466: How Your Gut Feelings Can Direct Your Career Search

Peter Stark 00:01

Many times the very best negotiation you'll ever make is the one you do not.

Introduction 00:11

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 00:35

You know that feeling you get when something just isn't right. That nagging feeling of unease. I've even heard people say they could feel it in their bones. But what I'm referring to is your gut feeling, and specifically trusting your gut. This is a feeling of intuition that many people instinctively rely on to make decisions. And it turns out, it's actually an extremely useful tool to harness when it comes to navigating your career. We talk a lot about the importance of negotiation. But the other side of that same coin is how to know when it's time to walk away.

Peter Stark 01:13

So the side who has the most power is the side who has the ability to walk away. The side who's unwilling actually has the least amount of power in a negotiation.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:22

That's Peter Stark. Peter is the author of "The Only Negotiating Guide You'll Ever Need", which has been a go-to negotiation tool for almost two decades and has sold over 150,000 copies. Organizations around the world such as the NFL, Wells Fargo, Sony, have all called upon Peter to transform their cultures and maximize the effectiveness of their leaders. Now, Peter, he has a vast array of knowledge when it comes to negotiation and leadership. But we also talk about how hardship and his personal life reframed negotiation for him, and taught him the importance of building trust, and trusting your gut. So I want you to listen to Peter's story, as he goes way back here for a minute first, and leads up to what brought him to negotiation experiences and becoming really revered in this area today.

Peter Stark 02:24

I was an undergraduate student at San Diego State, majored in psychology, and then graduated and I worked for Caterpillar Tractor for one year in their marketing department. And I was one of those people who...I had a boss that's like the worst possible imaginable boss, he was a yeller, he was a swear. And to make it even more exciting, he was the president's son.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:47

So we need combos if I've ever heard one.

Peter Stark 02:49

And one day, I went to a printing sales rep who had come and called on me and I said, "You know, I'm gonna go down in the hall, and I'm going to tell his dad, that he's a jerk." And this printing rep said to me, "You know, he says you can probably do that, and in the meeting with you, he's probably going to agree that he is a jerk. He raised him, he probably is gonna agree with you. But on Sunday night's dinner, you're gonna get fired. So I wouldn't take that strategy if I was you. I would set bigger goals." So I actually went back into graduate school at San Diego State in the MBA program, and did that for 18 months. And in the process of doing that and graduating, San Diego State asked me to do courses in their Extended Studies program in leadership, management and sales. And so during that process, as about two years into that, when the printing rep came back to me and said, "You know, I've always wanted to open up my own commercial printing company, I've never had the guts to do it alone, you know, marketing and sales, I know printing and operations. Let's do this together." And so I actually quit caterpillar. And the same time I did that I was also teaching in San Diego State, and I loved teaching. I did not love working in a printing company. So I actually did that for nine years. About year seven, I woke up one day, and I said, "I hate this job." And so it's one thing to say you hate a job. I'm sure some of your listeners have said that before, "I hate my job." But it's another thing when you own the job you hate. And so I actually went through a two year Buy-Sell agreement with him. And so you say, okay, where did this negotiation come in? I was in a market in the 80s in San Diego County where there was 650 competitive commercial printers. And any one of them would steal your clients for a quarter and toss in their mother if that's what they had to do to scale your business. And I went to San Diego State probably in year three or four of owning this printing company, and I said, "I want to teach a course in negotiations, but I'll never forget the head of it." The extended studies said, "Have you ever thought negotiations before?" I said, "I have not. But that's exactly why I want to teach it." And she said to me "Based on your feedback and your evaluation from the participants and students, I'm gonna let you teach this course. And so that was my start as I wanted to get better at it in my own career. And so in 2002, I wanted to contract with Random House and wrote a book called "The Only Negotiating Guide You'll Ever Need". And then in 2016, they came back to me and said, "We want you to actually update this." I was able to include things like negotiating by email, and topics like that, and edit 21 more strategies and tactics that I had learned along the way. So that's really how I got my start in being a negotiator. And so now I've worked with a lot of corporations to teach their sales team, or their purchasing team on how to be an effective negotiator.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:40

So that begs a few different questions, I think. First of all, I found the book very helpful, primarily for...I mean, let's just say that there's a lot of negotiation type books on the market, right? That said, though, I really appreciated the range of both tactics and concepts that you covered within a fairly short period of time within the book, and you know, one of the things that I wanted to ask you, as I was reading through it is, what do you find are some of the most common ways or common, well, let's call it common ways that people can start? Like we had to have, like, a gateway into getting more comfortable with negotiation. What are some of the most common ways that people can start?

Peter Stark 06:39

So one of the things to get comfortable with negotiation is just to recognize to be effective as a negotiator. All of us are already negotiators. All of us do it on a daily basis. I just threw out a fun example. Today's Wednesday, in my neighborhood it's garbage day, and I have to take the cans in the back of my pickup down to the bottom of the hill. And this morning, I was leaving. And in my head, I was thinking, "You know what, they're not very full. I actually think they can last another week." When my wife comes out on the porch, and just yells two words, and they were... "The Garbage!" And I thought, you know what, I can actually tell her it's not really full, I can fully put one into the other, but she's going to counter with "Yeah, but it stinks." And then I'm going to counter "But you know what, I get the spray in the garage, I can cover up the stink." And then she's gonna go, "Today's gonna be 96 degrees in San Diego County, the ants are going crazy. That's okay. But this other stuff from Home Depot, you spray a perimeter around the cans." And right there sitting in my truck, I just put it into Park, got out and loaded up the cans. And as I was driving off my street, I really thought to myself, "that wasn't a negotiation, it was with myself, and I lost." And so every one of us, when we think about the definition of negotiation, is anybody and two or more people gather and exchange information with the intent of changing the relationship in some way, that's a negotiation. So I've always known big stuff, the day to day stuff, and this route one for people who got kids is, "what time is curfew in your house?" If you got teenagers, I promise you, that is a negotiation. So all of us do it. But here's one thing that would help all of us just in the introduction to negotiation, remember there's three points you need to identify. So one of them is the goal. And so here's what I would say, if I wanted to use a fun one, I have an 18 year old right now off to college. But when she comes back home, we still have a curfew in the house, because I don't want to be woken up at two o'clock or three o'clock in the morning with a kid coming home. And so if my goal was that I want her to be home by 11 o'clock, you never start the negotiation at the goal 11 o'clock, you always have to raise it up to what I call a wish. And the wish is, "I need you to be home by 10 o'clock." "You know what Dad, 10 o'clock is way too early." And so now I'm negotiating what I call the right side of the fence between 10 o'clock, and probably 11 o'clock, which is what she wants. And that's what I call it "Negotiating on the right side of the fence" because I was gonna give 11 o'clock would be the time that she ultimately could be home. And then I need what I call a bottom line in the sand. The bottom line is I'm not crossing this. So if she had a really good story, and she said "You know what, because of these three reasons, I want to be able to stay up past 11 to 11:30." I may be able to concede on that, so I went from 11 to 11:30. But the big key is you have to identify what is the goal that you want to achieve and then open up higher. So if one of your listeners wanted a starting salary, and I'll pick a number 150,000, they need to go in and be able to use this line, "The acceptable starting salary for me is $165,000. And the reason why we start at 165 is now we have room to negotiate that may come back to the goal. If you start out at 150, you're always going to be negotiating on the wrong side of the fence, because it's going to be below 150. If that was your goal, and that's where you opened up, you didn't open up at your wish, 165 or 175. So that one tip of recognizing those three points and identifying them, most people don't ever identify those three points.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:32

So I think that, first of all, I love that. And I have found that to be true as well. I also, just in many conversations with people talking about negotiation, have realized that they'll think or say things like, "Hey, you know, why can't we just both go to the number that that I want?" Or, "Why can't I just be totally straight up and say, hey, here's exactly what I want." So my question to you is, take us through a little bit of that, why is this a more helpful approach overall? And thinking through those three points that you just mentioned, versus saying, "Hey, well, I want 150. Why can I just go in and saying, “Hey, I need 150." Why do I need to do the dance?

Peter Stark 11:25

You asked a really great question. So one of the goals you have in negotiation is you want both parties to walk away feeling as though this was a win-win. Okay. There's psychology involved in that. So if I just played this out with you, Scott, and I said, you and I are negotiating, I'm thinking about hiring you. And I said, "Scott, so what's your goal on a salary?" So you just tell me a number. "What would you like to make starting to work with me?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:53

$247,500.

Peter Stark 11:56

Hey, you know what Scott, actually, that's not going to be a problem at all, we can go ahead and make that work. Could you start on Monday? Now, what thought is going through your mind, as I just immediately agreed with you?

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:08

Oh, wow. What would go through my mind is, wow, that was easy. What else can I ask for?

Peter Stark 12:17

Right. Why didn't I say 275? Okay, why didn't I say 285? Because if I came back, and I said, "You know what, 275 is actually out of our band for this particular position. But what I could get you is a lot closer to probably 265." If you had the room to negotiate, you would walk out and say, "I really did good." Okay. And if I also started out at my wish, and was moving back closer to my goal, I'm gonna walk out and say, "I feel like this is a win-win." So my favorite one is if you were selling a car, and you were selling the car for $5,000, and I come in, I walked around, and I kick the tires on the car, and I look at the engine, I started up and I said, "I'll tell you what, I think it's worth $2,500. But you know what, take it or leave it." and you go like this, "sold." I go, "Something's wrong. I should have said $1,000." And so that's the psychology you want people to walk out thinking as though they've got a great deal, or feeling at least as though they won. And it's very difficult to actually teach them the seminars, "Don't ever say yes to the first offer."

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:29

That's really interesting. And it also just occurred to me as well, that, you know, there's really great data out there in the form of research at this point that indicates, if you feel you are being paid fairly, that's one of the things that can help you feel good about your job, or more appropriately, the real, I think power or real telling points in that research is, if you don't feel like you paid fairly, it can take an otherwise amazing situation and put an expiration on it. So if you come out of that negotiation, like you were just describing, where, you know, I said "247,500", and you're like, "Deal. Okay, we can do that." And I come away with that feeling like, "Oh my goodness, I should have asked for more" than I'm entering into that role, possibly feeling like, "Oh my goodness, I'm not being paid fairly" which can totally jeopardize the whole entire thing in the first place. And I've never really thought about it in that way before. But to your point, like, there's a lot of ways that this can jinx it.

Peter Stark 14:40

Right. And so one of the things can happen in that situation, too, is with a little bit of time people always do know is I find that I'm working at 247, but everybody else in my job category is close to 300. Then all of a sudden now, I negotiated my own salary, I ought to live with it, but my level of engagement and motivation is significantly gets down if I feel that I'm under compensated. So that's where the issue comes in. So if, for example, one of your listeners said, "You know what..." and here's the line that I would use is, "my current salary requirement is X. So this is a new job, my current salary requirement is 200,000." I'll pick a round number. And the person says, "You know what, that won't be a problem. Can you start within two weeks?" I would say in that situation what I asked for, if I could just have four days to go ahead and think through this particular offer, because I do have a couple other options that I just want to play through. And the reason why I say that, I always believe you should have more than just one job or opportunity, you ought to be working in this world today, digitally making connections with people that you want to have more than one opportunity, the greatest tactic in negotiation is competition. So if I was a salesperson for an organization, and I have a great track record as a salesperson in my organization, and I go out, and I interview three others in our industry, and I'm able to say, "You know what, my current salary requirement is 200,000." The person comes back and says, "That won't be a problem, XXX." In this case, I want to be able to say, "You know what that seems like a reasonable offer, I just want to check with the two other organizations who are also putting an offer together to make sure that this is a best fit for both of us." Now, in this situation, if I did that, I'm not lying, I've got a couple of different opportunities. In this situation, there's a really good chance the company who does not want to leave me says, "Well, regardless of what they commit to you, when you give us the opportunity to at least come back and see if we can meet their opportunity." And so you say, what happened...one power, the power of competition is one of the single most powerful tactics that you can use in negotiation. I'm not telling your listeners to lie. But I am going to also say this, I always want to have options. Even in buying a house, I want to narrow down my house to two houses by love, both of them would work well for me and my family. Because in an event that I go and place an offer and the owner and the realtor say "You need to know there's three other offers on this house." I want to be able to say, "You know what, I actually have a policy of not negotiating against myself with multiple offers, what I want you to do is play it out with those three other buyers. And in event it doesn't work out, would you recontact me?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:39

We actually did that when we bought our most recent house, too, where we actually working on multiple deals at the same time. And in a case where we didn't have that same kind of leverage, it created an element of scarcity for the people who were trying to sell us the houses that wasn't there, even though one of them actually had multiple bidders on it.

Peter Stark 18:03

And we call that smart negotiation, Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:06

Why thank you. I like to talk it through but I'm a little biased.

Peter Stark 18:09

So one of the examples I know when I was reading the background on your podcast is you may have listeners also who want to earn a higher wage at their current place of employment. And I'm gonna say this, I have a strategy that will help you do that. But I'm also going to say this, let's say you've already told yourself in your mind that there's a really good chance they may not be willing to negotiate a raise with you at this time, then I'm going to encourage you to go out and do interviews and see if you can generate an offer from another organization. You have nothing to lose, because you're not going to leave for something worse than what you're currently getting at your own company. And so to be able to say to your organization, if it was a great offer, is I wanted you to know that I'm coming to submit my resignation, because I have received another offer that is paying me significantly more. If you do bring a tremendous amount of value to your organization, there's a really good chance they're going to counter offer you to try and keep you. Now, some organizations have an absolute policy not doing that. But I'm also going to say the smart ones, if this person brings tremendous value, are not going to lose you for another 10,000 or another $15,000 or whatever the amount is– it's usually 5%, maybe 10% more that you're leaving for.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:29

And we've seen evidence of that with the folks that we've worked with over the years, too, where their goal was to make a change and went out and got other offers, realize that there still might actually be an opportunity because there was enough things that lined up in what they wanted and what they needed from that organization. So we were able to have them go back and essentially they'd say that something very close to what you just said, you know, "Hey, I have got this other opportunity and I am planning on submitting my resignation." And that opened the door for another conversation to be able to say, "Okay, well, what circumstances can we keep you?" And then that opens the door for a renegotiation, for lack of a better phrase. But the thing I wanted to point out, though, that I think is easy to gloss over is, none of that is possible if they don't already value you highly. They'll wish you goodbye if...

Peter Stark 20:29

Yes, it's a huge point. Number one on my list, if you were ever trying to negotiate a raise, is what my advice would be: start in your offense, work really hard, add significant value to your organization, there are only two types of reputations, there are good ones, and there's bad ones. Everything in the middle is kind of an employee who just hangs out, but they have no reputation. If you want to achieve a raise, I really do believe you need to build a reputation where you are highly valued and everybody knows that you bring significant value to the organization. And if you were to leave, you would be significantly missed. Because you named it right. There are some employees, some team members, some managers, when they walk into the office, you can feel the rise in energy that they bring, you can feel the rise in spirit, you can feel the rise in morale, you can feel that when there's a problem instead of them blaming people, they really get people together and focus on where do we want to be, and how do we get there, and they really are a positive force. And there are other people in your company right now who brighten up the whole office when they leave. And you go in and say, "You know what, if I don't get a raise, I'm not going to stay." You know what, and unfortunately, we're really going to miss you. You know, and those are ones. You have zero power to negotiate, because after, the office is cheering for you to leave.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:52

I appreciate you going the extra effort and pointing out some of those examples. And speaking of examples, one of the things that I wanted to ask you about, as I was thinking about, us having this conversation, is how can people leverage time during...let's use the example of job offer, because that's the most...probably the most prevalent place where a lot of our listeners are going to think about the idea of negotiation. But also, I found that time as it relates to the negotiation, when you get to the stage of job offer, people feel a lot of apprehension around time, like, I have to give an answer right away, or I have to do this by a certain time. These are all, in many cases, self imposed. So my question to you is how can people either look at that differently, or really leverage time for themselves within the negotiation process once they're at that stage?

Peter Stark 22:48

Okay, so when I taught negotiations at San Diego State, I actually gave people an exercise and the exercise was you need to be able to change the time frame. And so you say, "What is a practice look like that." Your boss asked you, "Can you get this done by Monday at 8am?" You say, "You know what, I can't get it done by Monday, but I could do it by noon, would that still work well for you?" And so it's just practice. Now, my favorite one of all time, for the last 30 years I've owned a consulting firm, that's where I moved to, and that was the natural transition coming out of San Diego State. And one time, my staff had gathered all of the data together to buy a new color copier. And so they bring me into the conference room. And I had not been involved in any of the process with the salesperson with the color copier they picked out and I'll never forget the price is about $18,000. And so the salesperson looks at me and he says, "But I need you to know, this sales price is only good until the end of the month." And it was like the 28th. And he said, "So we have to execute if you're going to get this price." And I just looked at this guy and I said "I am so sorry." And he said, "Why?" I said, "Because our company has a policy not to buy color copiers until the fifth of the next month." He looked at me just dumbfounded and said, he look down and choose to do well, "I'm gonna have to see if I can get a one time exemption then to keep this price build up." I said "If you could do that, I'd be very grateful." And so he walked out. My staff looked to me and go "What are you doing?" And I said, "I just practice and move the date." Because almost always you have more flexibility with time than you think you do. Okay, if I just go back to unions and management negotiations, this is our final offer. Okay, there is no more negotiation even what almost always there is more time. Almost always there's things that we can do, which will help us. They also know this even with the job offer, it is only good we need to know by Thursday at noon. I need you to know, I'm not going to have an answer by Thursday at noon. Could I get back to you very first thing on Friday morning? And you say, "Why did I need that?" Because I get one more interview on Thursday afternoon. So almost always, if you provide an exception or an alternative, you can have more flexibility in your time. If you truly believe that there is no movement past noon on Thursday, then you're right, because that's in your head, and in your head, that's going to dictate what actions you take, I just got to take this job, because I don't know what the next one looks like. It would have been a lot easier in terms of truly feeling good about your decision to get four more hours.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:42

Another thing that you mentioned in the book is the idea that not everything is negotiable. I think that there's many clips out there, not just in books, but all over the place where, you know, people say that "Oh yeah, everything is negotiable." And you say "No, not true." for a variety of different reasons. But can you tell me more about that?

Peter Stark 26:11

Yeah, I do have this deep seated belief in my faith. And that is that my plan may not be God's plan. And what I mean by that is that there will be times where there are situations–I use one example, I had a 14 year old daughter who for two years was on a heart transplant list. And I'm telling you, I'm a great negotiator, I could not negotiate my way out of that, I could not buy my way out of that, and I could not problem solve my way out of it. And it truly was a case of God's plan was not my plan. And part of the challenge I had was being able to let go a part of that because you sit there and you go, you want to negotiate with the doctors, you want to negotiate with DonateLife, you want to negotiate with the helicopter, and the plane service of how quickly we can get her to different hospitals, and all of that, the negotiation side for me, relatively easy, I'm not going to impact the outcome.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:02

I can't even fully imagine or comprehend that experience. But I am very curious about what did that experience teach you about negotiation.

Peter Stark 27:18

Part of… I think the biggest lesson that I learned going through that is what's really important. Because if you ask me, my long term goal is a long term relationship, where both of us trust each other significantly. And we can come to a deal in maybe an eighth of a time that it takes somebody else to put that deal together. So I've worked really hard in my career to say, "What do we need to do to make this work?" But ultimately, I do know this– I want to build a relationship based on really strong trust. Because if there is no trust in the relationship, you have to go through all sorts of hoops to guard yourself and put safeguards in place to ensure that when things go wrong, we have it all covered. One of my favorites, and sometimes I'll negotiate with somebody and they got like a 50 page contract. It looks like every lawyer on the floor of the organization, you know, put their two cents into this with indemnity clauses and all these things. And there's a part of me that the best clients I work with, it basically looks like this, it's a one page agreement that basically says, "If I don't do what I say, you get your money back." I've never had to execute on that in my lifetime. You said what about the date changes? Yeah, we have things like that listed. But it's really, I work really hard not to be in a relationship with somebody I don't trust. And if you do not trust them, this is a...you don't trust your boss, or you don't trust your company. I am going to say this, go with your guts. Because many times the very best negotiation you'll ever make is the one you do not.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:02

I think that is...I'll say I've done a series of inner negotiation interviews, and you and I chatted before we hit the record button here about that. However, I think that is possibly some of the most profound advice right there because I think it's also sometimes the hardest to do.

Peter Stark 29:22

Yeah, it is the hardest to do because you're emotionally involved. And so I'm going to use two examples as one, your listeners are out negotiating with a new company, and it picked up multiple feedback from multiple people. But in those multiple interviews where they picked up this conflicting feedback, it sets off a red target flag that says you know, something's not right here. My feeling is, one, you can go explore that deeper but my feeling is your guts are sending a radar signal to your head. And here's the problem in a negotiation, your head will overtake your guts and lie to it. So the head will say, you know what, "This was a disgruntled employee. And that's the reason they said this, and this. And it's not going to be a problem." And so the head will argue with the guts and the head will try to win my feelings about guts. And so for me, because I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm working on behalf of my team, if I go out and I have my guts, this firm is not a good match for our organization, my guts, I usually go and I will actually say this, "I really appreciate the opportunity to meet with you. In this particular case, I actually don't think that we're the best fit for you." And I'm going to pass on putting a proposal together. And I can't tell you how many times that's helped me, because when you have this level of feeling, you have to have all sorts of other stuff in the proposal to guard against what you think could go wrong in this situation. So if I used an example, you talked about the house. One time I put a house in escrow, and about three weeks after it was in escrow, the owner disclosed that the house had a crack slab of which they sued the builder to fix. And so I got that disclosure three weeks into it. I mean, we've, like, married this house by now. And I called my realtor and I said, "I need you to know we're out." Because if they didn't disclose that upfront, what else is there that they have not disclosed? Well, the realtor works with my wife, they collude against me. And so the realtor says, "Actually, this slab is the strongest one in the neighborhood, because it's been reinforced." And my wife said, "Are you willing to check out the perfect house for our family over a stupid crack slab?" And I actually said, "Yeah, honey, I am. Because I had a house once with the crack slab and all the doors closed on their own, you wouldn't actually have to push it. I'm not doing that twice in my lifetime." And I walked. And here's what I want your listeners to remember about being able to walk away. So the side who has the most power is the side who has the ability to walk away. Okay, the side who's unwilling actually has the least amount of power in a negotiation. So walking away, I knew two things, I knew that where we were going to move to next was actually going to be better than this house, and it was probably going to cost a little bit more because there's no way we were gonna go into escrow on a house that was less good than the one we just did cancel the escrow one, but being able to walk away gives you significant power, you know, my line, I like that, but not that much. And you're able to pass and move on.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:23

This has been a fantastic and super fun conversation for me. I really, really appreciate all of the specific language around that. I think that helps our listeners so much. And just wanted to say thank you, first of all, for taking the time and making the time. And if people want to learn more about you, what you do, or get the book, where can they do those things?

Peter Stark 32:46

Yeah, so two places. One, peterstark.com. Really, really easy. And I have a lot of free resources on my site for your listeners. If they want to get a copy of the book, "The Only Negotiating Guide You'll Ever Need", that was republished in 2016-2017, it's on Amazon, it has sold over 150,000 copies. And I am so grateful for that book because I've written 10 books, most will sell around 10,000, for one to take off and have shelf life over a long period of time. It takes, like, what was kind of fun about that book is the most simple one I thought I'd ever written, a lot more content and complexity. But that book just talks about the first six chapters, what does it take to be a great negotiator. And then I give your listeners 121 tactics to gain or maintain leverage, or to counter if somebody used that tactic on you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:44

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 34:48

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.

Victoria Lyon 35:07

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.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:27

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 and begin looking for a way out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:57

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.