467: Finding Your Ideal Career By Getting Strategic With Your Strengths

Victoria Lyon 00:01

Thinking long term felt very daunting. And there's this notion, I am a growing and evolving person. How can I be confident that what I envision for my future 10 years from now is going to at all be where my aspirations and my goals and my values are?

Introduction 00:24

This is the Happen To Your Career podcast, with Scott Anthony Barlow. We help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what does and make it happen. We help you define the work that's unapologetically you, and then go get it. If you're ready to make a change, keep listening. Here's Scott. Here's Scott. Here's Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:48

In early 2020, Victoria was working in a low stakes research job in Seattle. Overnight, her research lab was thrust into the spotlight after discovering the first case of COVID in the US. Her low stakes job was now truly a meaningful, groundbreaking role that was changing the world. But instead of reaffirming the path that she was on, it made her question her entire career path.

Victoria Lyon 01:13

But there's this idea of, if unless you have a destination in mind, you're never going to get there, right. So if I'm on the road, "oh, that's an interesting detour. And that's an interesting detour." I might end up somewhere interesting, but I could also look back and go, "Wow, I did not get to where I want to be in life."

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:31

Victoria Lyon thought that in order to do meaningful work, and have a career that she was proud of, she inevitably needed to get a PhD to advance her career in public health. Well, not only did she step off the university track and completely switch industries, she found what we like to call here at Happen To Your Career, her "unicorn opportunity", a role where she's using her strengths, she's doing meaningful, well paid work that she loves. And, you know, most people don't think it exists, just like a unicorn. Oh, and by the way, the icing on the cake, she has found a workplace environment that allows her to be her true self for the first time when she didn't even realize she could hope for, in a career. Victoria shared specific tactics that she used in her career search. She also details how working with her coach helped her figure out what she truly wanted, and ultimately prove herself that unicorn opportunities are real.

Victoria Lyon 02:28

I think the earliest place we can start was my freshman year of college, I was determined not to gain the freshman 15. And as part of that, I discovered group fitness, and fell in love with it, became a fitness instructor, and I realized I wanted my career to be about helping people, be healthy and live healthy lives. And during my master's program, I became fascinated in this intersection of health and technology. And I decided, you know, if I work at a health tech startup or do something in this space, I ended up moving to Seattle. And I worked my way into a part time position at an academic research lab at the University of Washington called the "Primary Care Innovation Lab." And then in 2019, I was put on a project that was funded by Gates Ventures, that was about hypothetical pandemic preparedness. It was all about, after SARS and MERS, there's probably going to be another pandemic. And so we had this research study going, we conducted it for two years, we were halfway through our second season of this flu research, when COVID hit. And all of a sudden, I was thrown into the frontlines of running COVID testing operations. And that was never something that I thought that I would be doing. My passion had always been in preventative care, like weight management, diabetes prevention. So to be in this infectious disease world was completely out of left field for me, but like many people during COVID, I was asked to do something, and we all had to rise to the occasion. So I was working on COVID response efforts, COVID testing programs. And it just got to a point where I was ready for a change at a certain point.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:25

So tell me about that then. When you were there, and thrust into the midst of that, in so many different ways, partially because in the United States, Seattle became known as, I guess, point zero, that's not quite the term I'm looking for. But pretty close, right? And also, you're in a very unique, like there's only so many organizations that are working on that exact problem at that exact time and in that exact way. And then on top of it, you are thrust into a different kind of, we'll call it a different kind of work than what it sounds like you were doing up until that point, as well, in addition to already being outside of the reason that you got into that in the first place. Is that a fair statement?

Victoria Lyon 05:20

Sure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:20

So what was that like? What do you remember that time period being like?

Victoria Lyon 05:25

Yeah, you know, it was a huge shift from being a research program to a service for the city of Seattle. And it happened really quick. And when you say, we were were patient zero was, literally the reason they found out that COVID was in Seattle was because our labs started testing samples for COVID. Like, my managers were the ones who were on the news and interviewed by the New York Times, there was all of a sudden is very high visibility into this project that had been just completely off the radar before that. So yeah, to be shifted into this job that I have no formal training in was completely different from what my master's degree had been in. Yeah, there was certainly a sense of overwhelm, and maybe some impostor syndrome of "Am I qualified to do this?" But there were so many people and so many different job functions that were asked to go above and beyond. So there was the sense that we were all in it together. And we had to learn a lot fast. I think something that people don't talk about enough is that in so many jobs, part of the job is figuring out how to do your job. And what I mean by that is, like software engineers, it's normal to go onto a website like Stack Overflow, and search for how to do a thing. And I think in this world, I was being asked to start learning FDA regulatory policies. And not only was it something that I didn't know how to do, but there actually weren't established rules yet for what we were trying to do. So, you know, every day, every week, we were refreshing the page on the FDA website, looking for guidance. And that means that somebody at the FDA was also trying to figure out, how are we going to guide people, this is new territory.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:11

For you, what then took place where you ended up deciding, "This is no longer right for me. This is no longer the place where I want to be." What events took place that made you decide, "Hey, it's time for me to move to something different, that is good for me."

Victoria Lyon 07:33

So while I was working at this academic lab at the University, I was considering getting a PhD. It was very clear if I was going to stay in that environment that the only way to have long term job stability, and to have authority is to have a PhD. So I started down that path. I studied and took the GRE. I researched schools. I met with prospective faculty, I did all of the things. And then ultimately, I realized that I liked research, but I wasn't sure I wanted to stay in academia. And I wanted to explore industry research. So through that, I decided to do the Project Management Professional, the PMP credential. So while I was working on all of the COVID response efforts by day, as my job, I was taking a PMP course in the evenings and was preparing for that exam. I took that exam–it was January 2021. And so in my head, I was going to stay in this academic research environment until I passed the PMP, and then I would figure out what my next job is. And then the other piece of this that was I was engaged and was preparing for a wedding, which wedding planning during COVID is a whole other ordeal. So I finished the PMP exam in January. I quit my job in March. I used the entire month of April to focus on COVID wedding planning. We got married in May. We moved from Seattle to Austin in August. And I started a new job and a new industry and our whole new life in August. So there was just this huge shift. There were a lot of pieces of change that were underway. And it was in August that I decided to start career coaching with Happen To Your Career. And the reason I wanted to have help and get coached at that time, was before that I had been thinking about "what am I want to do for the next year or two, what's the best next step?" But all of a sudden, I was married. And people were asking me, you know, "What do you want the rest of your life to look like? What do you want the next five years to look like?"

Victoria Lyon 09:50

Exactly. And I just couldn't picture my life. I had just been thinking about let's just get to the move. Let me just get to a new job. And so funny enough, when I started coaching with Happen To Your Career, I was at this point where I said, "I don't need to get coaching for a new job right now." I want to come out of coaching with a vision of a long term roadmap for my career. And this idea of articulating my ideal workplace, it was bigger than that. What does my ideal career look like? What are the things that are going to set me up for the life that I really want?

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:43

No pressure or anything, like, "Hey, still a...? Yeah, what do you want the next 47 years to look like?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:25

Why was that so important to you at that time? Other than people were asking you that question, and maybe unintentionally or intentionally applying pressure to you in that way. What was really important to you about figuring out what it looked like for yourself, what ideal or extraordinary looks like for the longer term?

Victoria Lyon 10:49

There's an analogy, and I hope I don't butcher this.

Victoria Lyon 10:52

But there's this idea of, if unless you have a destination in mind, you're never gonna get there, right? So if I'm on the road, "oh, that's an interesting detour. And that's an interesting detour." I might end up somewhere interesting. But I can also look back and go, "Wow, I did not get to where I want to be in life." And so this idea of really being intentional about, "Where do I want to be? What are the things that are important to me?" It was important to define that, because once that endpoint is defined, I can start, you know, breaking it down and figuring out what are the small steps it's going to take to get there. And it just felt, I don't want to say I was wandering aimlessly, but I had never thought with this long term orientation before. And again, with starting a new life getting married, all of a sudden, it made sense to have this long term orientation, because it's not only about me, it's about my family. And so having a plan that works for me and my husband long term, that it's important to be very intentional about thinking long term.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:52

Go for it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:55

When you begin to shift your perspective to thinking longer term, what were some of the things that either surprised you about what that is actually like that thinking longer term? Or what were some of the things that were different than the way that you thought it would be?

Victoria Lyon 12:16

I think thinking long term felt very daunting. And there's this notion, I am a growing and evolving person. How can I be confident that what I envision for my future 10 years from now is going to at all be where my aspirations and my goals and my values are? And what happened and I actually starting to have these discussions a lot through coaching and a lot through conversations with my partner, is that once it boils down to values, it's easier to see that, that once you're really in tune with your values that it's okay to think long term because values don't change that quickly. This is not a fad, or, you know, some new show that I'm fascinated with this month. Values are pretty constant.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:06

That's interesting. I'm so curious about how people think about values, because I find they're so ambiguous and fuzzy in some cases. But how did you think about values before you started doing this type of, we'll call it difficult internal work, versus after?

Victoria Lyon 13:28

How do I want to put this? Your values show up in so many different ways in your life. And the idea of expressing my values through my work, but also looking at how I'm expressing my values outside of work. I think that the biggest shift for me during COVID was realizing I had a lot of my identity wrapped up in what I did for work. And especially during COVID when extracurriculars got put on hold and socializing with friends got put on hold, that was the one piece that I still have left. And so it was very easy to be tied to any value that I felt was being expressed by my job. And being a public health professional, there was this element of public service that was really a deep value to me, that I was helping others, I was making the world better. And there was a piece of me that was holding on and didn't want to make a change to something else because I was afraid what if it's something that isn't deemed as important or as much of a public service compared to what I'm doing right now? And so I think this dive into values of, you know, what really is important to me? And this idea of relationship building, being at the core of the value of mine, and then actually with my StrengthFinder's realizing how much influencing was something that was really important to me that, you know, maybe I work in an environment that isn't saving the world from a pandemic, but I'm influencing something for the better, that was still in line with my values.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:13

This might be a great time, may I redo something that you wrote to us when we first got the opportunity to meet you, my team first got the opportunity to meet you?

Victoria Lyon 15:22

Yeah, sure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:23

You had written to us, "My husband said it best. I became a martyr to my job, my energy and happiness plummeted, and my relationship suffered, because I had nothing left to give." And I think that what it sounds like, based on what you just shared with me, is that as soon as all of those pieces went away, and then, you know, you're spending the majority of your time and energy with your job, then it started to become evident to you that what you felt was important and felt was a part of your identity was not necessarily what you wanted it to be, if I'm interpreting that correctly. How do you think about that?

Victoria Lyon 16:09

Yeah, that idea of being a martyr to my job. I have a lot of people that can relate with that feeling. I'm going to just paint a little picture of what that really meant. One of the final straws where I knew it was time for me to leave my job in public health was, this a couple of months before my wedding, and we were recruiting participants for a longitudinal study, in which we were trying to invite people to participate right after they were diagnosed with COVID, and then follow them for a year to understand what their long term symptoms are, to understand what we're calling long haulers of COVID. It was very difficult to reach people, invite them to be part of a study and convince them to join and fill out all this paperwork when they're feeling really, really sick. And so my team spent a lot of time emailing and calling people who had just found out they got COVID. And so the next step that I was asked, from some of our study leadership, was to start recruiting people either in person at COVID test sites, or in the emergency room after people had been diagnosed. And I've never worked directly in the clinical setting. And it got to a point where I felt like the risk that I was going to put myself in every day to be face to face with people who had just been diagnosed with COVID, that the risk that I myself would contract COVID right before my wedding, right before people were going to travel in from out of town, that I did not want to compromise myself. And that was where if I had said 'yes', that would have been maybe taking my martyrdom too far, where I didn't want to put my own very critical life moment at risk for my job. And so this idea that it was okay to push back and say 'no', and that it didn't make me a bad employee or a bad public health professional, but that I have to take care of myself in order to take care of others. And in the long term, it was the right call for me to not undertake that task.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:14

What advice would you give to people who are finding themselves in that same situation, not necessarily exposing themselves to COVID right before a wedding, but instead, where it is conflicting...they're being asked to do something that is conflicting with something that is really important to them. And it requires pushing back or having difficult conversations or whatever else might be a necessity at that point. What advice would you give to those people who are finding themselves in that situation?

Victoria Lyon 18:50

I understand it's a difficult situation. And when you're a team player and you want to do anything and you care about the cause, it's really hard to say no. I think for me, something that was helpful was imagining the worst case scenario, if I had gotten COVID, it absolutely wouldn't have been worth it. It was very easy to say no to that decision. I could have rationalized myself, oh, the likelihood that I won't get COVID is also pretty high, it's fine, I can take the risk. You know, it's easier to feel obligated to stay in an environment that's not serving you if you downplay the risks. And here's where my project manager's brains are gonna come in. It's okay to do a risk assessment and to decide that the risks are too high. And businesses do this all the time when they're making decisions. So the idea of taking this risk assessment approach in your personal life is absolutely fair game and then it becomes less emotional. It's not–I'm letting down my manager or I'm letting down these people. It's...I didn't assessment and I do not come out ahead. And in fact, if I get hurt, it's gonna hurt everybody else, too.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:01

I love that. Particularly because on this podcast we've, many times over, had either advice, or we've talked about considering the worst case scenario, but usually we're talking about it in the context of the worst case scenario isn't necessarily that bad. But what I love about what you said is that sometimes the worst case scenario actually can be that bad. And it's okay to make a decision based on that worst case scenario, it really helps put it in perspective. I appreciate that immensely. It also leads me to ask something else, too, because a short bit ago, we're talking about your strengths. And if I understood correctly, you've taken Clifton StrengthsFinder, a variety of times over the years, a couple of times, right? And I'm curious, because we haven't spent a lot of time talking on this show, about how people's strengths evolve over time. And I'm curious what you learned, as you had seen different results evolve over time for yourself?

Victoria Lyon 21:09

Yeah, so the two strengths that had been pretty consistent from...when I took it in college, and my first job out were Futuristic, and Includer. And Futuristic, I think has played out throughout my career, because I continue to be excited about entrepreneurship, right. The shiny new frontier, people who are making a better future. So that makes sense. And then funny enough, I've had on and off with the different times that I've taken the StrengthsFinder– Includer and Woo showed up. And what I think is very funny is the first time I took it, Includer was almost at the top. And then when I took it after I had just gotten my first job, Includer was gone, but Woo was on there. And it made sense, because I was wooing people to start my career, of course, that mindset was going to be more top of mine. And when I look at some of the other strengths that have been in there, Arranger is one that has been a pretty constant through line. And I think that my journey to find project management really taps into my Arranger, that is...it is all about coordinating people and getting resources organized. And funny enough, one of the strengths that came up this most recent time I took it was Maximizer. That had not been on my StrengthsFinder earlier. And I think that becoming a project manager, or I'm thinking about how do I maximize the resources I have, make sure that people are doing things that make them feel empowered and tap into their competencies that, you know, I think that the environment I'm in and the job that I'm in has certainly brought out certain strengths. So that has been really interesting. And one of the things that was really insightful for me about going through my strengthsfinder with Happen To Your Career was, we did a really, really deep dive into what each of those strengths meant and how they show up in my life and how I can focus, for example, in the first 30 days of a new job, how can I be very intentional about bringing my Arranger strength to the table? And so I talked with Jennifer about each of those different strengths, and how are they going to come to play, and can I even pencil in time on my calendar for activities that I know will tap into my strengths? So we got really granular with it. The other thing that was pretty amazing, and diving into my strengths was I had never looked at the kind of parent categories of the different strengths, executing, influencing relationship building, and strategic thinking. And so zooming out and looking at my strengths in terms of those four categories, as opposed to drilling into the individual strengths, one of the observations that Jennifer made, which I had not thought about before, was that the majority of my top five strengths are in the influencing category. And when I had been talking to her about what I wanted in my next career, I kept saying, I want it to be relationship building. I've been doing so much that it's transactional, or I'm doing things behind the scenes and I'm not connecting with people, I want it to be relationship building. And she kind of pushed back and said, "Whoa, let's look at this influencing theme here. Are you doing anything that makes you feel like you're influencing? Do you want to be doing something that's influencing?" And what we realize is that the experiences I've had in my past where I have felt the greatest sense of purpose was absolutely when I felt like I was influencing the direction of an organization, wasn't just doing tasks, but it was helping an organization be better.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:57

So that's fascinating because I think what I heard you say is that you were feeling this need to be able to have more connection to people. And you viewed that as in the past been more operating, more transactionally. And what you were perceiving as the potential solution was more relationship focused. And it sounds like what actually was a better solution for you was to focus more on how you're influencing others, and that created a different level of connection. Am I getting that right?

Victoria Lyon 25:39

Yeah. I think there was always an aspect of relationship building. I'm building relationships with my co-workers, no matter where I work, that's one thing. And where it really came to be top of mind for me was, in my academic research life, I actually loved the stage where we were planning research studies, and it was lots of meetings and logistics, and the part of the end where you've collected all the data, and you're doing statistical analysis and writing papers, I dreaded that stage. I am in those days when my calendar was blocked, I can't have any distractions, I need to write an academic paper. And the majority of people that I've worked with in that environment felt the complete opposite where the planning and the logistics is just the part you have to get through. And I can't wait till I get to run this sophisticated data analysis and show how smart I am and write this publication, which is what your worth in academia is measured by. And so that was one of the big pieces to me realizing "Okay, well, maybe academia isn't right for me. Maybe I shouldn't go down this PhD path, because I will be rewarded and incentivized to do things that go completely against my strengths." And so I kept latching on to the relationship building and the collaborative part of what I had liked about my past job. But when we drilled in deeper, it wasn't just that it was collaborating with others and social because I could have done something like sales, that would have been very relationship oriented. But I could close a million sales with great clients and not influence the organization. And it was this nuanced view that when I'm working with others, and I'm helping an organization evolve, or create new policies, or impact company culture, that is what gives me a great sense of satisfaction.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:33

So how did you utilize that newfound understanding of yourself to make decisions then? Because from what what I understand for our chat before we hit the record button, that influenced a lot of decisions, no pun intended with the influencing.

Victoria Lyon 27:53

Yes, one very tactical takeaway was that I started putting the word influencing in my job searches. So in Indeed, I would type in Project Manager influencing, because, turns out, there are a lot of different flavors of project management. There are project managers who are all about data. And it's mostly about budgets, or staffing people and making sure that nobody's over allocated and that, you know, those project management jobs, they're spending a lot of time in a very sophisticated software, allocating resources to the right place. And that was not the kind of project management job that would be right for me, that would be one where maybe a strength like input or something more analytical, what if thrive. But for me, I was looking for project management roles where when I looked at the job description, it was more nebulous, you know, we need somebody who's an organized self starter who can help drive multiple initiatives and can influence without authority. And it was that exact phrase can influence without authority that was in the job description that made me decide to apply for the job. And it was a huge part of the interview process. That was one of the questions that the hiring manager really wanted to dive into. And this idea of somebody who's able to influence, that's also part of relationship building and relationship manager, right. So the two are very linked.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:22

When you were in the interview process, it sounds like that was reinforced throughout the process in a variety of different ways. So you had this initial clue as you were starting to modify and target your search to where you were putting literally the keyword influence or influencing into your searches. So that's where you started, and that's so subtle, like that doesn't...I know you said, "Hey, this is a small tactical thing" but I think that's actually a really big strategic tactical thing. Because so many people miss the fact that if you start searching in the right places, in places where you're more likely to find what you want on the other end, then that in itself eliminates so much of the minutia and the noise and the things that don't actually matter. So I would say that that's actually really strategic. But then it sounds like throughout the interview process, it was reinforced, or it was validated that, no, it wasn't just any random thing on a job description, which sometimes it is, right. But then this is something that they actually need and is actually a valuable part of the role, or they need someone who to be able to do that. Is there anything else that stood out to you that caused you think "yeah, this is actually really right for me."?

Victoria Lyon 30:43

Yeah, I'm gonna take this on a bit of a tangent, but we'll get there. So let me just start with how this job opportunity came to me. So again, I had been meeting with Jennifer, I think we met four months into career coaching. And I got an email from a recruiter. And I looked at the job description, and I noticed that it was an Israeli startup. And something I had joked about is that it would be a dream of mine to be able to travel to Israel for work. And the reason why that was on the fantasy list was because I'm Jewish, I've gone to Israel several times and on organized trips, and high school and college, and so I always am happy to have an excuse to go back, I have a deep connection with the place. And for that reason alone, I said, "Sure, maybe I'll take an interview, why not." And it turned out in learning about the company, and you know, who they were funded by, and that they had all this momentum, that it sounded exciting. And then when we drilled into the job description itself, this piece about influencing and doing a lot of cross functional engagement, that I was gonna get to interact with people on the product and engineering team, the sales team, the marketing team, customer support, I might even get to do some research and talk to customers directly. I love this idea of getting to really learn the business from all different angles. And this idea that my job was going to be to influence everybody to come together to accomplish really big initiatives. So it sounded exciting. And then the piece of it that has been a really pleasant surprise was, in being part of an Israeli startup, something that I took for granted was that a lot of people at the company are Jewish. Not necessarily that they're all religious, you know, they can all practice in different ways. But there's this huge kind of Jewish subtext to it such as, you know, the team in Israel is not going to be working on Jewish holidays. And so the idea that I might want to take off work for Jewish holiday, is not something that's out of the question, or something that I really have to explain. And so this has been the first work environment that I've been in, where being a Jewish employee doesn't feel like the exception. And any minority, right, there's parts of yourself that you feel like, "Oh, I'm just always gonna be different." And so this idea of how does my Jewish self affect my being at work, like it just never crossed my radar is something I could want or ask or that it was possible to fit in with that. You know, like it just so it was one of those things, we didn't identify it through the course of coaching. I kind of stumbled on this opportunity, Jennifer got me ready to make a leap. And then after being in it was like, "Oh, my God." I was allowed to ask, like, "Why was I looking for this the whole time?" So yeah, I think that's where it comes in. And I think, you know, I'd be very curious if people in the LGBT community, you know, have a similar experience or people of color, you know, there's so many versions of this that I think might be similar for people.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:05

I think one of the most fun things about that story that we've heard again, and again, even in many of the stories we've shared on the podcast, is that so many people feel like, hey, this thing that I want that is been in the back of my mind, sometimes for years, like in your case, it was many years, because you felt like "hey, I'm not going to find an organization that really allows me to have that said, like, celebrate what I value in this particular way" or it sounded like you felt like it had to fit within certain boxes. And I find that anytime that something is pervasive like that, it's important enough where it sticks around for us. And it feels like it's an either or choice. Usually someplace just beyond sight of what we can see is an "and solution" where we can have our cake and we can eat it too, or, you know, whatever analogy you want to use. But usually, I find that there's always an “and solution”. So I'm so, quite frankly, excited, ecstatic, there's a lot of words here, I could say, that is what I'm feeling that you were able to find this "and solution" for yourself. I think that is so very cool. And yeah, I really appreciate it.

Victoria Lyon 35:27

Thank you so much, Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:35

Many of the stories that you've heard on the podcast are from listeners that have decided they want to take action, and taking the first step of having a conversation with our team to try and figure out how we can help. And if you want to implement what you have heard, and you want to completely change your life and your career, then let's figure out how we can help. So here's what I would suggest, just open your phone right now and open your email app. And I'm going to give you my personal email address, scott@happentoyourcareer.com just email me and put 'Conversation' in the subject line. And then when you do that, I'll introduce you to the right person on our team. And you can have a conversation with us, we'll try and understand your goals and what you want to accomplish in your career no matter where you're at. And we can figure out the very best way that we can help you and your situation. So open up right now and send me an email with 'Conversation' in the subject line; scott@happentoyourcareer.com.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:39

Hey, I hope you loved this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And if this has been helpful, then please share this podcast with your friends, with your family, with your co-workers that badly need it. Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you next week.

Speaker 3 36:57

Don't think that it's not okay to keep trying and keep experimenting. I think some people are like, "Well, I can't. I've done too many jobs. I've just gotta stay put for five years." Five years is a very long time. We've got one chance at this life. If it's not working, if it's not feeling good, then change it up.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:15

Let's talk about what I like to call the ongoing experiment of your career. I'm gonna guess that when you started your current role, you were super excited, and maybe even landed that ideal role. But guess what, after a while, the honeymoon period starts to wear off, you eventually start to get that urge to change careers, maybe even switch industries. And that's okay. We never have it all figured out. We never have all the answers. We are constantly evolving. We're constantly learning, changing and discovering new interests, new preferences, new wants, new needs, new ideas. The experiment of it all is being able to take the learnings and the data that you've gathered from your experiences and use that to figure out what you want in the next chapter of your career.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:01

All that and plenty more next week right here on Happen To Your Career. Make sure that you don't miss it. And if you haven't already, click Subscribe on your podcast player so that you can download this podcast in your sleep, and you get it automatically, even the bonus episodes every single week, sometimes multiple times a week. Until next week. Adios. I'm out.