Megan Crawford 00:01

The whole societal, "Oh, you should, kinds of things. You should answer questions this way. This is how you should be for a hiring manager, right?" And then six months, it's like, "Wow, I don't like this job. Well, how did I not notice all the things", right?

Introduction 00:21

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 00:46

We get questions from clients all the time, things like, "How do I stand out in an interview? What do hiring managers actually want to know in this interview?" But these questions, well, we're honored to be able to answer them. I would argue that they're the wrong questions. Do you just want to stand out to stand out just to get a job? Or are you wanting to dig in and make sure this move is intentional and that it's the right fit for you? Interviews, as it turns out, are a two way street. And the first interview is the foundation for setting up the future of your work there. So the true question is, "How do I show up as myself in an interview?" Because you don't know what they're going to ask. But there are many things you can do to prepare.

Megan Crawford 01:29

I don't want to show my cards too early in this interview game. And I said, "What if it's not a game? What if there's no game? There's no any, there's no game, there's no pretend game happening here. And you are just going to have a conversation."

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:46

In a moment, you'll hear my conversation with one of our team members here at HTYC, Megan Crawford. Megan is the perfect person to talk to about this topic, because she was in Talent Acquisition and Talent Management for 13 years prior to becoming a career coach, and long before we ever got to work with her. She's facilitated 1000s of interviews, and we were talking about that before we started recording. And from my experience in HR and owning companies, we figure that that puts our combined number of interviews to well over 5000, maybe approaching 6000. So we've got some serious interviewing experience under our belt. That's kind of crazy. Anyhow, we get to work with clients every day here at HTYC. And when we're preparing them for interviews, we noticed that they automatically make assumptions like, "The hiring manager is going to think this, or they're going to want to know that. They're going to expect these certain qualifications." However, since you can never know exactly what an interviewer will ask, the best thing you can do is prepare to figure out if the job aligns with your definition of an ideal role. In the following conversation, you're going to hear how to prepare yourself in a way that allows you to walk into the interview, not just with confidence, but also to figure out if the role, if the organization is right for you, instead of trying to impress the interviewer. All right, here's Megan talking about some of the biggest misconceptions she hears all the time from people preparing for interviews.

Megan Crawford 03:22

The biggest question everyone wants to know is, "What do hiring managers want to hear?" Or, "What should I prepare for the hiring manager?" "You know, what do they want to hear from me?" As if it's just, the hiring manager is one person and there are right answers across the board in an interview.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:42

So basically, like a math test, right? Like one + one, obviously, equals seven.

Megan Crawford 03:47

Absolutely. And I think for clients, understanding that there's so many variables that we don't know about, what that hiring manager, and I always say hiring team. It's very rare if it's just this one singular person making the decision. So thinking of it more broadly, I think it is a really good place to start. It's a hiring team. It's a group of people. But I think people want to know, "How do I prepare for an interview? How do I answer the questions in an interview correctly?" That's the main thing I hear from clients.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:27

So what do you find then? And that's such an interesting, and I've heard that over and over and over again throughout the years as well. That undertones of, "How do I definitely do this correctly?" That's one way to think about it. I'm not sure that I personally would advise that way to think about it and what you've already alluded to. What would be a different way to think about it? How do you think about this?

Megan Crawford 04:53

Yeah, that's a great question. How do I think about interviews? I think they're conversations. Even this right now, you're interviewing me, I'm a guest on a podcast. But really, we're having a conversation. I think one of the biggest things that clients do is try to figure out what the other person's thinking. And so it creates so much noise in their head. So they can't ask the questions that they want to ask. They can't even actually hear the answers to the questions they're asking.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:29

I'm sorry, did you ask a question?

Megan Crawford 05:33

Exactly. So I think it's gotta be a conversation between two people. And let's approach it, me showing up as myself having a conversation.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:49

Can I give you a compliment?

Megan Crawford 05:50

Of course. I mean, I'll take them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:53

Sweet. So I honestly don't know that I've told you this. But I think that you're definitely one of the best conversationalists that I've met.

Megan Crawford 06:02

Wow. Well, thank you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:04

I mean that. You're truly a phenomenal conversationalist. And I think that one of the reasons that you do so well in conversations is, one, because with your recruiting background, and the other things that you've done over the years, like, you've had many, many conversations in which you had to, like, show up and make the other party comfortable, and then also somehow achieve a result for that conversation too, at the same time. It wasn't just like conversation for conversation's sake. So you've practiced it a lot. But the other thing I see you do, constantly, is instead of, I don't think I ever see you try to figure out what the other person is wanting necessarily. I see you leaning into whatever direction the conversation goes. And I think you're really really, really good at that.

Megan Crawford 07:02

Wow. Thank you. First of all, thank you. I love being in conversation like this. Where we are right now, it's an amazing space. I have no idea where it's gonna go. And I love that. I mean, personally. But I don't... I think that sometimes clients, in the absence of practice, let's say, or they haven't been comfortable in conversation, then that uncertainty is very uncomfortable, right?

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:37

Which can derail the conversation. Like, if you and I are feeling incredibly uncertain, then yeah, like, we just had tech issues not that long ago, too. And I can feel my uncertainty rising, which destroys conversation for me.

Megan Crawford 07:52

It absolutely destroys conversation. And specifically for interviews, if we're trying to develop rapport, we're trying to build relationships and also kind of trying to figure out if this is something I want to pursue or have another conversation about, then we have to be open to the fact that we don't know the answers. We have to just sort of be here. That idea of really being present, right here. And I love this space of being present right here.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:31

Well, let me ask you this then. Well, first of all, so with that reframe in mind, we're not talking about interviews anymore. Let's throw away that word interview just for a moment and instead, say, let's re-ask the question, "What can you do to go into a conversation with a high level of confidence when you are in that space where you're looking to make a much more intentional change?" Let's talk about that. What would you recommend? What can people do?

Megan Crawford 09:04

The first place to start, the only place to start, in my opinion, is to know yourself. You have to start there. You have to know exactly, as much as you can, obviously, what your own narrative is, what your own story is. And that can be, if we're talking about, obviously, careers that can be why you made the changes you made, what you've learned along the way, what is the theme across that story, ight? So knowing yourself is, I think, the only place to start.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:44

Totally agreed. And if we're really dig into it earlier when I was talking about you being a great conversationalist, I think that that is probably a decent portion of "why?". Because you're really comfortable in your own skin. At least that's what I've observed every interaction we've ever had– in person, over the internet, whatever. And that allows you to be able to respond and be excited about, like, where the conversation is going to go. Well, like, where will it go? Oh, my goodness. So I think you're good evidence of that.

Megan Crawford 10:18

Yeah. Thank you. And I do feel that. I haven't always been in that spot that I know the haziness of not knowing yourself. I know what it feels like to go into conversation, and be doing mental gymnastics sort of in the back of your brain, wanting to figure out what the other person wants to hear. I know that feeling. So it does take practice. It does take some work to get there. But I think starting with knowing and digging into, "what is my story overarching", right, like, "what is my narrative?" And then kind of moving into, let's say, conversation with this openness, and this grounded foundational feeling, then think about it, I mean, you can listen so much better, and be reacting to the other person's words and their thoughts and their feelings instead of getting stuck so much in your head about, "Well, what do they want to hear?" Right?

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:18

"What should I do next?"

Megan Crawford 11:19

"What should I do next?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:21

"What should I say?"

Megan Crawford 11:22

Yeah. "What should I say?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:23

"Did you say something?"

Megan Crawford 11:24

The noise, I mean. Yeah, the noise can be overwhelming.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:30

Okay, so here's what I'm hearing from that then. If we're breaking apart what you said, I totally agree with that. Let's see if we can identify how people can actually do those things, because I heard you talking about understanding yourself, understanding your career story, and then really being able to focus on the conversation itself, as opposed to like trying to impress the other people or trying to like come up with the right answers, right. So let's start with the beginning part of that, which really is about understanding yourself, and more specifically, what you want. I would call this area, developing a deep understanding of what you want, or developing a specific understanding of what you want. So how do people actually do that when we try to break it down? What do you think?

Megan Crawford 12:27

Yeah, I think when you... If you turn it all on its head, and you say, "Okay, I'm not going into conversation to be something or someone I think I should be, right." And you say, "I'm going to intentionally show up to all conversations moving forward, whether it's in for a job or for building relationships, whatever, I'm just going to show up as myself." Starting there, what does it sound like when you talk? Practicing, right? Like, getting used to hearing your own voice, being comfortable with the fact that you don't have all of the answers, right? So this inner knowing, I think, there's a fair amount of discovery that could happen in that. Like, "how do I want to show up to the world?" right? "what's my identity in the world?" Knowing yourself there, and then moving to that second part of, "what do I want and need?" Right? Like, so I know who I am, I know what I want and need, coming to conversation with those two parts is really going to give you the confidence to have a deep, deep conversation. And I think preparing, we're at least figuring those things out, it's a process.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:47

We use a tool internally called the Ideal Career Profile. And that's not what everyone has to do. Like, if you're listening to this right now, you don't have to go create an ideal career profile. If we just oversimplify what an ideal career profile is here for a moment, it's really a checklist of what you want, and what you need at a minimum. Like, that's it. So my question to you is, what's one thing that you found to be effective in helping people understand with a higher degree of specificity what it is that they want?

Megan Crawford 14:23

Yeah, that's so good. I think people struggle with wanting something they should want. Like, that fits into, well, I've done this in the past, and so naturally, I should want this thing next. And I say new, let's throw everything out. And in a magical world, what is it that you actually want? So, for me, those conversations typically go more granular, right? Clients typically start out with like, at minimum, or even their ideals start out being something that they've already had. Right? Or that they think is within reach, or they think that they should want next, this sort of linear thinking. And I think that's normal. I think that's very normal as a starting place. But if we can go a layer deeper, and kind of throw out that linear thinking and say, "How do you actually want to show up in your day or your life? And what do you want?" It's almost a repeating the question, if that makes sense, right? Like, what do you want, right? And saying that to yourself, "But do I actually want that, sort of, going a little bit deeper?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:46

I think that's fascinating. And that's a tool that I've used for myself over and over again, too, to help expose some of those shoulds. Which, if you've ever had that Happen To Your Career book, like, that's something we talk about in that chapter on, what are the obstacles that we don't even know are stopping us those shoulds, right? Stop shooting on yourself. And if you go through and say, "Okay, well, I've written down this thing, or I've identified this thing, or I've articulated whatever it is that I think that I want, like, I want to be..." and this is something that was in the past for me, "I want to be an HR director in this type of organization." And then I go through and say, "Well, is that something that I actually want?" And then start to find out that the answer is no, because what I actually want is some of the pieces I perceive are coming with that HR director in this type of organization. And that was a real thing for me in the past. But what have you found then that helps people to assess that with that secondary asking of "why", like, how can they make that work for them?

Megan Crawford 16:50

I have a good example. So I've heard this a fair amount over the years. I just want to open up a coffee shop, right? I know that you've heard this also, right? And I would venture to say that nine times out of 10, if not 10 times out of 10, it has nothing to do with the coffee shop, because opening a coffee shop is actually quite difficult. But I will say to the client, there is something there. It's the spark. It's this, like, nugget of interest, what is it about the coffee shop that is interesting to you, right? What is it? What do you perceive, in your words, what do you perceive that this coffee shop will give you? Is it community? Is it being able to choose the products? Is it just having flexibility in your day? Is it literally the environment that you see in your brain and that you imagine is very welcoming? So taking those, you know, taking that spark of interest and saying, okay, most people will just say, "I would open a coffee shop." And end there, and say like, "That's it." But I see that as, like, just the beginning of something that's there. I have a client who's interested in kayaking, right? And he'll talk about it and he loves it. And then he just leaves it kind of over there. And I say, "Well, wait. What is it about kayaking that is interesting to you?" Right? So maybe it's digging into the things and the areas that we feel drawn to and we're constantly thinking about, "Is there something there?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:28

You know, what's fascinating about that? I'm realizing, as we're talking about this subject, that one of the phenomenons that I've seen happen quite a bit, they or people get latched on to like, "I've always wanted to do this." And you just talked about the coffee shop. And I've definitely heard that many, many, many times over the years, and actually known people that have gone to the effort of opening up a coffee shop, and then only to realize that wasn't actually the coffee shop that they wanted. But it shows up in other ways, too. Like, "I've always wanted to be a doctor." "I've always wanted to be ." And whether people have actually explored that and gone and done the thing, or they've just continued to say like, "That's something I've always wanted to do." In either case, I think that there's an opportunity there to learn from why, to your point. Like, what is it about that? I think that's the question that you said, "What is it about that that is interesting to you?" So I love that question. I've even written it down here so that we can use it in other places later.

Megan Crawford 19:33

Awesome. Cool.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:35

Okay, so let's say that, you know, people are doing a great job identifying what is it that they want, and we're going to layer deeper to get a deep understanding of what we want and maybe even why we want it. But after that point, let's say that I am wanting to practice this career story that you've mentioned– you mentioned earlier, like, being comfortable with your narrative. How would I do that? How would I begin to get more comfortable with my narrative?

Megan Crawford 20:07

Yeah. I think, the literal act, and I'm just thinking about this, right? I think the literal act of storytelling gives us the answers. Actually trying to put it in, maybe it's the verbal story, right? And you could be talking to yourself, you could be recording yourself, whatever it is, but the literal act of just standing here, sitting there, telling your story, how often is it that you get to do that? What is the whole story to say it out loud? It's not going to be perfect, it's not going to be the thing that you go into conversation with, but if we're never saying it out loud, then it's performative. And I say no to being performative in an interview, full stop. So how do we get to the place of comfort and confidence in telling our story, and just literally starting there out loud? I think storytelling is going to give you, give us, some of those answers. What feels good coming out of your mouth.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:22

So here's what I'm taking from that. Two things– I think number one, is that you have to actually tell the story to be able to then have the story be able to be received later on, in any way that's going to be useful. Otherwise, it is going to come off as a performance, which is not going to come off as genuine, which is not going to resonate and likely not going to result in anything that's useful for you, or whoever you might be interviewing with. The other thing that I'm taking too, is attempting to put it into story form, attempting to tell the story, and actually practicing that in any way whatsoever, is going to be the most useful thing that you can do. Am I understanding that correctly?

Megan Crawford 22:08

Absolutely. It's the thing that I do. Whether I start up in my head, whether I write it down, whatever sort of the modality is that you start to tell your story. But I mean, storytelling is literally an ancient form of communication between humans. You know, the story of the organization that you're interested in, the story of the people around you. That's how we connect. It's connective tissue for all of us. And so knowing your own story, you know, why you made the decisions you made in your career and your life, like, have you ever sat down and figured out like, "well, I had the opportunity to tell my story, what would it be?" And so yes, practicing it, telling it in any way, shape, or form that you feel comfortable, I think is a fantastic starting point.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:02

Well, there's a lot of story frameworks or methodologies out there. But if we would just want to be overly simplistic here for a second and say, "Okay, well, like pick any one of those." Like, all over the internet, people talk about, like, the STAR method and stuff like that. I'm less interested in the method. And you can talk about, like, what's the situation? What's the conflict? And what was the thing that happened after the conflict? Or we'll talk a lot about SBO, which is like this situation, behavior and outcome. But at the end, it's all the same thing. Like, what is taking this information, and turning it into a way that it becomes relevant and interesting and useful to whoever it is that you're talking to, right? So here's my question for you. What can people do as you're thinking about taking this information and making it relevant, how can they actually practice the idea of turning it into a story? Because otherwise, we can take a question that happens, almost every interview, which is some form of, "Tell me about yourself", right? Which isn't even a question. It's more of a command. But that's a whole another podcast for another time.

Megan Crawford 24:11

Another part. Yeah, absolutely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:13

But even with that type of question, no matter how it shows up, sometimes people have the tendency to start well, "I was born in Oklahoma." And that's not necessarily useful or relevant. So what advice would you give to somebody who's thinking about, "how do I take this information and make it relevant in the form of a story?" That type of communication that you're talking about.

Megan Crawford 24:40

Yeah. So for career specifically, I would break it down to each of your experiences and treat each experience as a mini story, right? We're going to simplify and we're going to just totally get it down to bare basics. What we've hired to do in this specific job opportunity this spot, right? What were you hired to do? Answer that question and sort of go down that thought process of like, "Okay, in the beginning, I was hired to do this thing." And then okay, well, did you do the thing? How did you do the thing? And then, what was the thread that pulled you to the next thing? If we start to, like, connect them as not as these little mini stories that there were, as a connective tissue, there isn't a little story of why you jumped to the next thing, right? Because I think, if you start with, I have to showcase all of my accomplishments and my achievements, it's like, okay, but this was all, there are things within those little stories that were challenging, there were things that were imperfect. It's not all going to be this pretty tied in a bow. So let's get to that, "Why are you hired to do this? Why did you make the moves that you did?" And start to answer those questions for yourself, not in a performative way to sort of anticipate what the interviewer wants to hear.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:12

One of the concepts that you're making me think of that has to do with, let's call it relevant storytelling, we're just gonna make that up and call it relevant storytelling. But I found in... it's taught a lot of times in marketing. Sometimes they'll show up in various different areas of marketing, whether it is people who do copywriting for a living, or if you're trying to communicate a particular message and create interest, which that's sort of what you're doing in interviews– you wanted to be organic, you wanted to be a conversation. But also to your point, if you practice your story and have an understanding of your narrative, then you can command interest in a way that you're communicating it where it's useful to the other party, and one of those techniques for that is thinking about it, like, "What led me up to here?" "What is it that led me up to here?" And that helps to think about, like, "What is actually relevant? Well, what are the parts that led me to ? What are the parts that led me to be in front of you, talking about this role that we're now both considering?" You're considering me, and I'm considering taking this and working with you all. And I found that to be really very useful, because it helps to push away the things that are less relevant.

Megan Crawford 27:27

I think that brings up an interesting idea that if you can really know and understand this relevant story, that is yours, then in any conversation, in any interview, let's say, you'll have the information to answer any question that comes up. Because you know the story, you know the framework, you know the structure, you know the reasons why things changed, the trajectory, you know all of those things. And so any questions, I think you'll be able to find the answer in that story.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:07

As humans, we sort of think about, okay, well, logically,"How do I prepare for an interview?" And we think, well, let's find out the questions and let's prepare for those answers. And that is a very humanistic type of thinking. That's how our brains work. It's very, I use the word linear thinking, like, it's a draws up on what we know and how things work. And it turns out, that's not actually how it works. That's a terrible way, like, possibly the worst way to prepare for an interview. Because that is the part of logic that we fail to think about at that point in time is that, that requires us to know 100% of the questions in order to effectively prepare. And what I hear you describing is a far more effective way to prepare where let's be very comfortable with us and our experiences, and let's be experts on us, and how we share those experiences. And then we can adapt those experiences or those stories to anything that somebody throws at us. And here's what's really cool about this, if you're going down that methodology, is that if you're able to share an actual story, even though they're saying like, "Hey, what would you do if you found yourself in this situation?" It's so much more credible, if you can say, "Well, I don't know what we would do. But let me tell you what I actually did in the real situation that was similar to that. Can I tell you that story?" And they're not gonna be like, "Yeah, of course."

Megan Crawford 29:34

Of course, because we're humans. And we actually gravitate to the specific story versus the abstract "what ifs", right. And I actually have a client in real time who we had an interview prep conversation last week, and she had her interviews yesterday. And she came to the inner interview prep session actually talking about, okay, this was her line of thinking, "Okay, I think they're going to ask around these questions." And I'm watching her and I saw her body change into, like, rigid, she was very rigid. And I said, "What's happening? What is going on?" She said, "Well, I don't want to show my cards too early in this interview game." And I said, "What if it's not a game? What if there's no game? There's no any, there's no game. There's no pretend game happening here. And you are just going to have a conversation." And she relaxed. And I asked her, we talked about mental gymnastics. But she said, "I do these mental calculations in my brain, trying to figure out what they're going to ask me." And I said, "How do you listen to the answer with all these things happening?" And so anyway, long story short, she gave me the recap yet this morning. And she said, she showed up as her authentic self, she was just all in on the conversation. And she has learned so much more about the organization, and she was less worried about, showcasing all of her achievements that ticked all the boxes on the job description. So it's exciting. It's exciting when people can get to that point.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:16

You know what I think is really cool about that, when you cross over and you're no longer trying to think about it is like convincing or playing the game or whatever else, then it allows you to be able to be in a mindspace that is the, one, that feels better. Two, it's actually a healthier way. Because like, let's say that you decide this actually isn't that great of a fit, then that's okay. Or if they decide it's actually not that great of a fit, then you're in a different place to be able to be responsive to that versus being crushed by the news like, "But I spent all this time convincing. I did a great job." It's just a different place to operate from. And I think that although what you described from our client is normal, it is human. It is something that we see every single day, you know, people showing up saying, "Hey, I'm playing some form of mental gymnastics, or I'm thinking about what I should do next, or whatever else." Although that is normal, it feels very, very different, drastically different in every way. And more importantly, you said, it's important to show up as who you actually are. And this is what allows that functionally.

Megan Crawford 32:32

Yeah, absolutely. I think what came into my brain is absolutely showing up to the interview as yourself in order to even be able to assess fit one way or the other, right. But then beyond that, if you, let's say, everything goes fantastically, and you land this gig, it's your job, it's the thing, but you didn't show up as yourself in the interview, how are you going to then show up as yourself in the actual job? It's like, you have to set the precedent that you are yourself, right? So that you can show up as yourself in the actual job. They're not two different people– interviewing person and working person, right? You have to show up today in this interview, "This is me, this is who I am", so that you can continue on being yourself in a really healthy way in the actual job.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:24

Okay. So this is, I think, actually a fundamental misunderstanding. And I've always thought about this idea of showing up and being yourself so that you can then continue to be yourself. I thought about that if we would go back 20 years ago, I thought about that as sort of common sense. Turns out, there's a lot of misinformation, good intentioned, well intentioned, misinformation out there on the internet about how to prepare for interviews. And I think none of the tactical pieces actually matter unless you can perform that one thing, unless you can show up to the interview being yourself because otherwise they hire the wrong person. And that is, yeah, they literally hired a different person. And then we're all shocked when you show up on day one and week one, and they're upset. Like they're upset. They thought they hired a different person. And then our response be just being human, is that, "Well, they didn't even tell me about like, it would be like this, or it's very different than what was I was told during the interview." Well, they were interviewing a different person. They had a different interaction, they had like, and then we're all surprised, like everyone in the equation is surprised by this.

Megan Crawford 34:38

Yeah. And it doesn't surprise me when six months in, people are unhappy in their jobs when they just go through the interview process in a performative way. The whole societal, "You should kinds of things. You should answer questions this way. This is how you should be for a hiring manager", right? And then six months it's like wow, "I don't like this job. Well, how did I not notice?" There are all the things, right? Because you didn't come to the original conversation, telling your story. And you didn't analyze or assess if your story and what your wants and needs are sort of match, you know what they're looking for. So, yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:20

Okay. So if we were to say, let's take all of these pieces that we've talked about, because we've covered three pretty big areas. We've talked about developing the deepest understanding of what you want. We've talked about practicing and telling your career story out loud to real people and story form. We've talked about the idea of stop convincing, they'll look at this as, we didn't use the word exploratory, but let's focus on exploring instead and interviewing going both ways. And let's have an actual natural engagement conversation, dare I say? And you know, those are three pretty big areas. But what would be the biggest mindset shift people could have that can help prep them to be able to do these three things? What do you think?

Megan Crawford 36:12

The biggest mindset shift, I think, is that there's actually no way anyone can know what a hiring manager wants to hear or what questions they're going to ask you. You can't know how they're going to assess you even based on your answers, you cannot know those variables. The only thing that you can know is yourself. So stay there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:46

Hey, if you've been thinking about making a change for a while now, and you don't really know how to best take the first step or get started, here's what I would suggest: just open your email app on your phone right now. And I'm going to give you my personal email address, Scott@happentoyourcareer.com just email me and put 'Conversation' in the subject line. Tell me a little bit about your situation, and I'll connect you with the right person on our team where we can figure out the very best way that we can help you. Scott@happentoyourcareer.com drop me an email.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:17

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

Speaker 3 37:23

It was supposed to be hiring someone that I would supervise but ended up hiring a new supervisor for me, which was kind of strange and kind of awkward, it didn't feel all that great.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:38

You've probably had this happen before. You work in a new role for a while, and then you get a new boss. And many times, a change comes. A lot of times, it might be an unwanted change. You wonder if things are gonna get better, maybe things will get worse, what's going to happen, you don't know. What doesn't usually happen though, is that when you get a new boss, you end up taking the role that your boss previously had. This can actually be a really awkward situation. But it can also be one of the best things that could possibly happen.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:11

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.

Melissa Shapiro 00:01

I was really nervous to get back out there just because of being laid off. I was so scared that it would happen to me again. And I think our brains do that to us. Like once we go through something, that's our experience, and that's what we know. So we are told that that's just going to repeat itself.

Introduction 00:24

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 00:49

I don't think that there's an ideal time to get laid off or really ever to completely change your career. Happen To Your Career, we've worked with a whole bunch of people that have gone through pretty dramatic situations. It's one thing when you get tired with feeling stuck and decided to make a change. It's another thing when your company calls you and tells you that your time is up. It leaves people feeling pretty uneasy or scared, to put it mildly. You have a tendency when this happens, and I've been there. You feel like your life is out of control, or at least out of your control. But a professional setback might actually lead to a far better opportunity that you've never ever considered before. Our story today is someone who is already contemplating a career change, but that was then laid off before she could position herself for the next move. She discovered that evolving and adapting weren't only important for success, they were absolutely necessary to move up in the professional world.

Melissa Shapiro 01:47

I had that mindset of, "Okay, this next thing, this is going to be it. Like, this is my career. I have to pick the one thing that I'm going to do for the rest of my life."

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:00

That's Melissa Shapiro. She found herself in this really difficult situation. She took her newfound time and energy to focus on asking herself big questions that led to her successful career change.

Melissa Shapiro 02:12

So I basically have a very eclectic background. And, you know, I'm an artist, and I love to sing and perform. And I was actually working as a senior admissions producer at the General Assembly. And I was there for about two years, speaking with students who were really interested in making a career change into the tech world. And I would sort of talk about our programs that we offered, such as a digital marketing program, UX/UI, software development data, and talk about these 12-week life changing bootcamps that the students could take and really make a career change. And that's sort of where all of this fun stuff happened, where I got super interested in helping people with their career changes. I was in the same role for probably about two years. And the part that I loved was kind of the part that I just described, in terms of forming relationships with people and really kind of getting to know their backgrounds and helping them make that career change. But the other part of the role that was the part that I didn't want to pursue anymore was that it was a very sales oriented role in terms of quotas, and having that pressure in terms of filling up our classes and everything like that. So it was just the sales aspect of things that I wanted to get away from and I wanted a more genuine type of relationship building role.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:44

When you say genuine type of relationship built, what does that mean for you?

Melissa Shapiro 03:49

Yeah. For me, it means that I would be able to talk to people, clients, and students when I wanted to, in terms of when I see fit, and what it would contribute to our goal, whatever that was at the time. And not to fill some sort of quota and fill a sales number basically.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:14

So was there a, as you were realizing this, was there a time or an 'aha' moment where you're like, "You know, what? Been here for two years. It's time that I transition on to something that's even a better fit." How did that happen for you?

Melissa Shapiro 04:28

Yeah. I think that I was, you know, as we all feel frustrated, and I knew that there were aspects of the role that I really did enjoy. It wasn't like, I hate everything about this that I must leave. But yeah, it got to the point where it was just very, very frustrating. And once you met your quota for that quarter, another quarter would start and you would just kind of start all over again. And it was sort of this never ending cycle. And I felt kind of trapped, in almost like the sales cycle and the numbers of everything. So I just got to a point where I knew that there was just something that was out there for me that was not so sales oriented, and that could still utilize my strengths. And I didn't necessarily know what that was or what it was called. But I felt in my gut that I knew it was there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:22

Do you think that since you had transitioned before, because you mentioned offhand, and I know a little bit more to the story. But you had come from a background where, like you said, you were more into performance. And I think you said you enjoy singing, and you had come from that type of area in industry and sector, whatever you want to call that. And you've made this transition the first time around. Did that have any play here into coming to this realization easier? Or it did not really factor in? Tell me how you were thinking about that at the time.

Melissa Shapiro 05:58

Yeah. I think that was a much harder transition from thinking that you wanted to do performance and musical theater and, you know, opera for your entire life, and then realizing that it's just not a lifestyle for you, and that it would never sort of be aligned with your personality and how you want to live your life. I think that was sort of a more really intense realization for me that this thing that I've studied and worked so hard, and training for was not going to be for me. So I think that once I went through that, the other career transitions seemed a lot easier. Because after that big life changing one, I think once you get through something like that, then all of these kinds of pivots in your career and figuring out next steps become a lot more second nature.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:54

That's so interesting that you put it that way. Because we've seen that a lot behind the scenes and working with people too that it is, how do you want to put it, it is worth it to go through that type of initial transition because of what it teaches you and then makes every single consecutive transition of any kind, more possible, easier, whatever word that you want to use all of the above, in there. So that's really interesting that you observed that in that particular way. So how then did you go about once you had this, the second transition, you're there, you're working, you're in admissions, and you're having this realization that, "You know what, this isn't quite what I want. I enjoy the small piece of it, but certainly not some of the other aspects." What did you end up doing from there? How did that play out?

Melissa Shapiro 07:44

Yeah. So, sort of, at the end of my stint in admissions, I worked on a project with the instructional design team, and I revamped our entire onboarding process, which to me was really interesting, because it combined my education experience with the experience that I had in admissions at General Assembly and using my two years as an admissions producer to refine the way that we onboard new admissions producers. And that was sort of, it was interesting because it combined a lot of different aspects of my skill set that I had never really even thought of before. That was a really cool project. And I got to work with the instructional design team. And I had a really good time doing it. And then I started thinking about possibly doing course creation and things like that. And I had a small period as an instructional designer that I did sort of get to do that. But then unfortunately, I was laid off after three months from that job. So that was right before I entered into the Career Change Bootcamp, but it was still just really interesting. And I would, from that, I would kind of say, I would encourage people to really look in terms of their role holistically and see, "What am I interested in?" Maybe it's not a completely other different role at the company, but what can I do in my role that I could bring more of myself." And that's sort of what I learned from that experience, that you could always look for opportunities and sort of jump on, when you find something interesting and see where that takes you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:27

I think that's so great. First of all, because, one, if you're not actively looking for those opportunities, as you put them, to bring more of yourself to a particular situation, whether that's a job or interaction, whatever it happens to be, you're unlikely to find them. It's not going to, a lot of the times, just show up. And that's part of what I think can lead people down the road to frustration. So I think that that's super cool, that you were actively looking for was opportunities in one way or another. Because clearly, it gave you more input and more feedback into some of the things that you do enjoy. And it also gave you more input and feedback into what you can do and whether or not this could be another good situation for you, in one way or another.

Melissa Shapiro 10:19

It's a great skill set to have too. I have a portfolio piece of it, you know.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:24

Do you, really?

Melissa Shapiro 10:25

Yeah. I have what I designed. So I gotta keep that, which is pretty cool. And you know, something you can kind of pull out of your back pocket.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:34

I made this.

Melissa Shapiro 10:37

I did that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:39

Very cool. So then, there was this stint in between, and you got the opportunity to experiment with that in some ways. Obviously, you got laid off from there, then we got the opportunity to interact with you in Career Change Bootcamp. So what happened at that point? Because this wasn't just instant magic, or anything else along those lines, like, boom, make the next shift, or boom, I figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life. That's not how it works. But what did happen for you?

Melissa Shapiro 11:08

Oh, yeah. At that point, while I was looking into Career Change Bootcamp for a while, even when I was at, you know, General Assembly and just doing some research, in terms of wanting to figure out something that would be fulfilling for a while for me, I think that it was finally the right time. And I didn't know that I would be getting laid off from this job. And I signed up for Career Change Bootcamp, I think it was like, a week before I got laid off, which was just insane. The timing. And I just started it. And I remember I wrote you guys, and I was like, "I just got laid off from this job. I'm so happy that I enrolled in this program." And it just was the perfect time. And I had the time now to invest into the Career Change Bootcamp.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:03

That's so funny, because I would say that after interacting with literally thousands of people that have gotten laid off, in one way or another, that rarely is there a good time to get laid off. However, I think your situation falls into the small percentage of folks that may be created that good time. And I think that that's something that I've observed just as I've gotten to know you a little bit. That part of the reason, timing has a tendency to work out great for you, is because you're continuously taking one action or another, always looking forward in terms of, "Hey, what can I be doing? Where is that opportunity? What is the next step? What is going to push me forward in the way that I want to?" And so I would advocate that maybe it wasn't entirely luck, that it was, although you can't control all circumstances or anything like that, that part of the reason it created a good time was because you had some involvement with it. Is that a fair statement?

Melissa Shapiro 13:02

It's fair. I had been interested in Career Change Bootcamp for a while, but it still, just was that, it was what I needed. You know, it was that positive light in that time of ,sort of, complete shock.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:16

Yeah, absolutely. When you think back to that time where you got laid off, and you were just beginning to work with us, and just beginning to really go through this type of transition, again, if you will. What were some of the first things that you did that really helped set you up to make this a good transition for you?

Melissa Shapiro 13:38

Yeah, I really had that time, like I said. So in my mind, I said, "Okay, I'm going to take advantage of this time. And I'm really going to get focused. And I'm going to put all of my energy into investing into this program, because that's the best gift that I can give myself." You know, I was getting severance. I was getting unemployment. So I wasn't super, super stressed. But I would rather take more time to find something that was more aligned with what I was looking for, than just jumping into something else. So it did take a little bit longer than I wanted it to, but I think it was still pretty fast in terms of the way things move job wise. But that's what I said to myself. I said, "Listen, use this as a gift. Really use this time and jump into this program, do everything you need to do and more network, reach out to people on LinkedIn, reach out to all of your connections and really take advantage of this opportunity."

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:42

What do you feel like were some of the harder parts for you as you made this transition?

Melissa Shapiro 14:47

Yeah, I think just some actually raw human emotion and feelings. I think I was really nervous to get back out there just because of being laid off. I was so scared that it would happen to me again. And I think our brains do that to us, like, once we go through something, that's our experience, and that's what we know. So we are told that that's just going to repeat itself. I think what was hard was still continuing to have that frustration and sending out those messages and applying for jobs and then tailoring all of my materials and just having that frustration of, "Why isn't it happening now? Why isn't it happening faster?" And I think we all experienced that. But I think just to focus on keep doing what you're doing, and not that necessarily what you're doing is wrong. It's just not everyone is going to get back to you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:38

What did you do? Or what did you experience that worked well for you to help speed up the process? Or what are the things that you saw, as you were going through it that like, "Yeah, this is working for it", and gave you those little glimmers of hope, even though it didn't feel like it was going as fast as you wanted?

Melissa Shapiro 15:58

I had so much time too. I wasn't doing another job while I was job searching. So I had been putting all my effort into it. It was just a little frustrating to put 150% into it and getting little things here and there. But just not hearing from as many people as I wanted to. But I think what worked well for me was following the bootcamp modules, and really following the order and doing each module diligently and then having the next one sort of build upon the one beforehand. And having a curriculum that just made sense, I had never gone through an actual career coaching, like bootcamp and course. So I think this particular model was really helpful for me in terms of figuring out what my strengths are, how to build upon those strengths, what other people said my strengths were that I knew, and building my ideal career profile, and then learning how to reach out to people properly, really following up, asking the right interview questions, really being able to advocate for myself, because I knew myself so much better throughout that process. And therefore my interviews were way more genuine and sincere. And obviously, I mean, Kelly was just wonderful and had such great suggestions. Any question I had for her, she would answer and just have really, really good innovative ideas.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:29

Okay, so I have one big question that, because we've got... Everybody that's listening to this right now, that most of the time, all of our listeners are in the place where they are wanting to make a change, in the process of making the change, or thinking about making the change. And I want to take you back to where you were going to make a change because this was thrust upon you in one way or another and didn't expect it. And although the timing worked out well for you, as you said, it was still a little bit worrisome, and still a little bit scary in terms of, "Hey, well, what if this happens again, or anything else?" So when somebody's in that place, and they're right on the beginning stages of making change for one reason or another, what advice would you give them?

Melissa Shapiro 18:21

I would say, do whatever you need to do to fight the fear, then just do it. You're going to have those voices, you know, you're going to have the negativity, you're going to have your mind try and play tricks on you and bring up prior experiences or things that you were scared of that happened in workplace settings before. And you really have to just tell your brain, "No, this is new. This is different. We're trying a new approach this time, we're going to get what we want. And we're going to advocate for ourselves." And I think that, you know, in every situation, I think our minds play tricks on us. And I think we need to have the self love and self respect for ourselves to be able to talk those voices down and to be logical and loving to ourselves.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:09

What do you feel like worked for you to do exactly that? To fight that fear and be able to control those voices, or at least fend off those voices that are in your head.

Melissa Shapiro 19:20

Well, I'm someone who do meditate every day. And I think that's something that helps me really focus. But it takes practice. I think just really knowing yourself and doing that work to understand what those anxieties are for you, it's different for everyone, obviously, based on all of our previous experiences, but to really listen to what's fear based versus what's based on fact. And I think sometimes journaling, sometimes doing a visualization, whatever you need to do to kind of figure out what the differences are, I think that's what you need to do and then you need to talk to that voice and just say, "This is a fear based voice. This is not reality. This is something that's trying to stop me from making this change." Because change is unknown, as we all know, and our brain protects us from the unknown. So just really applying that positivity, "This is going to be better than where I am now. This is only going to get better." So just reaffirming that over and over.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:25

I think that's great. And I also, speaking of fear, speaking of change, and speaking of resisting change, or even continuous change, you and I, before we hit the record button, had a little bit of a conversation about how this is continually evolving for you, too. And one of the things I heard you say at the beginning of our conversation right now, is that one of the things that you really responded or gravitated to was helping people make different types of choices. And we got to talk a little bit about your interest in continuing to help people do that in their career down the road, as well, and even expressed interest about becoming a career coach in one fashion or another. And I think that's super cool. Obviously, I'm a little biased. We've got an entire team of career coaches. So you might imagine that I'm a fan. However, I think the thing that was really interesting to me is, you've done such a great job of jumping into this idea of, it's not a... make the decision, figure out the perfect thing, and then be done with it. Instead, it is really this mentality of continuing to evolve what it is that you want. I think you've done such a great job of that. So I'm curious, what has helped you in getting there to think about it that way? And then two, what advice would you offer other people in that realm too, about how to think about their career and their life as it relates to what they want to need and that evolution?

Melissa Shapiro 21:52

That's a good question. And I think that I did have that mindset of, I think part of the pressure too before CCB was that I had that mindset of, "Okay, this next thing, this is going to be it. Like, this is my career. I have to pick the one thing that I'm going to do for the rest of my life."

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:13

Forever.

Melissa Shapiro 22:16

Forever and ever and ever. And I think that is such a scary thought. It really is. I think that thought alone paralyzes us, because we feel trapped. If you think about doing one thing forever, you freeze up. You need to feel like that freedom, that flexibility, because life is changing, and life is ever evolving. And you know, your career is part of your life. I'm not the person I was 10 years ago, even. We are always changing, and we're always evolving. And I think the roadmap that the Career Change Bootcamp gave me is applicable to all of those career stages and all of those changes, because you can keep using it over and over and over again and reevaluate where you are. And that's what's so great about it. It's not like a one time thing, and that's all you can use it for. You can go back, and you can do it all over again, a year later, two years later, 10 years later. So I really appreciated that. And I think learning that formula really made me realize that this is something that is going to evolve, and it's okay. I can let myself evolve. I can continue to utilize this for my life.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:34

What do you think there... Because I know that that pressure is there for many different people. But for you, where did you think that that pressure of, "I must figure this out. And it will be the last time.", and everything else that comes along with it. Where do you think that that came from for you, personally?

Melissa Shapiro 23:50

I think it's a generational thing, to be honest. I grew up with parents who were very much setting their jobs. They are still both doing the same job that they started out doing. So they're both lawyers and they're still practicing, and they're in the same office. And so I think that I just didn't really grow up with people who change their careers. And I think obviously, as time goes on, we're seeing younger generations changing their careers, you know, all the time now. But, I think that's sort of a new thing still, and not everyone is on board with it. And I think there's, you know, there's all of this pressure too, or when recruiters like, look at your resume, and they're like, "Oh, you did so many different things. Like, that's bad. Why can't you stay in one place?" Like, we're still told about that. It's still talked about having different jobs on your resume, a lot of different jobs, not necessarily a good thing. So I think that times are changing and that's ever evolving and I think there's a new kind of status quo on that whole thought process. But yeah, I think to some extent, I think that pressure is kind of still there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:10

That's so interesting that you bring it up in that way. And I appreciate you sharing that. Because I do think that that's something that many people go through for that reason too. I haven't been able to find out like a technical scientific name for why that happens. But internally, here at Happen To Your Career, we call that the "exposure problem". You haven't been exposed to something so you don't even recognize that it could be possible in one way or another. And therefore, it isn't a real possibility in your world until that exposure to it happens in one way, shape, or form. And I know, geez, even for me, coming out of college, I actually used to own a small business, profitable small business, that put me through college and everything. And I actually sold that business when I was leaving college. And then because I didn't realize that that was a real thing. Like you could own a business. And that would be like your job or whatever. And, yeah, so I sold the business and properly went out to find my job in the workplace. And everybody's got a different pathway. But the reason I did that is because I wasn't exposed to anybody else that did that as a real thing. Instead, I was exposed to lots of other people that said, "You go to college, you get a job coming out of college, and then that's what you do forever."

Melissa Shapiro 26:30

Yeah, it is really, really interesting. And to see how that continues to evolve.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:35

Do you, just as we're wrapping up here, I know that for you, you feel like you had lots of time. Maybe compared to even the average person because, you know, the timing, I don't know, the timing converged in near the layoff, like, all that stuff, whatever you'd like to call it. But I've been through transitions that way where I have had literally the entire week, week after week, to be able to sink into finding my next step. I've done that. I've also done it the other way, many times too, where I'm pursuing something at the same time, as I'm working a full time job and have many other obligations, and having done it both ways. Neither is easy. They have different challenges. But my question to you is, what did you find that helped you continually focus on and continue to take action during that short period of time? What worked for you?

Melissa Shapiro 27:35

I think a combination of things worked for me. I think part of it is just the kind of person that I am. I've always been extremely motivated. And I think I had so much time to think and strategize that I really kind of put all my eggs in that basket, for lack of a better term. But I just really like turned on that switch off, "this is what you're going to focus on right now." Like you invested your time and your money in this bootcamp, like let's do that, like, this is it. This is what we're doing now. But I think for a lot of other people, like it's not as easy to get through all of the modules as quickly if they're juggling a million other things. So I would probably just say to schedule it. If you don't have the time, you know, all that time of not having a regular nine to five type of role, I would say to just go into your calendar, literally block the time off every single day, and write down what you're gonna do, and stick to it. Because if you don't map it out, and you don't create the space for it, you're not going to do it. So I mean, your career coach is definitely there to help motivate you, and to help guide you through the process. But it is on the individual as well, to actually do the work. No one can force you to do the work. So I would definitely say that to carve out the time, realize how important it is, realize how important this is for your life and to be happier and block that time out in your schedule.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:11

One of the things I don't think we've ever discussed on the podcast before that I'm curious what your opinion would be, because I think you did a great job with it. How do you feel like people can get the most out of a coach that they're working with? How do you think that they can leverage a coach? And part of the reason why I'm interested in your opinion and perspective on this is because you have been interested in becoming a career coach, too. So you've got kind of all the different sides in there. So what do you feel like has worked for you to really leverage your coach?

Melissa Shapiro 29:42

Yeah, I think, really understanding where the blocks come up. Like you don't have to necessarily speak to your coach about every single thing in every single module just because it's coming up. If you're getting through something and you can easily do that on your own and you understand it and you don't need to question it, then you know, you don't have to bring that up with your coach. So while there is this pathway to the program, your career coaching sessions are planned by you. If you want to focus more time on your five signature strengths module, and you want to understand how that works in real world situations, and maybe like the anti-strength and how that can hinder you, you can focus on that. If you want to focus on your ideal career profile, and why that's important and strategize and kind of get there in the future, you can focus on that. You're not, like, trapped into focusing on one module per coaching session. I would say, to make notes while you're going through the material of things that are coming up for you, maybe, like, blockages or just questions you may have or things you don't understand or want clarity on and mark that down and to really focus on that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:02

Hey if you love this story where we talk through and walk you through step by step how someone got to more meaningful work, then you'll absolutely love our audiobook– Happen to Your Career: An Unconventional Approach to Career Change and Meaningful Work. I even got to narrate it, which was so fun, and something that I really enjoy doing and will definitely do for future books as well. But it also contains firsthand accounts from career changers on how they made the move to more meaningful work. Just like we include on the podcast here and actually has been called the best audio book experience ever by some reviewers. You can find those reviews and the book itself on Audible, Amazon or any other place where books are sold. Seriously, just pause this right now and go over to Amazon or Audible or wherever you want and download it. You can be reading it and started on your career change in literally seconds.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:57

Now here's a sneak peek into what's coming up next week right here on Happen To Your Career.

Speaker 3 32:02

The whole society, "Oh, you should, kinds of things, you should answer questions this way. This is how you should be for a hiring manager, right?" And then six months, it's like, "Wow, I don't like this job. Well, how did I not notice all the things", right?

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:17

We get questions from clients all the time, things like, "How do I stand out in an interview? What do hiring managers actually want to know in this interview?" But these questions, well, we're honored to be able to answer them. I would argue that they're the wrong questions. Do you just want to stand out to stand out just to get a job? Or are you wanting to dig in and make sure this move is intentional and that it's the right fit for you? Interviews, as it turns out, are a two way street. And the first interview is the foundation for setting up the future of your work there. So the true question is, "How do I show up as myself in an interviewer?" Because you don't know what they're going to ask. But there are many things you can do to prepare.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:01

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.

Brian 00:00

It just got worse and worse and people leaving, getting the wrong people hired into roles and just the culture just got so, so bad.

Introduction 00:15

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 00:40

In 2007, I had changes in the company that I was working in at the time, that pretty much pushed me in the direction of apathy, like I pretty much didn't care, didn't feel connected anymore. And if this is something that's happened to you, then you're not alone. You're not even close to alone. According to a Gallup study, only 32% of US employees felt engaged at work in 2022. So this is pretty recent, right? Companies seem to be losing their grasp on what employees actually want, or when they're rapidly restructuring and trying to make changes, and when they're trying to navigate the after effects of the pandemic, they're not being successful, many of them, most of them. So if you've been spending your time in a job that is very out of alignment with who you are, or maybe you're surrounded by people that just don't share the same values, they don't place value on the same things that you do, if this is the case, then you'll find that even if you enjoy your day to day job functions, and even if there's many other good things, you're probably going to fall quickly into the category of disengaged, that'll make you ready for a change whether you recognize it or not. And the good news is that well, the number of engaged employees is extremely low, there are in fact organizations out there that have more than doubled this percentage. What does that mean? Well, there's organizations that actually care if you are feeling connected, and enjoying your work and feeling engaged. Pretty cool, right? You just have to find them.

Brian 02:23

Here's the 27 questions that could come up in an interview, and here's like all the canned responses. And it's like, no, let's just get to the values and virtues and get to what actually matters.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:34

That's Brian. He's been a leader who's done many things in his career, managing sales and marketing campaigns, leading teams for well over 20 years. His latest role was vice president of business development. And he'd always put an extreme importance on a company's values and culture. And he'd made many pivots over the years, and done a great job of driving towards companies and organizations that really aligned with what he wanted and what he believed. Pretty cool, right? Not everybody's done that. And currently, he was feeling very, very misaligned. When Brian contacted us here at HTYC, it just been looped into the latest round of company layoffs. For the first time, he no longer felt in control of his career. Very first time, right? And that made him pretty desperate to find a new role fast. And he was applying for all of these jobs, thinking he needed to find a bridge role. And that would allow him to take the time to find the job that he really wanted, that next step in his career. Here's what happened though, fast forward a little bit, he started working with us and he took a step back and realized that everything he was doing was motivated by stress and desperation and fear. He actually had a lot more buffer time than what he thought he did. And he could give himself some space to figure out what had gone wrong in his last role, and what an ideal fit would look like for him this time around. Okay, this is a really very fun interview. Partially because Brian is so self aware. And also Brian knows so much about what he wants. Take a listen and I want you to particularly listen for how he used his ideal career profile, the tool, that super simple tool that we have embedded, and the seven elements of meaningful work so that he could define exactly what he wanted and needed from his next organization to be able to thrive. By the way, the ideal career profile, and to break down the seven elements of meaningful work, those are two things that we detail out in our book– Happen To Your Career. So if you want to know more about them, you can go get the HTYC book, any place where books are sold. I highly recommend the audiobook if you're listening to this podcast. But back to Brian's story, here is where he starts out talking about his very first career pivot straight out of the studio recording industry and into the business world.

Brian 04:58

So I had recently got married, the recording studio itself was not doing terribly well. And it started to cut my hours back. My wife got pregnant and I just looked at as, like, "this is not going to get it done. I got to do something else." My brother-in-law worked in an industry where he was a rep, calling on retail stores, going in training sales associates on software. And he was working for this company, and I had, like, no idea that these types of companies existed where it's basically like temp agencies, but it's temp reps that get hired on to go be marketing reps to call on retailers to train on products. He's like, "He should just come work for our company." And like, well, "What is it you do?" And he's just like, "Well, they got a new contract for HP." Essentially, he was saying that they had this new Hewlett Packard contractor that was coming along where HP was going to launch PCs at retail. And this was in 1985, which rewind the tape just, like, Windows 95 was launching. So a whole new ethical user interface. And HP, what they negotiated was that they were going to be the first PC manufacturer to market with Windows 95 actually installed on the computer versus buying a computer than having it installed. So I got hired to launch HP and Windows 95 at the same time. And I remember, like, literally my first day of work, there was a line that people were waiting to talk to me about Windows 95 and PCs, and I had never touched one. And I just totally wing the whole thing for four hours doing demos for people who like well, there's a start button. So obviously, that's where we started. But I ended up, like, just working my butt off. And I learned a ton and just got promoted up and my managers fell in love with me. And before I knew it, it's like I started off on a team of 13. And within about four years, I had almost 1300 people working for me. And there's just a lot of that was just the tenacity of the "I want to make it better. I want to make it better for the field. I want to give the customers a better experience. I want to give the retailers a better experience." And just like drive and passion to let's make it better. That organization, they sold off the business to another company, and they just lost their culture, it all became about profits and, you know, employees whatever, customers whatever, profit. And so, like, this was not a good fit for me culturally. I left to a much smaller company down in Southern California. They were doing about $4 million annually, but had a lot of autonomy in terms of what we're doing. I worked there as, originally, Director of Operations. I figured if I can get in and really learn the operations, I could really make a difference for everybody. I did that for a number of years. The particular owner was doing some unethical things. And I chose to leave because I just didn't want to get caught up in those things that were criminal, and decided I would start my own company. And I started by long enough to have a cup of coffee quality assurance marketing, went out and got a couple of customers, a competitor of mine called and said, "We don't need one more competitor. Just come to work here. I'll let you do what you want to do." So I did originally came in as Director of Field Services, and the owner of that organization gave me a lot of autonomy. And he's just like, after about a year, he's just like, "You should just run the whole... I'm just gonna make you the Vice President of the retail services group and you just run the business unit."

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:33

Let me ask you about two things about that.

Brian 08:36

Sure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:37

One, when you're thinking back, and you're talking about autonomy, what did that mean for you at that time? What did autonomy look like, feel like, smell like, taste like?

Brian 08:49

I think for me, the autonomy came in a couple of different forms. One was trust. That I had somebody that actually trusted me. But the other side of it was having the responsibility and accountability that now I need to go deliver because I have this person that trusts me to do this. And I have my customers that are trusting me, I've got these people that are employees trusting me, that's just like, I felt like I have got to do a great job. And therefore it's just like having that trust and responsibility and accountability. Just like drove the passion in me of "We're gonna make this great."

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:27

Yeah, very cool. Well, and here's why I'm curious because so many people want autonomy. I also recognize that when we ask 10 different people about what autonomy means to them, we very often get 10 unique and very different answers. So I was curious what that meant for you and what it meant for you at that time, too. Because it sounded like you refer to it fondly when you're thinking back to that time.

Brian 09:55

Yeah, that was a fantastic time in my career for certain.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:59

So what happened from there?

Brian 10:01

Yeah, so the owner ended up selling the company off to a company out in Georgia. And that autonomy that just that entrepreneurial spirit that we had, it just wasn't there. I mean, this is a company that backed by a multibillion dollar industry. And it was more about process and systems and structure than it was about, let's just get in there and solve problems and, like, fix things for customers. And it just didn't have that kind of, like, the grittiness to it of let's solve problems versus the more rigid business. So for me, it just wasn't a good fit. But some of the previous team members that I had worked with, had come to this company up here in Oregon. And actually, one of my former directors that had worked for me had called me and was just like, "Hey, we're getting the band back together." He's just like, "You should be here, too." So he ends up, "when we can do to talk?" And like six months later, he's just like, "We just need to get you here." And I ended up coming on at the time as director of business development. And I didn't know anything about business development, I had no business doing business development.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:12

I had no business doing business development, that's a saying. That should be on a t-shirt.

Brian 11:19

But yeah, he's just like, "Look, we just need to get you. And once you're in, like, then we'll just figure out what we're gonna do." Probably about 18 months and the CEO ended up eventually getting sacked by the board, they brought a new CEO in. She just drove the company in the ground, you get coke. I mean, it was just like, one thing after another, and it's just like, the company just continued to flounder. I think it's about seven reps, I got promoted up a few times. I think there was the kind of getting promoted up through attrition of the "Hey, we let all these people go. Now who's going to run the hindsight?" "Here, you've been here a long time, why don't you do it?" And so there was some of that. There was just, we talked about, like, the autonomy and just trying to relate it back to that. There was none of that. It was just like gone, it was like, we're letting the following people go. And it's like, "I'd like to have a say someone who's staying and who's going." It's like, "No, we've already made the decision. Here's who's going." Anyway, fast forward over the course of about 18 months, and it just got worse and worse and people leaving, getting the wrong people hired into roles. And just the culture just got so so bad. And basically, the entire executive team all exited as she built her new team. And eventually, I got caught up in one of the layoffs. And that's what led to me actually working with HTYC. But it's like I sensed it was coming. And so it was like, "Okay, I gotta do something. I can't sit and wait." And so I just like started searching for podcasts, I walked my dog every morning, listen to podcast, I'm a lifelong learner. And so while walking my dog every morning, I'm always trying to learn something new. Started listening to your podcast, and like, "I'll send the email. Sure."

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:57

So a couple things that I'm hearing out of that. One, you have this really, I would say, fascinating track record of, it shows up as a theme here, where you're leaving every time there's not a value fit. And at this last time, it feels like because I hear you tell the story, that it was a little bit different this time out. Because it sounded like you could see some of the writing on the wall. But I think the thing that's really interesting is this move feels very different for you than some of the other moves. How do you think about that now in hindsight?

Brian 13:35

Yeah, that's a good question. So I think that there was this aspect of the, let's not too get caught up in ego. It's the, I think, for me, it was just like, I had been really pretty successful in my career continue to get promoted up wherever I went from being a rep in the field to having a team around the globe, but it was like, I think it was just that I'm getting rejected kind of experience. And then there was the other side of it that was the, "Oh crap. Now what?" This is like, I mean, I haven't really ever had to look for a job, right. So I mean, going back to like, talking about being in the recording studio early in my career, it's just like, one of the teachers of the school was like, "Hey, Brian, I know some guys. I'm gonna get you in." And it's like, and then I went and met with the owner studio. He's like, "Yes." He said, "You're a good guy. You're a good guy. Yeah, you're in." Because like, so it wasn't like I hadn't learned how do you interview and how do you find a job? I was like, "Hey, Steve, I need to get a job. Do you know anybody that would hire me?" He's like, "Yeah." And then like to getting into this industry where my brother-in-law's "I'm going to help you get hired on. I know the manager. I'll get you the job." And so I was like, "Okay, cool." And then it's just like, from there, it was just like people in the industry is like, "You should come work here. I want to hire. Hey, come over here." It's just like, "You should be here." And it's just like, "Oh, yeah, I'm the guy." They want me and then also I was like, "I'm not the guy and I'm not wanted. Now what?" And so like that, like, start reality in the wake up of the "oh crap now what" sort of a thing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:12

What was that like to work through that? I've been there. I've been, as you put it, not the guy. I've been not the guy before. And I have definitely felt that rejection in a couple different past times where the company now and I parted ways and it was not my choice and it, I can't say that I have found where it feels fun, maybe there's a story out there where somebody's like, "Hey, this is fun. This is amazing, but I haven't seen it so far." So for you personally, what did it look like to be able to work through that?

Brian 15:53

I think, you know, one is I was grateful to have been that as a coach to work with and just kind of be a sounding board and is interesting, trying to find the right words, but it's just like there was part of it where, yeah, it was to help me with the career but it almost felt more like a life coach in Oregon with Ben in terms of just being the Star Trek, the ship's counselor, if you will.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:20

Yeah, absolutely. And for reference, Ben is a phenomenal coach on our team. And so you've got this ship's counselor, I love the tricky reference. And then what do you feel like that did for you? Or how did that help you work through this piece?

Brian 16:20

I think that for me, it was the help. It was like a grounding cord. I went through just a lot of stress and anxiety of the, "oh, now what" sort of a thing and just being able to actually have somebody that can sit and it's like, "Okay, well, let's just play this out." Worst case scenario, you don't get a job in six months, what do you need to do and just like, it's not as bad as I thought it was gonna be, you know, I was just kind of like, start making a list of all the things that I'm doing. It's like, I have time, this was like, I can figure this stuff out. It's not like that, "Oh, I'm going to die if I don't get this answer in the next 24 hours." It was, "I can make this work." And just take a breath, get grounded and breathe. And I think and having that, as I started doing interview prep and applying for jobs, I think having more of like the being at peace and not being desperate, or for button a positive connotation, having confidence, I think that that translated to the way that I began to interview of the, "I'm going to interview you, yes, you're going to interviewing me too. I'm interviewing you. Make sure that you guys are going to be the right fit for me. Because if you're not, I know I'm not the right fit for you. Because it's not going to work." And I think working with Ben, it helped him the confidence and moving in that direction. And I really think that it helped. It wasn't like, "Hey, let's do hard interviewing skills." And yeah, we did some of those types of things, but I think it was the underlying pinnings. And in the work that we're doing in terms of actually giving the confidence versus the, "Here's the 27 questions that could come up on an interview. And here's like, all the canned responses." It was just like no, let's just get to the values and virtues and get to what actually matters. And I think that actually began to translate.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:38

I want to ask you about that here in just a moment those values and virtues and how you worked through those pieces. However, it's not lost on me that what I hear you describe in being able to have that grounding and be able to keep your focus on those areas prevented you from feeling desperate which then prevented you from acting in interactions with other people as desperate. I will tell you that the first time I got, well the first time I didn't really get laid off, I was actually hardcore fired, like, it was not a layoff situation. I told people initially because I was embarrassed that it was laid off but really, I was fired because I was not doing a great job. And they should have fired me. That said though, it felt very different. I didn't build, I didn't do what you did, I didn't like to go out and build a team or get expertise or anything like that. I very much spent a lot of time just reeling and feeling desperate and trying to do anything and everything and consequently, I got a lot of turn downs as opposed to me turning down other people. So that part as I was listening to you describe how that was, I was stressful for a solid two months, honestly. So that's really interesting. So let me ask you then, when you said a moment ago about, I wanted to focus on what was more important, like the values, what were you actually doing? What did the work for you look like at that point? And then how did that help you stay grounded?

Brian 20:17

Yeah, I think the work that we're doing, like, with the ideal career profile, I think that really helped quite a bit, and identifying the things that must be present, like in the next job. So I think it was one of those pieces going into it was like, I have all these skills that can do this, I could do that. And so it's like I said, it was just like, I think in my head what I was trying to do was try to figure out how do I actually position myself just to win the job and be wanted, again, to overcome that sense of rejection that I think I felt at the time. But I think that it was getting that clarity of the distinction of the rejection, and what do I actually want. Versus the "I just wanted to feel wanted." Of like, "No, that's not what it is." Yes, I do want that. But that's not the driving factor that's behind all this. And so I think as we started going further down that path with what must be present, it really helped me hone in with the right questions to be asking during the interview of the people. And I think even with eventually landing where I am now, I ended up interviewing with five different people, before they actually made the offer to me. And I was just like, but every one of them, I would go through the same thing of the "Are you glad you're here? Do you like the people you're working with? What's not working?" And so it's like, it's one of those things for me that became really present with the emotional intelligence. So he didn't get into EQ. And the people I was interviewing with, I put great value on people with great EQ. And every one of these people that I interviewed with, on the question of the hedges "what's not going well", they all take responsibility for what they're not doing well. They didn't blame it on anybody else in their organizations. And they would stop and they actually self reflect like, "Oh, that's a good question." It's like, well, "If I'm really being honest, I'm struggling in this area where I just don't think I'm mature enough yet. And so I'm working on this, and here's what I'm working on. So it's like, is that something that you would be able to help with?" And I was like, "I can absolutely help you with that." It's like, "Here's how I can help you." But it was just like, just having the presence of that, I think, really helped as far as like what we had done with the, "These are the type of people that I want to work with." I think also with just having enough self reflection, and as you were talking about your being fired, it's just like, if I'm being really honest with myself, I think I got to a point after going through so many of the riffs and seeing so many people that I cared about get laid off that I had just, you can say it's burnout, I think I'd become apathetic. And like, I probably would have let me go too, in hindsight. And so, I can have some resentments. Be easy to point the finger. But I think that, yeah, I probably should have got let go. But then getting to the point of now, it's just like, I am working on an awesome company. And I'm working with just really, I mean, that was my one on one with my boss yesterday. He's like, "How's it going? I haven't talked to you like in a week and a half." It's like, but I haven't met anybody I don't like. Everybody I meet, I continue to be impressed with. Everybody actually knows how to do their job, their skill, they just like they know what they're doing. They're professional." It's just like, "This is awesome." He's like "That's great. Good." With interest. And I think about, maybe second, third day into job, I went to local sales office up here and was talking to one of the district managers and he's like, "You won that jackpot, man. You won the lottery. This is like nobody leaves his company. Everybody loves it here." It's just like, you got a CEO that really cares about the people. And we just continue to do well, because it's about the people, which going back to the Ideal Career Profile. For me, a lot of that was the value of, I started really reflecting. So it's like, the majority of my waking hours are going to be spent with these people. I've gotten like the people I work with.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:27

You strike me as the type of person that couldn't just go to work and accept a paycheck, for lack of a better phrase. I don't think that would feel great for you. If I understand you correctly.

Brian 24:44

No, for sure. Yeah, honestly man, and I continue to meet with Ben and do touch base, because it's like, for me, I have within me this desire just to make it great. And it's not that things aren't great, but it's just like, we just do this and just, like, continue to make it better. And all sudden you're working 14-16 hour days, and so that's one of the things I've been here with. It's like, I know that's within me, I just don't want to get back to doing the crazy days. It's like, how do we build this in a way where we get the balance, and continue to make it better? I mean, even like doing my one on one with my boss, supervisor, manager, leader yesterday, he's just like, "Here's what I'm thinking. This is like, could you do this?" I'm like, "I could totally do that." So I was like, "I can do it then the next week." And he says, like, "You know, I'm gonna do that. And I'll come back to you with a timeline. And I'll let you know. And yeah, I can totally do all the things that you're asking me to do. I know exactly how to do that." And I was like, "And we'll do it." Instead of like, "Oh, I'll work all weekend. I'm gonna work late. And we'll have that done next week." It's not that. And I think that's some of the tying it back to the work with Ben, trying to get that balance right for the ideal career profile of, it doesn't have to be this chaos. Because for me, my innate desire is to just, I gotta get it great. And it's got to get great now.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:05

I think what's really interesting about that, as I'm listening to you talk, as you were talking about the transitions you made earlier, and the different points in time in your career with different roles, different opportunities, just in how you're talking about it, I can hear a lot of the things that you value coming out of how you're describing what was great about those situations. And I think that that is what so many people miss when we're trying to figure out work that is a really wonderful fit. It's that you have to be able to identify and articulate and then seek out those things that you want. And I think you've done a really phenomenal job here. So here's the question I want to ask for you. After the riff, after the initial transition where you're in that point where you're like, "this doesn't happen to me." And you're in that sort of mindset. And then moving all the way to where you were going into interviews excited, and you've shifted from that desperation or that other mindset into excitement. How long do you think that took for you, overall first, to shift that mindset? Was that like, a day, a week, a month? Two years? I know it wasn't two years.

Brian 27:31

It was, yeah, it wasn't binary where it was on or off yesterday, you know, it was like, a little bit. Yeah, I'd say it was probably over five, six weeks to get there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:45

What do you think was the most effective? Because I think it's easy for you and I to sit here and talk about that it's in the past, and say, "Oh, yeah." Like, you're gonna need to flip the mindset in order to be able to not come off as desperate, and instead, come off as who you are, and who you want to be and have those types of conversations that you were doing a great job having, asking them about and interviewing them about what they love, what were their challenges, etc. But it's another thing to say like, here's what had to actually occur in order to make that transition over that five to six weeks or so. What do you think was most effective for you? Or what advice would you give to other people that worked?

Brian 28:28

Yeah, I think that's a good question. I think for me, as I was starting with Ben early on, it was like, I gotta find a bridge role. I just got to make sure I've got some income while we're figuring all this other stuff. Because if this takes me a year, I can't wait a year. I gotta go fast, right. I gotta get money coming in right away. And so I think, to try to answer the question, I think, part of what shifted was the, what if I did get the job, and then I just was miserable, and I hated it. But now I don't have enough time to actually work on getting the job that I want, and moving in the direction that I want to go. And I think come into that realization of doing some of the other work in terms of, hey, fast forward six months out, you still don't have money coming in. What does that look? You know, and just like, you know, I'm still alive, my bills are paid, there's people that are much worse off than I am. It's just like, I'm fine. So it's like, I'm completely fine. You know, it gave me the confidence of the, maybe I don't just need to get a bridge role and get money coming in right away. I'm not saying that there's not people in that situation. I know. And reading through articles, and so most people don't have a lot of money in savings. I think the average American has about $400 in their bank account. So I think for me, I was blessed enough that I did have savings. I had other assets that I could sell, just like I had friends I can lean on if I really had to. And so having that confidence of, yeah, I'd be okay. So let's just get focused on what I really want versus the hey, let's just do this bridge role and get something else in there. And I think working with Ben, it helped get that clarity and faster. I think I probably would have got there, but it probably would not have happened nearly as fast as it did.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:23

If you go back to that right after you got the RIF notice, and you're in that mindset, what advice would you give to somebody else who finds themselves in that situation that does want to make an intentional career change for this next step?

Brian 30:41

I think, having working with HTYC definitely made a huge difference. I think, for me, in addition to what worked well, and getting me through this was activating my network. And, really just like reaching out to people. I talked to people that I hadn't talked to in years. And also, I think some of it is, we just get busy with our day to day lives and the people that are wrapped around us immediately, but now that it's like I'm staying in touch with some of those people that all said so it's like, you just reach out to it. And it's amazing as you reach out to some of these people that you haven't talked to in years, how fast you can just, like, pick up like, no time and ever gotten by at all, you wouldn't think this like, "Oh, I haven't talked to you in five years." Also, it was like, "Oh, what happened with someone." And it's like, and it just, like, all just picks right back up on what's where it left off. And so I think activating the network of people, whether it's via LinkedIn, but just starting to reach out to people and one of the things that was a pleasant, I don't know if surprise is the right word, it was more of a comfort than a surprise as kind of a connotation to it. For me, it was a pleasant comfort of how many people just want to help and be there to support and it's like, yeah, man, it's just like, "what about, hey, I can call so and so" and just, it was amazing to me. It's just like, and I think that for a lot of folks, I think there would be a tendency to not reach out and, like, "I haven't talked to him for five years, I don't want to be a burden." And for me, it was, and there was some of this with me. But I think in my first session with Ben that we talked about, and maybe a second was it's going to be the network to activate the network. You know, it's like, I've been blessed in the industry I'm in. I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of people. And so my networks are pretty expansive. I know there's other people that don't have that situation, but it's kind of like that Kevin Bacon, six degrees of separation sort of thing, like activate and find out who they know, and just you got to continue to work it. And I know, the framework with HTYC, you guys have a lot of that sort of the underpinnings of that to help with it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:58

Absolutely. I think that what you mentioned is really common– being the tendency to think, "Well, I don't want to bother this person. I don't want to be a burden." And what we find in this daily, honestly, makes me feel good about humanity. We continuously find what you said and what you found, which is that most people just want to help. Like at the core of it, like most people are very willing to help. I mean, you do need to take extra effort to make it easy on them. And you do need to, you know, approach it from a place of service or a place of where you recognize that you're making an ask but beyond that, like everybody if they can, I found people are incredibly willing to help. It's just we're often unwilling to ask.

Brian 33:51

I agree.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:57

Hey if you love this story where we talk through and walk you through step by step how someone got to more meaningful work, then you'll absolutely love our audiobook– Happen to Your Career: An Unconventional Approach to Career Change and Meaningful Work. I even got to narrate it, which was so fun, and something that I really enjoy doing and will definitely do for future books as well. But it also contains firsthand accounts from career changers on how they made the move to more meaningful work. Just like we include on the podcast here and actually has been called the best audio book experience ever by some reviewers. You can find those reviews and the book itself on Audible, Amazon or any other place where books are sold. Seriously, just pause this right now and go over to Amazon or Audible or wherever you want and download it. You can be reading it and started on your career change in literally seconds. Now here's a sneak peek into what's coming up next week right here on Happen To Your Career.

Speaker 3 34:57

I was really nervous to get back out there just because of being laid off. I was so scared that it would happen to me again. And I think our brains do that to us. Like once we go through something, that's our experience, and that's what we know. So we are told that that's just going to repeat itself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:16

I don't think that there's an ideal time to get laid off or really ever to completely change your career. Happen To Your Career, we've worked with a whole bunch of people that have gone through pretty dramatic situations. It's one thing when you get tired with feeling stuck and decide to make a change. It's another thing when your company calls you and tells you that your time is up. It leaves people feeling pretty uneasy or scared, to put it mildly. You have a tendency when this happens, and I've been there. You feel like your life is out of control, or at least out of your control. But a professional setback might actually lead to a far better opportunity that you've never ever considered before. Our story today is someone who is already contemplating a career change, but that was then laid off before she could position herself for the next move. She discovered that evolving and adapting weren't only important for success, they were absolutely necessary to move up in the professional world.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:15

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.

Taj Dashaun 00:01

Other people are doing it. Here's an example of other people who have made a complete shift or completely changed industries. And yes, it is possible.

Introduction 00:14

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 00:39

One of the most fun things that I get to do every single day is talk to people all over the world about how they have completely switched industries without starting over. We get to share a lot of those stories on the podcast, you've heard them if you've listened to more than one episode. But it's also one of the biggest challenges. Switching industries without starting over? This is something many people come to us for. Almost everyone we talked to feels like it's going to be the struggle for them. They think they're going to have to accept an entry level role or go back to school, or they're going to have to take some kind of a pay cut. However, what we found is that these don't have to be true. And in fact, in most situations, we find that it's unneeded. You can pivot to a new industry without taking a demotion or a pay cut. But the way to do that is probably a lot different than how you're thinking about it.

Taj Dashaun 01:32

She had built the confidence through following all of those steps, and the confidence was building and building. So by the time she walked into that interview, she felt like the job was already hers.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:42

That's Taj Dashaun. He's a career coach right here at Happen To Your Career. And he's also one of the people on our team who talks to folks that are interested in working with us, and trying to figure out how we can best help. But the reason he's here today is because he's an expert in helping people switch industries. He's helped athletes, even Olympians transition into different careers. He also works with people here every single day at HTYC to change industries, or change roles, or change, I don't know, just about everything. He's even done this in his own career. Okay, if you want to hear his story, by the way, you can go back to Episode 503 and hear all about Taj. He's got a pretty phenomenal story. But in this episode, he and I discussed the most common myths that people believe when it comes to completely switching industries. No matter how long you've been working in one industry, it is possible to pivot your career without starting an entry level position or going back to school. It's also possible to pivot without taking a pay cut as well. We found that in almost all situations. We go over the three steps that you can take if you decide you want to change careers and move into a brand new industry. Okay, here's Taj kicking off our conversation by sharing what he most commonly sees when someone is wanting to switch industries.

Taj Dashaun 03:04

I think the first thing that comes to mind for anyone looking to make such a change, which is human nature, is of course, fear, uncertainty, or regret of feeling like, "Oh, I wasted my time doing this thing for this long. And now I'm looking at doing this thing", or, "I don't know what this thing is" well, either way, it's scary to make a shift into something entirely new. I've seen that with a lot of our clients as you have. I've seen it in my personal life. And I think it's definitely something worth talking about. So I'm glad we're fleshing this out and discussing this today.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:38

Yeah, it turns out, we get to talk about it today. Let's solve all of these problems right here, right now for all the people. Okay, well, I don't know if we can solve all the problems. But I think we can provide a really wonderful framework. And when I say a framework, I'm talking about some of the specific steps that you can take, if you're listening, and you're considering switching industries, or making a career pivot of any kind, really, and you don't want to start over, you don't want to go back to an entry level position, you don't want to take a pay cut, you don't want to have to go back to school, because that's what most of us are thinking about as we're considering that type of change. Okay, now, if you're in that place, one of the things that Taj and I have found over the years is that, there has to be some pretty specific mindset shifts as it relates to this particular type of change. What do you think some of those mindset shifts are?

Taj Dashaun 04:36

One thing I want to touch on that you just said about pay cuts. That was actually one of my favorite parts of the HTYC book is that you don't have to, there was a line in there about not sacrificing your income to do something that you enjoy more and coming from a place of, "I can have it all. I can have a better opportunity that I enjoy and I can make just as much if not more money." And I think that's one of the common patterns that I see is something to overcome mentally, and having that mindset shift of, okay, first of all, this is possible, I can do it. And having that level of hope and optimism, especially if you have guidance through that process brings a level of, "Okay, well, I can't have it all. So let me get to work on figuring out what that looks like." Also, another common mindset shift, I guess you can say that needs to happen is, realizing that no matter what you're doing, your skill set can be transferred into something else, even if it ends up being something entirely different. You may not know right away what those transferable skills are. But if you go through the process of identifying what it is that you're going to go into, you can then begin to look at where you've been, and start to take those skills, and begin to articulate them, not just for the sake of telling other people, but so you know internally how these prior skills translate into this new opportunity. So those two are probably the biggest mindset shifts– I guess, I would boil that down to possibility and understanding that you didn't waste your time, you can use what you've done and translate that into where you're going.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:13

That's really powerful. That idea of you didn't waste your time. And you can use that. I think that is one of the biggest fears that people don't even realize that they have, that many of us don't realize that we have. And as humans, we’re really hardwired to avoid loss at all costs, or nearly all costs, I should say. So that, I mean, that's very much the way that our brains work. So when we put some of those together, where we may have worked incredibly hard to get a degree or you know, a master's degree, or even a doctorate, or something like that, or put a ton of work into a particular industry over the years, it feels like we: One, do not want to give that up. Because we're hardwired to avoid loss. And then two, it is kind of this double secondary problem of you feel like you need to. So it doesn't really mix very well. So I feel like I have to give that up to be able to move on to something else. And also, I don't want to. So it's no small wonder why people feel like they're stuck, right. And in actuality, to your point, we find that you don't have to. One, you don't have to give that up. You can utilize your past experiences and you can bring them forward, whether that's, you know, degree, whether that's experience in a particular industry, all that stuff carries forward with you provided that you understand where it is that you want to go. So it seems like the pre-req in there is figuring out where you want to go, whether it's a different industry or different place or a different role or anything else like that. So any other thoughts on that?

Taj Dashaun 08:01

I just want to touch on what you said about people who are, or have gone through extensive schooling, or certifications, or whatever it is. Because, you know, as well as I do, how many people come to us who are doctors, lawyers, I have a few clients right now who are doctors and lawyers. And that lends itself to that fear that you were talking about, well, this experience or this school that I've gone to doesn't mean anything. And we often have to have that, I don't want to call it a difficult conversation, but the conversation of explaining to them that once the clarity is there, like you said, you can then look at, well, being a doctor, it has a lot of skill sets. And you're part of an elite club if you're a doctor, or a lawyer, not only because of the schooling you've done, but because of the skill sets that you've developed over time. And if you can learn to incorporate that story into why you're wanting to make a pivot into the next thing, then I think that goes a long way and actually gives you a better chance than some people even if they have experienced in this new industry that you're going into.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:03

What are some of the examples that you've seen of this in real life? You know, you just mentioned some of our clients right now. But what jumps into mind as you think about real world examples of this?

Taj Dashaun 09:19

Yes. So I have some experiences from my personal life. But let me share one from a client. This is probably the most complete 180 into something totally different that I've experienced, at least recently. There was a client I was working with, I can't remember what her major was, I want to say she got an accounting degree. And she only did that because it was safe. That's why she told me she got an accounting degree. "It was safe. I can get into accounting." She did an internship before graduating and the accounting field was not for her and she realized that quickly. So she did what most people do after realizing what she got her degree in, it wasn't what she wanted long term. She just started looking for anything. And she hit the job boards and just tried to see what was available, what was open. So somehow, some way, she ended up being a claims adjuster for a car insurance company. And she was there for about, I want to say almost a decade before... She was miserable from the start, but realized at a certain point, she had hit her capacity for wanting to make a shift. And as we were exploring ways that she could make a pivot, one of the things that had always appealed to her was working in college athletics. Which totally different ballpark. How we landed on that was just a combination of interest side projects she had done, different camps she had run over the years. All these skill sets were lending itself to "Oh, she would be really good at going into an athletic department and building out programming to help student athletes." Absolutely zero experience with this, of course. But what she did that I thought was fascinating was, of course, by going through our process, making contacts, being able to have test drive conversations, as we call them, to be able to understand what is the daily life of someone like in an athletic department who's building out programming. She then took it a step further to start to build out her own programming. And anytime she would have a conversation with someone, she would share some of her ideas based off of data that she was gathering from people who are in the role, where the holes were, what needed to improve, not just in each athletic department, but in the system as a whole. And she would publish articles, she would share her insights, she would send in pitch decks and different programming decks that she created every time she sent in an application and a resume. And to me, when she ended up actually getting a role in an athletic department, it was not only a huge moment for her, but for me too, to be able to, I felt like a proud dad. You know, that's weird to say. But just being able to see her make that change, it was phenomenal.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:02

Two things stand out to me, because I hear you tell that story. First and foremost, not even knowing who this individual is, just from the story alone, it's pretty clear that she wouldn't want to be in this new industry. Like you're talking about creating her own processes, observing the holes in the system. And that's the type of thing that someone only does if they are, first and foremost, really excited about it. Secondarily, that probably says something about using her strengths too, not necessarily just her previous skills and experiences, which is pretty cool. And we can talk about that later, too. But here's the question that it makes me think of. If we were to break this down into some of the steps that she did, step by step, what would that look like? How many steps and what's the high level of those steps?

Taj Dashaun 12:57

The first step, like we touched on earlier, is acknowledging that it's possible. And I know that's extremely oversimplifying. But acknowledging that her previous experience didn't disqualify her from anything that she wanted to do next. So that was the first thing. Creating the possibility, the hope, in her own mind that it was possible. Then begins the exploration and the discovery of what's out there, auditing the skill set, auditing the strengths, auditing anything that she had ever, it's funny, because when she was a child, it actually crossed her mind to be an athletic director. She always loved college sports, wanted to work in an athletic department. And then the third step would be, after identifying what that is, and we put that to the test through those test drive conversations, like have conversations with people and make sure that this is something that you actually want to do. You could find out that these people are miserable, and that you may want to reconsider going that route. But every conversation she had, she built up more momentum. And so the third step would be acting as if you're already in the role or thinking as if you're already in the role. That's kind of how I would put that. And I think that's ultimately what led her to starting to create programming that she could then share with people because she was acting and thinking as if she was already in the role, right. And also gave her the confidence when she went into interviews because she could then lean on not necessarily past experience, although there were some transferable skills, which she got to lean on a body of work that she had created throughout this exploration process. So that's about, I think, that's about as simplified as I could make the process.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:40

Okay, so here's what I heard from that. One, acknowledging that is possible. That's step one. Sounds like a silly step and it sounds nice and fluffy, right? But it really is an important step– intentionally acknowledging that it's possible. Two, then auditing your skill set and the past set of experiences that you have, understanding what is already there, what functions as an asset. And then from there, it sounds like exploring and testing in a variety of different ways. And that eventually leads to, as you said, acting as if you're already in the role. And part of that might be articulating why you want to make the switch and that'll help with those interviews that you're talking about as well. Okay, so let's go through each of those here, first and foremost. And let's see if we can share some examples of how to do each step functionally. Okay, step number one, it's one thing to say we should acknowledge that as possible, that we should acknowledge that it is absolutely something that can happen. It's much harder to do in reality. What have been the best ways that you've seen people be able to intentionally acknowledge that as possible?

Taj Dashaun 16:01

I think a great start is seeing examples of other people who have done it. And then sometimes just to start with, sometimes people haven't had the conversation at all. So it's more so something that has lived in their mind, and they've never actually had a conversation or had someone tell them, "Yes, this is possible." Other people are doing it. Here's an example of other people who have made a complete shift or completely changed industries. And yes, it is possible. Like we said earlier, not only is it possible that you can, in fact, make the same amount of money, if not more, by making a complete change. So I think, I know that sounds oversimplified, probably, but I think you have to have a conversation with someone who can instill that hope in you or just let you know that it's possible. And then of course, seeing examples never hurts of people who have done it, as well. And the more extreme the change, the better. I feel like, you know, that's a really extreme change, then it's like, "Wow, if they can do that, I can definitely do this."

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:58

Yeah. And I think that's a fascinating psychological phenomenon. For me, when I look at it, like when you see those extreme changes, then it sets the bar further back for you. And you're like, "Oh, well, shoot, if that's possible, then like what I'm thinking about no problem, basically. Right." And I think that's kind of a funny phenomenon. But it really illustrates the point that you've got to go seek out those other examples. And I think that's one of the biggest reasons why, if you've listened to the Happen To Your podcast over and over and over again, you'll hear stories that we've shared, where people are like, "I started listening to the Happen To Your Career podcast, and I heard this episode, and I heard this episode. And then now I'm telling my story on the Happen To You Career podcast." And I think that's the coolest thing in the world, first of all, that we can create a show like this, and have that happen where you can witness that real time. But the bigger point is, one of the easy ways to do it is go listen to those other episodes. You know, pick out the ones that seem relevant, exciting to you. And then the other thing I hear you saying, Taj, is that just simply saying it out loud, having another conversation with a human being, a real life human being and saying this out loud, all of a sudden makes it more possible than it was if you didn't.

Taj Dashaun 18:20

Yes. On that note, too, I want to share just from personal experience. Early on in my career, coming out as a college football player with no experience at all, I got into sales. And I know I shared this in a previous episode. But my point with that is, when I realized I wanted to make a shift from sales, one of the things I was looking at was going into career services or recruiting. And I was thinking, I have absolutely no experience in this. How am I going to break into this seemingly totally new industry? And I had a conversation with my cousin, actually, I was kind of telling him like, "Man, I want to get out of sales. I want to do something that's more focused on helping people." And he was like, "Well, why don't you just tell them that?" And I was like, "That's a great point. Why didn't I think of that?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:02

I can do that. How dare you? Tell people that. Yeah, that's awesome.

Taj Dashaun 19:11

But ultimately, that's what ended up helping me when I was interviewing for Career Services roles is just telling them like, "Look, I like working with people. And although sales is great, I feel like I could work more closely with people where I feel like I'm having more of an impact, which in turn would make me more effective if I was helping people get jobs and helping them figure out what they want to do." So that's just the way from my personal experience that someone shed the light on me, so to speak about, "Oh, this is possible." And all I have to do is just explain why I want to make the shift and I do have the transferable skills to do it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:45

That's cool. That's awesome. I was just talking with my son, Grayson, about this. He's getting into YouTube. He wants to make YouTube videos. So he's been making all kinds of YouTube videos. And really excited about it, right? So we were talking about Mr. Beast. Have you heard of Mr. Beast? Okay, so I think pretty much most of the world knows Mr. Beast at this point, and there's a reason for that, even though he's not that old. He's only what, like, 23-24 at this point.

Taj Dashaun 20:11

I think so, maybe even younger.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:12

Yeah, maybe even younger. But what's really fascinating about his story is he set out to be, he basically declared and started talking to people about, he wanted to become the number one youtuber in the world at age 17. That's a part of his story. It had that conversation out loud on purpose, and I'm 100% sure many of the people he was talking to thought he was crazy. Well, it's not that many years later, and he had set that intention. So it starts to become much more possible. So pretty cool, right? So Grayson immediately went and told his mom, I can't remember what he said, but he said something about wanting to do this and this on YouTube. Alyssa comes up to me, and she's like, "What's going on with Grayson?" And then I told her the story. Anyhow, so he's all excited. But let's jump into the second step here that we were talking about. This idea of auditing your skill set and your collective set of experiences. Tell me a little bit about how you've seen that work well for somebody in the past. What can we actually do to do that?

Taj Dashaun 21:19

Once again, it comes back to having someone who can do that with you, because one of my favorite expressions, I forget who said it, is that it's hard to see the picture when you're in the frame. And so you can look at your own resume and at your experience and say, "Well, I've only done this." But you know, if you're sort of auditing, like we're saying, then it starts to bring up more of just what's on the job title, or just those few bullet points, they go under the functions of the job. When you start to take a deeper look, which you can do in a variety of ways, like, we use StrengthsFinder as one of the foundational pieces. But there are also many other facets to how we help people uncover that. And so things start to emerge that aren't as obvious when you take a deeper dive into those bullet points, like I said, because those are more so job functions and duties and responsibilities and tasks and all these formal words versus like, what was I actually doing? How was I interacting with other human beings? What impact was I making on other people? And once those things start to show themselves, then it gets really exciting because you realize that those things can be transferred into anything. Because ultimately any job, not to get super woowoo and spiritual, but I know, we probably have some of those listeners.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:33

Let's go, let's go.

Taj Dashaun 22:34

I'm one of those people, for sure. I think that, ultimately, that's what any job is. Like, ultimately, whatever you're being paid to do in some way, shape, or form is having an impact on other people. So if you look at it like that, it makes transferring that into the next thing much, much easier. If you look at it from that level.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:52

One of the easiest ways that I've seen to do that, is initially just try and sit down and listed out. Not so much in the form of a resume, although that's a great place to start. Because you can, you know, you've already got a list halfway built of past roles, past opportunities, but instead, taking it a step further. And what I found fascinating, especially for layering strengths over the top of this, which if you accept the idea of signature, what we call signature strengths, being one of the truest senses of who you are, truest representations of who you actually are. And if you want to do more of that, then a really simple exercise is to list all those roles, job opportunities that you've had in the past, or even outside of work, whatever other roles you've had. And then over on the right hand side of the page, or the other side of the page, list out what specifically did you enjoy, and what specifically did you feel like you were great at or even just above average at. And although that is still to your point, it's really hard to see, because you're inside the frame, you can't look at the full picture, and it becomes incredibly difficult. What you can then do is you can take that exercise and show it to someone else and they can help you decipher, you know whether that's a friend who has a good idea of who you are, whether that is a coach, like someone on our team here at HTYC, whether that is mentor, whoever it is, it gives you a different place to be able to talk about those ideas, your skills, your past experiences, and then it causes you to focus on the ones that you enjoyed the most or that you were the best that which then allows you to set up for some of the next steps later on that you're talking about, right? So let's go into those next steps. What about that idea of exploring and testing? How have you seen that done in the past? What are the best examples of that for you?

Taj Dashaun 24:55

Well, sometimes when we talk about reaching out and I know you are very big on making this distinction between informational interviews and test drive conversations and conversations with people that allow you to build a connection. So I would start with that. I think you have to look at it as the goal of these conversations is not to reach out to people and try to ask for a job. The goal of the conversation is to: A, build a connection, first and foremost. And B, actually learn from this person as much as you can in a way that allows them to almost tell their story to you, and can give you a glimpse of, "Okay, if I were to go do this thing, what is it really like? What am I actually going to be doing from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep?" Which I think is something that a lot of people don't think about, you know, sometimes the grass is greener, in another field, so to speak, and you look at it and you say, "Hmm, that seems pretty cool until you hear from the people who are doing it." And also, I just want to say this, just sometimes you might hear from someone who's not having a great experience, but you shouldn't let that disqualify you from the fact that you could have a good experience doing that thing. You have to use your discernment, but the more people you can have those conversations with, that's the fastest way to really get... It's the closest thing to actually being in the role itself, is having a conversation with people who are in it. So that's what I'd say on that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:22

Yeah. How did your person who made a switch to... your story from earlier, the person who went from claims adjuster to athletic director or assistant athletic director. How did she do this step? What did that look like for her?

Taj Dashaun 26:38

The first thing she did was start researching, identifying people. So that looked a lot like LinkedIn searches, going to school websites, looking up people in athletic departments. And then I just helped her craft some messages that were almost like, I want to say a message that you couldn't say no to. But a message that was so thoughtful and personal to the individual that she was reaching out to that it was more difficult to ignore, or at least not want to help her or want to want to help this person or at least share your story.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:08

That's an example of what that might sound like, while also recognizing that it's going to be different for every person in different every situation. What's one example of that?

Taj Dashaun 27:18

So I'm just going to say if you were an athletic director, like the message that she would send was, "Hey, Scott, I see you're an athletic director at HTYC University."

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:29

Yeah, HTYC University. I love it, okay.

Taj Dashaun 27:33

"And I am intrigued by the programming that you're doing." So there's a personal touch there, right? It's not just "Hey, I'm intrigued by the work that you're doing." This is a copied and pasted message. It's more so pointing to specific work that is a little more difficult to find on the surface. So there was some digging that had to be done. So "Hey, Scott, I see that you're an athletic director at HTYC University. I love the program that you did last fall. I am currently in the midst of making a career change. And I would love to learn more about your experience at HTYC University." Or you could say, hear your story or something like that. Because I think it's important to make it more about the person you're reaching out to. People love talking about themselves. People love telling their story. And if they see someone is coming up behind them and wants to walk a similar path, I think people will be surprised how willing people are to have those types of conversations and kind of pour back into the people coming up behind you. So that's the general structure that I like to use. And I know all of us as coaches here, use that format.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:35

Okay, so if we're looking at the last step, being able to act as if you're already in the role, or articulating why you want to make the switch, so that you're better prepared for the interview stage. What does that look like? What's important here? And what are some examples?

Taj Dashaun 28:53

So when you're having conversations with people, and they're telling you their story and also what their day to day function is, their experience of the role itself, something that's important to gather is kind of the challenges or issues that may be happening, because that allows you to go into problem solving mode, which then you can start thinking like, "if I was in their shoes, how would I solve this problem?" So that's the first step because you can sort of formulate ideas in your own mind about how you would immediately come into that role and make an impact. Then when you're in the interview stage, of course, that gives you a lot of ammunition, for lack of a better word, because you've been thinking about it ahead of time. And also you've audited your skills. So now you can talk about how your skills transfer into this new thing confidently because you've been thinking about it ahead of time. And you can think of examples where even though you may have done something in a totally different industry, that same skill set or the same strength or the same framework, or the same philosophy can now apply into doing this new thing, which of course gives you a lot of confidence during the interview because you've already done the heavy lifting up front of understanding, not that you're overpreparing about how to respond to questions, but you know, you're thinking as if I'm already in this role. So no matter what questions they ask me, I'm prepared to speak to that, because I've spent the time thinking about it and learning about myself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:11

I think what's really fascinating too, is if you look at research, there's a couple elements that support what you just said. One, if you are future focused, imagining that you're in that particular role, that in itself is going to better prepare you versus if you're only looking backwards. It's a subtle distinction. But something that is going to have the impact, the real world impact of making you feel more confident, but also, when you are imagining yourself, and it allows you to be able to adapt easier. And I heard you mention that, like, you're going to be prepared for whatever types of questions that they ask you for. So it's a very, very subtle thing that just, like, works with our brains and leverages human psychology. And then the other thing too, is that when you practice in that particular way, any amount of practice, any amount of imagining is going to create a different level of confidence. And there's been a number of studies have come up with different time periods. But basically, it's pretty little, like, as little as 15 minutes of practice is going to significantly change your feeling of confidence when you go to those interviews, but also other people's feelings of your level of confidence, which is kind of fascinating.

Taj Dashaun 31:31

Wow, 15 minutes is all it takes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:34

Like, again, there's been a number of studies out there, but they're all relatively low numbers compared to what I would have thought. I would have thought like hours and hours of practice. Now, we're talking in some cases less than an hour. 13, 14, 15 minutes, yeah, pretty crazy, right?

Taj Dashaun 31:52

Definitely. I would have thought at least an hour or two. At least.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:55

Okay. So here's the question I have for you as we're wrapping up. When you're thinking of that interview step, how did that play out for that person who wanted to get into an athletic director role? What did she do? Or what do you remember worked for her in that particular situation? Since we've already utilized that story and example.

Taj Dashaun 32:20

Yes. So when she was prepping for the interview, she definitely spent more than 15 minutes, but that was probably her wanting to be as prepared as possible.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:29

She was extra confident.

Taj Dashaun 32:30

Yes, extra confident. Her preparation looked like reviewing all of the notes from conversations she had, which made it not just about that one opportunity or that one role, but the industry and the role as a whole, which was huge. And then also being able to practice, not in a scripted way, but looking at how each experience, each skill set that she has transferred into the skill set of the new role, which she definitely spent time familiarizing herself with from A to Z, this is what it looks like to do this thing. And she just connected the dots. I think she told me she even wrote it out on paper where she, like, drew a line to how this thing connects to this thing. She compared notes on that. And then really just being confident. I mean, she had built the confidence through all of that, following all of those steps, and the confidence was building and building. So by the time she walked into that interview, she felt like the job was already hers. Right? Not in an arrogant way. But just in a "I'm more than qualified to do this role, because I have vetted myself, and I pass the test." So yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:34

I think that's awesome. It's also a wonderful place for us to wrap up. Because we started out saying, okay, "how do you switch industries when you don't want to start over?" And in many cases, the pretext was, you feel like you have to start over, you feel like there's no other way for you to start over. So you get stuck. And now we're all the way on the other side of that saying, you know, in the example we've been using this entire conversation, she went to feeling like she was confident and that she could imagine herself in that role, and that she was prepared for it, which is pretty cool. Very, very, very different from the way that it starts at the beginning. Awesome. I appreciate it, Taj.

Taj Dashaun 34:19

Thank you, Scott. I always enjoy these conversations with you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:27

Hey, if you've been thinking about making a change for a while now, and you don't really know how to best take the first step or get started, here's what I would suggest– just open your email app on your phone right now. And I'm gonna give you my personal email address, scott@happentoyourcareer.com. Just email me and put "Conversation" in the subject line. Tell me a little bit about your situation. And I'll connect you with the right person on our team where we can figure out the very best way that we can help you, scott@happentoyourcareer.com drop me an email. Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you next week.

Speaker 3 35:03

It just got worse and worse and people leaving, getting the wrong people hired into roles and just the culture just got so, so bad.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:13

In 2007, I had changes in the company that I was working in at the time, that pretty much pushed me in the direction of apathy, like I pretty much didn't care, didn't feel connected anymore. And if this is something that's happened to you, then you're not alone. You're not even close to alone. According to a Gallup study, only 32% of US employees felt engaged at work in 2022. So this is pretty recent, right? Companies seem to be losing their grasp on what employees actually want, or when they're rapidly restructuring and trying to make changes, and when they're trying to navigate the after effects of the pandemic, they're not being successful, many of them, most of them. So if you've been spending your time in a job that is very out of alignment with who you are, or maybe you're surrounded by people that just don't share the same values, they don't place value on the same things that you do, if this is the case, then you'll find that even if you enjoy your day to day job functions, and even if there's many other good things, you're probably going to fall quickly into the category of disengaged, that'll make you ready for a change whether you recognize it or not. And the good news is that well, the number of engaged employees is extremely low, there are in fact organizations out there that have more than doubled this percentage. What does that mean? Well, there's organizations that actually care if you are feeling connected, and enjoying your work and feeling engaged. Pretty cool, right? You just have to find them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:57

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.