{"id":32504,"date":"2025-09-03T12:36:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T17:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bbrown.com\/?post_type=insight&p=32504"},"modified":"2025-09-03T12:36:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T17:36:05","slug":"julie-turpin-on-taking-leaps-first-then-building-your-wings","status":"publish","type":"insight","link":"https:\/\/www.bbrown.com\/uk\/insight\/julie-turpin-on-taking-leaps-first-then-building-your-wings\/","title":{"rendered":"Julie Turpin on Taking Leaps First, Then Building Your Wings"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Thought Leadership<\/p>\n

\n Julie Turpin on Taking Leaps First, Then Building Your Wings\n <\/h1>\n\t\n <\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_section section_padding_top=”pt-5″ section_padding_bottom=”pb-5″ full_width=”stretch_row” el_class=”overflow-visible”][vc_row row_padding_top=”pt-4″ el_class=”overflow-visible overlapping-row”][vc_column el_class=”overlapping-column”][vc_single_image image=”32505″ img_size=”1082×546″ alignment=”center” css=”” el_class=”brand-rounded-corners-right”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section][vc_row row_padding_top=”pt-0″][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n
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The theme of the 2025 Brown & Brown Women in Sales Summit was Take the Leap<\/strong>. During my keynote, I shared an idea that has shaped my most significant decisions and has truly become the story of my life:<\/p>\n

Sometimes you just have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve taken leaps over the years that didn\u2019t make sense on paper \u2014 moves that felt too big, too risky or too soon. I didn\u2019t always know where a leap would lead. I just knew I couldn\u2019t stay where I was.<\/p>\n

When I was 13, I walked away from a legacy my father loved \u2014 music \u2014 saying no to a path I was good at but that didn\u2019t make me feel alive. Or when, professionally, I took a role that looked like a step back in title but felt deeply aligned with something inside me. Even becoming Chief People Officer at Brown & Brown wasn\u2019t part of some grand plan. It was a gut decision made days before a global pandemic. Every one of those moments required an internal override, choosing intuition over logic and possibility over fear.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re standing at the edge of something new, don\u2019t wait for perfect clarity. You don\u2019t need to have all the answers. What you need is to listen, trust, imagine and believe. Each one builds the momentum for your next leap.<\/p>\n

LISTEN \u2014 to the quiet voice within<\/strong><\/p>\n

We all have an inner voice \u2014 but it\u2019s easy to dismiss it under the weight of expectations. I learned early that being good at something doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s meant for you. As a kid, I played accordion in our family band. My dad loved it. I didn\u2019t. Still, I pushed through \u2014 until one day, I didn\u2019t. I said I was done. My brothers followed.<\/p>\n

That experience taught me to listen inward, even when it\u2019s uncomfortable, and to walk away from what looks right but doesn\u2019t feel right. Listening is the first step toward owning your direction \u2014 even if others don\u2019t understand it.<\/p>\n

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TRUST \u2014 your instincts, especially when the path is unclear<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once you start listening, the next step is trusting what you hear. Years ago, I took a job that looked like a step backward. It didn\u2019t come with the same title or external validation. People questioned it \u2014 including my partner at the time. But something in me said this is where you\u2019re meant to be.<\/p>\n

In choosing the job, I chose personal alignment over approval. That decision didn\u2019t just shift my career \u2014 it reshaped how I measure value. Trust means backing yourself even when there\u2019s no guarantee. It\u2019s the first real test of conviction.<\/p>\n

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IMAGINE \u2014 your own version of success<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once you trust yourself, you must lift your eyes. Focus forward. I learned this on a firewalk \u2014 a literal one. As I stood at the edge of the burning coals, fear flooded my body. But the instructor\u2019s words cut through: Don\u2019t look down. Focus on where you\u2019re going.<\/p>\n

So, I pictured the other side. I imagined how it would feel to get there. And I walked \u2014 not because the fear disappeared, but because the vision pulled me forward.<\/p>\n

Imagination isn\u2019t wishful thinking. It\u2019s a tool for momentum. It keeps you moving when fear wants you to freeze in place.<\/p>\n

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BELIEVE \u2014 you will rise to meet the moment<\/strong><\/p>\n

The final step is belief. And it\u2019s often the hardest.<\/p>\n

When I stepped into the Chief People Officer role, I didn\u2019t have a background in HR. Two days later, I found myself responsible for helping more than 10,000 teammates navigate a global pandemic. There was no playbook<\/a>. No certainty. Just the quiet hope that I\u2019d grow into what was needed.<\/p>\n

In those moments, I thought back to the firewalk. The fear. The heat. The unknown. And the one instruction I was given: Don\u2019t look down. Focus on where you\u2019re going.<\/em><\/p>\n

So I did. I showed up<\/a>. I listened. I kept my attention on the people who needed leadership and in time, I became the leader they needed.<\/p>\n

You won\u2019t always feel ready. But you are more capable than you think. You\u2019ve lived through every hard thing you\u2019ve faced. That\u2019s why you\u2019re standing where you are today. You just need to believe it one more time \u2014 and take the leap.<\/p>\n

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PurposeFULL Leadership<\/b>
\nby Julie Turpin, Chief People Officer
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Subscribe to Julie\u2019s PurposeFULL Leadership newsletter on LinkedIn and see her latest articles\u00a0here.<\/a>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Julie Turpin, Chief People Officer at Brown & Brown, shares that Growth Often Means Leap First, Then Build Your Wings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":32508,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"insight_category":[133],"class_list":["post-32504","insight","type-insight","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","insight_category-thought-leadership"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJulie Turpin on Taking Leaps First, Then Building Your Wings - Brown & Brown<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Julie Turpin, Chief People Officer at Brown & Brown, shares that Growth Often Means Leap First, Then Build Your Wings\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbrown.com\/uk\/insight\/julie-turpin-on-taking-leaps-first-then-building-your-wings\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Julie Turpin on Taking Leaps First, Then Building Your Wings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Julie Turpin, Chief People Officer at Brown & Brown, shares that Growth Often Means Leap First, Then Build Your Wings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.bbrown.com\/uk\/insight\/julie-turpin-on-taking-leaps-first-then-building-your-wings\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Brown & Brown\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-03T17:36:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.bbrown.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1755367486801.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.bbrown.com\/uk\/insight\/julie-turpin-on-taking-leaps-first-then-building-your-wings\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.bbrown.com\/uk\/insight\/julie-turpin-on-taking-leaps-first-then-building-your-wings\/\",\"name\":\"Julie Turpin on Taking Leaps First, Then Building Your Wings - 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