118: {Interview} From Corporate to Entrepreneur: Nikki's Inspiring Journey

In this conversation, Nikki Corbett shares her journey from a corporate career in tech to becoming a full-time entrepreneur. She discusses the challenges and rewards of entrepreneurship, the importance of self-advocacy, and the freedom that comes with solo travel. Nikki also emphasizes the significance of balancing work and travel, and her love for exploring wine regions around the world.

takeaways

• Nikki transitioned from corporate roles to entrepreneurship, driven by a desire for happiness.
• She believes happiness is a choice and a key factor in career decisions.
• Nikki's experience at Intel fueled her wanderlust and desire to travel.
• She emphasizes the importance of self-advocacy in corporate settings.
• Starting side hustles can lead to multiple streams of income.
• Nikki encourages listeners to believe in their own value and capabilities.
• Traveling alone fosters personal growth and self-discovery.
• She finds inspiration and new ideas through her travels.
• Nikki shares her love for food and how it drives her travel choices.
• She highlights the importance of balancing work and leisure while traveling.

You can connect more with Nikki HERE

Transcript

Caroline Pennington (00:01.065)
Welcome Nikki. So I want to hear your story. You had a very big role at a very big corporate company and the tech space and you've been out on your own as an entrepreneur for a couple of years. You've started a podcast. You travel a lot. You love wine. Like I do. I want to hear your story.

Nikki Corbett (00:02.402)
Hi, it's so good to be here.

Nikki Corbett (00:11.276)
Yeah.

Nikki Corbett (00:15.15)
Yeah.

Nikki Corbett (00:21.05)
Yes, I love it. Thank you. Thank you. So yeah, I always like to say that I had like a few career paths or a few different careers, right? I started off out of college. I was working in commercial real estate. After that, I was working in wholesale mortgage lending. And then after that, I was working for Intel, which is, as you know, is one of like the biggest tech companies in the world.

And then after that, I was working for a small tech company in a very big leadership role there. So I'm like, I have all these interesting things that have got me to where I am now. I don't know. It's always so crazy. I think back at my time at Intel, that was really what partially stoked my wanderlust and got me traveling. Through that role, I really got to see a lot of different places in the world.

I lived in China for three months, which was just a whole crazy experience in and of itself. And I'm so grateful for that time there because truly I got to see so many neat places in the world and it made me more curious to go travel more. And I could sit and talk about travel for hours on it. And how much time do we have? No, I'm just kidding.

Caroline Pennington (01:36.649)
We're going to get to the travel next. Okay. So you worked in corporate, you had a really big leadership roles at both small and large tech companies. And then you've now become a full-time entrepreneur. So what made you want to make that move?

Nikki Corbett (01:42.048)
Yeah.

Nikki Corbett (01:50.542)
You know, it's funny because I come from a long line of entrepreneurs. And so it's always kind of been something that's been in the back of my head. But I wasn't one of those people that was like, I never had like exactly what idea, what did I want to do? Like I wasn't the little kid that was like, oh, I want to be a teacher. I want to be an astronaut or I want to be a doctor. I was like, I want to be happy. And

I think on one hand that's like funny cause it's like, okay, like of course like a kid would say I want to be happy, but I also think it's like kind of like deep that a kid is like, I just, know I want to be happy. so I'm, I'm someone that I truly believe that happiness is a choice. And I think that for me career wise, the big moves that I have, that I have made have always been a result of, you know, this is no longer serving me and it's no longer.

I'm no longer able to choose happiness while I'm here. So with my last role, I was working at a small SaaS company. They ended up hiring me to run a startup that they had started in that company about three years prior. And I was there for almost four years. It's truly one of the greatest experiences of my life. I feel like almost four years felt like almost eight years.

while I was there, we changed literally every aspect of the business. I got I had I always say that I had the luxury of running my own business without like putting my own money into it. I actually got a paycheck the whole time I was doing it because we were supported by the larger company. But it was such a phenomenal learning experience. But this it was a service based offering, we were in the real estate space. So unfortunately, the way that I had changed everything about the business, we were set up for success.

provided that there was a thriving real estate market. And unfortunately, there has not been a thriving real estate market from about end of 21 forward. I know it's making its way. We're seeing some changes, but it still isn't what it was, say, right after COVID hit and when interest rates dropped and everything went crazy. So I had a moment there where I really realized, OK.

Nikki Corbett (04:03.616)
you've changed everything about this business. was essentially running itself. And I did have a lot of time on my hands. And I thought, okay, I can either just kind of ride this out, phone it in, likely end up being victim of the next layoff, which was inevitable. or I could go out on a high and go out being really, really proud and really still really positive and feeling great about all that I had accomplished and done. And so that's what I decided to do. And I quit.

that role, I don't like to say quit actually, because I feel like there's a negative connotation with quit. I like to say that I resigned. I resigned from that role. And I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do. And I ended up taking all of Q4 of 2023 off. And what was crazy is I didn't feel like I was stressed. But once I was no longer working, I could actively feel the stress like leaving my body.

And then I realized like, wow, I was carrying quite a bit of stress with all of the last, you know, what the last four years had encompassed. Um, so the, yeah. So then when 2024 started, I was like, okay, what am I going to do? And layoffs were happening left and right across all industries.

And so I thought, well, it's not the best time to be out in the job market when all these layoffs are happening. And so I thought, why don't I see, you when I roll the dice on myself and see what I can dig up doing like consulting type work. Um, I had also started my podcast called round two in 2022. I didn't do very much podcasting in 2023. So I said, okay, I'm absolutely going to bring this back because I love doing it. It's so much fun. Um, so in tandem, I was doing those two things.

Interestingly enough, the people that I had lined up to be on my podcast happened to be entrepreneurs. I had also met up with a old friend slash person I had connection, I had known through the entrepreneurship world in the Sacramento area. And she was like, Hey, I think we could use some operations type help. Why don't you come and work with us? And also, by the way, we're going through this like startup accelerator program called tech stars. You could join us going through the program.

Nikki Corbett (06:17.548)
And I was like, OK, I don't even know what that is. Let me take a look. So I looked it all up, and I was like, wow, this is like a really sought after program. So I knew it was going to be a lot of time commitment, but I was also like, I'm going to learn so much by going through this. So this is an opportunity I have to capitalize on. And I am so grateful. I learned so much about entrepreneurship. My network expanded exponentially, and then my podcast just kept rolling.

Caroline Pennington (06:43.442)
So what's been the most challenging thing for you as an entrepreneur?

Nikki Corbett (06:47.81)
The most challenging thing I would say has been like trusting in that I actually have value to add. I think it's so easy to freeze up and be like, well, why would anybody want to talk to me? But then also to like stop and reflect back and go, why wouldn't anybody want to talk to me? Like I've done a lot of cool shit. So I think getting out of my own way is definitely a topic of conversation that I have with myself on a very regular basis.

Caroline Pennington (07:18.696)
Yeah, and to add to that too, I was at an event recently speaking and the moderator asked, what do you still experience fear? And my answer is, hell yes, like every single day.

Nikki Corbett (07:28.91)
Right? Exactly. Exactly.

Caroline Pennington (07:37.606)
So what advice do you have for someone that's listening to this podcast that maybe is stuck in corporate or trying to figure it out on the entrepreneurial journey? If they have that stress on them or something is not working or they are not finding that happiness that you talked about earlier, what should they pivot and do?

Nikki Corbett (07:53.614)
Mm-hmm.

You know, I think a couple of things. Like, number one, I think that we all have to be our own biggest advocates. So if you're working in a corporate role and you're just unhappy, it's like, OK, like figure out, like, what's the root of your unhappiness? Like, if you could choose anything to change, what would that change be? And be realistic. Because if it's something that's actually within your control, then just start doing it. I think a lot of times in the corporate space that people don't really

realize that if they have a good idea or if they have bandwidth to try to implement something new, that they should just go and do it and then come to their management team with results and say like, Hey, this is what I just started doing on the side and here's what I've learned and here's what here's what results it's driving. And if it's a financial result, like probably you're going to get some ears wanting to know more. And maybe even, you know, saying, yeah, like actually go pursue that. Like what can we take off your plate so you can do this more?

I mean, but if you actually want to leave, then I think that believing in yourself is truly one of the greatest things you can do. I mean, if you don't believe in you, who's going to? Obviously, there's always like financial concerns to take into account. But if you have an idea and if you want to go do something, you know, figure out a way to do it on the side until you can make some money enough to support yourself. So you can leave that corporate job, but.

Yeah.

Caroline Pennington (09:25.104)
Yeah, one misconception I think lot of people have is that they work in a corporate job and that's the only thing they can do to make money. That's not true at all. You can start side hustles if you time permitting and you can build the side hustles to become main hustles. And I think it's smart in general is to have multiple streams of income. Never rely on one stream of income only because you could be fired or terminated the next day. Like there's no insurance there.

Nikki Corbett (09:31.37)
Yes.

Nikki Corbett (09:37.55)
Totally.

Nikki Corbett (09:46.784)
Absolutely.

Nikki Corbett (09:54.766)
No, 100%. That's one thing that I always, that is something I'm grateful that I learned at a young age in the business world, is that we are all replaceable. It does not matter. It doesn't even matter what your role is. I remember, I think it was like 2018 maybe, 2018, somewhere around there. The guy who was the CEO of Intel, he got let go. And guess what happened?

everybody went to work the same way that day, nothing really changed. It's like, yes, at the high level, like the board of directors had to figure out hiring a new CEO, but the rest of us, our jobs kept rolling. So it's like that, and that guy was the CEO. Like, so like we are all replaceable if you're working at any sort of level of a corporate job. And if you're being really honest with yourself, like you have time. So if there's something that you really want to do to get out there and be your own boss or have a side hustle or have a podcast or sell your art or

make coffee mugs or sell cookies at the farmers market. Like just go do it.

Caroline Pennington (10:53.96)
Stop the doom scroll. I mean, the amount of time people spend online scrolling, and I'm guilty of it the other night after dinner, it was like seven o'clock and I was like, okay, I'm just going to jump on Instagram really quickly for like five minutes. 36 minutes later that I'm never going to get back in my life. Gone.

Nikki Corbett (10:55.904)
Yes!

Nikki Corbett (11:00.546)
Mm-hmm.

Nikki Corbett (11:06.158)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. I actually saw a quote or something yesterday, and it said, if you feel like the days go by too fast, you need to add in silence. And it was like, put your phone down, go for a walk, go read a book. You'll be shocked at how much longer your days will feel. And that is so true. mean, you literally just are a testament to that. Like, you can pick up your phone and look at a social app, and then you can look up again, and you're like,

How did an hour just go by? How did that happen?

Caroline Pennington (11:38.684)
And that hour you could devote to a business, you could devote to starting a podcast. You could devote to a side hustle, making money online or making crafts or whatever it is, fill in the blank that you want to do.

Nikki Corbett (11:40.706)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nikki Corbett (11:49.526)
Yeah, I think that they're, I think one of the coolest things about this time in our life right now is that we are able to do all of these things. You know, like when I got out of college, it was, okay, where are you going to work? And then you got your job and that is where you worked. Whereas now it's like, yeah, you can totally go and work for a company. Absolutely. But you can also be like, yeah. And I'm an influencer or, and I do UGC or, and I have a podcast or, and I make art.

or it's like the ands are abundant, you know? You can do whatever you want these days, which I think is so cool.

Caroline Pennington (12:26.12)
I think it's cool too and I'll say if you're listening to this podcast and you're like, man, I would love to do that but I don't even know where to start. Hire a coach.

Nikki Corbett (12:33.582)
Yeah, absolutely. Hire a coach. Or if you don't have the means to hire somebody to help you, go on YouTube. There is so much free content that people are putting out. Truly. mean, YouTube is like the biggest search engine. And maybe you're not going to get that one-on-one support. if you're like, for example, if you want to start a podcast, you can find some free content on YouTube that people, where you can just start it.

Caroline Pennington (12:36.573)
That's the-

Nikki Corbett (13:01.206)
And just starting is better than not starting at all.

Caroline Pennington (13:05.372)
I started this podcast after reading a blog.

Nikki Corbett (13:08.46)
Yeah, there you go. Exactly. Exactly. Right. I mean, it's so funny to see how far you've come. have another friend who has a podcast. She started it sitting at a bar one day that she walked to after she had got let go from her job. And she said she was literally with like headphones on her iPhone and she's like, Okay, I'm just gonna start a podcast and she sat at a bar and filmed it.

Caroline Pennington (13:10.854)
You heard it on the record.

Caroline Pennington (13:27.954)
I literally recorded my solos with my headphones sitting near my desk.

Nikki Corbett (13:34.294)
Right? Yeah. It's like, it's so easy. If you're putting out good content, people want to listen, people want to hear, people want to be inspired.

Caroline Pennington (13:43.25)
People get so in the weeds and if you're listening to this, do not get in the weeds. It does not have to be perfect. The first episode I released in February of 2023 got 15 downloads for the month. 15! And I was grateful.

Nikki Corbett (13:46.784)
No.

Nikki Corbett (13:54.158)
That still is a lot for a first episode. Yeah. my gosh. That's awesome. And that's the thing. It's like, you're not going to go zero to Joe Rogan, you know, overnight. It just isn't going to happen. But if you love it and if you believe in it, you're going to start working on it you're going to get better. And then you're going to be like, Ooh, maybe I should get a different mic microphone, or maybe I should get a ring light or maybe this, that, or the other. And then all of sudden you're like, wow, I've put out 50 episodes. Like, holy smokes. This is crazy.

Caroline Pennington (14:24.168)
Yeah, and the percent of people that actually put out 50 episodes is so small.

Nikki Corbett (14:27.96)
So small, I know, and I love that. That's so motivating to me. The podcast stats are so motivating.

Caroline Pennington (14:35.002)
Agreed. And you get to meet really cool people, which is one of the reasons I really love doing it.

Nikki Corbett (14:38.122)
Yeah, same me too. That's how we met.

Caroline Pennington (14:43.176)
Okay, let's pivot and talk about travel now because you are a world traveler. You've been to so many, many places, but, you've gone, you've traveled with friends, with significant other, with yourself, all of the above. So tell me about why is it so important to learn how to travel by yourself?

Nikki Corbett (14:46.338)
Yes.

Nikki Corbett (14:58.136)
Yeah.

Nikki Corbett (15:03.362)
Gosh, for me, I started traveling by myself because there was places that I wanted to go and I didn't want to wait for the right group or friend or significant other or scenario to present itself. And so I was like, well, I'm just going to go on my own because why not? I want to see these places. I want to eat this food. I want to watch the sunset somewhere new. And I'm so grateful because with every trip that I go on,

I learn more about not only about myself, but I learn more about travel and just how to get around and how to navigate things. And it's so crazy because the simplest things here can prove to be the hardest parts of traveling internationally when you're in a foreign country. And there's different languages and different ways of getting around and different ways of communicating.

Um, and I always laugh because like when I ha end up having a meltdown when I'm traveling, I'm like, this is the easiest thing at home. But I think traveling alone, gives you like a great sense of freedom. I mean, you get to know yourself better. You get comfortable sitting at a bar or a restaurant or taking a train or, you know, going for a long walk and seeing where you end up and.

It's very freeing. There's something that I just love about the anonymity of wandering around a foreign city by myself.

Caroline Pennington (16:35.312)
with you and I don't know about you but for me whenever I come back from traveling unless it's for work and I'm like frazzled I always come back with new ideas and more inspired and refreshed and it's just a healthy experience.

Nikki Corbett (16:45.194)
Mm-hmm.

Nikki Corbett (16:49.526)
Yeah, I think it's super healthy. And then you meet different people and you have conversations with different people who think differently and who live differently and whose way of life is in plenty of cases more simple and just, I don't know. I'm so curious about other people and so.

That's why I just love traveling. And I mean, really I'm driven by food. I'm like a dog. I am motivated by food. So if there's something that I want to eat, I'm probably going to get on a plane and go there.

Caroline Pennington (17:23.336)
Okay, so what's the favorite dish you've ever had?

Nikki Corbett (17:25.742)
gosh, it's so hard to choose like one. Okay, if I had to choose three, I mean, well, I'm Greek, so I have to obviously throw a Greek dish in there. My favorite Greek dish is a dip called Tiramisalata. It's like a fish roe dip. And I mean, I can eat that by the vat. I think it is so, so good. So I love that.

Caroline Pennington (17:31.26)
Three, choose three.

Nikki Corbett (17:54.42)
One of my favorite meals to date was at this little hole in the wall on one of the islands in Thailand. And I like spicy food, but I'm not like, it, know, give me as hot as possible. I want to be sweating, you know, like I have like my tolerance and I loved this place because instead of just saying like, want it like mild, medium, hot, extra hot, you gave it to him by a percentage.

So it was awesome because we went there and I could say I wanted my curry 30 % spicy and it was just perfect. And I was like, I loved it. So that was one of my favorite things that I've ever eaten. And then let's see. You know, okay, here's a cuisine that surprised me. I went to Serbia. My ex-husband is Serbian. And so we went there for one of his family members birthday celebrations.

And I was so beyond pleasantly surprised by the food there. The meats were outstanding, the cheeses were outstanding, and I was just in heaven. mean, and I'm also someone that I will literally, I draw the line of brains and blood, but anything else, like I'll give it a try.

Caroline Pennington (19:05.522)
So do you work when you travel or do you just do pleasure only?

Nikki Corbett (19:09.262)
No, I like to work when I travel. I can, and I, that's one of the great things too about working for myself right now and working remotely is that I can and just like adjust my hours. But like, for example, in August and September, I was living in Greece and I just got into like a workflow there and it was great. I would have my mornings to myself to have coffee and exercise and.

go for a walk and then like respond to emails while everyone in the US was still sleeping and just kind of get a bunch of like admin type stuff done. And then I would go to I found a cafe that some of the people that I became friends with laughed at me about because it was one of those like gamer cafes, but they had really fast internet. So it was great when I was doing like podcast editing and uploading to YouTube and doing all that stuff because it was fast, but it was literally like a 24 seven gamer cafe, but

All you had to do was buy a cup of coffee and you could work there as long as you wanted. So for me, I was like, this is great. I'm buying like a $4 cappuccino and getting to sit here and use this fast internet. So I just kind of made my days around that type of work. And then I would do stuff with my friends at night if I wasn't on meetings or recording podcasts.

Caroline Pennington (20:23.132)
love that and so you mix in both your exercise, your healthy eating, your all of that with your travel, with your work and stuff and then you are a wine lover just like me. So what is your favorite winery you've ever been to?

Nikki Corbett (20:35.52)
Yes ma'am.

Nikki Corbett (20:40.302)
Ooh, that's such a good question. Gosh, because there's so many good ones. They're so hard to pick. I mean, I do, if there is a wine region in the places that I'm traveling, I do often try to go and check it out just because why not, right? Like for example, in Greece, my Yaya, my grandmother, she was born in the Nemea region, which is where a lot of the Greek wines come from.

So one time my mom and I did do some wine tasting there. But I will say one of my favorite wineries is actually this small winery up in Oregon. Oregon has a lot of pinots and shards, and a lot of the winemakers there have brought over like French clones. So their wines are very like French style, which I really, really like. And this winery, it's interesting. Like you see them at some...

restaurants in the Oregon region, but they pretty much just sell at their winery and their winery like for their price point, you would think that like, it's going to be this fancy tasting room. Like it's not it's like this cold barn. There's pigs wandering around the property. But the wine is outstanding. I love it. It's called Beaufrère.

Caroline Pennington (21:54.6)
I'll have to check it out. So how can our listeners find you?

Nikki Corbett (21:58.062)
So they can find me on YouTube and on Instagram at round two podcast. And you can find me on LinkedIn and Nikki Corbett. And I would love to connect with anybody. I would love to talk about travel, wine, podcasting, operations work, startups, all things. I love meeting new people.

Caroline Pennington (22:17.352)
Thanks, Nikki.

Nikki Corbett (22:18.434)
Thank you.