Dave Stachowiak 00:01

We think about burnout is a problem with a person. And yes it is. And it can be "AND" and there's a big "and" here. It also is often something that's going on in the organization or dynamics that aren't working.

Introduction 00:20

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 00:45

Okay, so here's the dilemma. You're a leader at your company. And guess what? Your employees are feeling totally burned out. Overwhelmed. They're not exactly loving their work. The catch, you're feeling the exact same way. It's like leading a team on an empty tank. So how on earth can you steer your team towards success when you're running on fumes yourself? Today, we have a special guest here to discuss preventing leadership burnout, and ultimately positively impacting burnout in your organization as a whole.

Dave Stachowiak 01:19

Knowing that human tendency in all of us, my invitation to myself, and everyone else is like just to embrace a little bit of the humanity and come back to some questions like, "How are you? How are you doing today?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:36

When it comes to leadership, there's nobody better to talk to in my opinion than Dave Stachowiak. Dave is a world-thought leader on leadership through his company and his podcast 'Coaching for Leaders.' He's also someone who I have a tremendous amount of respect for. He's been on the show many times before. So I'll link those episodes in the show notes so you can go back and hear his entire story. Today, though, I'm actually not going to be your host, which is kind of a bummer, because I always love chatting with Dave. Fun fact, Dave and I actually have a standing 15 minute meeting, standing 15 minute phone call, in fact, every morning to clarify what is most important for our commitments for that day, and where we're placing our attention, so we can hold each other accountable as leaders and business owners. But when I was thinking about bringing Dave back on the podcast to talk about leadership burnout, I actually decided there was someone better to host an episode with Dave. And that person is one of our leaders here at HTYC. She's our director of operations or what we call an Integrator, Cindy Gonos. Before Cindy joined HTYC, she had been a leader at many different organizations for quite a few years. And I knew she would add tremendous value to this conversation. And she stepped into a role here as Director of Operations. She has actually helped me reevaluate my role, taking things off my plate, and ultimately has helped me refrain from spreading myself too thin. And that way I get to continue to do work I truly love which, you know, allows us to role model what we teach everywhere else. Dave and Cindy are two of my very favorite people. And they're both reasons I am able to really thrive in my work. So that means I'm super excited for this episode. Okay, Cindy's gonna take it away, enjoy.

Cindy Gonos 03:25

Well, Dave, first of all, I want to say thank you so, so, so much for being here on the podcast with me. I have been waiting for this for a really, really long time. So I just want to say thank you for joining us here on the Happen To Your Career podcast today.

Dave Stachowiak 03:39

I am so glad to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation. And I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time, too, because you and I have known each other for a while now. And I know you started listening to Coaching For Leaders a long time ago, and we've exchanged emails. What a treat to get to talk to you now after all this time, thanks for having me.

Cindy Gonos 03:57

I am so excited. It has been eight years coming for us to meet like this. So I'm very, very excited to talk with you, especially about leadership burnout, because I know a little bit about your background, Dave, everyone knows you are the guy– a coaching for leaders– you help leaders get where they need to go to evolve, to thrive. But I also know that you have been in leadership yourself for a really long time. So I'm really, really excited to talk with you about how we can help current leaders start to prevent that burnout. Because here at HTYC, so often the way we're interacting with leaders is when they've reached that burnout point, and they're so fed up that they're ready to escape their current role. I know that 75% of your listeners on the Coaching for Leaders podcast are managers, executives and business owners, and I know that you and I probably both agree that when leaders are taking really great care of themselves, they can make a big impact on their team. And when they're not, burnout not only harms them, but it also trickles down to their team. So as a coach for leaders, I'm really excited to get your take on how leaders can get ahead of burnout and prevent it before it starts.

Dave Stachowiak 05:13

I am so looking forward to this conversation. And it is, of course, very relevant to so many of the struggles that a lot of us are having in organizations these days, and in this pandemic/ post-pandemic world. So much has changed in so many organizations that has surfaced burnout in lots of ways. So I'm glad to be here talking about it with you.

Cindy Gonos 05:37

So when folks start to feel that burnout, can you tell me a little bit, Dave, about what does that feels like for leaders? Because you're talking with leaders all the time. How will they know? What are, kind of, those first things that they start to feel when they're reaching that point of burnout?

Dave Stachowiak 05:54

Well, this is where I'm gonna go to the expert on this. And the person that I keep coming across, her name is Christina Maslach. She is a Researcher at Berkeley. All of the folks who talk about burnout cite her, she is, as far as I can tell, the world's number one researcher expert on the topic of burnout. And I was really fortunate that she came on Coaching For Leaders a while back and talked about burnout. And she and her colleagues have identified six things that tend to be the indicators of burnout. And I think that oftentimes, this is a good starting point for looking at this, not only from our own experience, but also from a leadership lens, thinking about this from the people that we lead and watching for these things, too. And so here's the six, and we could dive in on some of them potentially. But first one is just workload, that's one that comes up a lot, right? Lack of control, or perceived lack of control over our work, lack of reward or recognition, poor relationships, lack of fairness. And then the sixth one, a values mismatch with the organization. And those six tend to be the kinds of things that one or more of them may be the starting points for us starting to feel that sense of burnout. Now, there's lots of other things, those kinds of things can trigger too, of course, but those tend to be the indicators, at least according to the research. And those are the things that I hear about too when I hear people using the word "burnout" of what they're experiencing.

Cindy Gonos 07:37

That makes perfect sense. It sounds to me that all these things could be, if not remedied, completely, at least made better with good communication and conversations, right? Workload, lack of control, or leadership, all of those things really boil down to "are you talking about this burnout?"

Dave Stachowiak 08:02

Yeah. And this actually brings up a broader point that I think is really important with burnout. And coming back to Christina Maslach's work, when she came on our podcast, she had this beautiful analogy of the canary in the coal mine. And for anyone who isn't familiar, years ago before the modern equipment in the coal mines that there are today, miners would use a canary and take it down into the mine with them as a sentinel for when air quality was poor. And if something happened to the canary, it got sick or died, they knew that that was an alarm that the air quality was bad and that gasses were building up. And so what you would do if that happened is you would evacuate everyone, and then you would solve the problem, right? And it's interesting that when we talk about burnout in most situations, and someone's experiencing burnout, we often look at it as a problem with the person versus a problem with the organization. And it would be like a miner, seeing a canary suddenly get ill, and to take that canary out of the mine as they should, and then try to toughen them up, give them a couple of days off and send them back into the mine without having changed anything. And yet, I mean, that's ridiculous. But yet, that's what we do in a lot of organizations– someone is struggling with burnout, and we say, "Oh, you need a week off", "You need two weeks off", or "You need to leave time." And by the way, those are really good and important, healthy things. And it also is incumbent upon us as leaders in our organizations to look at, well, if we don't change anything about the environment, maybe this person's role, the things that cause the burnout in the first place, and when that person comes back back to work after two weeks or leave of absence or whatever, and goes back into the same situation, it's highly likely that they're going to end up in the same situation of burnout. And so I think it's incumbent upon all of us, not only in our own careers, but also leading teams to think about how can we look at the organizational, the structural things that are happening inside the organization that may be triggering burnout. And I think that the ability to do that and take a step back is a real gift that we can give to others in our organizations.

Cindy Gonos 10:37

For folks that are in leadership roles, what advice would you give in order to help their team feel more comfortable with talking about burnout? Because I think one thing is, leaders get burned out. And I think we're taught to put this brave face on. And I feel if, as leaders, we can be more vulnerable with our teams about the things that we need to do to take care of ourselves, then our teams are going to be more willing to take care of themselves, and they can be there to support their leaders as well. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to be a leader comfortably, right? Because it's not a comfortable thing for a leader to be vulnerable with their team. What are some ways that you have found, Dave, with folks that you've talked to and worked with that they can show that vulnerability, and be more supportive for their team and allow their teams to be more supportive of them?

Dave Stachowiak 11:32

I'd love to answer that question in two ways. First, a big picture thought and then like the tactical answer, and like some of the things like you can do. So first, the big picture. I often find myself asking leaders, "Tell me about the best experience you've had been managed by someone and tell me about the worst experience." And we have conversations about "Who's the kind of person you'd like to be led by?" And when we have a conversation like that, the kinds of things I almost always hear are, "I want to be led by someone who is genuine, who shows they can make mistakes, who apologizes, who is willing to be vulnerable, who is curious, who's coached-like, who's invested in me, who provides good direction." Like so many of the things that all of us share, when we think about going to work in an organization and the kind of person we'd like to be led by, we don't think, "Gosh, I want to be led by someone who's always right, who never shows any kind of doubt, who has supreme confidence in everything they do, who always has the answer to every question" like, we'd be ridiculous, right? None of us want to be led by someone... Some of us have been led by people like that and it was not a good experience. And yet, when we get into a role of management, many of us, me included, feel like, "I need to be supremely confident. I need to have all the answers." The thing that we all sort of don't want other people to do to us, we feel like when we get into a role where we have some authority or position, that all of a sudden we need to become that person. And knowing that human tendency in all of us, my invitation to myself and everyone else is, like just to embrace a little bit of the humanity and come back to some questions like, "How are you? How are you doing today?" In one on ones. And "What's a high you've had this week? And what's a struggle that you're having right now?" And that when someone says something that they're struggling with to just say, "Thank you for telling me", and maybe not even have any advice, but just to say, I really want to listen, and I want to know what's going on with you, and what you're dealing with, and what you're struggling with. Because if we send that kind of message consistently, I think one, we show up as the kind of leader most of us want to be led by. But also, we open a door that says to people, "This is a safe place". Or at least a place that's a little safer than maybe some of the other management conversations that I've had over the years with managers, that this is someone who is saying and showing that they really do want to hear when things aren't working. Because I think when you open that door, then you're more likely to hear about too much workload. I think you're more likely to hear about a values mismatch, or recognition not happening or someone feeling like things aren't fair. Not that you're always going to be able to do something about that, but you at least know what's happening. And going back to the canary in the coal mine, if you know that there's trouble, then you can do something about it potentially. But opening that door is really key.

Cindy Gonos 15:05

What do you think it is? Because I know exactly what you're talking about, I did the exact same thing. And I think I got to a point in my career where I told myself, "I want to be the leader that I wanted to have." Right? So when I'm leading my teams, I want to be that leader. But there has to be a mindset shift there for me. For you, Dave, how did that mindset shift come about for you?

Dave Stachowiak 15:32

Oh, lots of mistakes, and trial and error, and not giving people feedback. And I had a management role early on, where we had a, it was a nine month management position I had in college, it was my first time managing people and talk about getting thrown to the wolves, Cindy. I went from never having managed anyone in my life to managing 35 people all at once. It was a huge, like, jump. And the school ,quite wonderfully, and the person that ran this organization had a process that at the end of the nine month assignment, you would go through what you and I would call a 360. But it was essentially just a, you know, a simplified version of getting feedback from everyone that you had worked with. And I remember sitting with my manager and walking through the feedback. And there were a lot of nice things that people said. And she said, and there was also several comments that were like "Dave needs to get a backbone, and needs to, like, actually give people feedback and talk about, like, expectations and what's not working." And it was really... In retrospect, it was super helpful. But it was super hard to hear at the time. Because I thought, "Wow, here, I thought I had done a really good job, and overall I had, but there were all these things that I hadn't really," in my mind, I was sort of like, "I'm not too good at this." And I'm like, "Well, maybe no one's noticing". Well everyone was noticing, of course. And so part of this is just jumping in and starting and being willing to do things. But then it's also asking and asking for feedback and asking how to get better. I was lucky enough that someone was there that had created a system where that feedback was going to happen regardless of what I did. But I think the more proactive thing to do, and I try to do this more now is actually to ask, and to ask questions like, "Hey, I am working on this thing, whatever this thing is, and I'm trying to get better at it. What's something that I could do in our next interaction that would help me to show up in a better way?" And really inviting feedback of like, one of my favorite questions comes from Sheila Heen, who's one of the co-authors of the original book, Difficult Conversations. And she has this beautiful question that is, "What's something you see me doing or failing to do that's getting in the way of me doing better?" And I'm not quoting it perfectly. But what a great question to ask regularly of people to start to surface where those blind spots are, so you can do better.

Cindy Gonos 18:23

I think that's amazing. It made me think of, and I'm sure you probably know this, and Scott and I actually did an episode where we talked a lot about leadership and how we approach leadership at HTYC. And when we do our in persons, when we all come together as a team, we do something again, in the outside world, we may call them 360s, we call them "docksides." And their intent is to talk about goals, to talk about what each of us wants to get out of our role. But one question that is always, always on the dark side is, as a leader, the question is asked, it used to be Scott, now I'm the integrator so this question goes to me. But the question is, "What do I do that impedes the team?" And I remember my first stock side, and I had been with Happen To Your Career, maybe three months or so. And I got my dockside form. And I looked at it and I was thinking, "Am I really supposed to answer this question about what Scott does to hinder the team?" And I did it and I was honest. And Scott was open and receptive to it. And when it came full circle, and it came time for me to do docksides with our team. And I had to have the team answer the question, "What am I doing that impedes the team?" It was so valuable for me to hear from my team what I was or was not doing to help the team and it's hard to hear it. It's absolutely hard to hear but so valuable. And if you create that environment where everyone feels comfortable doing that, it makes everything easier on a team. Everyone on our team knows to be real. If you need to talk with someone and have a hard conversation, you need to rumble, like Brene says, then that's what we're going to do. And it makes everyone work better. And it reduces the burnout for everyone on the team, because a leader may get burned out by doing too much. But when that trickles down to the team, that burnout looks different for them. Because it's almost worse because they're second hand exhausted, if you will.

Dave Stachowiak 20:30

Yeah. Great. And I'd love to highlight some things you just said there, because I think it's really key. That number one, there's a system, right? So in your case, like the organization, the top person says, "This is really important. And we're going to do this." And there's a system for asking this question. And secondly, when the questions actually asked and answered, the person who has power responds in a way that's really proactive, and shows that they care, and that they're listening, right? And then third, do something with it. Because you can do the first two well, but if you don't ultimately do anything with it, or make any changes, then it kind of doesn't matter. In fact, sometimes it's worse if you don't do anything at all, right? But in this case, like actually doing something with it. And those three things are key, like asking the question, "how you respond as a leader, like, are you listening?" And my friend Tom Henschel, who hosts the Look & Sound of Leadership podcast says, "When you're asking for feedback, all you get to do is to say, "thank you." "Or, if you're not sure, like, if the feedback doesn't make sense to you, you can ask a clarifying question. But once you're clear what they're saying, then you just say thank you." And you decide later what you can or can't do, or what you're able to shift or not shift. But like being able to respond and listen in a present way is so key to them.

Cindy Gonos 21:57

Absolutely. And I know when I was younger, and I got my first opportunity in leadership at 23 years old. And I had a team of 10. And every person who was on my team, I'm pretty sure was twice my age.

Dave Stachowiak 22:14

Wow.

Cindy Gonos 22:15

So when I got feedback at a young age, and especially being in a sales like environment, it was hard. And I would get a chip on my shoulder about it, and almost refuse to grow in that way. And it did not take me very long, until one of the team members came to me and said, "Cindy, I think you have a lot of really, really great potential. And I want to see you grow. And this is why I'm giving you this feedback." And that made such a big difference to me instead of hearing, "I don't like that you do this, I don't like that you do that." It felt good to me. So I would say too, for folks who have leaders, and they can see that there's this barrier or that they need to have a difficult conversation, when you come from a place of non-judgment and you say "I'm here to help", that's going to tear down that wall with your leader and your relationship is going to grow and everyone is going to be able to work more effectively.

Dave Stachowiak 23:07

When I was a Dale Carnegie instructor, I used to hear from our more senior instructors the message, "Why before what." Before you ask someone to do something, tell them why you're doing it. And I hear that in what you just said Cindy is, yes of course, give feedback, do all those things. And before you do that, say the "why", "Here's why I'm, as a leader, giving you this feedback. Here's why, as an organization, we have the system, here's the purpose behind us doing this." And that frames, it doesn't make the message easy to hear but it frames the message in a way that then you're more willing to do something with it, much like your colleague who said, "I'm doing this because I believe in you. And I want you to grow." the "why" right? And here's the message that you need to hear, the "what." Doing that is so helpful for people.

Cindy Gonos 24:03

I agree with that completely. I know for me, Dave, one of the biggest areas where I have felt burnout is that lack of control and that lack of autonomy in roles that I've had. What are some things that leaders can do when they don't have that control? When they don't have that autonomy? I guess, A, how do they ask for it? And B, if they ask and they are not able to get that, what do they do?

Dave Stachowiak 24:32

Yeah, that's a big question. I think that it comes back to something that we said earlier on the values part, right? There's always going to be a sense of mismatch in some way, hopefully not a big one, but there's almost never does one person's idea of autonomy line up with someone else's. And I think this comes back to having conversation. And I think one of the things that both leaders and employees struggle with is what tends to be called "micromanagement," right? I'm either too present as a manager or my manager is too present on things, or the opposite too absent. And I've heard that story as much as micromanagement over the years of someone who's not really present and not focused on work. One thing that I have seen work if we're looking at this first, there's two different lenses to think of this first, one is, if I'm the person who's in a role, and my manager is not providing me with as much autonomy as I'd like, I think that's one situation, right? And then there's the other situation from the other lens of, if I'm the person leading, like, how do I provide autonomy for others? So maybe we could look at both. If I think about the first situation, usually the conversation starts something like this, "I've gotten into this new role. I'm 60 days in, 90 days in", whatever it is, "and things are mostly going well, but I find that I'm working for a micromanager and they are in my face about everything. And they're checking in constantly. And I don't feel like I have any autonomy. And they don't seem to trust me on anything. What do I do? Where do I start?" And one thing that I have seen work a lot, not every time, but a lot, is to help that person, whoever that senior person is that feels like they need to jump in on everything, to help them feel like they have more visibility, and they have a little bit more understanding of what's happening. And one thing that has worked for a lot of people over the years is to start to be a little bit more proactive on that. And it's interesting, because like sometimes our tendency, when someone is coming in and micromanaging us and not providing us a lot of autonomy is to back off, right, and to like not tell them anything. And I think in a lot of cases, that actually makes the situation worse, because then that person is getting less information. And I think it's actually helpful to do the opposite, at least for a short period of time. And there's lots of ways this can look. But one example is, "Hey, once a week, I'm going to sit down. And I'm going to write out a very thoughtful, concise message about what me and my team have been doing this week." And I'm going to highlight two or three things that I know are important to this more senior person that they're asking about a lot. And I'm going to proactively talk about the steps we're taking, what we're working on, where we're running into struggles, and I'm going to either share that in a one on one, or I'm going to email that person or whatever way that they like to get information. And I'm gonna start doing that. And it is. It's so interesting, Cindy, like how many times we've had people try that with someone who's swooping in a lot, and they do that for a few weeks. And all of a sudden, that person starts to back off, in some cases, quite substantially. And it's funny, because even a couple of times we've had, like the more senior person come back and say something like, "You know, I'm feeling, like, much better about the work you're doing all of a sudden." It's like, well, yeah, because they've changed, like, the person who's reporting to them has changed their behavior of just how they're being proactive. And I gotta tell you, it's really hard to do it, like, "Really? Do I need to do that?" But yeah, for whatever reason, that person just doesn't feel like they have all the information. And that level of proactiveness can really help with that situation. So for anyone who's in that situation, if you haven't tried that, that's certainly a starting point, just to be proactive in the short to medium term, to start to change that dynamic just a little bit.

Cindy Gonos 28:57

I love that. I think that's a brilliant idea. And I think that it shows initiative, and I think it does ease the mind of the leader a little bit. Because I firmly believe, I wholeheartedly believe, that most managers who micromanage do not do it because they want to micromanage. There's some fear, right, there's some sort of underlying fear that they have from somewhere else that tells them, "I need to keep checking in." So if a team member is proactive, they're alleviating stress from themselves by not having the manager have to check in and they're also alleviating some of those fears of the manager at the same time. So I think that's kind of the blend where, because I could see me perhaps out it might be seen as almost snarky or sarcastic. "Oh, you're gonna micromanage me? Well, let me just tell you everything that I'm doing." Right? I don't think it's that way. I don't think it's a , "I'm going to shove you everything." I think it's a very, you said they're proactive, but it's almost like a relief. It turns it more into a relationship, than "You're my leader, and I'm reporting to you", or "I'm your leader. And I'm checking in on you." It's a, "I'm checking in on you to help. And I'm letting you know what I'm doing to also help you and be proactive."

Dave Stachowiak 30:17

Yes. And that's a really good distinction. And I'm so glad you made it of… don't be the, I mean, people do this in the legal profession. I'm not sure this works so well anymore in the digital age. But one of the legal tactics that lawyers would do, like if one side is asking for documents, they'd send them 40,000 documents and like you got to find the needle in the haystack to like spend tons of time, don't be that person, right? Like, that's not the intention here. The intention is, you and I are both fans of Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. And one of the key messages in that book is to try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view. And so if we put on that hat and think, "Hmm, okay, this person, for whatever reason, good or bad values, alignment or not, is swooping in and asking me for a lot of stuff and getting into a lot of things. For whatever reason, I seem to need more information. What can I genuinely do to set aside my own personal annoyance with this behavior for a moment and think about what are like the three or four or five key things that I know they're worried about, that I know is on their radar screen right now, that I know maybe they're swamped and overwhelmed with that if I provide a little bit of visibility, and that I can help will be a starting point for that?" And that's the intention here, is like, how do I help this other person do their job better? And to think about them like my customer even if they may be my manager, "How do I serve that person well and give them what they need in order to be able to do the job in the way that they want to?"

Cindy Gonos 31:55

I loved that, initially, when I thought about doing this episode with you, Dave. It was, how do leaders help themselves from preventing burnout? And really, it sounds like the answer is, how do teams work together to help prevent burnout for everyone?

Dave Stachowiak 32:12

Yeah. I think so. If we can, why not? Right? Like, for whatever reason, as I mentioned earlier, like, we think about burnout is a problem with a person. And yes, it is. And it can be "AND", and there's a big “and” here, it also is often something that's going on in the organization or dynamics that aren't working. And so, yeah, let's talk about those and let's surface them. And if we can do that, and have some healthy conversation, I think that helps us to address things a little bit more proactively before it comes to a point where someone feels completely burned out and they're taking a leave of absence or they're leaving the organization or they're struggling with mental health. If we can proactively get there sooner, what a great win for them and for us and for the organization too.

Cindy Gonos 33:05

Absolutely. Dave, we are almost out of time. But I want to end with a question, because I have been waiting for eight years to ask you this question. Are you ready? Okay. So in your time, as both a leader and a coach to leaders, what's something you've changed your mind about?

Dave Stachowiak 33:24

Ah, this question is a question I ask people often on my podcast, "What have you changed your mind about?" So many things over these years and regularly, I'm changing my mind on one thing that I certainly have changed my mind on in the context of starting the podcast in 2011 when I did to now is, it was both a blessing and a curse that I only had an hour or two when the podcast started to produce it each week. Because I had a full time job, I was working for Dale Carnegie, we were just about to have a baby, wife was really busy and blessedly full. And I didn't have 20 or 30 hours a week to do a podcast. And in fact, the podcast, Coaching For Leaders, started as a hobby and a side project. And that was the intention. That's what it was supposed to be. And it was for the first several years. And so when you only have an hour or two a week to work on something, you figure out pretty quickly, it can't be perfect. I'm going to make mistakes. And sometimes I'm going to do something that is going to be B-minus work. And that's good enough. And that is and was and still is sometimes really hard for me, because I'm the kind of person, I don't know if it was like just my upbringing are lots of too many years of school or whatever personality like, I like to do A-plus work like anytime someone sees something from me, or I turned in a paper when I was a kid or in college like I want that grade to come back really great. And if it's an A-minus it's like, it's not good enough, right? And one thing I've definitely changed my mind on is, not only can I not physically do that, like the physics of running a business, and doing all the things in life don't allow you to have A-plus work on everything all the time. But that actually, it's better to start, and to put something out in the world, and to get feedback, and to learn as you go, and then keep going. And I think it's a great analogy for starting a business. It's a great analogy, certainly for running a podcast. It's a great analogy for leadership, too. Because none of us do any of this perfectly. None of us delegate perfectly. None of us uncover burnout in our organizations all of the time and always see that coming. The invitation for myself and for everyone else is, let's start. Start moving the needle a little bit. Begin, put something out in the world, try something new, change your behavior on something and then see what happens. And sometimes it means you move a little bit further in where you're going. And sometimes it means you fail, and you move backwards, and you get slapped on the wrist a bit because something doesn't work with a stakeholder or a customer. And the times that that's happened to me, Cindy, as uncomfortable as those steps back have been, have so many times been the biggest learning moments that have actually then helped me to leapfrog on something else. And so the thing I've changed my mind on is not having to have everything figured out at the start and to try to nail it the first time. But to actually just start and to have conversation and to get feedback. And by doing that, I have then been able to, in the long run, do better.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:02

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 37:32

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

Speaker 4 37:39

Because I was struggling with my health, I decided to leave my last role without anything lined up. So by far, as a father and a dad, it was hard to walk out of a job without anything like that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:51

People make career changes all the time. That's a normal thing. Unfortunately, many of those career changes are not great moves. In reality, what we find when we meet up with so many people after they've made a career change is that they're just running from a portion of their past job, whether it's a bad boss, a toxic environment, trying to raise their salary, trying to lower the amount of stress and responsibility. When instead, they should be figuring out what they really actually want and then run towards that. So what happens if you've had that situation? What happens if you have made a career change only to realize that your previous career actually fit you much better? Technology and culture can advance or it can change quickly? How do you pivot back to your previous career path after some time has passed and make it even better?

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:49

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.

Vicky Meng 00:01

When I finally hit that moment of realization, everything just clicked. So I think what surprised me was how fast it could happen when you finally get everything together.

Introduction 00:19

This is the Happen To Your Career podcast with Scott Anthony Barlow. We hope you stopped 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 00:44

What if you could know for a fact that you would find more meaningful work by attempting a career change? Would you take that leap? Career change isn't easy. And the journey is never a straight line, never. It can take quite a while to get more meaningful work– a lot longer than many people expect. And so often people quit working on a career change when they hit the unavoidable roadblocks and those low points. It's so much harder than almost everyone expects, at least if your goal is meaningful, well paid work. But here's the thing, I have yet to meet anyone who has made it to the other side and doesn't absolutely think that it was all worth it.

Vicky Meng 01:25

When I talk to people, I feel like I have so much to offer but because when they listen to my direct experiences, they don't get excited about me as much because they just feel, like, that I have been in the wrong environment, I won't fit in with their environment.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:46

That's Vicky Meng. Vicky had worked in accounting since graduating college, but started to feel stuck when she realized there were no more opportunities for growth at her organization. This spurred her to start working hard to define what she really wanted out of a career and to take action to find a new job. In the middle of her career change journey, she received a pretty great offer that checked a lot of boxes. But ultimately, she turned it down because it wasn't exactly what she was looking for. Okay, so this part felt really hard. And it also caused her to start feeling like she was losing traction, and that eventually, when other things weren't working, it led to a low point in her career change journey. Spoiler alert. After a year of hard work and dedication to her career change, Vicky ultimately made it to her ideal career. I want you to listen to how Vicky talks about and specifically what helped when she was persevering through multiple low points, not just one, not just two, but multiple low points during this 12 month long career change, and how she calls out those pivotal moments during the process, like learning how to present her existing experiences in a way that would allow her to move into a role that she didn't have lots of experience in. Okay, so fun fact too, Vicky's story is featured in chapter 17 of the Happen To Your Career book. You can actually hear her telling it in her own words on the audiobook version available on Audible or Amazon. But back to the interview at hand. Here's Vicky talking about her initial decision to make a career change.

Vicky Meng 03:30

Yeah, so I guess I should say that I started in corporate accounting because my education background is in accounting and I actually went straight up accounting for Bachelors, for Masters and I got my CPA. So supposedly, I should have followed my peers path in going through either the public accounting route, or I would just stay within the corporate accounting route. But to be honest with you, accounting, even though I did so much education in that field, has never really felt like the field for me. It was more of a family culture background influence. But what was sad about it was that I knew accounting wasn't for me, at the same time, I had no other passion. I consider myself a boring person. Because you know how a lot of other people probably say, "Oh, you know, I love acting" or "I love painting." "I love photography." I just never had one of those passions. So I just followed what my family's advice was, and what seemed to be the most realistically best choice. That's what I did and it did help me to get up with my own feet in the beginning right after college. You know, all companies need accountants and I could find a job and I was able to find a good company that sponsor me through the emigration process, in which, plays a monumental part of my life right now. That is why I can still go on to pursue my further dreams in this career. But yeah, I just didn't know if it's not accounting then, what could it be. I did transition into the finance department with my previous employer working in the Treasury Department. And I did not know what that was about at all. But what was good about it is that the organization's pretty small, so I was able to transition to different departments. And at the same time, I was able to dive deep in each of those areas. Not only dive deep, but also gain a very clear big picture of how each area plays into the whole corporate finance and accounting structure and how each department helps to make the final decision. So I did Treasury for about two years. And then I transitioned to financial analysis, which is another department under the corporate finance umbrella. And I did that for another two years. So that makes up five years in total, but I was literally doing everything that the company needed– accounting and finance wise. And in the end, I just rose up to this, like Strategic Finance Advisor for the executive team, because I've worked with different departments. And I know how different parts integrate with each other. So whether it's tax related, whether it's finance projections, whether it's accounting recordings, whether it's cash movements, I was able to come up with a good strategy that's customized to that organization's specifically. So that's where I was most valued at. And I actually enjoyed being the strategic partner in that way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:59

Yeah. What did you enjoy about that? I'm curious.

Vicky Meng 07:02

I think I really liked the one-on-one interactions that I often had with each executive team member. The CFO came to me for a specific project. And I felt like I was helping him directly. And I was overseeing this project, or starting a project on my own and overseeing it until the end and actually seeing the results happening. And I could see the impact that is making on the organization. I really liked that aspect. And one of the things that I realized is that I actually enjoy working in small team environments, I don't like to be one of the members of a large corporate accounting team and just handle maybe one facility, month-end closing repeatedly every month. What I like about it is a role with various projects that could come up, and it's very fast paced, and you have to integrate different areas of knowledge. That's what I really liked about it, it's not just solely about accounting, it's not just solely about finance, it's not just about tax, you have to integrate everything together in order to find the best solution.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:21

Well, it sounds like it in some ways, it is the creative application of those different experiences and knowledge sets. And then also, it sounds like you have to have that particular type of variety in there in order to make it rewarding for you. Is that fair to say?

Vicky Meng 08:39

Yeah, so one of the strengths that came out in my StrengthsFinder assessment, besides this one on one helping part, was the factor input. So I'm a person who really likes to do research, who really likes to know about different areas. I'd like to get that input. Even sometimes when I don't see where this input could actually help me in this project, maybe it won't ever help me, but I still like to collect that information. I still like to understand it. And I feel like someday, I'm sure, it'll come to you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:20

Well, so I think what's really interesting about that, to me, is, I know the end of the story here too. And I know that eventually you decided to transition. And I also know that later on, much later, when you were in the midst of your transition, that inclination to research really helped you be able to make that transition. However, what were some of the final events that made you say, "You know what, I have to transition. I have to transition away from this company. Away from the roles that I'm currently in." What caused you to make that decision?

Vicky Meng 09:57

I think the main factor there was that I just couldn't see myself grow anymore in my own organization. As I mentioned that I've already worked in various departments, I'm already directly helping the executive team. I've definitely made contributions. And I could see those contributions or new contribution areas where I could help with but when they're coming, it's not for sure. The development stage of my old company is also a... they weren't exactly looking for expansion or anything. So I just knew that I wanted to, although it was very nice to be the strategic partner, but I just feel like I have not yet built up a very solid foundation for my career where, you know, I could say, "This is the area that I've been working on for so long. And I know every detail about it, I could apply it to any corporate skill." I don't have that skill set or that career path that I could rely on and say "That is what I do." I was sort of like a generalist, which is a very good thing to be. But still, I felt like I needed some specific career track to depend on. So that's when I really looked into a program that could help me figure out, so where is the specific, what exactly is the specific track that I could put all my energy towards that area for the next decade?

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:39

Interesting. So it sounds like you have outgrown the company?

Vicky Meng 11:44

Yes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:44

In terms of what you wanted, it was no longer what they were able to provide in that same way as related to your growth. And then it sounds like you came to that conclusion. And then at some point, it must have asked the question, well, what's next then? How do I find that type of next step? What happened from there?

Vicky Meng 12:08

So my upbringing tells me that you have to depend on yourself all the time, especially when you encounter a difficulty, you should, you know, work hard, as hard as you can, make yourself go crazy, and you'll find a way to navigate through the crisis. But for me, I was willing to work hard, but I didn't know where or how to put that energy. So I went out to different events, I started going to these recruiting events from the university that I attended, and all these like career related events around the city. And that's when I first encountered my first career coach, a person who has worked in the public accounting industry, because at that time, I was still sort of exploring the idea, maybe I could still go with public accounting.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:09

Yeah.

Vicky Meng 13:09

So I worked with her on a monthly basis for about a year. And that was kind of like me testing the water with this coaching idea. And I realized that talking with her every month was a happy moment for me. Because I was so unhappy with my job on a day to day basis that talking with her, even if it's just for one hour each month, felt like a way out, like I could actually feel, like, make me feel hopeful. Like I could actually make this happen. Someone out there is dragging me out of this very bad situation. But I also realized at the end of, probably a year into working with her that once per month wasn't enough for me. I make progress little by little while working with her. I did reach out to a couple of companies in the public accounting sector, and tried to explore the ideas of still sticking with accounting. It didn't work out very well. I still didn't feel like that was the way to go. But I did get myself on track in terms of interviewing even and saying no, or crossing out some of the possibilities on the list.

Vicky Meng 14:32

What made you feel like accounting was not for you? I think it's awesome that you were exploring and trying to figure out "Hey, is this, in fact, right for me?" But after doing a bit of that exploration and having some of that reach out, what caused you to say "You know what, this most definitely, isn't it?"

Vicky Meng 14:53

That's a good question. I am an ENFJ. And I think a lot of times for me, if the feeling isn't right, it's just, it's not right. Well I interviewed for accounting consulting with a really great firm, and I got the offer, the team was great. Like I could see myself thrive in that team environment. But when I think about doing the type of work that they do, and helping the type of clients that they were helping, because we're specifically targeting, like law firms, law firms where they're all of their clients, I don't see myself very excited about that industry. And I can definitely do the work, but I just don't want to advise on "This is how you do your books. This is how you should debit this, credit that," It didn't very excite me at all when I think about the details of that job on a day to day basis.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:56

Yeah. And it doesn't really seem to have that same type of variety that you were talking about earlier on. It's not this, I mean, certainly you can get variety in accounting, but it doesn't seem like the combination of all of the different experiences and the gathering of the different experiences and being able to use them in a way that, like, you were talking about earlier. It seems the opposite of that in some ways.

Vicky Meng 16:21

Yeah. I mean accounting is definitely something that happens, it's often at the month-end, right? All the activities have already happened, they became reality, you just find a way to summarize and record them in the right way. But I think what I really wanted was, I want to be a part of the action, you know, day to day basis, I want to see that happen, that the decision that I'm making right now is going to affect the company today, or this week. And if it's a bad decision, then oh my gosh, it's a lot of pressure. But still, that fast paced feeling, that's the kind of impact that I want to have.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:01

Well, that's super interesting, too because I think that there's a lot of patterns here for you, as well, that I didn't even know about. And what is really interesting to me about what you said is that accounting is very past focused.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:15

And even as you were talking about your interaction with that first career coach long before we ever met you and everything too, what excited you was about the possibilities in the future. And everything that you've articulated so far, has been about, in some ways that future focused or that proactive focus or being a part like, you said being a part of it versus just like recording it. And I know that's a drastic oversimplification and not meaning to undermine anything that accounting does. Because accounting is a great field. However, it's a different focus entirely. And as you started to get into this change, because you had decided, "Okay, I need to make a more drastic change than what I was thinking" more drastic than just going and working with another organization with accounting. And as you started to get into it, what surprised you in going through this type of career change process, because what you have done, and I'll just fast forward to the end for just a second, you were able to, not only make a pretty sizable change, but also you did a new organization and new industry, if I understand correctly, too. And what surprised you as you were going through this process over the last 10 months here?

Vicky Meng 17:14

Yes.

Vicky Meng 18:34

I don't think actually I was surprised by this process. I kind of expected how unstructured it's going to be. And that's why I really held on to the idea of a structure in place and knowing where I'm at. Because I know this career change is not like class. There's no syllabus. You can't follow a timeline. It's so different. It could change at any moment. I came with that expectation. But knowing that, that's why I really needed someone to continuously motivate me and push me and let me know where I'm at. Because if not, then I'll be just doing whatever. It'll all be very scattered. But I think what was scary was from February to August, I don't think I was making any progress.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:28

Tell me about that. What made it feel like you're making no progress?

Vicky Meng 19:31

Because before August, I was following the structure. I was doing the modules, I was reaching out. But the frequency of me having a conversation was probably only two per month. Two to five per month, it kind of varies. And to begin with, because I was so scared to reach out to strangers, a lot of those conversations started with people that I kind of knew before. And when August hit, July hit, I'm like, "This is not going anywhere." I definitely doubted myself and doubted even this decision many, many times. And that's, and I was still like I, even though I followed the syllabus, but I was still unable to define what my ambition was up to that point up to August. I tried treasury, I tried financial analysis, and they were still both on my list. And I still felt like, "Oh, I could go either way." And I talked to some of the large organizations or tech companies in the Bay Area, and it was just so competitive too. But I think more importantly, it's just because of that industry and with those companies, they're so popular right now that they never block applicants. So even though some of the people that I talked to in there, there were managers, and they looked at my resume, and they say, "Oh, your resume is amazing," but because I don't have the direct industry experience, and the direct working experience, I guess, on that corporate skill, even if they submit my resume into the system, and they helped me submit on sort of like a referral, it's still very difficult to be recognized by the hiring manager, because there were just too many people applying. And I felt like I could try harder, I could network even more within that organization just to find, you know, at least one opening or one person who was willing to bet on me. But at the same time, I was like, "I don't feel like doing that with this organization." Like, they're so great. They're so popular. And it's definitely I thought that I wanted to move out to the Bay Area. And I thought that's the whole point of me participating in Happen To Your Career is to get me up there. But I don't see myself working so hard for any of the organizations out there just because I don't feel the passion and myself towards what they do. And that kind of hit me in the end, and this is like fast forwarding to, you know, after my second little point already. That's when I finally realized that, "Okay, maybe this whole idea of moving to the Bay Area wasn't right to begin with." And I think that surprised me, I guess in the end, because I never expected myself to stay in LA. But when I finally hit that moment of realization, everything clicks so fast afterwards, because literally the next week, I reached out to the manager of my new organization, and the location organization is perfect, and the role is perfect. And this manager, he recognizes my potential fully, at least in the way that I want people to recognize me. And I interviewed and then I signed the offer. It was literally like two weeks after I realized that everything just clicked. So I think what surprised me was how fast it could happen when you finally get everything together.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:13

I think that's so interesting, especially since you said you are on Myers Briggs, which you are talking about– your Myers Briggs results, which you said you were an ENFJ. Okay. So that means that for people who may not have taken Myers Briggs Type Indicator that you rely heavily on feeling and if it feels right. And this sounds insane, but we see it again and again and again and again. And you can go listen to hundreds and hundreds of episodes. Once people start to get it to where it is more authentic to them, the decision and the route that they're taking is more authentic to them, it clicks so quickly after that. It's not always two weeks like that's relatively quick as far as things go. However, it starts to click so much quicker once you get those pieces right. And as crazy as it seems, Vicky, I think what you went through, and going through and doing some of the work and the identification and everything that came along with all the hard pieces along with it almost had to happen in some ways to get it to finally click. And that way, you could start really moving forward in the way that you want to. What was that like? Why do you think it was so hard to come to that conclusion for you and make the change and say, "You know what, I don't even really want to, like, I've been working hard on this. I don't even really want to go this stretch."?

Vicky Meng 24:45

Yeah. That's very interesting. I mean, it's so liberating right now. I know you can't tell, you know, just from looking at me but in my heart, ever since that moment, a realization happened, I felt so liberated like, for the first time in my whole life, because I guess for the previous 27 years, I've always felt like that I needed to live up to other people's expectations. And usually it was my parents, but then it became my peers. So going on to the Bay Area, definitely was me trying to live out my ambition in the way that satisfies my ego. To put it simply, I wanted to be admired by my peers, I wanted to be admired by my family members saying, "Wow, you know, she made such a drastic change. She's working with one of the big tech companies in the Bay Area, she's getting paid a lot." That's how people define success for a lot of people that I know. And it's just the hype around that area. And that area, that sort of made me feel like oh, you know, if I want to be the best, which I always want to be in my, I'm very competitive in nature, then I should get in there, get into the game, and be the best in that area, beat everyone else. I think that's why I've always thought that that's the place to go. But there is not Vicky at all, Los Angeles is definitely more Vicky. And that's why like realizing that right now, I just feel happy from the bottom of my heart, because it's not about how famous my new organization is, it's about how much I am aligned to what this organization does, and how excited I am to work with my new manager and thinking about the contributions that I can make to the team. And it's also about the industry that this company is in. It's also an industry that I deeply care about, like on the weekend, I'll read about this industry, just because I'm interested in it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:08

The switch that happens once you're focused, not on other people's expectations, or even expectations of other people's expectations, but then you focus more on what is true for you. And when you switch that focus, not only does it feel different in ways that are hard to describe, and I think you've done a fantastic job of describing what that is like for you. But it is also, it puts you in a place where you can contribute to the world and organization and family members and friends, it puts you in a place where you can contribute completely differently. And that's something that's really difficult to be able to explain on a podcast or in a book or anything else to describe the types of feelings that happen after you make that switch that you were talking about. And I remember, not that long ago, I think it was about a year ago, I was talking to a guy who was in his 70s. And he had found us through Google and ended up on a phone call with him. And he was telling me about, he had gone through all 70 plus years focused on other people's expectations. So I think it's so cool that you have done that far, far earlier than 70. That's pretty amazing. Let me ask you two other questions I really badly wanted to ask you about. One, I remember a point in time, where I guess it wasn't that long ago, it probably was back in August where you were describing, you know, really struggling and moving through a few of these pieces where you and I got on the phone. And we were chatting about a couple of different things that weren't working and how to make them work differently. And the thing that I wanted to ask you about that is, what were some of the things that as you're going through the process works particularly well for you. Tell me about that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:01

So yeah, I remember that call. And I definitely feel like that call you taught me how to liberate myself also, because…

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:09

Oh, interesting.

Vicky Meng 29:10

Yes. You taught me how to just be myself, and be honest about my experiences. And that's the only way where you could find your own way, your own path. Because I was so worried and sort of just complaining to you that there's such a huge gap between where I am and where I want to be, and my current organization is small and what it does is, in finance is different than what I want to doing in finance in the next step of my career. And when I talk to people, I feel like I have so much to offer but because when they listen to my direct experiences they don't get excited about me as much because they just feel, like, that I have been in the wrong environment, I won't fit in with their environment. And you told me, you know, why don't you just tell them exactly what you've done even though my own organization did not have a ton of structure, which sounds like a bad thing. But in reality, because it was losing structure, I got to work on projects that touched on different areas of corporate finance and accounting all the time. And that is actually the biggest value I have. Because not a lot of people understand the impacts of so many areas in an organization. And I do. And having that background information, and then try to dive deep in a certain area makes you go deeper easily. Because you just know, you know what you're doing. And you know what role you are in the whole grand scheme of things, and you won't, well, hopefully, you'll make fewer mistakes. And so that's exactly what I did. And when I was talking to the manager of my new company, I told him that, you know, I was able to, I was constantly exposed to treasury, even though I wasn't really working as a treasury analyst at my current company. But that's also, you know, the best thing that happened to me because I was able to do a lot of cross functional work, and I understand how everything plays into each other's role.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:41

That is so cool. I didn't actually realize that that helped in that way. But that also makes me happy. And I really think that that is truly one of the best, I mean it really is, like we've talked about threads of that through our entire conversation just in the last 40 minutes or so here. Because it was the thing that was the most fun for you being able to have exposure to all these areas and give advice on all these areas. And being able to see the impact from having exposure to all these areas and work with other people in the organization. And then on top of that, it's also your biggest value when you started to harness that and really take ownership over that, that is such a value. That's so cool, Vicky. Oh, go ahead.

Vicky Meng 32:30

Oh, I just want to say that, I think before I just felt so ashamed of my experience.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:38

In what way?

Vicky Meng 32:39

In the like, objective way. Because how people look down or not look down, but people when they see an organization that's small, that's less structured, they don't necessarily associate a very competent employee with that image. But it just happened, for me, that I feel like I'm a pretty competent employee. But I was working in that kind of environment. And I felt so ashamed to showcase or go out there and tell everyone, you know, "This is the company that I'm working for." But at the same time, I really want it to be recognized. And I think I can do a great job if I were put into a different environment, but I just needed someone to recognize me first. And after having that conversation with you, it was liberating, because I stopped being ashamed of my experiences. And what I did, I just went out there and told people what I did and tell them why I think I was so valuable. And I could still add a lot of value to their organization if they give me a chance.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:57

So much of these types of big transitions are getting past the head games that we play with ourselves, in many different ways. And it almost makes the tactical like job change, career change type pieces. Almost. They're not easy in comparison. I don't want to give people any indication that they're easy but easier by far in comparison, compared to moving through all of those pieces. Like you're talking about, like the shame that went with how you viewed your past experience, which was a great experience, was wonderful experience and it's who, you know, who you are and what you bring to the table. That is really cool. What advice would you give someone else who's in that similar situation here?

Vicky Meng 34:47

Yeah. So I think my advice would be, definitely have faith in yourself and this whole process. Because it could get very dark especially at the beginning and you don't know how long the start process is going to last. But it could suddenly turn so bright that it goes so fast that you don't even, you can't even capture everything but it could just suddenly turn around. So have faith. Definitely it will come, the brightness will come.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:27

If you enjoy this story, this episode, then you can learn more like the one you just heard today in our audiobook: Happen To Your Career: An Unconventional Approach to Career Change and Meaningful Work If you're listening to this, and you enjoy this podcast, I know you're gonna love the book. You can visit happentoyourcareer.com/audible in order to get the book right now and start listening right away. All right, we'll see you next time. Here's what's coming up next week.

Speaker 3 35:55

If you step back from employee engagement, what drives that? Well, it's really getting people into the right roles, fit to role, strengths to role, so that people can use their strengths in their current role.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:07

Okay, here's a question for you. If you were to prioritize what creates the happiest and most engaged, most productive people in their work, what's at the top of that list? In other words, what matters most when it comes to you doing fulfilling work? I'm going to give you a hint. It's not ping pong tables. It's not pay. It's not even a flexible work schedule. Although that's actually pretty far up the list too. It turns out, there's one thing that has a higher impact than all of those. And that is whether or not your strengths fit the role that you're performing at work.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:47

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.

Rachael Robertson 00:00

I thought that's what leadership is, you know, if you need me, I'm there. After about six weeks, I thought, "I can't do this. I can't be available to you guys around the clock the whole time because it will absolutely burn me out."

Introduction 00:18

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:42

I think we can all agree that our society has a hard time setting boundaries when it comes to work. Whether it's responding to emails as they come into our inbox no matter what hour it is, or agreeing to meetings after our established working hours. Today's technology makes it almost too easy to think we have to always be on. In fact, the science now backs up what we already know to be true. A recent study from the University of Illinois proves that this lack of boundary control directly leads to more stress and quicker burnout. But even though we all know this is true, why is it that we still struggle so badly to hold our boundaries?

Rachael Robertson 01:21

The thing that blew me away was the scrutiny of the leadership role and the fact that you're being watched 24 hours a day, every day, for an entire year, like, you do not knock off ever. There's not one hour where you can say I'm not the boss today, and I had to learn how to manage that boundary. So I didn't have my staff knocking on my bedroom door at 10 o'clock at night.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:41

That's Rachael Robertson. Rachael is a keynote speaker, author of "Leading on the Edge" and "Respect Trumps Harmony”, and is best known as an authority on leading in extreme environments. She was the leader of the 58th Australian National Antarctic and research expedition where she lived with her co-workers, 24 hours a day, and in complete darkness during the winter. For many, that sounds like a nice recipe for madness. But Rachael excelled in that environment. And she came away with amazing learnings that she now shares with leaders all over the world. In our conversation, Rachael gives specific examples of how you can influence your work culture to get better at holding boundaries, and how she implemented these practices in the most extreme environment. Here's Rachael going back to the beginnings of her career.

Rachael Robertson 02:34

I desperately wanted to be a journalist growing up. I love, yeah, I love writing, love journalism. And it was only when I was starting to look at university courses that I found out, well, particularly in Australia back then, most journalists came through a cadetship, it wasn't a tertiary education, you did a three or four year cadetship. And so the closest thing I could find to was a public relations degree, which was in a university 500 kilometers from my home, but I had to move out of home and not know anyone and go down there. And then, so I spent all this time studying for this degree– a bachelor's degree in Public Relations and Journalism. And then I got my first job. And I hated it. And I'm like, "Oh, my goodness, this is not what I thought I was signing up for." And it was really interesting. I was working in an organization that managed national parks. And so I was doing all the PR for national parks and all the events, and the park rangers would come into the office. And now we're really happy people, though just delightfully happy. And here I am thinking when was the last day I called in sick because I hate this job. And I looked at the rangers and I thought, "I want that. I want to be like that. I want to be happy like them. I want to come to work doing a job that makes me feel good. And I feel like I'm making a difference. So I'm going to do that." So I went back then and studied to become a park ranger. So it's a complete different career change. But it was really just that reflection of, I'm not happy. And this is a big part of my life for many, many years. I better make some decisions here. So it was a bit of a winding road.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:05

I'm curious, first of all, you went into that role with one type of perception of what it was going to be. And I heard you say that it was not whatever that was, but what were some of the biggest differences between "Hey, I thought it was gonna be this. And it most definitely was not"?

Rachael Robertson 04:20

Yeah, I knew there would be a lot of organizing events, and events were fine. But I didn't realize how restrictive journalism or writing professional business writing is when you're representing a company. So I wanted the freedom to write because that was the part I liked about journalism– was the writing side of it and the investigating. I didn't recognize that when you're the face of a company, when you're writing public relations literature for a company you're very restricted and there's no opinion. You can't have any opinion, you can't even offer an alternative way of thinking, like, there's a set words and even like it's almost a script that you need to stick to. And it's like "wow, this is not what I thought it was. I don't know." Yeah, it was a bit of my naivety. But also, I think, not having worked in the industry before, not understanding that public relations is not what I thought it was, I thought it was some lots of writing and doing events and talking to the public, but it's actually representing the company or the organization in putting on its best face. And sometimes that might mean hiding the truths from the shareholders or stakeholders, or massaging the truth. So the message is managed. And that part of it, I had no idea because they don't teach you that in the PR school.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:35

They don't. Oh, my goodness. So then, what happened from there to transition? What are the events that were set up that allowed you to then much later travel to Antarctica for a year and then? Help fill in some of the gaps here.

Rachael Robertson 05:56

And that one, I would love to say, was a strategic career move that I had planned, but it wasn't. I was just flicking through a newspaper, one Saturday morning, as you do having a breakfast on a Saturday morning. And I was flicking through a newspaper and I saw a picture of a penguin in the careers section of the job.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:13

Oh the penguins they'll get you every time.

Rachael Robertson 06:15

How bizarre is it to see a penguin in the career section. And that's initially, I'm like, "what on earth is a penguin doing there?" So that's what caught my eye. And then I looked at the job description and the advertisement. And in the job, they were recruiting for qualities. So the Australian Antarctic Division, which is very similar to the United States Antarctic Program, they recruit for qualities and attributes. So they recruit for resilience, empathy, integrity, you actually don't need to know anything about Antarctica. And I just thought that was a fantastic way to recruit. And by this stage, I'd been promoted up to I was the chief ranger of the Great Ocean Road, Victoria. So the 12 apostles and all that beautiful coastline, and that was my patch, my office. And I was really struggling to recruit park rangers coming out of university with resilience and empathy. They had fantastic tertiary qualifications, they had high distinctions and great degrees. But when I put them in front of the park visitors, they were just hopeless, and I'd say, "Look, can you go and do a patrol?" So just go around and check the park, and they drive past the visitors. And I'm like, "No, I want you to stop, get out of the vehicle, introduce yourself to our visitors say, Hi, can I get you a map? Do you need anything? Would you like to know we're in a good walkies? And actually do that customer service stuff." So when I saw this job advertised, fantastic, and my finished plan was, I thought, "I'm going to apply for this job just so I can get to the job interview stage. So I can find out what the questions are they're using. And I'm going to copy those questions and bring them back to my job because I want to recruit for resilience. And I want to recruit for empathy and integrity." It was only after I posted the application, I found out they don't actually have a job interview. They have a week long boot camp. So I end up in this boot camp with 13 men competing for this job that I still didn't particularly want. And then lo and behold, they offered me the job. And I thought "You know what? I'd rather regret what I did than regret what I didn't do." And so the only reason I ended up down there was because it was an opportunity that came away. And I thought, what's the lesser evil like to go down there and go, "Oh, I hate this. What have I done" or not do it and then look back and spend the rest of my life looking back wondering going, "Ah, I wonder what would have happened if I'd done that Antarctic Expedition." That really was just a matter of regret what I did rather than regret what I didn't do. And so my role was station leader. And so all of the stations, I think there's 17 countries that have stations in Antarctica, my role was the station leader. So I was responsible for the welfare and safety. In summer, we have 120 people, and they're mostly scientists. So that's the only reason we're in Antarctica is to do climate change research. So in summer, I've got 120 people doing all their climate change, global warming stuff. I've got planes, I've got helicopters, I've got a big trades contingent because we can only do construction work in summer. So I've got all these various people, 24 hours of daylight. It's really exciting. It's really fun, different things happening every day.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:15

And for a variety, for sure.

Rachael Robertson 09:17

It was huge. And we're working massive hours because we've only got such a short period of time to do the research. So we've only got about two months. So we work seven days a week, we work long hours. And it's fun, there's a buzz about the joint. Then they all go home in February and a little group of 18 of us stayed behind. And we are there just to maintain the station for asset management. We just keep the place warm, keep it running until the next summer. So my role as the leader in summer is operational. It's sending out resources and it's working out priorities and it's looking at the safety as well. But it's a very different job in winter. Because in winter it's a lot more around morale and mental well being and how do I keep this team motivated. When we're in lockdown, we're effectively in a nine month lockdown, complete isolation, we cannot come home even if we want to. So my job then flipped to very much this is how to lead, how to manage conflict, for example, how to stop people having an argument or a debate or whatever, killing each other, and keeping them safe for the next nine months of darkness. 24 hours of darkness. But yeah, having to lead through isolation is really difficult. But it's a different job, summer and winter.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:32

So I'm curious, what do you think it was going to be? And what were the areas that were different or the same versus what actually was from your perception?

Rachael Robertson 10:42

The place itself blew me away, because I thought Antarctica was white, like every image in my brain or everything I've seen has been white. And it's not, it's actually really colorful, because it's so cold, it's crystals, floating around in the sky, and the sun hits the crystals and reflects all this light. So there's pinks, and greens and blues and purples and they form these, some of them are called "solar pillars", some are called "sun dogs", they've got those crazy names. And they're just these light shows. And it's just so colorful and beautiful. And I never knew that. I thought it was all white. So the place itself blew me away. I didn't realize... I'd heard people say when you go to Antarctica, it changes your life. And I sort of thought, yeah, whatever. Can't imagine that I've traveled a lot around the world, I've never met a single place that changed my life, and maybe an experience but not geography. But it really does change your life. And I've thought about it a lot since. And the reason is that you slow down, and you reflect, you've got a lot of time to reflect on your life and am I where I thought I would be with my life personally and professionally. And because there's no distractions, so you're not rushing off to meetings, you're not rushing off to take kids to sport, there's no traffic. So you spent a lot of time in your head reflecting on yourself and your life. And so the place itself blew me away. The job, I guess the overwhelming thing that I was totally unprepared for, and I should have been because I'd been in leadership roles for 16 years. But the thing that blew me away was the scrutiny of the leadership role. And the fact that you're being watched 24 hours a day, every day, for an entire year, like you do not knock off ever. There's not one hour where you can say I'm not the boss today. And I had to learn how to manage that boundary. So I didn't have my staff knocking on my bedroom door at 10 o'clock at night or interrupting my breakfast. And I had to get really strong on my boundaries, which I hadn't done before. And it blew me away that I had been told that like, I'd been told by former station leaders that you're watched the whole time. And, I thought yeah, if I'm not that interesting, no one's gonna watch me. And yet they did. So where I set for meals was noticed, what time I started work was noticed, if I spent more time with one person than another that was noticed. And so I had to have this dialogue in my brain about "Okay, well, I need to go and spend time down that end of the table as these guys because I sit with these people at lunch, so I better sit with them at dinner." And it's just extraordinary when you live with the same people you work with. So you never get away from your colleagues

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:11

You said a couple things in there that I'm really interested in. One is the idea of being, you didn't call it always on, but that's the words that I'm going to use.

Rachael Robertson 13:24

Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:25

So first of all, I'm curious what did that teach you, as it relates to, first of all your career, and then second of all about how you behave and act. And I think most importantly, those boundaries. You mentioned those boundaries. And I think that most people that I've met over the years when I asked them and I've had a lot of opportunities to ask people because I get into all kinds of weird conversations for variety of reasons, partially because of what we do as an organization partially because I am the type of person in Alaska, "Hey, how do you feel about your boundaries?" But most people feel like that's an area that they can do much better in. So what did you learn that might help other people as especially as it relates to being always on and boundaries?

Rachael Robertson 14:12

I always thought that all through my career, I thought my time management was bad. I blame my time management because I'd be the first in the office. I'd be the last one out. I was checking emails at night, I'd miss my lunch break. And I think "Oh, my time management is so bad." And I did every time management course, known to man, I did everything they tell you to do. So I turned off my email notifications, I prioritize my to-do list. I did all of that. And yet, I'm still working longer hours. And it wasn't because I was incompetent because I knew my job. And I'm like, "Well, my time management is bad." It was only living in Antarctica that taught me it was never my time management, it was actually my boundaries. And so what I had been doing professionally my whole career was every single time someone came up to me in the office and said, "Rachael, have you got a minute?" And it's never a minute that they'd say, "you've got a minute?", "have you got a minute?" My default position was always "Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure I do." And so when I went to Antarctica, I thought my job as the leader is to be there. These people need me, I'm there. That's my job as their leader. And they would, they'd knock on my bedroom door at 10 o'clock at night, and I'd yell out, "Yeah?" And because they'd see the light on shining under the door. So they knew I was awake. And then they'd open the door, and I'd be reading a book and they'd say, "Oh you're reading a book" and I go, "It's okay, I'll put a jacket on, I'll come out." Because I thought that's what leadership is– if you need me, I'm there. After about six weeks, I thought I can't do this. I can't be available to you guys around the clock the whole time, because it will absolutely burn me out. So the next time it happened, they interrupted my breakfast to sign a permission slip to go and photograph penguins. And I said, this penguins again.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:51

They're always there. They're just waiting.

Rachael Robertson 15:55

And I said, "Guys, I need to have my breakfast. And this isn't urgent. So can I meet you in my office? Or let's say in 15 minutes? How does that sound?" And once I put that boundary there, they respected it. But prior to that I had no boundaries. And so I realized that what I've been doing the whole time through my career was not saying, "not now." And it's okay to say "not now", if you don't have the time. So what I should have said was, all through my career, if I didn't have the time, I should have said, "Look, I've got to get this report to the CEOs office by 3 o'clock, can you come back at 3:15?" And manage that boundary and why it's so important, I now know, for two reasons. One, it's a great coaching time, it's a great opportunity to coach people around what your job is and what your priorities are. So when your staff interrupt, it's a great time to say, "Look, we've got a board meeting in a week, and I've got to get the board report done," or "I've got to get the sales report up to the CEO." Whatever it is, and let them know your priorities. You're coaching them. The second one and more importantly, you know, when you're talking to someone, if they've mentally checked out, you can see it in their eyes, if you're talking to someone and they're vague doubt. And I think of how many times over the years, my staff came to me and said, "Have you got a minute?" And I went, "Yeah, sure I do." And they're talking to me and my brains going, "Oh, my goodness, I've got that meeting coming up at four I haven't prepared for. I've got to write that. I've got to do this." And they saw that. They saw it in my eyes that I wasn't listening or wasn't present. So it actually damaged the relationship. It was worse than if I had said, "Not now. Can you come back?" I thought I was doing the right thing. But I wasn't. I actually damaged the relationship because I wasn't listening. And I would have picked that up. So I think I say to people now when they complain, or you know, the boss rings me at eight o'clock at night, or customers ring me at six o'clock in the morning. And I say "Well, do you answer the call?" And they say "Yeah" and I'll go, "Well, there you go." They don't think there's anything wrong with it. Because you answer the phone or you answer the email. If you stop doing that and you train them you say, "Look, unless it's urgent, then after seven o'clock, I'm with my family. That's family time. So unless it's urgent, I'll get to it in the morning." And it's up to you to manage that boundary because other people won't do that intuitively. If you've had a pattern of responding all the time, they won't pick that up until you actually say "Yep, right. Here's the line in the sand. Here's my boundary." So it's up to you, yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:13

I've thought a lot about boundaries over the years, partially for selfish reasons. And partially because it shows up in a lot of the work that we do. And I think a lot of the HTYCers that are listening to this right now would identify with what it is, even if it's something that you've done many times over, it can still be difficult. Even if you're practiced at it, it can still be difficult in new situations or new people or different relationship dynamics, or I don't know, name another situation that is a variable that gets thrown in there, but can still be difficult. So I appreciate that. When you were spending that time in Antarctica, you mentioned this idea of building a case that Respect Trumps Harmony, what was behind the scenes that really came and said, "Hey, look, this is a big deal."

Rachael Robertson 19:05

Yeah, I can tell you the second. I can tell you the absolute minute when I latched on to that one. It was our get-to-know-you-barbecue. So I don't recruit my expedition team, which a lot of people are surprised about that, but the way it is. So I just given 17 random people and I'm told to turn them into a team. By the way your life depends on your teamwork, off you go. And so I'd met them all over a period of weeks one on one that we decided to have a barbecue and have a get-to-know-you-barbecue. So this is the first time the entire 18 of us would get together and meet each other. These are the people we're going to be living with around the clock for the next 12 months. And we're at this barbecue and my plumber was telling a story about being in Alaska and he said it was so cold. The water freezes under your feet at minus 21 degrees Celsius and that's how cold it was. The water freezes into ice. My electrical engineer was standing there. He's from Germany, and he said, "Well, water freezes at zero degrees Celsius, not minus 21 degrees. So it must have been at least zero degrees, not at least minus 21 degrees." And I'm like, "Oh dear, okay, these two are going to come to blows. They're just gonna end up in a fight." And I'm like, "What do I do here? What do I do?" And so I intervened. And I took them aside privately. And I said to the trades minister, "Look, he's an electrical engineer, and he's from Germany. So culturally and professionally, he's from a very exact, precise place. So his brain needs accurate data." So when he heard you say that, he corrected because he was correct, like, that's a fact. And I said that he's not trying to take the mickey out of you. He's not trying to humiliate you. It's just the way his brain operates. But I then had to go to the engineer and say, "Look, when you do that, when someone's just telling a story or a joke, and they get a little bit of the information wrong, and you correct them, it's actually a bit humiliating, so just let it go. It doesn't matter. It's a story, let it go." And they ended up being really good, good friends, these two. But at the time, I'm thinking, "How, I had not given a second thought to the cognitive diversity in my team." So I looked at them. And we were different across generations and gender and age, culture. But what I'd hadn't recognized was the other diversities, and not as visible. And it just blew me away. Once I got to know these people how different we were, and I'm like, "Wow, I can't expect that we're all going to love each other." Because we're just so different. And we had polar opposite views on some things. And I'm like, "Wow, what am I going to do here?" And so to expect that they love each other, or even like each other, I thought it was a bit unrealistic. So I took that off the table. And I said, "I don't expect you to love each other or even like each other, I do expect you to treat each other with respect." And so respect became the bedrock of everything we did, it was like, "I don't have to agree with you, I don't have to love you. But I will always treat you with respect." And that was the moment, I remember it vividly, that was the moment where I realized I have to do something here as a leader to set up a culture where we can respect each other, but equally talk about issues as grownups in a professional way and deal with things because I was really worried that someone would spiral with depression, or someone would explode with anger. Because I had no ability to deal with either scenario. So I thought, how do I create this environment where we do speak up, and we do stand up for ourselves and how we're feeling? And we deal with it, we saw it and we move on. But yeah, it was before we even left for Antarctica that I recognized that I needed to do something to create the culture for this team, because otherwise, holy dooley, we're gonna be in for some fun times.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:45

You have a chapter in your second book, I think it's called something like "harmony is the road to mediocrity" or something along those lines. So I'm really interested in having you here for just a moment, define what harmony and what respect actually means from your perspective. Because I think that many of us, as human beings, have a misperception or mis-desire to think that really what we want is harmony in many different areas. And that's not exclusively true. However, that's definitely something that I've seen. And you make a compelling case that maybe that's not always a great thing. In fact, in a lot of areas, that's not. So first of all, what do you mean when you say harmony? What do you mean when you say respect?

Rachael Robertson 23:33

So to me, respect is understanding a person's rights and responsibilities and understanding that they're entitled to their opinions, and they're entitled to their values. And I have no right to try and convince you to change your... if it's something you hold deeply, a belief you hold deeply, I don't have the right to try and convince you. I just respect that you're different. So rather than try and get everyone around to my way of thinking or behaving or living, just saying, "Okay, I respect that we're different." How many is that piece of or getting along? And why I think Respect Trumps Harmony... and I chose the word "Trump" very carefully, particularly given the book is in the United States. And we did have a big discussion about whether there was another word I should use. And I just felt there was no other word that captured the notion that Respect Trumps Harmony. So the publisher said, "What about beats?" And I said, "But it doesn't beat harmony." They're both equally important. I'm just saying that when you have to choose, one or the other, it's like a deck of cards when you have to choose, then this one has sovereignty over this one. So respect should always be more important. And why I'll worry about it is when I've worked in teams where harmony was the focus, so we keep the peace and we all get along and everything's smooth, a few things happen. Bullying and harassment still goes on. People still bully each other and there's still a lot of that bad behavior, but it goes underground. So people won't raise it as an issue because they don't want to be the person who shatters this mirage of harmony. The second one, more importantly, is innovation. You can't have innovation if you have a culture of always having harmony if that's your focus. Because there are meetings that people will sit in a meeting and they'll nod their heads and they'll say, "Yeah, yeah." And then they walk out of the meeting and go, "That's not going to work." And you think, "Why didn't you say that at the time?" And it's because they don't want to offer a difference of opinion or a conflicting view. And I think that the most important one, though, is around safety. And I think if you're focusing on harmony, and isn't it great here, we're all good friends, and we all get along and everything's sweet. No one puts a hand out and says, "Actually, I'm not so good right now, you know, I'm struggling right now." So I'll worry about mental safety, but also physical, if someone's doing something unsafe, not following the correct procedure, if the culture of that team is harmony, is to keep the peace, that's when people turn a blind eye. And that's when they walk past and go, "Oh I don't want to get involved in that." And I think that's dangerous. And so I really worry about teams where, at the front, the number one goal for the team is this almost complicit behavior of not being different, if not being the outlier of we're all in this together, we're all the same, we all love each other. Because I think it's okay to say we are different. In fact, it's great that we have differences. It's how we handle conflict. That's the bigger issue. But having respect for differences, I think is fantastic. And understanding that we're different, and that's wonderful. That's a fantastic thing that we're all really different people.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:25

There was, well, here's a quick story, I used to be an HR leader in manufacturing. And one of the things that would happen is, within the company that I was working with, occasionally people would get injured. And sometimes there were actually some pretty serious injuries, unfortunately, and every single time, one of my roles was to go in, help figure out how we could eliminate this from happening again. And I would go in as an HR leader, so I'm very focused on the people, and that's my predisposition and everything else. And where that culture had, what you're referring to as harmony present, it almost always showed up in those types of situations, somebody always knew about something in advance, or somebody could have prevented it in almost every single situation. And because the harmony was one of the sometimes accidental priorities, or the most valuable thing in that culture, I didn't necessarily want it to be, but sometimes it was, and then it would still be allowed to happen. And it was sad to see that on one side. But I also think it really makes the case that, if that is the most important thing accidentally or intentionally, then it's going to lead to situations like that again, and again and again. So I'm curious, from your perspective, you mentioned cognitive diversity. And this is, some of the contexts that you put it in are some of the first times that I've heard people place a lot of emphasis on this. And with cognitive diversity, what did you find the benefits to be to highlight that diversity or highlight those differences? Because you gave a lot of examples of how you did that.

Rachael Robertson 28:14

Yeah, well we did. I spent a lot of time highlighting differences, because I wanted people to respect it. And even simple things like people's motivation for working in Antarctica was an issue. And I've seen this in other workplaces where some people work in Antarctica for the money, it's a very well paid job it has to be, we wouldn't do it if it was low pay. And so it's a very well paid position. And so there are a certain cohort of people who work there for the money, they would like to save a deposit for a house in 12 months. So they work there just for the money. Now that really irritated some of the others who were there for the experience like myself. I was there to experience Antarctica and to see the penguins and to see the southern lights, to see the wildlife and the icebergs. And it really drove these other people crazy. And they're saying, "Well, how come these people have given up everything they love, and they haven't even left the station." They've been on the station for six months, I haven't even bothered to experience Antarctica. And I had to say, "Well, Respect Trumps Harmony. That's the reason for being here. Just respect that." And I think by highlighting the differences, particularly in cognitive, so that the biggest, the most obvious one, was the introverts and extroverts. Now if I'd had a full team of all extroverts, and I was an introvert that would have been really, really difficult if you're the only introvert. But the opposite is the same as well, because we need the extroverts because they are the social element. They pulled together the St. Patrick's Day quiz, or they pulled together the Christmas events and they really gave a sense of community. So without them, it would have been terrible. But equally without the introverts, the introverts were the ones who when you were struggling, you go and have a quiet chat with them. You could walk around the station and have a quiet chat. And so they had an important role as well. And I think, I shudder to think what it would have been like to have spent 12 months with only one type of person, we needed that mix of people, we really did. And that's where it started to get me thinking about this cognitive difference. And I know certainly here in Australia, whenever we talk diversity, it's usually either gender. So we're saying we need more women in senior roles in companies, or we talk about our indigenous community. And we talk about indigenous culture. And so it's one or the other. And so just to be able to say, we could name 15 other metrics to measure diversity from generation, sexuality, religion, culture, age, professional background, like there's so many. And once I started to recognize that in myself, I saw it in other people, and I thought, "Wow, we really are, really different to each other. And that's a good thing. That's okay." So it was yeah, for me, it was a real eye opener, because I'd only ever dealt with diversity on one or two measures and to see that there were all these others, and how completely different people can be. And that's a good thing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:59

I think that there's a lot of power in that. One of the things that I wanted to ask you is how can people leverage focusing on that cognitive diversity and respecting that cognitive diversity, and just focusing on differences, and using that to be able to impact their career in their life in a very positive way.

Rachael Robertson 31:20

I think there's a stack of psychometric tests you can do and I think most of us have gone through a Myers Briggs or a brain dominance or something. So there's a lot of professional tools. But I think one of the best tools is to build your self awareness. Like I truly believe self awareness is the most important quality for any leader, I think, if you've got self awareness, you will learn the rest. So it starts there. If you've got self awareness, and you understand yourself, it's a lot easier then to try and understand other people. And I think you can get that through coaching, through mentoring, through frank and fearless conversations with someone you trust. For me and Antarctica, I did a lot of reflecting, I kept a journal and the journal was really just to keep me sane, I had no one to talk to. So it enabled me to get my thoughts out, and so I could sleep better, because I've got my thoughts out. But it helped me as a leader, too, because I could see what I got wrong. A lot of the times, I made the wrong decision. And I could have just said it was the station behaving that way. So I could have just written it off as a cabin fever. They've gone mad, it's cabin fever, when in fact, it was my flawed decision making that caused it. So by standing on a balcony everyday looking down watching myself that built my own self awareness, and I think from that I could then understand other people better. And from there, it was just a matter of talking about it, actually using the words and saying, "Well, they're different because they're like this and showcasing differences." So I talked about in the book that just to break up the boredom, I decided to have what is called Super Tuesday, which was just…

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:50

I love Super Tuesday by the way.

Rachael Robertson 32:51

Yeah, and that was just, I'll be really honest, that was to stop people sitting in the bar drinking beer, and drinking alcohol every night. I thought, "well, I just, I need something to break that up, without being their mum and telling them no, you can't do that", because it's their home, you know, your boss wouldn't come to your home on a weeknight and say, "Hang on a minute." So I put the sheet up on the wall, and I said, "Anyone who's got got a passion on or is knowledgeable about a subject and you'd like to talk to the rest of the community about it, 7:30 to 8:30, every Tuesday, put your name down, let us know what the topic is." And I was hoping that maybe five or six people would do it. Within a couple of days, it was fully subscribed, within a couple of days all 17 people had put something out and it ranged from living in Prague, someone lives in Prague. We had a pagan woman who talked to us about pagan rituals, which was interesting. We had someone taught digital photography, astronomy, and someone taught Italian lessons. And what it did was all of these skills and abilities that every one of us have, but you don't necessarily see at work, it meant "Wow, I still might not be your best friend, or he's still not my cup of tea. But gee, I respect the fact you speak three languages" or "Gee, I respect your knowledge around astronomy." And so again, that builds respect in the team because it's not saying I have to like you. But I respect that you've got all of these skills and abilities that you don't come to work and talk about. And so we have no knowledge of all our colleagues that we work with have got these amazing abilities and skills that we've never heard of. So I'd love to say that was a brilliant career move by me or brilliant leadership, but it wasn't. I did it initially, just to break up the boredom. And then it turned into something really powerful, which I had to reflect on, took me a few days to cotton on that, wow, that's what that was. How cool.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:41

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.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:12

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

Speaker 3 35:17

When I finally hit that moment of realization, everything just clicked. So I think what surprised me was how fast it could happen when you finally get everything together.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:30

What if you could know for a fact that you would find more meaningful work by attempting a career change? What do you take that leap? Career change isn't easy. And the journey is never a straight line, never. It can take quite a while to get more meaningful work– a lot longer than many people expect. And so often people quit working on a career change when they hit the unavoidable roadblocks and those low points. It's so much harder than almost everyone expects, at least if your goal is meaningful, well paid work. But here's the thing, I have yet to meet anyone who has made it to the other side and doesn't absolutely think that it was all worth it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:11

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.

Jenn Bloomhuff 00:00

You start to think in a certain way where it's like, "Oh, I can't do that. I've only been doing this for 15 years, you know, "I don't have the skill set to go over here." Yet, when you really break it down or like, it's kind of been at the core of what you've been doing. Maybe not 100% exactly, but if you distill it down to those skill sets or those strengths, you're like, "Wow, it's been there the entire time."

Introduction 00:26

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:51

When it comes to making a change, to more fulfilling work, so many of us assume that if we want to switch to more fulfilling work, that means that we need to switch companies or industries or we need to drastically change, we need to do a 180, we need to do something that is completely different. But it turns out that's not always the case. Sometimes the best path to career fulfillment can actually be found in your current organization.

Jenn Bloomhuff 01:18

It's a lot easier to really try on a new role when you've already established your reputation at a company, you already know the lay of the land, right? You already know the actors that are going to be involved in everything that you're doing. And so there's a little sense of comfort in that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:36

That's Jenn. She had worked in product management for over 15 years and had the realization that while she didn't particularly dislike her role, it was no longer lighting her up like it once had. She then made a move into market development. But a few years into that role, she found herself in the exact same place. When she began to dig into what the next right step for her career should be, she recognized a stain with her current organization was a much better fit for her. So much better fit for her. And exactly the right move compared to pursuing opportunities elsewhere. I want you to listen to my conversation with Jenn, pay attention to how she dug into what she valued the most– her values– to make the decision to stay at her current company. How she had conversations with leadership about her hopes to move into a new department, move into a new area. And the ways that she experimented with different roles in her organization to find one that aligned with her strengths and reignited that career spark that she had previously. Here's Jenn going back to the beginning of her career journey,

Jenn Bloomhuff 02:43

This kind of sort of back all the way to when I was in high school. And you're in those moments where you're trying to think, like, "What do I want to be when I grow up? I need to pick a major when I go to college." And I'll be honest, it wasn't crystal clear for me. I think, sitting back, I was always envious of those people that knew exactly what they wanted to do, "I want to be a nurse or want to be an engineer." And for me, I just really didn't have that perspective or clarity. And so at the time, I would ask family and friends and they went from, like, a big list of "here's all the careers that are great that you should look into", or "don't worry about that, you'll figure it out along the way." And so I pretty much got into school, was basically testing things, taking classes that I liked, didn't like, tried to figure out my own path, but I was a little bit lost in that. But the one thing that I always knew and I told myself was I didn't want to go into business, which was quite comical. Because back then, the 17, 18 year old Jenn had no idea really what business was because I grew up in a whole different like blue collar environment, it was just different. That wasn't what we really talked about. And so it's so funny because I had no idea really what that meant. But that's what I always wanted to, I was like, "we're not going into business no matter what." So I danced around a little bit through school, and it really just ended up becoming like, "okay, just get a degree." And then when I came out, I was kind of still a little bit lost, right? I had this degree, I felt like I did well in school, but I needed to figure out what was next. And a friend of mine worked, a really good friend of mine, worked at a company and he was in a sales role. And he's like, "Hey, we have this opening. And it's more of an entry level. You're basically what we would call an account admin to a salesperson", and did the interview, got a job offer, yay, first official offer. And I actually did really well. And after a couple of years in that role, I was consistently being recognized and I started to get promoted. And that felt good. And I had that moment when I just stopped and sat back and thought, "Well, you know, business really isn't that bad. I don't know why was I so averse to this." like throughout my whole career, or my college career. And pretty much at that time, I did that role for a few years. And I realized I was missing, kind of, a piece of what I enjoyed, which was really around creating and problem solving, but in a way that you actually had something tangible. And at that time in that company, I was introduced to the role of Product Management. And I knew some few folks in marketing. I had a good relationship with the VP of marketing. And at that point, he really kind of took a chance on me and offered me a role. And I pretty much fell in love with it at the time, it was everything that I needed it to be, I was able to do a lot of different things and kind of get a taste for a lot of different kinds of spokes on the wheel, as I like to say. And it really, that was, like, a pivotal moment where that really set me up for a career in product management pretty much 15 years of my career.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:31

Yeah. For those people who might not fully know what product management is, how would you describe product management?

Jenn Bloomhuff 05:41

It's a little different at every company, quite frankly. So some of it can be a little bit more project related, where you're just... you run a team, and you're running that too when it's done, then you move on. In the companies that I've always been at, it was more of you were almost like a mini GM, and you own this business. And it was typically, in my experience, was a product category. And so it was a product category, you owned that category. And so you were responsible for the P&L, you're responsible if that little business was profitable or not, you were responsible for the new products that you've got to develop that were meeting the needs of your customers. And pretty much it was like a little mini business within a bigger business. And so what I liked about it, is that you had access to a lot of different things. So you had marketing, you had typical, like project management, where you're, like, on task, on time, on budget, you're managing a team. But then you also got to do, like, creative stuff like product design and influence some of that, like, you wouldn't be the one doing it, but you were like on the team helping to influence that and shape it. And at the end of the day, you were always the, we would say, like the voice of the customer. So you were the representative of the person that you were making the product for. So you had to make sure, "is this really solving a need out in the market?" and all the efforts that the team did collectively helped to deliver on that. And that was exciting, because at the end of the day, like, before my current company, much of my background was on the consumer product side. And it was really cool to walk into a store or have family members walk into a store and see a product that you helped develop, which was just kind of a cool thing. You would be like, "oh, yeah, I helped create that." And what was nice about that, is that really that interaction, where you knew that, depending on the different categories I was involved with, people were purchasing a product and they were using it and having a like intimate relationship with this product that you created. And whether it was a toy that children are learning to grow and develop skills, or if it was like in other places like products that would help you live a happier, healthier lifestyle, like those types of products. And so that was always really cool for me, I always really enjoy it, and I still, I laugh, I get tingles when I talk about it, because I'm always like, that is still a really cool job.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:02

Absolutely. So then as you progressed throughout your career, what led up to you deciding, you know what, what I'm currently doing is no longer right for me. I need to make a change. Help me understand.

Jenn Bloomhuff 08:16

And I'll be honest, I think there were little bits of that that were happening for multiple years. And I think I was just getting burned out. And it wasn't lighting me up, I guess in a way like it used to. And it took me a while to I think admit to myself, because I was very, quite frankly, a little bit nervous about that was the only thing I really ever knew for quite a long time. And so I thought, "do I know how to do anything else?" And it's funny, because being in a role that really exposed me to a lot of things, it's almost funny hearing myself even say that, that I was like nervous about doing anything else when my role itself was, you would do a lot of different things, and I got exposure to a lot of different things. But you know, I think there's like that comfort level you get. And I tell people, I didn't hate my job, I really didn't. It just wasn't lighting me up anymore. And I'm the type of person that really can't, I don't want to say fake it, but just keep doing it when it's just not delivering in that way. Because I feel, like, that I'm not my best self, I'm not showing up as my best self every day. So at that point, I decided to, again, wasn't feeling it, was starting to have issues with motivation, self doubt started to creep in, confidence, things like all those things that start to happen when you're in that headspace. And so I said, "okay, like you got to pull it together, you got responsibilities, you need to figure out what you want to do." And at the time, I just kind of did it on my own. And so I did my own work, I realized that I wasn't ready to leave the company, but I ended up moving into a different role that was in market development on the different side of our business. So a little bit of marketing, a little bit of sales, still had that ability to kind of create and problem solve and do some of that stuff. So I felt like it was a perfect fit for me. Less than a year into that role, the pandemic hits, and everybody was turned upside down, right? Just like everything. And then once things kind of settled in, once we got through, like 2020, 2021, things kind of settled into the new normal that everyone talks about. And it was just that things were different. And so at that time, I always say, again, I didn't hate my job, but I just, I didn't really love it anymore. And so it's like, I liked it until I didn't. And at that time, I was just like, "Okay, I'm back to this again, like what's going on?" And I did feel a little bit lost. And that's when I really started to consider the coaching aspect.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:35

Tell me... Let's go back here for just a second. One of the things I heard you say was about having exposure to so many different areas. But still, and you said, it's almost funny to hear myself say this, but it sounded like you still felt like, "how would I step out of, you know, what I know?" How do you think about that now? How has going through a, your most recent intentional change, how has that impacted how you think about what you know, what is outside of what you can see, how has that impacted your look on in perspective?

Jenn Bloomhuff 11:17

You know, I think when you're in, I feel like when you're in a headspace where you start to draw some sort of uncertainty about, you're not happy exactly in what you're doing, you're not feeling lit up or whatever word you want to use to describe it, I think that starts to play this kind of, at least for me, it started to kind of create this narrative in my head. And that's when all of these other things started to kind of seep in. And it does make you start to question your abilities, the whole imposter syndrome, all this stuff, right? And I'm sitting back, I'm thinking, I've done a lot of really good things in my career, I've been successful, but I think when you're in that headspace, I think it just starts to create these narratives that you tell yourself and that was one of the things that actually going through the coaching is that kind of highlighted some of those things that I was kind of, I don't wanna say self-sabotaging, but you, you start to think in a certain way where it's like, "Oh, I can't do that. I've only been doing this for 15 years", or however many years it is. "I don't have the skill set to go over here." Yet, when you really break it down, or like, that's kind of been at the core of what you've been doing, maybe not 100% exactly, but if you distill it down to those skill sets, or those strengths, you're like, "wow, it's been there the entire time."

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:26

When you look back on this most recent change, what do you feel was particularly challenging for you? Or what would you say were one or two of the hardest parts that you personally experienced?

Jenn Bloomhuff 12:43

I would say, I'll say this laughingly but it's the truth, is a little bit of just, like, getting out of my own way. I'm the type of person I like to have the clarity– I do the work, I try to figure it all out and have it created in this nice little box. And it doesn't always get delivered to you in that way. And I think leaning in and taking a little bit more risk, I'm typically not, I would never describe myself as a risk taker, I'm a definitely more security based type of person. But you can do that in a way that's very smart. You could do that in a way that's more calculated, and it's not impulsive. And I think that was, part of probably one of my biggest challenges was getting over my personal concerns, or my, you know, being a little bit nervous about kind of leaping in towards something when I wasn't 100% sure. And when I leaned into it, it all fell into place so much more natural than I ever thought it could be. And so I think that was probably one of the biggest things was that feeling of uncertainty, and kind of leaning in and taking a little bit of the risk, because that's just kind of part of the process, right? It's not always going to be, like, extremely cut and dry.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:52

Life is getting dry as it turns out. So I think that's an important point then. How did you do that? Or what did you find worked for you? Take me into a little bit of the nitty gritty where you were able to lean in and take a little bit more risk than what you're normally comfortable with? What did that look like for you?

Jenn Bloomhuff 14:13

So when I mentioned about deciding to go into coaching, part of the reason I did that is because I really felt like I needed, like, a shepherd, I needed somebody to kind of shepherd me through a little bit. And as I was going through some of these exercises, they do push you, depending on the exercise, they do push you a little bit to whether you're experimenting or having conversations that you normally really maybe wouldn't have or you kind of naturally go through do that throughout the whole entire program. And I mean, I'll be honest, because I stayed internally, you know, I had to have a conversation with my current boss who I absolutely adored and had a lot of respect for and to be able to walk through a conversation, it's a little bit unnerving. You don't know how they're gonna react and you don't want to feel like you're letting them down, at least I didn't feel like I didn't want to let her down. But it was such a different approach to be able to go in and talk through some of this stuff in a way that, you know, I always felt like having the experience and the clarity that came out of the program allowed me to 100% say, like, "I can have more impact in the business and overall is going to help our team, actually, my old team even more in this new role", because I have the right strengths, and all of that. It just allowed that conversation to... I was able to lead that conversation in a much different way. And so at the end of that conversation, she was very supportive, which I wasn't surprised about, obviously bummed out that I was like, looking to kind of look outside of our current department, but it allows you to lead that conversation in a different way, which I felt like it was important.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:48

Do you remember what you had said during that conversation? Or what your boss had said during that conversation? And would you be able to... What do you do?

Jenn Bloomhuff 15:59

Yeah, I'm trying to think through, I mean, probably one of the biggest things that I would tell like your listeners, or even just like my friends and family, if anyone, they just in general is just having the authenticity to just be vulnerable, and just kind of like share what's been going on, right? I mean, she was the type of manager where we were able to talk about a lot of things. So she knew that I had developmental aspirations and other things that I wanted to do. And the fact that some of those things weren't being met, wasn't a big surprise when we were having this type of a conversation. And so she was very supportive, which instantly, like made you feel like made me feel comfortable. And I can imagine that not always being the case for some people, and it being more of a negative conversation. And at the end of the day, like we can't control what the other person is going to say, we can only control, like, how we approach it, and how we're talking through it. So I feel like if you always show up in a way that's like your more authentic self, then it's going to be as positive, it's going to be like further and but you could at least feel like comfortable in your own skin that you did the right thing, and you weren't a jerk about it or anything.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:03

Yeah. So what happened after you had that initial conversation? What took place from there? Because it sounds like you went in and you had shared in a way that felt vulnerable for you that I feel like this is not meeting my needs, which was already on the same page with to some degree based on previous conversations. And also, I feel like I can add a different level of value added in another place in the organization. So after you had all of that conversation, what happened? What else?

Jenn Bloomhuff 17:38

Yeah. So this was what was the unique thing that was like in my situation that was happening at the time. And it was funny, because it was probably five months into the program in my coaching sessions. At the same time, like this project, that work that was coming on board was happening, and I took the lead on it, and this was again, my old role, took the lead on it. And it went really well, I got a lot of accolades for it. And it was so funny, because a lot of the... when you start to go through a program like or at least for me, when I was going through the program, it's like you get this injection of a confidence boost, right, because as you go through these exercises, you do start to be reminded about all the great strengths you have and some of the successes that you've had, where you want to go until you get a little bit excited again, and that excitement and energy and confidence, actually, really, I think was an important reason why my project that I was leading was so successful, because I was starting to get kind of like in the flow again, I was like lighting up in a way. And so when I did this project at the same time, it was so funny, because at the end of it is when I started to have conversations about what is now my currently my new role with our general manager of our business unit at the time. And it was so funny that I don't know, if I didn't go through the program, I'm not sure I would have kind of been ready to have those conversations, number one, and number two, I don't know if I would have like really been as successful in what I was actually doing, which was far more of kind of like a sales effort in this project than what I was doing. And so when that all happened, I came out of that was, like, December of last year, and I started to have more intentional conversations about moving into this onto the sales department. And so really, I think, if I didn't kind of go through the motions a little bit, because I'm that type of person, again, going back to like the safe experimenting, right, that was almost like one of my safe experiments. And at the end of it, in a way, I proved it to the people like you know, some of our leadership team that got to watch me, but I also most importantly, I think proved it to myself. And even my boss at the time, he was, my own boss was part of that project and it was a multi day meeting that I managed and put on and all this and orchestrated. And I think she saw it too. And so it was, like, kind of like, it just kind of blossomed after that, which probably makes it sound like a lot more glamorous than it was. But it really was like this combination of all these different things kind of happening at the same time. And that was exciting.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:25

What caused you to recognize that continuing to stay with your organization was a much better fit for you than what you might have found elsewhere? How did that happen? How did that come about? Tell me a little bit about what caused you to recognize that?

Jenn Bloomhuff 20:42

Yeah, so I think going back to kind of, you know, what's funny, like, where it was at in the program, when this was all happening, was I was just getting ready to kind of kick off like the experimenting phase, right? Where it's like, identify either types of roles or companies and kind of go through that process. And part of that was having the conversations. And so just the fundamental shift and the thinking of, I can go talk to a VP or general manager of this group, and just talk about it in a way, just tell me a little bit about XYZ, the same approach and the recommendations that you would have for like going out and talking to external companies, you could do the same thing internally, and it does give you a different, it doesn't feel as pressured and kind of the informality of it, it's like, you don't feel put on the spot, everyone feels more relaxed, and you could just kind of have just a free flowing conversation. And I think in those conversations, not only were the people that were my peers and co-workers that I've had been working with and had a relationship with over the last nine years, when they even recognized and kind of confirmed some of that stuff back to you, that's also kind of filling up that confidence. And once I realized that kind of sales was naturally a part of my next step, I knew that it was going to be in that space. It's a lot easier, because it's a lot harder to start in a new company and then you're trying to figure out all the people plus you're doing a new role, that was really overwhelming for me. It felt a lot more comfortable and a lot more natural to do that within my existing company. And quite frankly, I felt like I realized during this process that I really wasn't ready to leave. I just was really ready to kind of take my strengths and use them in a different way that my current role just wasn't meeting that need anymore.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:34

Yeah, what do you feel like are the biggest pieces that your existing organization has that firmly line up with your ICP? Well, we call it the "Ideal Career Profile", which is a tool we use internally, but basically your list of must haves and ideals, were those pieces that you look back and say, "oh, yeah, my existing organization totally lined up with these pieces."?

Jenn Bloomhuff 23:00

Yeah, the first and foremost was, and I can see this throughout all of my career changes that I made, right. So I think of like, "Oh, like that was there that was there." So a lot of it was that I do feel like at the core, I want to be helping people, right, I think and it sounds aspirational, right. Everyone wants to help people and make an impact. But I needed to work at a company that had a vision or a mission that was bigger than just profit. And so I feel like when I think back my current company, like it aligned 100% in that space, and which isn't a surprise, based on knowing that that's important to me. Other things like feeling like you were valued and respected, I mean, that's also part of the company culture that I feel like I need a culture that delivers that as well. And a lot of times you just hate to say it, I'm going to have worked at other companies. I've been really lucky that I've been at a lot of good companies, but I've heard horror stories. So when I kind of went through the list of delivering on a purpose higher than just profit, basically, doing good in the world, respecting and having a culture that respected and wanted to grow their employees, and then just the basic compensation package that I needed, right. So like all of that, when I kind of started to go through all that, like, I felt like misalign. So it wasn't that I was trying to run away from the company, you know, some people leave the company because it's not meeting those needs at all. And for me, that wasn't the case at all.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:28

Well, I think a great example might be... when I hear you say, I was looking for a place where I felt respected and valued, if we dig into that, what your version of respected and valued is and what you need personally might be slightly different for the next person and the next person after that. And it sounds like it was totally aligning on those pieces, some of the environmental pieces, if you will, and the role, or job, or work pieces were the pieces that were needing to be changed.

Jenn Bloomhuff 25:04

Yeah, that's 100%, right. And I remember having a conversation with friends and even my husband. I was like, at any point in time in my career, I could probably have spit out the company values, what are the company's values? What's their mission statement? And I could have, like, regurgitated that, and I could still do that today with my current company. But I never sat and did the work to really figure out, "What are Jenn's values?" And at a high level, you can get to them. But when you actually just say, "Okay, I'm gonna sit down, and in the next hour and a half, I'm gonna go through this exercise and like, really think through it", that was something that kind of unlocked some stuff for me as well. Because your career is such a big part of who you are as a person as well, it was a little bit like the idea of going into coaching and kind of going down this path. It really, like I describe it, it's almost like self care in a way. Because there were things that I learned about myself through some of these tools that gave me a whole different sense of clarity. It wasn't just help me interview well, it helped me figure out what my strengths aligned that I'm gonna go pick and choose and update my resume, it was, for me, so much more on a deeper level than any of that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:12

I love that. I appreciate you going into detail on that. And I think something else that I am picking up from your career path is also important to point out here that it's an ongoing journey, for lack of a better phrase, you've had many roles in many organizations that have been great for you until they no longer were great, whether your needs changed, or something changed in the organization, or we had a pandemic or all kinds of things that maybe some uncontrollable, some influenceable, some not, right? And every single twist and turn may require reassessing what you need, what you want, in a new and different way. And so I appreciate you sharing that that's happened. And then also love that you're talking about what are some of the specific things that worked for you that you're going to carry with you? And that's my next question. What else have you learned from going through a change like this that you would recommend to other people that worked for you really well?

Jenn Bloomhuff 27:26

So I remember early on taking the StrengthsFinder, and I've taken it before, it was a while but I redid it again. And I'll be honest, the first thing I did is I had, I'll call it strength envy. I was like, "I don't want these strengths." I was just like, "I don't know if I want these." I expected, maybe other strengths not to pop out. But I think the other thing that I kind of highlighted was when I kind of was going through and digging deeper is, you know, at the end of the day, words create worlds. And we may have an understanding of what the definition of strength is. But it really, that may not be actually the true definition, right. I think that's some of the other things that kind of come out of this. And so as you kind of dig deeper into your strengths, and you go through this exercise where I like, sent a note to, you know, maybe 10-15 people, and it kind of came back, and it was such a common theme that it kind of reinforced and it kind of drew a different level of proudness for the strengths that I had. And it also reminded me how core, each one of these strengths for the most part have shown up and like supported me throughout my entire career. It was almost like I sat back and I thought, wow, and so just the pure learning of it's fundamentally like leaning into the strengths that you know you do well, because it's a lot easier to utilize those strengths to help make you successful versus just constantly trying to maybe focus on the ones that, again, not that they never show up for you, but they just may not be as natural for you. And so that was probably one of my, I mean, it sounds kind of silly, maybe but one of my big learnings was another one that was a little bit more pivotal for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:05

I think the strengths piece is what you had, what you would said, is a really normal reaction. I heard you say, "I had strengths envy", and that we found over the years is incredibly normal, because our strengths, in the truest form, particularly our signature strengths, are simply representative of who we are. And it's so intertwined with who you are, it's hard to recognize that these are actually really wonderful things that add so much value to other people or in a variety of different ways because it feels inseparable. So our strengths are, we often look at them, it seems like, and we're like well, that's not that valuable. Like, "can I have another one please instead of this?" So I just wanted to acknowledge that that is a really, really normal reaction. And to the point where, like I've found over the years, sometimes people will get angry for a little while, like, "this is it?" Yeah, and I can definitely understand and appreciate that too, because it feels like it should be magical. And it is. But just not in the ways that most people feel like it's going to be necessarily. So here's what I'm leading to a question for you, how did you start to leverage the knowledge about your strengths in a new or different way? How did it become valuable to you? What did that look like?

Jenn Bloomhuff 30:41

I mean, it was a little bit of finding it within myself a little bit and kind of allowing myself to be kind of proud of those strengths, which I know sounds really ridiculous. I know a little bit of, yeah, a little bit of that came from the outside where they give you that context of like, "Here's how I would describe you", and maybe they're using different words, then exactly, but are all lines in those buckets, right. But I think…

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:07

You can just see the patterns.

Jenn Bloomhuff 31:08

They start to see the patterns.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:10

That external validation.

Jenn Bloomhuff 31:12

Yeah. And so there was a little bit of external validation, I won't lie for that. But I would say a lot of it was just me, kind of having that self realization, and really kind of accepting, like, wow, these have shown up for me. And I think, again, it was like, I leave with, like, my relationship skills. And so some of those key skills have really been at the core of actually every single career change I made. And when you kind of sit back and you think about it, it's also at the core of a lot of the reasons why I was very successful in many of the roles that I was in, and I leaned on that a lot, and so, or I should say, utilize that a lot. And so I think it gives you, again, so much of this is like perspective, and kind of resetting some of those narratives that, I don't know, somewhere along the line, just like way back when I was like, I don't want to go into business, well, I didn't even have the context of what that meant. And then you're realizing you're just kind of shutting out certain opportunities for you, because you're kind of just relying on maybe a narrative that just isn't serving you anymore, or just doesn't make sense. And so I think once you can kind of cut some of that clutter, and you really leaned into it, and kind of, again, coming out of it like being proud of having those strengths or leaning into those certain strengths, it really does, I think just give you a different sense of confidence and kind of flow and things start to progress well, at least it felt that way for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:39

Very cool. Tell me a little bit about what you get to do now, and then how that aligns with what you wanted.

Jenn Bloomhuff 32:50

So my current role is a national account director. And I'm supporting the same market that I previously held a market development role in. So that was like a really nice synergy. Because I wasn't, you know, I'm pulling forward all of the things that I've learned over the last four years to support me in the business and my current role. But now I feel like I get to solve our customers' problems. So you know, I'm looking to help them really solve problems that they have today, so they can do what they do best. And they're just going to be kind of utilizing our products that our company sells to kind of help enable them to do that. A lot of what we do is to support public health. And so that's a big part too, is to be able to kind of deliver that for the world in a way. That's a really big scale or grand scale. But my little way through my work is really meaningful to me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:49

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:41

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

Speaker 3 34:47

I thought that's what leadership is, you know, if you need me, I'm there. After about six weeks, I thought, "I can't do this. I can't be available to you guys around the clock the whole time because it will absolutely burn me out."

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:59

I think we can all agree that our society has a hard time setting boundaries when it comes to work. Whether it's responding to emails as they come into our inbox no matter what hour it is, or agreeing to meetings after our established working hours. Today's technology makes it almost too easy to think we have to always be on. In fact, the science now backs up what we already know to be true. A recent study from the University of Illinois proves that this lack of boundary control directly leads to more stress and quicker burnout. But even though we all know this is true, why is it that we still struggle so badly to hold our boundaries?

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:00

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.