083 | Shaping Communities Through Impact with Tracy Colunga

Tracy Colunga shares her remarkable journey from city government to founding her consulting firm Colunga and Associates LLC, highlighting how intuition guided her career transitions and how she narrowly avoided mass layoffs by trusting her gut.

• Founding Colunga and Associates LLC as a consulting firm specializing in strategic planning, innovation, user-centered design, and grants management
• Transitioning from Johns Hopkins University to entrepreneurship after sensing political changes
• Building a 16-year career with the city of Long Beach, CA that culminated as Chief Innovation Officer
• Developing the "inside-outside strategy" for community engagement and building trust
• Starting as a first-generation college student pursuing psychology before discovering social work
• Balancing single parenthood while earning a master's degree at UCLA on full scholarship
• Teaching as a university lecturer for 14 years to stay at the cutting edge of public policy
• Taking the leap to pursue a doctorate at USC while running her consulting business
• Implementing personal productivity hacks like scheduling meetings with yourself and using the Eisenhower matrix
• Discovering that government jobs offer excellent compensation, from entry-level ($65-85K) to leadership positions ($300-400K)

If you have a dream in your heart, go for it. It might be scary, but when you follow those dreams, doors will open that you never knew were possible.

Disclaimer:

The views shared on Career Cheat Code are those of the guests and don’t reflect the host or any affiliated organizations. This podcast is for inspiration and information, highlighting unique career journeys to help you define success and take your next step.

If you enjoyed this episode, please like, rate, and subscribe to this podcast on whatever platform you’re using, and share this podcast with your friends and your networks. For more #CareerCheatCode, visit linktr.ee/careercheatcode.
Host - Radhy Miranda
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Producer - Gary Batista
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