664: The Truth About Purpose-Driven Career Change + Free Audiobook Inside

Scott Anthony Barlow: This is Happen To Your Career. The podcast that brings you real people, real transformations, and the courage to do work that truly fits. Now, if you haven't already subscribed, click follow right now so you don't miss any of the new episodes.

I'm a nerd for learning about where anything comes from. That's one of the reasons why I love etymology. And the etymology of the word "career" is particularly fascinating. It comes from the Latin word "Carrus", meaning chariot or wheeled vehicle. Now, later on it entered French and Italian, initially, meaning a race course or the wheeled tracks left behind from a chariot.

Now, I think that's particularly interesting because that's how many of us have approached our careers, careening at full speed ahead, leaving tracks behind that show where we've been, but we don't have an intentional plan for fulfilling work for the future.

We feel like we've made intentional decisions along the way, but for most of us, what we've actually done is accept those opportunities that are right in front of us. Those promotions or recruiters or friends that reach out and say, "Hey, come work for us."

On this episode, I'd like to give you one of the best resources that we've created to help you understand how intentional career change works. Our audiobook, Happen To Your Career: An Unconventional Approach to Career Change and Meaningful Work

Best of all, we've actually made it completely free for you for a limited time. You can literally click into the description of your podcast player, whatever you're watching this on, or show notes for the link. No opt-in, no money required.

In this episode though, I wanted to share with you the introduction chapter. It's actually my story of what led to approaching my career more intentionally. But this story isn't actually about me, it's about you and how to help you find your own version of extraordinary work.

Okay. Here it goes. My wife, Alyssa, and I moved to Portland, Oregon in 2005 after I'd accepted a highly paid but unexciting job as a regional manager. We bought a house that was twice as expensive as anything my parents had ever owned.

In my new job, I was managing a team of 20 people. And if I did well in my first year, the company promised me a BMW. So I felt safe, successful, optimistic, but it didn't last.

My commute was three hours a day. Insane, right? My work schedule was 70 to 80 hours per week on the regular. I didn't have weekends. I didn't have time off. I never saw Alyssa. I couldn't focus. I couldn't work, and I was scared. I gained nearly 50 pounds by self-medicating with food. I developed panic attacks.

Honestly, I didn't even know what panic attacks were before this. It was bad. So bad that I began looking for a way out.

Many days in a row, I seriously considered the window. Not kidding. It was only two stories, and if I fell, jumped out the window, I'd probably just break my legs. Then they'd have to give me some time off. Right? Would insurance cover that? Was that fraud? What if I got in trouble or I got fired? I felt a panic attack coming on. I decided against the window.

Okay, so next to the office was a burger place. And one day, I decided to stress eat myself sick, and then tell them I needed to go home. I sat down and had three burgers, fries, a huckleberry milkshake, big enough to fill a bathtub.

It did not work. I got sick, but just nauseated enough to sit at my desk, writhing in pain, pretending to answer emails. Not enough to go home. Damn. I was trapped– wife, house, car of my dreams, no way out. But I had to keep going. I went on this way for a year.

Then one day, on the way to work, I had a panic attack so intense that I knew I was dying in the car alone on interstate five in bumper to bumper traffic. No way for an ambulance to reach me, and I could see the headlines.

"Fat loser dies in car because real world was too hard for him. He survived by his wife and his student loans." Okay, I didn't die, but I decided something had to change. I brought my concerns to my boss, who listened politely.

Three weeks later, he assembled my team, called me into his office, and then he told me I was fired. But he did give me a choice. I could walk into the other room and tell the people working for me that I was leaving, then he would give me three months' severance. Or, I could walk out the door without telling them and get two weeks' pay.

I needed the money. One last humiliation. I stood in front of my team. I told them I was leaving. There were tears, mostly mine. I was a failure. I apologize. I left me and my three-month severance.

Okay, this was horrible. And I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but I'm not sharing this story with you because I want you to feel sorry for me. Actually, it became one of the best gifts I could ever have received. Driving home in the rain, I made myself a promise I would never live like that again. I knew I had to figure out how to do work that didn't stress me out to the max. There had to be something out there that didn't make me feel this way, maybe even something that I actually enjoyed.

This was my why. The single decision sent me on a decade-long journey of learning how to live without settling in my career and all aspects of life. I wanted to learn how to live what was the most important to me, and I didn't wanna be thrown around by life and my work circumstances.

I wanted to understand how and why a few people grab the reins and live life the way that they want to, while others feel like they're forever at the mercy of whatever is thrown their way.

By the way, this audiobook it's for you if you don't wanna settle, and you've often wondered if there could be more out there for you. And this book is certainly for you if you want to identify and do your career in a much more meaningful way. A way that feeds you and fulfills you, but just as importantly, a way where you get to use your strengths, talents, and skills to help others so that you are getting just as much back.

To be clear, this book is not for you if you just want a better job. It's also not for you if you just want to be paid more. A better job and pay are easy in comparison to the process that this book lays out. You must be excited about the prospect of doing work that is meaningful to you and contributes to others in this world in far greater ways than what you might be doing right now, but also will getting well compensated.

Okay. The part that I didn't tell you about my story is that I had a great job, great pay, great people I worked with, great training, and opportunities. There were actually many wonderful things about it.

My good friend, who also worked at the company, loved it. He stayed around an additional 15 years and eventually became the president of that organization. And even though it was a great fit for him, the company was most certainly not a great fit for me. And that's what this book is really about.

How to relentlessly find your own fit, your own version of what extraordinary looks like for you. And I promise it's drastically different for you compared to me or the next person. And that's okay. The socially accepted norms that dictate what makes a great career don't often align with what humans really need.

So whether you're already in a good job and you've had a good career, but want to find out what's next for you, or whether you're in a dismal situation that you want to escape, this book will help you uncover your ideal version of your career and help you understand what it's going to take to get there. I'm gonna teach you what I've learned searching for career fulfillment since 2006.

Over the years, I've sat for over 100 job interviews. I've changed careers many times over, so many times over, and even moving from operations to human resources leadership. I've conducted over 2000 job interviews. Actually, that's no longer cracked; it's over 3000 at this point.

I learned executive and leadership coaching along the way. I held many dream jobs, and then my dreams would evolve, or they would change, and I would move on. And throughout the process, I was learning. I was growing. I was building my skills and honing in on what I really wanted.

In 2012, I started this company, Happen To Your Career (HTYC), to help people like you find career fulfillment. Since then, we've been able to help thousands of people find their ideal careers and transition to extraordinary work.

In 2013, I began this podcast that you're listening to right this moment, which has been called one of the best career podcasts by media outlets like Forbes and Lifehacker.

It has many millions of downloads. My work's been featured globally on MSNBC, Glassdoor, and The Muse, and hundreds of other publications and podcasts. I regularly get paid to speak at universities and organizations about meaningful work, strengths, and happiness.

I'm sharing that with you because I want you to know a little bit about me, but this book is not about me.

In this book, I'm gonna share what we've uncovered at HTYC and, of course, what works for our clients. I'm also going to share what doesn't work. You're gonna get the practical application and the scientific research supporting those methods.

And as near as I can tell, there is no other company or person in the world that has access to so much direct information on how real people make seemingly impossible career changes to meaningful, well-paid work.

I wrote this book so that I could pass this knowledge on to you. Work can be unhealthy for many of us, but it doesn't have to be. I've seen what it can do on the positive side. It can feed you. Literally because you know it pays money that can magically turn into food, but figuratively as well. When done well, work can help you thrive.

I wrote this book to help you get to work that allows you to flourish, to create an extraordinary career and life for yourself. And not because you have to, but because you choose when, where, and how you work, and no longer spend years of your life tolerating a poor fit, or worse, a good fit that keeps you comfortably unhappy.

Okay, but there's actually an even bigger purpose in writing this book, and it's the same purpose that my organization serves. My team and I really want to change, not just work for you, but how work is actually done. We wanna make work freaking great for humans.

We work with individuals to do this, but my secret mission in writing this book is to teach you what we as humans need to make work fulfilling so that you can go and find or create your own place in the world that's phenomenal for you. Then once you get there, we want you to help transform the organizations that you are a part of to make them better for humans, too.

I wrote this book for you, but it's bigger than just you. We all need you to make this change for yourself. So in this audiobook, you're gonna hear about the countless ways professionals have found their way to thriving in their careers. You'll hear how one woman created her role drinking wine, writing about it, and running communications for the companies that she loved. And about how a lawyer who spent a decade trying to remove himself from law successfully transitioned to content strategy.

Also, how an engineer made a career change upwards instead of laterally while moving cities and jobs, and industries all at the same time. And we're gonna share and reveal how an executive discovered that work could be fun for the very first time in his 20 plus year career.

You'll also learn how people from every profession build plans for career change, using the same principles that allow airplanes to arrive safely every time. And you're gonna learn how it's possible to have a career you're enamored with that is good for you, your family, your bank account, and even your long-term health.

All this it's very possible. There's so much at stake if you don't act. And that's exactly why I wanted to give you access to this audiobook for free.

Just click into the description or show notes in your player. You'll find a direct link to our website. And of course, you can get the paid version if you want to, if you prefer like listening to it on Audible or Spotify, or whatever. But no matter what, I'm making this free because I want you to listen. It'll help you think differently about work and what it can be for yourself.

By the way, one really fun thing about this, too. Many of the stories that you'll hear in the audiobook they're actually told, not just by me, but by the individuals that they're about. We have that recorded audio in there. So it makes it a very different listening experience.

Our goal is to help you build the life you want and figure out how work fits within that life. It's a very different approach, but it's one that's backed by research and will help you find well-paid, meaningful work. Check it out in the links. I'll see you later. I'm out. Adios.