, I think I’m going to try to do something completely out of the box," especially in the absence of mentors. I wonder if those thoughts were in your mind, or if you didn’t even think about another job at that point.

Sindy Warren Great question. What I knew was I needed to take a pause. So I quit the job, and I was going to give myself a little bit of time to stay home with my baby and figure it out. What quickly became apparent to me was I am not meant for full-time motherhood. When I am engaged—intellectually and otherwise—I show up as a more effective mom. And so I knew I needed to find something.

Ina Coveney That’s such an honest realization.

Sindy Warren It is. And it’s funny because I didn’t really think, "What’s the right law firm? What’s the next job?" I thought, "What can I do that I already know and just see what happens?" And I remember different ideas floating around in my head. I did have a friend who had a human resources consulting business, and I remember her sort of planting a seed in my ear of, "Why don’t you try this?" She lived out of state, so we weren’t competing in any way, and I thought, "Yeah, maybe. Maybe I’ll try that."

Ina Coveney So I would love to talk a little bit about this new business that you started—doing the HR consultancy. It seems like a perfect segue: you were doing employment law, now you’re helping companies avoid getting sued and creating better environments. How did that feel, starting that? Because you were doing it as a side hustle, almost. It wasn’t like a full-time thing, right?

Sindy Warren It’s funny because I really had no idea what I was doing. I started off thinking, "Yeah, employment HR consulting seems like a natural fit." I did all the things—HR, training, investigations. It took a long time for me to get really clear on who should hire me and what they should hire me for. There was definitely some wasted time in there. But I did it in a way that was so not hustly at all because it was just, "This is my side hustle. I’ll see what happens."

Ina Coveney And how did it evolve?

Sindy Warren Eventually, it grew into a six-figure business where I literally had to do no marketing. It was all referrals. Everybody knew me as, "You need a workplace investigation? Go to Sindy Warren. You need a sexual harassment training in your office? Go to Sindy Warren." That was fantastic. It took almost a decade to get to that point, which really served me. There wasn’t a problem. I wasn’t sitting there saying, "Why isn’t this working faster?" I actually had a lot of fun with it, trying different services out until I naturally found, "Wait, this is the skill set I bring that’s unusual, and these are the ways I want to work with clients."

Ina Coveney It sounds like it grew organically.

Sindy Warren Totally. It grew organically. And I think if I had wanted to do it quicker, I could have. But there was no reason to rush. That business was with me for almost my daughter’s entire life—just a couple of years shy of two decades, really.

Ina Coveney Wow. So then, how did you find coaching? Because at the same time, you were teaching yoga. You were teaching yoga to yoga teachers. You even wrote a book on yoga, right? What was going on at the time that you decided to write this book?

Sindy Warren I think I’ve always been, as an adult, a seeker of meaning and purpose. Maybe because I started off without much of that, I became kind of obsessed with purpose and meaning and those existential questions that keep us up at night. Yoga was really a bridge for me. The philosophy of yoga is very much about how to live with presence, how to live a meaningful life. What does that even mean? How do we measure it?

Ina Coveney That’s so interesting.

Sindy Warren It is. And I took a deep dive into yoga philosophy. My book—which is kind of yoga philosophy for dummies—is a very simple, easy look for newbie practitioners, people who have only done the physical practice, or even the yoga-curious. It explores, "What is it about this practice that keeps it alive decade after decade?"

Ina Coveney And how did that lead you to coaching?

Sindy Warren That quest for meaning, I think, ultimately led me to coaching. Yoga was great, but I hit the ceiling of what I wanted to do professionally as a yoga teacher and an author. I thought, "Okay, now what?" Coaching was the answer.

Ina Coveney How did you find coaching?

Sindy Warren A girlfriend actually said to me, "I think you should look into life coaching." I remember this conversation so clearly. I was like, "What’s that?" And she said, "Just look into it. I think you might want to get certified." That began my foray into this big, beautiful world that is coaching, which, five years ago, I didn’t even know existed.

Ina Coveney Did you go straight into a certification program?

Sindy Warren I did. My first certification was with the Institute for Life Coach Training. It was a six-month program, but because I’m a lawyer and have an advanced degree, I got fast-tracked to three months. It was very quick, and I just started coaching. Then I found my first coach, who introduced me to the Life Coach School (LCS), where I ended up getting certified as well. That was another six-month process. So, yes, I consider myself deeply steeped in the life coaching world.

Ina Coveney And then that evolved into business coaching?

Sindy Warren Exactly. Within about a year, I transitioned from general life coaching to life and business coaching. It really came from asking myself, "What have I done in my life that I know how to do and can help others with?" For me, that was side hustles. I’ve always had side hustles—always. So I thought, "Wouldn’t it be fun to teach people how to start side hustles in a non-hustly way?" That’s how Side Gig School was born.

Ina Coveney What a journey! So, what’s next for you?

Sindy Warren I want to continue growing my business by serving more people. I plan to expand Side Gig School with more group programs while maintaining my one-on-one coaching practice. I thrive on personal connection, so I don’t see myself giving that up, even as I scale. My goal is more of the same—just on steroids.

Ina Coveney Love it. Sindy, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing your time and story with us. Can you please tell us where we can find you?

Sindy Warren Absolutely. My Instagram handle is @bluetreecoaching. My podcast is called Side Gig School, and my website is bluetree-coaching.com. I’m on all the places, and we’ll make sure to include the links in the show notes.

Ina Coveney Amazing. Thank you so much, Sindy! We’ll see you on your podcast.

Sindy Warren Thanks, Ina.