603: Leveraging Your Strengths for Career Fulfillment: How Self-Awareness Drives Career Success

Petchell Luepke 00:01

If you get to a job that uses your strengths and you're passionate about, then you can't go back. You're like, "Oh, this is what this feels like to work in an environment where I really enjoy it."

Introduction 00:19

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:43

When it comes to making a career change, most people jump straight to the tactical stuff– your resumes, your job searching, interview skills. But if you're looking to make what we call an intentional career change, the real work starts internally. Self-awareness has to be the foundation. You must deeply understand your strengths, values, what energizes you, so you can align your next role with who you truly are. And one of the most effective ways to fast track this process is by discovering and leveraging your top strengths.

Petchell Luepke 01:12

I realize my strengths are something to be leveraged and flexed in different contexts. And that sometimes my strength is a strength, and sometimes it can be a blind spot, and to recognize that and navigate that, and just that self-awareness is incredibly important.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:28

That's Petchell Luepke. Petchell has made big moves across many different industries, including federal government, mortgage, healthcare, retail. She's gone from working as a senior executive manager for the federal government, facilitating meetings and large scale events, while earning six figures, to stepping away and being a stay at home mom when her kids were young. Later, she opened her own brick and mortar retail store, but eventually realized she missed the teaching and facilitating work she loved before kids, so she decided to move back into that. But this time on her own terms. The path led her to coaching, and years later, she's part of HTYC, our team, as a career coach, and that's what makes Petchell so amazing, and why I'm pumped to have her on our team. Beyond that, she's just an awesome person with a wealth of experience is her expertise as a Gallup certified strengths coach. And if you've listened to this podcast before, you know we're pretty big on using your strengths to guide your career, specifically Gallup's 34 Clifton Strength themes. And you know, this is one of many, but Petchell lives and breathes strengths of all kinds. She's an expert in helping people understand and leverage their unique strengths to build fulfilling careers. I'm excited for you to hear Petchell explain how she used her own strengths to navigate her career changes, and how understanding and leveraging your strengths can completely transform not just your career, but your entire life. Before we jump in here, I wanted to let you know that I'm not going to be leading this episode today. Samantha from our content team had the chance to sit down with Petchell and discuss her career. So I'm gonna let them take it away. Here's Petchell going back to the beginning of her career where it all started.

Petchell Luepke 03:15

My major in college was political science, and I was naturally drawn to how policies were made in this country and how it affected programming for the citizens of the US, and it was just interesting and intriguing to me. And particularly, I minored in why presidents become presidents.

Samantha Martin 03:35

Oh, that's really cool. I didn't even know that was an option.

Petchell Luepke 03:39

Yeah. So it was like this psychology. It was the psychology behind the politics. So that was fascinating for me, and that's where I started. And then I graduated with this degree in New York, and I really didn't think about career so much during college. I just went with what was intriguing and interesting. And most people were going on to law school, and I considered that, and I really wasn't excited about the tedious studying of the LSAT and more years of schooling at that stage immediately. So I took a job. And I would say that the beginning of my career was a series of jobs, and that's where I discovered things that I liked and naturally was good at, and things that just didn't really align or resonate with me. My first job was I was a mortgage broker for a bank, for a very large bank, and I was in the pre-qualification team.And what I discovered there was, I was really good at talking to people, and what I also discovered is that it's really important to ask the right questions. So when people are pre-qualifying for a mortgage, they have to have certain amount of money in the bank, they need to have certain savings, they need to have a certain income level. So it was super important, and you would get this red light or green light as you went through the questions. So red light was like a red flag, like they didn't qualify, and green they can keep going, right? So I learned it was really important, and I learned that you're asking people really sensitive questions about their background, and so the way you conducted yourself and carried yourself, building rapport with them was super important, and being humble in that conversation. Because at the end, if you told them they didn't qualify, I was, you know, there's a person at the other end of this, it's sales. So I also discovered I was sales because I loved that I was good at sales, naturally, and it was from building rapport in conversations with people.

Samantha Martin 05:36

You were like, "I thought, I just really liked presidents, and now here I am killing it in sales and mortgage."

Petchell Luepke 05:40

Yeah. You know, I realized I like talking to people and I'm building rapport with them, and though I wasn't sold on the product. I wasn't excited about selling mortgages. And I realized that because I became good friends with my work colleagues, and one of them, like, was really passionate into it and to this day, 30 years later, he's still a mortgage broker. And I noticed that my passion wasn't as similar.

Samantha Martin 06:10

So you realized the misalignment there was the industry, the mortgage industry.

Petchell Luepke 06:15

Yeah. So I said, "I got to do something else." And so I thought, well, I think a differentiator, because we're all recent college graduates. And I thought, "Well, maybe if I went back and got a master's degree and specialized in something."And so I went and got an MBA. So I did that. I got, yeah, I thought, and I learned... that's where I learned, I say, my MBA was like I learned this idea of you need to answer what problem are you trying to solve.

Samantha Martin 06:42

Did you have to do internships through your MBA, or was it...?

Petchell Luepke 06:46

Yes, that was actually a big requirement, an entire semester of working paid employment where you're solving some problem for an organization. And that was a really important part. You had to write a thesis on it, and that was your homework.

Samantha Martin 07:00

Did you enjoy the internship?

Petchell Luepke 07:02

So, I would say, what I enjoyed was the networking and opportunities that I got, and so that's a very interesting learning experience for me because I worked for a board member. He was a board of a university for the President, and they were having a problem training their faculty. Faculty, kind of, you know, they're prestigious and esteemed, and they research, and they don't really want to go to a training program. See, because they become a dean of a program, and they have to learn how to run something like a business. And so what I learned was, I loved to gather data about all these programs, what works. So I gathered the data and I put it together and I presented recommendations based on the data.

Samantha Martin 07:46

That seems pretty different from the people oriented job you were doing before that.

Petchell Luepke 07:51

It is. Yes. And if we talk about it through the lens of strengths, it makes a lot of sense. I didn't know my strengths back then, but now knowing my strengths, it makes a lot of sense. So I lead with the theme of influencing. And so I influenced, I made recommendations, and the president of the university loved the report and the recommendations. So I learned quickly, like I love taking data to inform decisions, and I have strategic to how to go forward with the information and influencing decisions and decision makers with that information.

Samantha Martin 08:29

When you graduated with your MBA, what was the next step for your career?

Petchell Luepke 08:34

I didn't know. Again, I was like, I still didn't know. I had all these experiences, and I still just didn't know what it was the thing. And so, because I got exposed to the president of the university and this project, I got to meet other people. And who was on the board was the CEO of the hospital. And so he had seen my work, and he said, "Hey, what are you doing after you graduate?" I said, "Well, I'm looking for some an opportunity." And they had a fellowship position, two fellowships they do nationwide searches for. And I was fortunate enough that I got the fellowship. And so it was a one year exploratory and it was for the hospital. So now I'm pivoting to healthcare.

Samantha Martin 09:22

Right. Like another different industry.

Petchell Luepke 09:25

And a whole other industry.

Samantha Martin 09:26

So how long did you stay at the role at the hospital? Was it at a hospital?

Samantha Martin 10:35

Interesting. So when you realize that you weren't enjoying the nitty gritty of the job, was it an immediate, like, "Okay, I need to find something else." Or how long did it take you to transition out of there?

Petchell Luepke 09:31

It was at a hospital for one year. And what was amazing about that was, so I got to be on the executive team and support to the COO. And so I attended the executive team meetings, and they said, "As a fellow, you can explore anything you wanted to." And so I had this natural curiosity. I said, "Well, can I watch open heart surgery?" And they said, "Sure." So I found myself now watching open heart surgery. Again, I had no interest in going into healthcare. But what was fascinating, I enjoyed information and I enjoyed learning, but I really enjoyed learning from the executive team, and I loved hearing the executive decision making that went into running and leading in a hospital. So I learned that I didn't love the nitty gritty of all the Excel spreadsheets that I got assigned to do that was very tedious for me, and I'll go back to my strengths when we get there. But it was... I had to do it, and I didn't love it. But then when we got in the meeting, where everybody was talking about the issues and how to move forward, that really engaged me.

Petchell Luepke 10:47

Well, fellowships are designed for kind of a shorter term early in your career to explore, that's what they're designed. And so during that time, though, I really again networked, because I had access to all these people. And so I went to the director of government affairs, and I said, "Hey, I would love to hear about", you know, circling back to that political science, that policy, how does policy influence the execution and running of an organization? How does it impact it? And so I went back, and I just said, "Tell me about your life, your career. What is the day in your life look like." And I told her my interest in policy. And I also got to during the fellowship, I got to go to Albany, which is the state government, to see hospital policy being discussed and how it impacted the hospital. And I found that really interesting. And so I went to her, and I told her all of that. And so by building that relationship and networking when an opportunity came up, she called me. I was actually in Albany, and she called and she said, "The congressman from Long Island, New York, Congressman for the US federal government and the House of Representatives, was hiring a legislative assistant. Would you be interested in the job?" 100%. And so I interviewed, and I got to go to Washington, DC and work for a member of Congress.

Samantha Martin 12:05

Oh, that's so cool. I'm learning that right now. I did not know that about you. That's really, really cool.

Petchell Luepke 12:10

Writing policy, which was incredible. So we took all of that, right? It's influencing kind of opportunity, but it also takes a lot of research in solving problems. You know, what problem we trying to solve? That's what federal government see like, what problem are you solving? What's out there, what works, what doesn't work? And writing policy that it can affect the entire country. So...

Samantha Martin 12:32

That's really cool.

Petchell Luepke 12:33

So I can share with you one of my claim to fame is I worked on the bill that, you know, when you subscribe to marketing emails, and at the bottom says you can unsubscribe. I worked on the bill to make that as law.

Samantha Martin 12:46

Oh, it has to be an option.

Petchell Luepke 12:48

Yeah, that you have to legally offer that. And so that has lived on all these years. And so that's pretty exciting for me, having gotten to work on something like that.

Samantha Martin 12:59

Yeah. Oh, that's fun to see in the wild. I'm sure. Just every email you're like, "Hey, that's me."

Petchell Luepke 13:07

I don't think about it that much anymore, but I think, you know, you think about your strengths, and these jobs where I have these series of jobs where I learned things that I liked about myself, and so once I got to Washington, DC and worked in policy, that's when I realized it didn't feel hard, it didn't feel like work. It was incredibly exciting and engaging. And so whenever you, I think, if you get to get to a job that uses your strengths and you're passionate about, then you can't go back. You're like, "Oh, this is what this feels like to work in an environment where I really enjoy it." So I was in Washington, DC for 23 years, but so I worked in the federal government for just, I think, like, six or seven years. And what happened was I moved... So this is where we moved to leadership development and coaching. So I moved from being individual, so I moved into the executive federal branch and different agencies, and I went from being an individual contributor to a senior executive manager, so the top of the agency. And so this is a very different skill set, right, than being an individual contributor. And I would wonder, I wondered, how do I lead people well? And so I was in executive management, and I asked the question, "How you lead people well?" And that's when I went to a three day workshop getting to like, hold up a mirror to my own leadership of what I was doing well and maybe my potential blind spots. And it was the most powerful experience I'd ever had.

Samantha Martin 14:42

I want to focus on that for a minute. What was it that was happening in your role that made you say, "Wait a minute, I need to go do some type of training or something." What was happening in your role that was making you realize you needed, like leadership training or whatever you would categorize that as.

Petchell Luepke 14:59

Well, I was leading meetings, groups of people that were high level. These are six figure managers who are in charge of programs and projects. And I was, you know, the oversight of that. And so we'd be at these meetings, so we had a table of 20 people reporting on their projects. And a lot of times my boss would assign me to any project that was kind of behind schedule or off track in some way, and I was to get it back on track, or just a new initiative I would oversee. And so how do you... You're not doing the day to day of doing the project, you're leading other people to manage the project and the people under them. And I didn't have experience doing that. I knew I have had good and bad bosses before, but I didn't even know what those skills really were.

Samantha Martin 15:46

Gotcha. So were you the one that went to your leader and said, "I need to go."?

Petchell Luepke 15:52

Yeah, I did. And it was three days 10am to 10pm, and I got feedback in real time. And the thing was very curious to me was people gave me feedback that I didn't even realize was a strength. And I think that's really important. I think people don't realize the thing that they do naturally, that they're good at, they might not even realize it's a strength, and that that's what they bring to the table.

Samantha Martin 16:16

When you came off of that training and went back to your role, were you... Did you enjoy them more because of the training? Or did it leave you wanting more, like wanting to move on?

Petchell Luepke 16:27

I wanted more, and I was practicing and trying my skill sets out. I realized my strengths are something to be leveraged and flexed in different contexts, and that sometimes my strength is a strength, and sometimes it can be a blind spot, and to recognize that and navigate that, and just that self awareness is incredibly important. And so I got really, really intrigued. And so I went to, I remember, at the end, I said, "How did you get that job to the facilitator?" I'm like, "What is this job that you have that you stand in this room?" And it's not just training. They use a lot of experiential exercises. And they would just, she would have this coaching conversation, one on one that was so powerful, like a five minute conversation, Samantha, that was so powerful that the person saw something in a different way that they hadn't seen before. And I was just in awe of this. And I said, "What magic do you do up there? How does..." Turned out to be strained, and there's a whole world of people who do this. And so that's when she said, "Well, you can volunteer with the organization and sponsor these workshops and put them on." And so I started sponsoring them for years and years. I went back to my world, but I continued to just volunteer and say, "I want to put one of these on. And then I would hire the organization to come in with their facilitator." And then in 2017 I finally went to my husband, I said, "You know what, I don't want to be the volunteer sponsor and just put it on. I want to be the person in the front of room facilitating these powerful coaching conversations. And he said to me, in response, "I'm surprised it took you this long to say that out loud."

Samantha Martin 18:02

Oh, he knew.

Petchell Luepke 18:03

He knew. That's a big pivot. You go for executive management. So like, "Hey, I want to start this whole new career."

Samantha Martin 18:09

Yeah, yeah. Because that was kind of your, I don't know what you'd call it, a better word for side hustle, but like, you know what you did on the side for fun.

Petchell Luepke 18:17

Yeah. Exactly. Hobby. It was a personal passion, it was a hobby, it was an interest. But in between there, so from executive management, I went and I had a baby, and I thought I was really into my career, and my baby had undiagnosed acid reflux for about two months, and just screamed and cried throughout the night, and I was like, "I can't go back to work right now. Like, I don't know what's happening here, but we're all exhausted. We have no idea what's going on."

Samantha Martin 18:46

You're shifting for sure.

Petchell Luepke 18:48

Yeah. So it was a shift. And, you know, a pause in the career. And then my daughter was six months old, I was pregnant with my son. And so I thought, "Well, this is really a time to stay home because between having a baby and being pregnant with another baby, staying home..." Yeah, so I stayed home for a year with them and going back to my roots of learning in MBA, it's like, "what problem are you trying to solve?" The problem was that baby stuff is really expensive. It's got a really high startup cost. And so when I was pregnant with my daughter, and I was executive management, I need to go buy suits, maternity suits that you wear for six months, and you spend a lot of money on, and then I need them anymore. And then I was pregnant with my son, I was staying home, and it was a different season, and I was going to the park, so I couldn't wear my suits anymore, and I needed another whole new wardrobe for six months. And I bought all this baby gear that cost a lot of money, and there was no second hand market. And that's when I came out with this idea to open up a consignment store, a reusable maternity stuff. And it turns out the baby business is a multi billion dollar industry.

Samantha Martin 19:52

Yep, as a mom of two young, and so I can tell you that it is. A lot of mandalas are in there.

Petchell Luepke 19:58

And so here I was, I had people say, "Do you have any retail experience?" I'm like, "Not really, no."

Samantha Martin 20:03

Yeah, but you knew the problem that needed to be solved and you were willing to do it. So what did that look like? The actual business of it? Was it online, or...?

Petchell Luepke 20:13

That was a brick and mortar store. So...

Samantha Martin 20:15

In the DC area where you still were?

Petchell Luepke 20:17

Yep. And this is, you know, an area that can support this, there was a lot of working moms in the gym, and they shop and buy stuff online, and maybe didn't fit or work out. And so they don't resend, or send it back. But people are really environmental conscious too, so they like the repurposing aspect of it. And so it was just a great business model because of the need of a community. And so we had 3000 consigners.

Samantha Martin 20:46

Oh, wow, that's such a busy area too. That's probably a great place to have that store. So it seemed like, from how you're telling it, that it was like almost the perfect pause from the realization going from the executive management to realizing you wanted to take the hobby on as your full career, and then you had a baby, were you still thinking about that during that time, or was it kind of just put to the back of your mind?

Petchell Luepke 21:15

I still volunteered and put them on. Definitely not that first two years, not the first year of the babies. And my husband and I actually jointly sponsored, and so he just took over the responsibility that I had babies. And so yeah, and then I learned a lot running a business. And so I started doing, like, small business coaching and consulting because that makes sense. I'm running my small business and so I could support other business owners.

Samantha Martin 21:47

Yeah, was that a local...? Did you know people that you saw needed it?

Petchell Luepke 21:54

Yeah. I mean, when you're a small business owner, you're doing everything in the business and on the business, and it's a lot of work. It's a very exciting and engagement, but it was easy. Once I got certified, I would reach out and say, "Hey, I need to get my hours in coaching. Can I go to for like, really low cost?" Yes. And so it was this mutual beneficial way to get started.

Samantha Martin 22:15

Was it people in the area of, like, the chamber that you were a part of? Or...

Petchell Luepke 22:20

Yeah, they were all... So where I was... I was really fortunate there was a lot of small business owner. Most of the small is not a lot of big chain stores, it was mostly small businesses, all like local people. So it was very easy to find clients that way.

Samantha Martin 22:35

That's pretty interesting. Because you kind of just said it like, "Well, naturally, I started a small business, and then I started coaching small business owners", and that just seems like a big step. So how did you realize, "I need to do, or I want to do more than just running my own small business."? So what made you want to do more?

Petchell Luepke 22:56

Well, so going back to the lens of my strengths, and I didn't know my strengths then, but now I do. And I thought, so activator is my number one strength, and people with activator, that talent theme, lends itself to entrepreneurship. It lends itself to taking calculated risks. It lends itself to a sense of urgency and energy and enthusiasm and excitement to be there for yourself to get things started or to motivate other people to get things started. And so it was very natural for me to start the business. The people around me, like, "Are you a little worried about this failing?" I'm like, "Not really. No. I have, like, a contingency plan. My husband's really supportive, so let's just go for it." It was very... it was one of the most exciting times in my career, was getting a business off the ground. And that first 18 months was really a peak highlight, like it was just went with everything, all my strengths, building something from scratch that I didn't have really a lot of experience in. So, I'm really resourceful because I'm input, and input likes to gather information and resources, so I did that to get it going. And so it was a very exciting time. But the thing about activator is that once it gets, and I didn't know this then, but once it gets steady state, it's a little boring,

Samantha Martin 24:09

it's not as exciting as it once was. There's not as much going on. And then it gets stressful, probably with the, you know, needing to hit the numbers and all that.

Petchell Luepke 24:17

Yeah. I mean, so what would happen is I would hire a manager to run the day to day operations. And this is one of the things I learned, I heard from Gen Z, she was amazing, and she was so brave. She wanted me there with her, pouring into her, pour into the store, and I didn't want to be around that much. I was like, "You got it. Like, I trust you. You're amazing. You're so good." And since there, I regret like not spending more time with her because I didn't realize through the lens of my activator, it doesn't excite me. But it's really about going back to my own leadership to lean employees well, that's what she needed. I didn't respond to because I was, like, giving into my activator. Activator wants to move to the next thing. So I can go now coach other business owners. I was moving on to the next thing. I already started this thing. I want to go the next thing. You're in a steady state, you're good. I have somebody in place.

Samantha Martin 25:04

You're like, "No, I believe in you. That's why I hired you. You got this, here's the confidence girl. Go get it. I'm gone."

Petchell Luepke 25:09

She was amazing too. I mean, she graduated college and she was running my small business. And it was just incredible how great she was. I was like, "Exactly. You got this. Steady state, you run it, and I'm gonna go plant another thing over here, and I'm gonna keep doing new things." But I also I love strategy, though, so I really did a lot of strategy meetings for the staff at that point of like, "Hey, let's look at our numbers. Let's look at how sales are going." And I also knew intuitively, what I really learned running that business was, whenever I hired somebody, they'd get hired for whatever role, sales associate, manager, part time inventory. But I would ask them, "What do you like to do?" And I would give them that thing to do it. And that, right, the reality of the results of somebody doing what they like to do, it always made my store more profitable.

Samantha Martin 25:58

So you were, you had started coaching small business owners, and then it sounds like you were really thriving off of coaching, I guess, your employees at your store. So when did you put it all together and think, "I think this is kind of what I want to focus on doing."?

Petchell Luepke 26:14

So that was 2017. And so it was about two years before I sold my store, and that's when I got certified in becoming a coach, and that was when I got introduced to strengths because they had a strengths coach come in and do our assessment. And I just remember looking over my shoulder like, did someone like, how in the world did this assessment know this about me? And it gave words to, like, my experiences. And I mean, I was just like, blown away that, like, "Oh, this makes so much sense the way I've carried out my career journey. It just reflecting and how it mirrored and aligned with it." And it was incredible.

Samantha Martin 26:59

So I want to call out before... I want to touch on strengths in your career, but before that, I want to make sure that people realize that we talk about strengths all the time on the podcast and signature strengths, but we always go back to the 34 strengths that Gallup has identified. So we talk about those strengths all the time, and you are an officially certified Gallup strengths coach. Correct?

Petchell Luepke 27:24

Correct, yes.

Samantha Martin 27:25

So you know a lot about strengths, and that is so intriguing to me, personally, I could talk to you about strengths, I think, for the rest of the day. So now that you have moved into coaching fully, what did you realize that you had been pulling from throughout your career, in your strengths that led you to career coaching and that feeling like the best fit for you?

Petchell Luepke 27:50

Yeah. So I think, right, so I lead in the domain if you have your full 34 report, page 21, will outline the domain, and your domain is your default leadership style. And it's a logarithm based on, you need your full 34 report to know your domain. But there's four domains, and that gives a framework for the 34 talent themes. And so I lead with influencing. So one is, I like to have an audience and influence other people. So that's important to understand, right? And so when you're coaching, you are getting to work with somebody. So people with influencing like to work with other people and collaborate. But my number one talent theme is activator. And activators like to encourage and have a sense of urgency. And so what I notice is that I have a genuine curiosity about other people's jobs, and do they love what they do. And that was a natural place that I would ask people questions.

Samantha Martin 28:53

Yeah, you are already doing that all throughout your career. Just walking up to the front of the room and being like, "So how did you get this job?"

Petchell Luepke 28:58

Yes. In fact, my dad, when I was a child, would say, "Gee, you asked, like, nosy questions." And so, as, like, a little kid, I would, like, just ask. I would be with a lot of my kids. I have teenagers, and I'm on line at the grocery store, and I'm very curious about people, and they're like, mortified. They're like, "Why do you have to talk to everybody?" Well, it turns out that I'm woo, winning other people over. And so I love the social interaction with like complete strangers. It's very like, remember your strengths are something you can't not do. You're compelled. You are compelled to do it. So this is just my natural way of being and understanding that is really important for finding your career. So I think the combination of my talent themes, you know, it just tells you how you do things. And so having woo is I want to connect with another person, I want to influence people, and I also have empathy, which means that I don't... it's not that I have empathy for you, it's that I can automatically feel what you're feeling. So that really helps me with clients. They might be saying one thing, but they're feeling something that they're not putting words to. And I sense, and I pick up on it. And then I have the talent theme command, which is like someone who will directly speak into something, like, I can't not speak into the elephant in the room. So I think the combination of that empathy and command and woo and input, so input is really a key talent theme for me in my coaching, because I love to collect resources and information for the purpose of sharing it with clients.

Samantha Martin 30:35

That's so important as a career coach or any coach in general. So let me ask you, what advice would you give someone who is in a role where maybe they're feeling misaligned or realizing it doesn't bring them energy, or they're just interested in something else and want to move on? What advice would you give them as like the first step?

Petchell Luepke 30:58

I think a really good first step is introspection in looking at it through your lens of your strengths. There are so many talent assessments out there, and a lot of companies use them, and I think they give good insights, and they're complimentary to CliftonStrengths. I think CliftonStrengths really does such a deeper dive, so the odds of somebody else having your top five talents in the same order is one in 33 million.

Samantha Martin 31:26

It's like your career DNA, almost.

Petchell Luepke 31:28

Yes, I love that. It's your career DNA. It's completely unique to you and or almost really unique to you. And I still haven't found my strengths twin. There's a website you can put in your strengths and find your strengths twin. And I haven't found my strengths twin. So I would say, really, no, and look at your successes, look at your successes and see how it maps to your strengths. And every strength is going to have a need and knows what kind of environment it needs to be in. So my strengths, for example, with ideation and activator, I need places that I'm allowed to bring ideas and I'm allowed to fail, and I'm allowed to, with command, get feedback and course correct. So I love those kinds of environments. So anything that's like new initiatives getting things off the ground where ideas are accepted, right? So my husband also has ideation, and he was in an event space where he, like, gets to do all kinds of fun events and try out new things. And if he works in a space where they like say, "No, we don't have the budget for him", over and over again, he can't stay there, because he's got to try out, right? And so that's why it's really important to understand. If you understand your strengths, when you're on a job interview, you can ask the questions that like, no, we're going to play to your strengths. "Hey, how many times do I get an opportunity to be creative?" Well, you can find that in job interviews. "Actually, we don't really... We like ideas, but we really don't have a budget for it. We're gonna table those for a year or two." Well, then you know that going in, right? And so you can have that honest conversation and understand whether you're a good fit or not. So I think that introspection is really important to get your CliftonStrengths, get your full 34 report. You'll see your blind spots so that you know how to manage those, and you can really kind of map out the kinds of environments that you would thrive in and would engage you.

Samantha Martin 33:12

How did, I guess, that leads me to wondering, what are the signs that you are not working in your strengths, or you need to learn a little more about them so that you can figure out how to do more work in your strengths?

Petchell Luepke 33:28

I would say, I think if you find yourself complaining, if you find yourself complaining to me, complaining is a sign of longing for something.

Samantha Martin 33:36

That's good. So can you give me an example of maybe a client or something.

Petchell Luepke 33:43

I mean, I was just thinking like, if you're complaining about your boss, right, you're complaining about your boss. Well, what are you really complaining about, right? And so maybe that you're longing to be heard more, and maybe there's a conversation you need to have with your boss. So what could that look like? So identifying what are you really longing for and what conversation is needed.

Samantha Martin 34:08

That's a good mindset shift, because it's like, okay, if you're complaining or you're thinking that something's so bad, like, well, what are you missing, and could it be fixed with just a conversation? Or do you need to leave or something else?

Petchell Luepke 34:23

Yeah. And it's like a discovery. It's really fun. And a lot of times I do exercises like, "Oh, I can't go talk to them. They're going to be so difficult." I already know what they're going to say, "I already have experience." And so I say, "Okay, well, then write that down what you think is going to happen, and then go have the conversation, and then record what actually happened." And people are usually pleasantly surprised, typically. And if they're not, if they're like, "No." "Like, how badly I thought it was, like, even better. It's more confirmation. It's more information for you to make decisions."

Samantha Martin 34:52

I'm feeling called out right now because that's what I tell myself every time. I'm like, "Oh, I should say this, this or this." I'm like, "I already know what's gonna..." You know? So that's interesting. I'm just coaching myself right now. That's what I'm using this time for, I guess.

Petchell Luepke 35:08

Perfect. Like, really, that's what I'm saying, is coach yourself. Like, that's a really great skill to have, is coaching yourself. And you notice, like, "Oh, I do that", right? So then challenge yourself, "Okay, I commit to the next time that that happens, I'm going to have that conversation", or whatever it is, that goal.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:31

Most of the episodes you've heard on Happen To Your Career showcase stories of people that have taken the steps to identify and land careers that they are absolutely enamored with, that match their strengths, and are really what they want in their lives. If that's something that you're ready to begin taking steps towards, that's awesome. And we want to figure out how we can help. So here's what I would suggest. Take the next five seconds to open up your email app and email me directly. I'm gonna give you my personal email address, scott@happentoyourcareer.com. Just email me and put 'Conversation' in the subject line. And when you do that, I'll introduce you to someone on our team who can have a super informal conversation with and we'll figure out the very best type of help for you, whatever that looks like. And the very best way that we can support you to make it happen. So send me an email right now with 'Conversation' in the subject line.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:23

Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you next week.

Speaker 4 36:28

The concept of switching jobs is something that I didn't know if it was going to be better or something that wasn't as prestigious and look as good on paper, didn't pay as well, whatever. The risk just felt massive to me to, like, move away. I was kind of paralyzed by the anxiety of, like, you know, okay, on paper, I'm in a great spot right now, I hate my life, but on paper, everything's great.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:51

The career you once loved can quickly turn into a less than ideal situation when your personal life shifts or your priorities evolve. But when your career feels like a part of your identity, walking away can seem impossible. So how do you move forward when staying feels wrong, believing feels even harder?

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:09

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.