Cindy Gonos 00:01

So that her signature strengths really come into play, right? Because it's not just about what you can do well, it's about what you can do well and enjoy.

Introduction 00:16

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:40

Okay, it's Scott. But you're not going to hear from me in this episode, because I'm taking some of our HTYC advice, and I'm stepping away from work. And this time for an entire month to be able to spend time with my family, and unplug. So I'm not going to be on this episode, or the next few. I am leaving you in great hands, of the Happen To Your Career podcast team, I know you're gonna love it.

Kate Wilkes 01:03

Hey, everybody. It's Kate. Cindy and I are back today taking over the podcast yet again. Hey, Cindy.

Cindy Gonos 01:10

Hey, Kate! Can you believe they let us do this again?

Kate Wilkes 01:13

I think that they probably haven't listened to our first one if they're letting us... No, I'm teasing.

Cindy Gonos 01:18

That's right.

Kate Wilkes 01:18

I'm so excited. They're letting us do this again.

Cindy Gonos 01:20

Me too.

Kate Wilkes 01:21

I love it. Our plan for today is to talk about strengths, right? We always love to talk about strengths here at HTYC. But more specifically, even then, that, we really got to talk about what strengths really are. Because I feel like some people don't know, and how we can make the most of those strengths. Well, we're trying to make a bigger career change, which we know everybody does, there's probably... Scott could probably tell us the statistic on the average number of times a person makes a career change through the duration of their working years. But for me, it's probably higher than most, for you, it's probably higher than most. So when we're thinking about making those career changes, your strength is really what comes into play. Strengths are the bomb. They're like our little secret weapons. And today, I think, Cindy and I are going to try, anyway, to show you how we've used them and how you can use them in career change.

Cindy Gonos 02:13

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the things with strengths, though, is that a lot of times we get confused, or we don't know the difference between our skills and our strengths. I think that sometimes we're not 100% sure, which is which. So for Kate, for you, when you're thinking about strengths... no, skills. Let's talk about skills. When you're thinking about skills, what things come to mind?

Kate Wilkes 02:36

Skills are like tangible things that, like, you learn how to do them, and maybe you start a new job and they say, "These are the skills you need to be able to do." And they don't come naturally to you always. But you can get really good at them. Like you can hone those skills and practice those skills and make processes and just get good at stuff.

Cindy Gonos 02:56

Yeah, for sure. I hear that. So when I think about skills, the first thing that comes to my mind and not to, like, date myself, we were doing it all the time– dating ourselves all the time. The first thing I think about when somebody starts talking about skills is I think about Napoleon Dynamite.

Kate Wilkes 03:12

Of course, who doesn't?

Cindy Gonos 03:13

Everything to me has like a movie reference. But I'm always... in the scene of Napoleon Dynamite when he's talking about how nobody wants to go out with him and Pedro's like, "Have you asked anybody?" And he's like, "No", he's like, "Who would I ask?" And then he says, "But I don't even have any good skills" And Pedro's like, "What do you mean?" And he's like, "You know, nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills" girls dealing with boyfriends who have great skills, though, like when I think of skills, it's those things. It's like, do I have, like, Ninja skills? Do I have that sort of skill? That's what I always think of, skills are like, you have, like, those things that you need to master.

Kate Wilkes 03:49

I do not have ninja skills. I have no ninja skills.

Kate Wilkes 03:53

I always trying to improve my Ninja skills. But I think that skills are those things where it's the stuff you pick up along the way on your journey, right. So for example, some people may get certifications and stuff. Did you know, Kate, that I am a certified pool operator?

Kate Wilkes 04:13

I did. But I don't think that is an obvious thing that most people would think about you.

Cindy Gonos 04:18

It's a skill, right? It's a skill that I needed to have for a role that I was doing. So I picked up that skill. So strengths are a little bit different, right? So when you think of strengths, and you, we talk about strengths a lot, you work with our strengths a lot. So when you're thinking about strengths, what do you know about strengths?

Kate Wilkes 04:42

Yeah, I tell you what, I know a lot more over the last two years of working here at HTYC about strengths than I ever knew. And I had done my strengths before because we live in our strengths. The strengths are just things that you are like, naturally or inherently just good at, things that you just can't help but doing well. We call them our superpowers, right? They come naturally. We're gifted with them. And if you don't know what they are, we're really cheating ourselves, right?

Cindy Gonos 05:13

Yes. And I think you said something really important because you said we're going to cheat ourselves on it, right, because I think the trickiest part about strengths, I always say this to folks, the trickiest part about strengths is because they come so naturally to us. And for a lot of us, even those of us that aren't that humble, we leave something comes to easily, we often dismiss it, right? Everybody can do that. Anybody can do that. Because it comes with so much ease for us. So I think a tricky thing that we have to learn to do is to recognize those strengths, and know what they're about.

Kate Wilkes 05:50

And you're so right on about how we dismiss them. We think that just because we're good at something that it must not be hard, or it must be, it must not take the talent, or it must not take any important skill or work. And so like we just discount it, and we're really just... it's a superpower. So here at HTYC, we we work on our strengths, our whole team does our strengths once a year together, and we talk about them and we go through them. And we know where we can leverage people on the team, because of their strengths. But so if you've listened to our podcasts before, you know that we tell our clients, you've heard Scott, we help our clients really focus on what we call the signature strengths. You've probably heard us talk about those before. But these are the things that really make you uniquely you. And it's important to know what they are– they could be your superpower. It's important to know that you have these superpowers when you're making a career change and what they are.

Cindy Gonos 06:44

You are telling me earlier when we were talking about this topic, and you gave the best analogy and you're talking about Iron Man. Could you share that? Because I just was like "yes", for some reason, that made perfect sense to me.

Kate Wilkes 07:01

I think of Iron man every time we talk about our strengths being our superpowers because I love the Avengers, shout out to them if they're listening. Mr. Stark is my favorite Avenger ever. Robert Downey Jr., if you're listening to the HTYC podcast, Cindy is dying now. Okay, I'm a fan girl. So when we talk about our strengths being our superpowers, I think about Ironman, right? Tony Stark's just a dude with attitude and money. Okay, so he's just Tony Stark, he's doing his thing. And then he needs to be Iron Man, there's a need for Iron Man. We got to save the day, Iron Man, get your suit on. He puts on the helmet, strength. He puts on the suit, the arms, the legs, he stepped into the boots, it covers him. He can now fly, he has weapons, he can shoot at the bad guys, he has superhuman strength. He has that entire system of armor. And these are the things that make him strong, right?

Cindy Gonos 07:59

I love that analogy. Because when we're talking about the career change process, and we're talking about strengths, it's almost like you need all of those components, right? Like, you can't just throw a helmet and be like, "Boom! Done. Ready to save the world." Like you need to have those other pieces to build it for you. And when you are able to recognize your strengths, you're able to, more importantly, right? Because it's, real talk, okay, it's one thing to know your strengths, right, to understand that. But it's a whole other thing where you can say, "Okay, what do these strengths do that make me the realest version of myself?" So when we think about signature strengths are a mix of things. It's a mix of the things that you are naturally good at. But then also the things that you've done, your experience, all the things that you've seen, and all the jobs that you have, and the roles, and the good and bad, and the ugly, and all that kind of stuff. And then the other part of that puzzle, and I think it's the part that people forget about, it makes my heart cry, is that piece... that's the thing that they actually care about, right? The things that are valuable to them, their interests, the things that make them curious. So it's not like "Oh, hey, make your side hustle. Or make your hobby your side hustle sort of thing." But how do you bring those components in? Because the best way to identify whether or not you're using a signature strengths is by how you feel when you're using that strength, right, not to get all “woowoo” or anything on people, but it's that feeling that you get when you're in the zone, you're excited, you're gonna find new ways to use that strength, you're going to look for ways to share that with people. And we use the signature strengths to help our clients find, what we call the unicorn opportunity, right? We're a little bit obsessed with unicorn. Right? Yeah, because it's not just about the things that you're good at, but it's also about the things that you want to do and the things that you want out of a role and what's meaningful and impactful for you. It's just because you can do something, I say this all the time, it's like my mantra now, Kate, you know, it's my mantra. "Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should do something." So that's for signature strengths really come into play. Because it's not just about what you can do well, it's about what you can do well and enjoy.

Kate Wilkes 10:24

Absolutely.

Cindy Gonos 10:25

Amen on that. Can I get an amen?

Kate Wilkes 10:27

Amen. I think it's really important to double down on what you said there. It's one thing to know your strengths, but then making them work for you so that you can work happy, that's almost a skill that you have to build. You have to figure out, you have to go deeper, you have to really lean into your strengths, and you have to figure out when you're making a career change, if it's going to be something that uses your strengths, so that you can be happy, for sure. When you're trying to find that unicorn role, or even make a career change that might get you one step closer to that unicorn role, knowing your strengths is a huge advantage. You know what you're good at inherently, you know where you can be an asset, I can read a job description and tell you if my strengths are going to make me hate or love a job because I've dove into those strengths. And I have that deeper understanding of what I'm really naturally good at. And it's so helpful for when I'm looking for that next role. I always make a joke here, I have to stop and make a joke. Where was HTYC, Scott Anthony Barlow, where were you beyond two years ago when I made so many painful career changes? And now, I have all this wonderful knowledge, and I don't ever want to look for a job again. So you know, the best thing is that we can teach other people how to use it as well. So you know, when you want to do work that has an impact, and you want to do work that feels good, and you want to work for a company that believes what you believe in, and like their 'why' is a why that you just feel so connected to, hashtag Simon Sinek. Right? Like, that is why we need to get so far into our strengths, because that sets us on the path to knowing how to find that, quote unquote, unicorn role.

Cindy Gonos 12:16

Yeah, I love that. Yes. And also, yes, double time, Simon Sinek. See what you're doing. Okay, let's talk about it. Let's talk about our strengths, right? Let's talk about... we know our strengths, right? We've done this work, you and I have done this work to really kind of unpack where our strengths are, where our signature strengths are, how we use them. And it was funny, because we were joking a little bit earlier, we were talking about this, and I was like, "Would it be fair to say that we have our unicorn role? Would it be fair to say we're in an ideal situation?" I would say 'yes', for sure.

Kate Wilkes 12:48

I got a horn grown out of my head.

Cindy Gonos 12:49

Yeah. And we're going to show people like, why we think that, right? How that makes sense, right? So we're gonna start with talking about how do people figure out the base strengths, right? Because they gotta start somewhere. And I think this is a place where people do kind of get messed up, because they'll say, "Oh, let me write down my strengths." And then what do they do? They start writing those skills down. So there are ways, there are methods, there are things out there that you can do and you can use. And the one tool that we use here at HTYC is the StrengthFinders assessment, right. So when we're talking about our strengths, we're going to talk about them in the reference of using our StrengthFinders results, our top five strengths while we're doing that. So Kate, I'm gonna kind of walk you through how I do this when I'm talking to people because I really, really love doing this, right. Okay, so in the StrengthFinder's domain, that's what you said they called it, right, the domains.

Kate Wilkes 13:49

The domains.

Cindy Gonos 13:50

Okay, there are four domains of strengths in the Clifton StrengthsFinders assessment, and they are influencing, relationship building, executing, and strategic thinking. So just a little side note, for folks that aren't familiar with the StrengthFinders assessment, the words that you're going to see are big words, right? So Kate's top five are achiever, empathy, strategic, input, and responsibility. So these are really big words. Right? So I think one of the places that we start with clients is, what do those words mean to you? So we're just gonna kind of walk through them Kate, right? So achiever is a strength that's in the executing domain. So I want to know how you relate to that strength? How you use that strength and about how the superpowerness of it comes through?

Kate Wilkes 14:50

Yeah. This is funny because all of my life, I've felt like the girl that gets stuff done. And long before I ever took the assessment for the first time, probably three years ago, four years ago, I knew I was a doer. And that is one reason I spent so much of my time assisting people in life is because I just... I'm an achiever, I like to get stuff done. If we've got a goal, how are we gonna get there? So that really helped. I think that really helps around here in HTYC land, when we have a project going, and we need help getting to the end of it and getting to good results. And just handling stuff and getting it done, I love to make a checklist and start checking stuff off. That's the core of an achiever, I feel like.

Cindy Gonos 15:35

It fills your bucket to get it done. Right?

Kate Wilkes 15:37

That feels great. Yeah, absolutely. And then for my empathy, also, it's funny. And if you've never taken StrengthsFinder before, once you take it, I feel like it gives you a little mirror into yourself, and you're like, "Oh my gosh, this is why I've always done XYZ so well", or, you know, "this is why I'm good at this thing." So my empathy is strong with this one always. We have Samantha on our team, we talk about her harmony, she wants everybody to get along, right? Mine is the empathy. So with empathy, when you work with a group of people, you kind of can put yourself in their shoes a lot, and it helps you to really relate to and understand people. And that's what I love about my empathy superpower. So I use that a lot. I use it on people, I can come to wherever somebody is. And I like tha. I like that I have that strength. My strategic...

Cindy Gonos 16:30

They had you for owning a positive mind. The thing that we didn't do is maybe we made the assumption that everybody already knows what we do here. So maybe we should tell them what our roles are so it makes more sense, right?

Kate Wilkes 16:45

Absolutely.

Cindy Gonos 16:46

Kate, tell the folks at home what your role is. So then this is kind of going to make sense too.

Kate Wilkes 16:50

What my role is... We, here at HTYC, wear many hats. We are a small group of people, I'm going into my customer service voice, a small group of people getting a lot of stuff done. So I started out as Scott's executive assistant, if you listen to mine and Cindy's other episode, you might have already known all this. But immediately there was room for growth in this company as we had people exiting, and Scott would bring to me, "So I would like for you to try to do X." And I would say, "Oh, I've never done that before, let me get on it. And I'll see if I can do it." And some of those things were way outside of my strengths. But it was a great time of learning for me. So now, I help with bringing new members of the team on finding those right people to fit with our team and bringing them on, equipping them to do, you know, setting them up for success on the team, giving them all the knowledge. And then I also am a team leader. So I have a couple of amazing team members that I focus on supporting every day. And like I said, we wear a lot of hats. But I'm one of those people that will, if it needs to be done, I like to to help doing it, to do it. So wearing a lot of hats for me is not a scary place to be.

Cindy Gonos 18:10

Thank you. I wanted to be able for us to put it in context for folks that are listening. So I know for me when folks start telling me about their roles and what they do, I tried to do like, "can I guess their strengths? Can I guess their strengths?" Or if I know their strengths, and we're talking, I can kind of see, "Oh, I see you. I see you using that strength." So okay, I'm sorry, Kate, keep going. So we talked about empathy, which makes sense, because you already mentioned some things in your role, where you're really using that empathy and releasing that achiever a lot. So okay, we'll keep going. This is all gonna, like, make a beautiful thing here.

Kate Wilkes 18:48

And the next two are another one of my dominating domains or types of strengths, which is strategic thinking. I've always been a strategic thinker. I feel like I was raised in a family of strategic thinkers. But the strategic strength allows me to kind of see what we need to do in order to either keep something from going down the wrong path or keep it on the right path. And here at HTYC, especially, I can really use my strategic thinking hat to help us make sure that we're on track and versus off track. So that's always fun. We do a lot of big funky stuff here. So we have a few strategic thinkers as well. So we try to use those strengths to make sure that we're doing what we should be doing and how we should be doing it. And the one that's like the sister to that is the input. You can't be as strategic if you haven't gathered that knowledge. So the input strengths, if you've never heard about it, it's somebody who likes to collect knowledge. And I did not go to college. You know, I had other... There was other plans for my life. However, I have always been a lifelong learner, and Cindy, you are the same way. We love to gather knowledge. I'm not a hoarder in my physical life. But in my mental life, in this noggin is all this information I want to gather, I love to make a spreadsheet and just fill it full of information. And I love to start a project having just researched the heck out of what other people are doing or in other spaces. So the input one is really, really fun. If you want to know some really dumb facts, I've probably got something for you as well. Facts that no one cares about.

Cindy Gonos 20:32

That's where it's gonna take to, like, trivia Night at the...

Kate Wilkes 20:35

Trivia night. I am the bomb at trivia night.

Cindy Gonos 20:38

You did mention too, earlier, like five seconds ago, about when you're describing your role. And you were talking about having the opportunity to do new things in the organization and learn new things. And I know that part of the reason why you feel so comfortable doing that is because you do have that input piece, right? You'd love to gather that info and get the information and do research and try new things and keep learning, right. So I think that even though it's scary, right, to do new things for you, your input just draws you to that information. I love that. So you got one more.

Kate Wilkes 21:20

One more responsibility. And I think a lot of my strengths, I think our strengths are sometimes inherit. But I think a lot of our strengths depend on how we were raised and what our parents poured into us. And I have the most responsible set of parents a girl could have. Responsibility has to be one of my top five, right? My parents owned small businesses my whole life, I saw that you had to do the work if you wanted to eat. So responsibility for me comes so easy. And that means that you know, you really care about the work that you're doing. And the role that you play a part in, and the company that you work for. So I will say that, a lot of times when I'm falling asleep at night, I'm trying to shut off the work brain because it's like, it's just there. And it's thinking about all the things I want to do tomorrow. And I don't want to forget anything important. And it's just the core part of who I am. It's responsibility. And I'm the same way in my personal life as well, to the annoyance of my husband probably sometimes. But those are my top five, we here, at HTYC, have unlocked our top 34. If you want to go really crazy deep into your strengths, there's always that room to expand. But I cannot wait to hear... Cindy, I know your strengths. And I know that you... you know, I'm purple and green and you're like orange and blue. So yours are a whole different mix. So tell me about yours, and how you apply them.

Cindy Gonos 22:51

Yeah, they're definitely a different mix. There was something too, though, that you said, which I think is so important is that you mentioned your strengths and how they show up in your personal life too. So strengths are not exclusive to what you do at your job.

Kate Wilkes 23:06

Not at all.

Cindy Gonos 23:07

Your strengths are your strengths, because they're ingrained in you. So I love that you kind of call that out, that all things should be equal. I think that's really important to point out because one of the reasons that we focus so heavily on strengths is because we want you to be able to come up with who you actually are, right? So you need to use those strengths to say, "This is me all the time. This is who I am at my core, I guess, so I just wanted to highlight. Thank you, ma'am, for adding that on. Because I felt like that was really important. I mean, you think of something." Yeah. So in regards to my strengths... So for those of you who do not know, I'm the Director of Client Success here at HTYC. My big joke is that I do part detective work and I do part matchmaking work, right? Because I talked with all the folks when they first reached out to us, I helped get them started on this journey, I find out more about them, all that kind of stuff. I'm even getting excited just talking about what I do in my role. So you can kind of see where this is going. So most of my strengths live in all of my strengths on the top five, either live in that influencing or that relationship building domain, because that's what fills my bucket, right. So my number one strength is winning others over. It's my favorite strength because it's "Woo." yeah, so essentially for me, what fills my bucket is getting to meet lots and lots of folks and getting to make friends every... I have to make...

Kate Wilkes 24:34

Hold up. We, all on this team, have said a thousand times, Cindy's going to make a new best friend every time you're off to talk to somebody.

Cindy Gonos 24:44

Yes, if you schedule a call with me, there is a very likely chance that within 45 minutes we will be best friends. That's just how I roll. I don't know, again, like you mentioned like your parents, right. So if anybody's heard this podcast before it's heard about my dad, probably more than one time, but shout out Dave, whatever. But my dad is like a social butterfly. And he would say he's not, he's lies. But I think I kind of got part of that from him too, just that kind of outgoing need to talk to everybody. I was also a middle kid who's, you know, that goes. But I think that being able to use that strength when I'm talking with folks, it's important dude. Like, it's important for me to win people over, because when they reach out to me, it's hard, right? Reaching out for help with anything is hard. Right? So I love the fact that folks can get on a call with me and feel comfortable. They're like, "Oh, she's not that, you know, scary or intimidating", that sort of thing. So I use my "woo" quite a bit, actually. Communication, well, I talk all day long, that is all I do. I talk to people and I listen to people, and we go back and forth. And it ebbs and flows. And if I didn't have that, I don't think I would live, I would not be able to survive without being able to talk with folks. And it's not even about talking, right? It's communicating, hearing their story, knowing their story, getting to be a part of their story is so intriguing to me. So communication, humongous part of my strengths and the most dominant part of my role.

Kate Wilkes 26:17

Absolutely. And I think beyond that, beyond how you said communication works with your role, you are a very good communicator. It's not just about the communication, but how you communicate... you're welcome. I communicate with you as much as I can through every day, because I enjoy the way that you relay information, the way that you have conversations, and so your communication is like a two fold superpower, you know.

Cindy Gonos 26:45

Yeah. Thank you. I love that. Okay, the third one lives in relationship building, which is weird that "woo" is not in. Anyway, another story another day, I guess. Why woo is not in relationship building. But the third one is positivity. So I mean, it is what it is, I guess.

Kate Wilkes 27:03

It is what it is.

Cindy Gonos 27:03

How I am. I will tell you this, though, like real talk, you know, I'll keep it real, is, I don't have the easiest adult life, right? Like I dropped out of college, I was in a traveling sales cold, tell you guys about that some other time. Like, it wasn't easy for me, right? Going through it as a really young mom, I was an unmarried young mom. So I cling to this fact that positivity is one of my strengths, because I feel like it's one of those strengths that has carried me through the toughest stuff, right. It's not even my number one. But I think that having positivity, sharing positivity, but at the same time, positivity doesn't mean toxic positivity. It's about being positive, and seeing where things can get better, right? Not pretending like things are better when they're not. So, there's that too, because for every strength, there's a shadow strength. And that's the adverse side of that strength. And I think that with any of our strengths, with your achiever, you can always go too far, you can always go...

Kate Wilkes 28:13

It's been done.

Cindy Gonos 28:14

Yeah, definitely. So, positivity. My fourth strength out of my five is actually honestly my favorite strength, it is by far my favorite string. So my fourth strength is what is called Maximizer. So the way that I sum up maximizer is I am simply the hype girl. Right?

Kate Wilkes 28:34

You are.

Cindy Gonos 28:35

I see something and I'm like, "how much like flair can be added to this?" right. Whether it's somebody's life, whether it's...I'm not really close, I'm like a flashy person, but it's how do we make this the most that it can be? How can we make it extra? So when I'm talking with folks, they're like, "Oh, this is blase, blase". And I'm like, "What? That is awesome." Like, you know, like, I feel like I can see the awesomeness in things. So I enjoy having Maximizer. And I also, I think one of the things that I really love is when I'm talking to folks, and they get that little spark of confidence, right? For me, that is my favorite thing where I'm just like, I don't know how many times I have to tell you, you're awesome. And finally, they're like, "You know what? I am awesome." And indeed they are, right. So last but not least, is connectedness. I would say honestly, functionally, and this is still what would be considered a relationship building strengths. I use this strength so functionally in my role every day. It's crazy because connectedness means that you, obviously, see the connection between things, right? So my favorite thing is when I'm talking with folks, and they don't see how things are related, like when you did this when you were 10, how is that related to something you did when you're 30. And I love being able to find that common thread with folks, especially when it comes to... how do I take the things I really love and use that to help me make a career change, right. So those are all of my top five strengths. And obviously, you can tell that Kate and I get really excited. There is something I want to say, I do want to say this, because there was a second there when you were talking about my Greek communication, right? And for a second, I almost was like, "no." Right? So that's crazy, right? So for somebody like me, I love my strengths, I embrace my strengths, I want to live in my strengths. But it's still even hard sometimes when somebody gives you a compliment, right? Be like, "Thank you", right. And that's exactly what I'm talking about. When I'm talking about, like, embracing the strengths, right? Like owning them and seeing your strengths. Like you need to show up for your strengths, Kate, you need to show up. Your strengths are there waiting for you to show them off, you need to show up for them better.

Kate Wilkes 31:37

Yeah, that's a great point, you're almost doing yourself and your team a disservice if you don't come with your strengths, right? And when you're going through the career change process, like, I think about it in interviewing, right? When you think about when you're interviewing for a role, and you always want to put your best foot forward, and sometimes the best foot forward is agreeing with what that person who's doing the interview is saying, "oh, yeah. I agree. I agree." You know, when maybe deep down in your strengths, you're like, there's a better way, or there's something that I know that they don't know, and I could probably help them or add value because of what I know. Right? So, again, you're doing yourself and maybe your potential, maybe not potential, next, you know, role by not really coming with the things that you can do the best.

Kate Wilkes 31:08

I think my favorite thing about us is that our strengths, yours and mine, complement each other so much. So when the two of us find... When we find ourselves working together on projects, which we do every day, I feel like knowing what your team members strengths are, and matching up people who have strengths that can play off of each other, that is where the magic happens. And that's why it's so important to know your strengths and know how to leverage them.

Kate Wilkes 32:30

Absolutely. 100% agree. So now you have had, kind of, the digest copy, right? Like the quick and dirty...

Cindy Gonos 32:42

Version, if you remember.

Kate Wilkes 32:45

The Cliff Notes, the Cindy and Kate Notes version on how and why we feel strengths are so important, you know, especially if you're making a career change, but also, you know, if you want to figure out if you are working within your strengths, you have to know what they are. So thanks for listening today. I'm gonna throw it over to you, Cindy, to let people know about some of our resources and how they can move forward to figure out their strengths.

Cindy Gonos 33:13

For sure. Yeah, we got resources, we always got resources, Kate, me and you are always giving away the goods for everyone. So if somebody would like to find out more about their strengths, if they want to take the StrengthFinders assessment, find out what their top five are, find out what their top 34 are, you can email me at Cindy@happentoyourcareer.com put 'Strength' in the subject line, so I'll know what the heck you're talking about. And then, if you're interested in StrengthFinders, I'll send you the link to the website where you can find the info for StrengthFinders, so you too can know your top five strings. And then there's also some additional resources that we have and some podcast episodes that I'll be able to send, folks. And if you know your strengths, but you don't know what to do with them, right, you're like "I've done StrengthFinders, now what?" or if you just want to talk more about your situation and your strengths and how to use them and making career change and all that great stuff, then you can also email me at Cindy@happentoyourcareer.com. And you can still put 'Strengths' in the subject line and we can talk more about your situation.

Kate Wilkes 34:16

A couple of final notes and a couple of thoughts on what you just said. They can also run to happentoyourcareer.com/schedule if they just absolutely are dying to talk to my work bestie, Cindy, happentoyourcareer.com/schedule will get you there. Email always works as well. We are freaks about checking our email. And also if you've done your strengths, and you feel like you've maybe not been working on your strengths, it might be time to redo them. And you know, we take the assessment every probably 18 months or so around here because your strengths will evolve. Some will move up, some will move down in the list a little bit. I've seen mine evolve based on the places I've dove into new places in HTYC alone. So it's okay to do your strengths again if you want to see where you sit. And also, I believe Scott will be back next week on the podcast.

Cindy Gonos 35:07

I heard a rumor about that.

Kate Wilkes 35:08

That's right. We know that, you know, people have probably enjoyed listening to who else is behind the scenes at Happen To Your Career. And we're going to try to fade back a little bit and give Scott the spotlight back for a minute, we might take away the microphone again, we haven't decided, we don't know what we're going to do. But listen next week to Scott, he's going to be bringing some awesome, awesome stuff about his time in Greece with the family, and we're very glad he's back. So stay tuned for that.

Cindy Gonos 35:36

Awesome. Thanks, Kate.

Kate Wilkes 35:37

Thanks, Cindy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:43

Many of the stories that you've heard on the podcast are from listeners that have decided they want to take action, and taking the first step of having a conversation with our team to try and figure out how we can help. And if you want to implement what you have heard, and you want to completely change your life and your career, then let's figure out how we can help. So here's what I would suggest, just open your phone right now and open your email app. And I'm going to give you my personal email address, scott@happentoyourcareer.com just email me and put 'Conversation' in the subject line. And we can absolutely connect you with my team. I'm not answering my email right now, but I have a team member, Kate, who absolutely will make sure that you get connected with our team and the right person on our team so that we can figure out the very best way that we can help with that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:39

Hey, I hope you loved this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And if this has been helpful, then please share this podcast with your friends, with your family, with your co-workers that badly need it. Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you next week.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:58

We have talked a lot about what it takes to thrive at work as opposed to just do work, come in and maybe it's good for you, maybe it provides a paycheck, maybe it provides some growth, maybe... but that's different than thriving, it's different than extraordinary. It's certainly different than what most people have.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:21

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.

Liz McLean 00:01

If you are using your resume as the thing that helps you switch, what that's doing is putting you into a pool of other candidates. You're being evaluated based on that piece of paper, and they may have a traditional background in that career already with a good 20 plus years experience.

Introduction 00:28

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:47

Okay, it's Scott. But you're not going to hear from me in this episode, because I'm taking some of our HTYC advice, and I'm stepping away from work. And this time for an entire month to be able to spend time with my family, and unplug. So I'm not going to be on this episode, or the next few. I am leaving you in great hands, of the Happen To Your Career podcast team, I know you're gonna love it.

Angela Barnard 01:09

Hey guys, it's Ang. I'm one of the coaches on the Happen To Your Career team. And today, we have me and Liz. Hey, Liz.

Liz McLean 01:18

Hey, Ang.

Angela Barnard 01:19

So we're going to answer a question that we often get asked, and this question is, "do I need to rewrite my resume to switch careers?" So a lot of people that we're working with don't have a ton of experience in the career that they want to switch to. That's a very common thing with the people that we're working with. So this question comes up a lot. And it may come as a surprise to you, but we, as a career coaching company, spend very little time on resumes. And I really think this is what makes us so different because we focus on another "R" word, instead, which we're going to talk about here. But I want to kind of dive in deeper to why we don't spend as much time on resumes. So Liz, tell us, why do we not focus on resumes?

Liz McLean 02:10

That's a really good question, and we do hear all that often. I'm going to take it from the standpoint or the context of the question that came to us in terms of switching careers, like, is this something that I need to do as part of the process? And we're like, "maybe", but usually, the answer is like, "maybe and way later". Usually, that's what we're talking to clients about, and that's why we ended up not talking about it very much. So let's play this out, Ang. And Scott talks about it a lot too, in our materials and Career Change bootcamp. But if you are using your resume as the thing that helps you switch, what that's doing is putting you into a pool of other candidates, you're being evaluated based on that piece of paper, and they may have a traditional background in that career already with a good 20 plus years experience. Now, when you're playing that game, you're not going to be able to compete, it's just the facts, because it's just comparing pieces of paper. You may though, be a hiring manager in real life, that would be like, "Ah! Ang, you're my person. I need you on my team." regardless of what your resume says, right. So that's the game that we try to get our clients to play and build that other "R" word, which is relationships, as opposed to resumes. And we'll get into a whole lot more reasons why it's not a good use of your time, it's not a good return on your investment to spend your time toiling over resumes. And part of that is because of what I like to call the job search as being the two sides of the same coin, right? One side is this reactive side, it is I am scrolling for postings incessantly, I am finding something that I think might work, that I will contort and play with AI and try to get the keywords just right, the percentage have my resume match perfectly, or as much as I can. It's a very reactive side, right? The other side of the coin is the proactive side, which is where we talk about building relationships. And we're going to spend a lot more time on this conversation as to why that is a better use of your time and doing the proactive side and coming from an energy of, "what do I want? Do I even want this role? Would I be a fit? Can I add value here? Do I even like these people?"

Angela Barnard 04:46

Yeah, is it even an effective use of my own energy to spend all this time trying to tailor my resume to fit this role that I really don't know much about? I just know that there's this job description that someone else might have wrote that doesn't even really apply to the job. Because so often, job descriptions aren't actually the job that someone is going to be doing or some HR person wrote it that's not familiar, like, we've all been in that situation, or we've been given a role, and you're like, "this was not in my job description", right. So it's not a thing that you can really rely on. But so often through this process, we spend so much of our energy obsessing on getting the resume to match this job description, we don't even know if that's something we want to pursue, we don't know what it's like to work with those people. Again, if that job is what it says it is. So what we're asking you to do is come from this from a proactive side and the side of where you value yourself and your time and your energy so much, that you're going to do some research on that role before you sit there for possibly hours trying to target applying to that. You're going to skip the resume side and try to find the person that you can talk to that may know more about it and come from this curious state, we have seen that that's going to serve you a lot more. In fact, a lot of people that come to us, they often show up from the reactive side initially, and they're like, "I'm just so sick of applying to jobs constantly and spending hours on my resume. It's not working for me." And you're like, "yeah, it's not." And that because you're taking a reactive approach to life really.

Liz McLean 06:27

Yeah. So we have a whole host of reasons why we say to go to that proactive side and focus on the other "R" word, which is building relationships.

Angela Barnard 06:38

Yeah, so we got five reasons why we think that you should focus more on the person, the relationship over the resume. So we're going to break down those five reasons. So starting with number one. One is you get the feels, like when you go to the person first and you reach out to them, you get to know more about them, or the role or the company, you get a feel for what it's like to work with that person or in that organization or that job. And we know that a lot of people leave their job, because they don't like the people that they work with. So again, why waste time on applying or tailoring your resume for a role, if you don't really know if you're gonna like working with people? Like, find out if you even like to work with them to begin with, then focus on the energy. And the other thing that I love about this is that you may be prettier in real life versus on paper, like, that's exactly how I'm looking at this is. It's like, you might like on paper, let's say I'm gonna apply for a role, and maybe on paper, I do not look like a good fit for that role. But I could totally rock it out. I would excel at that role. Maybe I have the perfect personality for it. Well, it's like instead of waiting in line for my turn to be seen, I skip the line, and I make sure I'm seeing or I've heard. Yeah, that's what we're talking about.

Liz McLean 07:58

Spoiler alert, and she would rock the roll. As the other thing I wanted to add to that, yes, you can get all the data and you can get all the facts on the roll, but there's your gut intuition that you need to factor into this as well, which you get when you get to meet someone face to face, right?

Angela Barnard 08:21

Oh, yes. I'm so glad that you brought that up. Because this is a part of us that a lot of us ignore, which is why we got into the situation we're in to begin with, we're like, oh, like, I don't like... this is like, I bet you on the way that intuition was speaking to you, you know, the whole time and you started. So it's like, now is the time for you to listen to that intuition. Give it a chance to have a say in the process. And the way that you get that to happen is you meet with the people and you get the feels and see if this is something that you want to dedicate your time and your energy towards.

Liz McLean 09:00

And you provide that for them too, right? This is a relationship so they can get a feel for who you are and know like, oh, are they going to fit within this organization and within our culture and our style?

Angela Barnard 09:12

Yeah. So number two. Tell us about this one. You get a more accurate description of the role. Tell us, Liz.

Liz McLean 09:23

Yeah, I will tell you because we touched on this a little bit in the beginning. The job description could be...you're relying on it as if it is backed into for the roll. It could be something that has been recycled from HR or some process that no longer matches what the hiring manager needs, right. And so you are spending hours trying to respond to something that isn't actually the case of what the problem is or the role or what the hiring manager needs for a solution. I had a client, Ang, that one time like traveled, got on a plane and got, you know, did a face to face interview– all day interviews, very takes a lot of energy and effort, right? And got there. And it was nothing like the job description or what the HR screen initially was. It's like he could have saved, you know, himself time and energy and the hiring manager. That wasn't a great experience for him either because it's like, "Oh, wait a minute. What? You thought it was this? You thought it was ABC? No, it's actually XYZ." Like, oh, you're not interested in that? Like, I've been on the other side of that, too, as a hiring manager. And like, wait a minute, who are these? This does not match. What is this job description? So it's...go straight to the source, right, of the person that needs you to show up and deliver value.

Angela Barnard 10:55

Oh, that just got me thinking about a belief that I often hear that holds people back is when they see a job description, they often will be like, "Well, I'm just not qualified, Ang." I'm sure you hear this. "I don't have everything that's on here. So I shouldn't even apply." And the thing with this is like we're telling you guys, a lot of times the description is not accurate for what they need. Right? So that's just something to think about is, like, don't let it hold you back. This is not exactly, you know, you don't meet all the qualifications, like very rarely does someone show up and meet all the qualifications that's on a job description, anyways. I have never even been real with you taking a role where I met all the jobs, like everything that's on the job description.

Liz McLean 11:43

Neither. And the other thing I'd say on that is, it robs the conversation of, like, the hiring managers, or sometimes we'll have clients go in, and the hiring manager will learn something about a candidate and be like, "Oh, wait a minute, you can do this, too? We need help with this." And it wasn't even in the job description, right? They discover, like, how you deliver value.

Angela Barnard 12:06

Yeah. So this makes me think about when you do meet with people like really asking them like, "what is the problem right now? What problems are you guys trying to solve? And really communicating how you can help solve that problem?" Because the reality is, if there's a job posting, like there's a need, that means there's a problem that needs to be solved, and you can help be a solution to that problem. And a real quick story with this whole job description thing got me thinking. So back in the day, I used to supervise about 25 social workers. And I remember, I was not in charge of the job descriptions, I did not feel like it was accurate, but I knew what I needed. And I remember my name, my picture, my email, my phone number, all the things were on the organization's website. And I would have job postings, and it just blew my mind that no one would contact me directly. Like I was like, sitting in my office begging for people to be like, "reach out to me, here's my email, stop going through just HR, I'm the one in charge of the program", like, "do this research, it's there for you." And I just really want to get candidates. So I had an idea of what I wanted. And in HR we had, so basically, I'm the job description itself. is that you had to have X years of experience and a master's in social work. The issue that I was running into over and over, as a manager, was that we would hire a master's level clinician. And what would happen is they're not getting paid very much. And it just wasn't sustainable for them. And it wasn't in our budget to pay them more. And there's all these other issues. So I actually didn't even want a master's level clinician, I didn't even need that level of expertise for what I needed that person to do, right. So my ideal like, in my mind, I had this idea of my ideal person. I was like, "you know what would be really awesome? I need a hardcore multitasker. Someone that is super friendly, that can work with a variety of people, like I'm talking about servers, interested in social work, where..." well, that's your girl, like literally...

Liz McLean 14:08

Right. And that's not on the job description. That's no way matching.

Angela Barnard 14:12

Job description was master's level clinician, all this professional stuff, and it even served me as the manager. So I remember what happened was the HR people would go through them, and they literally did it by keyword crap. You know, like, she would bring me a stack of resumes and say, "Here, Ang. Here's the ones that I think that you know, we're going to interview with or let me know what you think." But it was like an afterthought. And I was like,"let me see the other ones that came in." She was like, "Okay, I already went through them." And I was like, "Can I see them?" And she gave them to me, and I remember I went through them and I found the perfect person for me. It was a server who was just starting her career in social work. She was one of the best employees that I had ever hired. But she totally did not meet the description. But that personality, as soon as I met her, my entire team was like, "this is our girl." So this is why I'm telling you guys like, when people like, we know our people, like when you get into our group, you're like, "I love this person. You get to a point where you do not care if they have all the experience, you just love them and you think about, like, how fun it would be to work with them."

Liz McLean 15:21

Right? You start imagining them in team meetings. And that's why this resume is an afterthought. And we'll have clients say, and this is usually where it comes up. They'll say, "Oh, yeah, like they've already decided on you. They're like, Oh, can you just send me a resume, like, I just have to have it on file, like you can go page, this is my resume.

Angela Barnard 15:43

That's number five. So we're gonna, we're...

Liz McLean 15:45

Okay, I'm skipping ahead.

Angela Barnard 15:46

You're gonna get ahead of ourselves, because it all leads to each other. But that's true. So we'll just get to that one right now is that the relationship will trump the resume. And so often, repeatedly, we're working with clients, and they specifically say that like, oh, and then they were just like, "Hey, can you send me your resume?" And actually, the person just said, like, don't worry about updating it, doesn't really matter, we just kind of like a formality. Right? So that happens more often than the other side where they want the resume to be tailored exactly. Because you've already built that relationship, and you've already connected with that human and that human likes you. And that human is the one that's making the decision. So if you think about your energy, even if you look at stats, like I'm a big, like, I love looking at statistics, I love that info. Like I love the science behind stuff. So anyways, if you look at the research, we know that pretty much over 80% of jobs that people get, are jobs because of a relationship, like they knew someone or they built a relationship, it was not from applying, in fact, applying is very low. In fact, a lot of employers don't post jobs on majors job search engines very intentionally, because they don't want to flood of a bunch of people coming in. Because then that takes work on their own to have to filter through all the stuff coming in. They would much prefer to have someone they know like their buddy telling you them who would be a good fit. That's way easier and a better use of everyone's time because I already, like, for example, I already, like, know and trust Liz. So if we're looking to hire someone, let's say I'm in charge of that role, let's pretend, then I'd way rather go with what Liz has to say, rather than, "Oh, I gotta post this thing. And I gotta go through all this stuff." Right? So if you even think about it statistically, like, if so, let's pretend, 80% of jobs are found via relationships that are built or people you know, then we should be spending the majority of our effort and energy on relationships, right?

Liz McLean 17:46

Right. When I was coaching for an outplacement service, Ang, we had a rule that we would tell clients, and I would even take a little bit further than these numbers, but we would say it was the 70/20/10 rule. So yeah, 70% of your time, building relationships, 20% of your time doing prep. And by that, I mean, "hey, what are your stories? How do you interview? What, you know, doing your research, like, that kind of prep, more intentional and mindful prep, right? 10% applying. I would even, maybe even, skew those numbers even more, but just to tell you like when we were like that was kind of a rule of thumb at that company who I've working with, clients that had been laid off. And these are people that are like, "Wait, you know, we had to coach them on...they'd be like, "well, I just... I'm not doing enough. I gotta apply, I gotta apply and apply. And so then I'd have to talk about this reactive side of the job coin and be like, alright, each job posting that you see out there has 300 applicants on average, if it's a company that's desirable, it's 3000. Like Google gets 3000."

Angela Barnard 19:00

Yeah, it's not an effective use of your energy. And we're thinking about through this process is like, I want you to... if you're listening, to honor yourself more, you just add this to an interview on your end, honor your time, your energy, it's not an effective use for you to be spending all this time tailoring everything, I'm not saying that tailoring isn't gonna help you because I've had a lot of clients do well, actually from like being able to tailor and find opportunities, but the majority, it's in alignment with the statistics as far as focusing on relationships. That is key here. So this came to mind is, like, when I teach people how to tailor their resume, because sometimes I do that, because sometimes it does make sense. And again, every person's situation is very different. Sometimes we have people that are working with us that are switching, they want to stay in the same field, but they actually want to switch to a different organization like that organization may honor their time, their values more, better alignment for them, all the things and maybe for them, it makes perfect sense to really spend energy on tailoring because they have all this experience, and they be able to be, maybe, some of the competition, if you were in a pile of 300, they'd be able to stand out maybe. So it depends on the person. But the other thing I was saying is that, even if you are going to give energy to the resume, I want you to focus on the human more. So just a real quick story. So my husband, I was doing some resume work for him. So he was applying to a dentist role because he's a dentist. And so I was messing with his resume. And what I do is I do the research on the person who is going to see that resume, and I tailor the resume to appeal to the human that's going to see it. And I do my best to try to avoid the applicant tracking system. Like if I can get a straight email into that person's email box, I'm going to find that email to their eyes, it's a better use of my energy. So anyways, I knew who exactly was gonna look at that resume. So what I did was I researched the dude, I ended up seeing, from stalking him online on Facebook, which you need to do, don't be afraid to do it because they're doing it to you.

Liz McLean 21:14

They're gonna stalk you.

Angela Barnard 21:15

Yeah, so you can think about the interview on your end. You gotta act, like you know.

Liz McLean 21:20

They get to do all of that too.

Angela Barnard 21:22

Yeah, it's not weird. The information is there, use it. So anyways, I did the research, found out right away this guy's cover photo on Facebook that popped up had horses in it, "Oh this guy is a horse person." So my husband, you would not know this from his traditional resume, that he is also a horse person. In fact, he won a world championship, unless horseback riding raining stuff we were filming earlier with horses, which I'm really not, but like, if you're familiar with that world, he was at the World Championship, right? So anyways, that normally doesn't go on his resume at all, because that was like way back in the day. But the thing was, is I knew this guy was a horse person. So I looked at my husband's resume, and I went back and I added that in there. And as soon as the guy got my husband's resume, when he called him, he was like, right away he was like, "Hey, man. I saw on your resume, like, you know, you ride too, when you did this, and blah, blah", immediately, like my husband offered him the job. I have tons of stories where I've done similar things with my own resume when I thought about the human. So this comes back to this whole concept– relationship over resume.

Liz McLean 22:33

Yeah. I mean, that's a perfect example of people, like, you know, when they say, "Oh, how far back should I go?" And it's like, if there's something relevant, you know, to the person, put it on there, like, yeah. Anyway, we won't get into all that, that comes, as Ang and I said, it comes way later. But getting to know the person as much as you can go straight to the source. And it is... when we first started talking about this, Ang, it's like, our first reaction was like, "Ah", it's like, no one enjoys resumes, right. Not the people writing them, not the people having to screen them necessarily. It's like the least human way. You know what, we just did number...well, we skipped number three, we did number four. I love how we're...

Angela Barnard 23:21

This is really... this is how we do over here, we're still getting the points out, we're going with the flow, what...

Liz McLean 23:29

We're doing it in a soapbox, and these points just naturally come out. So we were just going to sum it up as far as why you go straight to the person first. So you get the feels both sides, right? You get a more accurate description of the role, and description isn't like, not the right word. It's that undersells or, like, you get so much more information than just a bulleted list of responsibilities, right? You get to interview them, and honor your time. And then through all of this, as Ang just pointed out, the relationship really ends up trumping the resume we've talked about– the resumes, the afterthought, it kind of becomes you know, it's so low on the list. It's irrelevant. That's why I said at the beginning of this episode, Ang, it's like, "do I need to rewrite my resume?" I'm like, "maybe put way significantly later." And that's just when somebody needs to check the box after you've built the relationship already.

Angela Barnard 24:32

Not that resumes are bad, but relationships over resumes. So if you enjoyed this podcast episode, please let us know. Reach out to us. We'd love to hear from you.

Liz McLean 24:42

Thanks for listening.

Angela Barnard 24:43

Alright, y'all. Have an awesome day. Bye.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:52

Many of the stories that you've heard on the podcast are from listeners that have decided they want to take action, and taking the first step of having a conversation with our team to try and figure out how we can help. And if you want to implement what you have heard, and you want to completely change your life and your career, then let's figure out how we can help. So here's what I would suggest, just open your phone right now and open your email app. And I'm going to give you my personal email address, scott@happentoyourcareer.com just email me and put 'Conversation' in the subject line. And we can absolutely connect you with my team. I'm not answering my email right now, but I have a team member, Kate, who absolutely will make sure that you get connected with our team and the right person on our team so that we can figure out the very best way that we can help with that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:48

Hey, I hope you loved this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And if this has been helpful, then please share this podcast with your friends, with your family, with your co-workers that badly need it. Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you next week.

Cindy Gonos 26:06

So that her signature strengths really come into play, right? Because it's not just about what you can do well, it's about what you can do well and enjoy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:18

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.

Angela Barnard 00:01

It takes your power away, you know, when it's always based on something externally outside of you, for you to feel better. So I see that the people that create just really cool results in their life, it's because they focus on themselves, what they can control and keeping their energy high.

Introduction 00:22

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:46

Okay, it's Scott. But you're not going to hear from me in this episode, because I'm taking some of our HTYC advice, and I'm stepping away from work. And this time for an entire month to be able to spend time with my family, and unplug. So I'm not going to be on this episode, or the next few. I am leaving you in great hands, of the Happen To Your Career podcast team, I know you're gonna love it.

Angela Barnard 01:07

In this episode, we're talking about how to stay positive during a career change. Because let's be real, it can be really difficult to keep your spirits up when your energy is already low from the job you want to switch out of, right? So beyond thinking positively, we got some tips for you. We found it to be very helpful and keeping your energy up during the process of a career change. You are hearing from me, Ang, I'm a Career Coach on the Happen To Your Career team team. And then also, Phillip.

Phillip Migyanko 01:39

Hey, y'all, this is Phillip. I'm the Director of Client Results here at Happen To Your Career. And I'm so excited to be joining Ang. So we've got some cool tips. How many tips do we have, Ang?

Angela Barnard 01:48

We have five different tips. So tip number one. Tip number one is to acknowledge and validate that your mind is going to go negative sometimes during the whole career change process, and that this is a normal thing. So I'm going to geek out a little bit about how the mind works because that's how I do. Phillip totally knows this. I always have to bring back the science. We have to bring it down to the science like how our brain works. So if you think about your brain, you have the subconscious part of your mind, and you have the conscious part of your mind. So without getting into all the details behind that, the subconscious part of your mind is really tied to identity, patterns, habits, this controls 95% of the results you'll have in your life. And then the conscious mind controls 5% of the results. And that's just like your wishful thinking, like the things you would like to happen, that kind of happens in the conscious mind. So what happens when you want to make a career switch, you are changing so much of the subconscious mind, you're trying to, that is focused on your identity, you want to change your identity, well, you just need to know that that's going to bring up a lot of stuff for you, because you have so many habits around who you've been in your current role. So what happens is, the subconscious mind tries to keep the current program running. Meaning, keeping you where you are. So what do I mean by that? I mean thoughts like this, "is it going to be possible for me to get the job that I want?" You've heard of this, right, Phillip? All time.

Phillip Migyanko 03:17

All the time.

Angela Barnard 03:18

People are always asking, that, "what if it doesn't work out? Will I make enough money? Did I just waste my time doing the thing that I'm doing now? Do I have to go back to school? Why would anyone want to hire me when I don't have any experience in the field that I want to switch to?" So this all these thoughts will be triggered for you. This is normal, because the subconscious part of your mind wants to keep that program running. So it's kinda like showing you how it might be unsafe to step into this tack territory that is unknown. This is what your brain does to survive, it's what its been doing. What I'm trying to say here is that, you need to acknowledge that it's gonna happen, like, through this process, stuff is going to show up for you and some of those negative thoughts may show up for you. So in a nutshell, I'm saying that this is totally normal, and makes sense how the mind works. The next question we want to ask is now that we know that this is going to show up for you, how do we work with it? That's what we're talking about in our next tip. So the next tip is to notice and reframe. So I want you to notice the negative chatter that's showing up. I call this "my trash" kind of like you have trash in the house, right, that's building up. You don't just keep it in there, let it stink up everything, right? You take it out, right? Do something with it. So that's how I kind of see this. The mind trash shows up, some of those thoughts that don't serve you may show up, and now, what? You can reframe it, shift it into something different. So instead of thinking like it's not going to work out for me or thought similar to that, shifting it to something like it hasn't happened yet because something better is coming.

Phillip Migyanko 04:52

Yeah. Well, it's interesting because one of the things that's in there, so internally at Happen To Your Career, one of the big things that we do, first thing when people start the program or working with a coach is we try to identify, what are those mindsets. What are those things that are going to get you in the way? Essentially, what are those stories that you tell yourself? And the way that I talked about with clients, and Ang, I bet you talked about this too, and I use some Brene Brown language in here. And I talked about the Gremlins in the back of your head, what's that voice say to you in the back of your head? You know, the one that when you wake up at 2am, and that wakes you up, and you're like, you can't go back to sleep because it's an anxious feeling, like, what's that voice saying to you? Because often what we see with all of our clients or people who really start a big change is that they've got this internal subconscious story that they're telling themselves, that isn't actually going to serve them. And for every single person that we work with, and you might find this for yourself, too, is that they come with this baggage from good work experience, bad work experience. And I have a client I was working with a couple of weeks ago, and we were talking about that where he got to the point of burnout where he was going to take FMLA, and that's the Family Medical Leave Act, because he just was so burned out, and he didn't know how to talk with his supervisor about, "I'm burnout, I need some time." And long story short, we got down into the baggage and what he was struggling with was his last company before that. The last time he was brought up, he was burned out, so they put him on a performance plan. And you might be rolling right now like, "Oh, crap" when those performance plans, because for most people, what that means is they start managing those people out and that's what happened to him. So he came with a lot of this internal baggage from what happened to him previously, is going to happen to him now. And what happens for so many people is where their focus goes, that's where their energy goes. And what can happen here is that if we aren't at least acknowledging and validating what those are, then those scripts are actually going to be the driver of the ship and it's going to drive us right off course. And then what you and your coach do with tip number two is we notice and reframe it like, "Alright, what's that thing?" And then one of the good aspects about coaching is, you have an external partner to reframe a lot of those things in your head. So yeah, when you were talking about that, those are the things that I was thinking about and brought up, especially for how we see it a lot with our clients.

Angela Barnard 07:23

And it's so helpful to have that external person. And this is why, Phillip and I, were actually just talking about us having our own coaches, because we're not, like, we are all human beings, and we all, like, if you're listening right now, you have this in common with us that you want to uplevel in your life. So that means that the mind needs to change to align the habits. And what's helpful is when you have someone supporting you in this process, to be the observer and see that stuff showing up for you. Because a lot of times, we don't even notice it ourselves until it's brought up by someone else, and you're like, "Oh, yeah, I do see how that thought is not serving me."

Phillip Migyanko 08:01

Yeah, or even to reframe it into positive stuff too. Because it can go in both directions for a lot of people. So that noticing and reframing is huge here.

Angela Barnard 08:13

Yeah, definitely. And I was thinking about, like, I have some set beliefs or thoughts that I've run regularly. Because I constantly notice, like, my mind trash that shows up especially, like, when I wake up in the morning, like, I have this thought– it's like you're running behind, you know, something like that, that always shows up for me. That does not serve me because it causes me to feel anxious right away first thing in the morning. And it's like, behind on what? Like, I just woke up, you know, like, I want to have this conversation back with it. And anyway, so one of the things I always tell myself is like, "I will reframe it", I noticed it and then I reframe it to something like, I'm right where I'm supposed to be, and everything is happening for me. And that's what I mean when, like, going through this whole process is to work with your brain and how it works.

Phillip Migyanko 08:54

Well, this is how I usually talk about it with people who come into the process, or they might be thinking about this already, they started, and I was like, "Listen, this stuff is hard. There's a reason why most people are in roles that they really don't like and they're not engaged with. And it's mostly because that's the easy path." And that's not to judge them. That's not to say anything because sometimes life is just hard and that's, like, that's not your highest priority. And that's totally okay.

Angela Barnard 09:22

Oh my gosh, Phillip. So I was just thinking about, like, when I was in high school, I loved running, and I know you do too, but like I was a runner in high school, so I ran cross country. And I remember the sweater, you know, your coats on the back of your sweaters and stuff back in the day, the hoodies. So our sweater or team sweater said, "Of course it's not easy. If it was, everybody would be doing it." And it was because we had, like, eight people on our cross country team. But anyways, I remember thinking it was so dumb. When you're younger, you know, like, you don't think like you didn't know but I was like, "why do we even have this?" But now, I always think about that quote and I realized like when it comes to, living your best life and like doing work that is really meaningful to you, that gets you excited every day, there's a reason why the stats show that there are far like less people enjoying what they do than those that are hating, in a sense, what they do every day. There's a reason for that. Why? Because it's not an easy process to align with what it is that I feel like is meant for you.

Phillip Migyanko 10:23

Yeah. And the thing underneath the thing there, right, is that for a lot of people they can get stuck in the... "this is hard." And at least for what I do, sometimes, I see this for a lot of people, they take it then internally or they'll go, "Well, I must not be doing something right. I'm not enough. I..." Anything that then takes it back to one of those scripts that you're telling yourself what we were just talking about from before.

Angela Barnard 10:51

Because you make it mean something about you as a person, instead of separating it from yourself, which is what we're going to talk about in one of our other tips coming up. But you know, I said one of my favorite mantras, I call it a mantra is, "everything is happening for me." And I also have, "I'm right where I'm supposed to be." I also have, "I'm grateful for where I am, I'm excited about where I'm going." These are things I share with my clients. I share those things, and some people like to write them down, and they adopt that because it's like thoughts that I have found that have been really helpful in my journey to uplevel. So I'm curious, Phillip, for you, what is like one of those statements for you that helps you gets stay positive as you're upleveling, as I would call it.

Phillip Migyanko 11:32

So there's a couple things that I say to myself that I do. If you have ever been on a call with me or things like that, you know I have this giant wall calendar. And above that, I have this quote, I heard it from Tim Ferriss, but Tim Ferriss got it from somebody else, but it's basically, "Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life." I was personally going through this through my own career change a while back. And one of those things that for me, the reason I use that one is because part of this process, it's a high degree of participation, meaning that I have to make some hard choices here. And that this is actually really, really, really difficult. One of the other things that I use that I would say to myself the most often is I remember reading something. There's a whole bunch of books around the self help stuff and things but one of them that I actually liked, or at least spoke to me at the time, was almost gamifying your life. So I thought about myself as a character in a story. So I've pictured myself as like Frodo in the Lord of the Rings, or like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. And like, you could tell we're all pretty nerdy here. But more of the story is that I thought about this more as a point in the process of the journey. And that, this was like an inflection point in the story. Do you have any other things that you do as far as to keep negative chatter from taking over?

Angela Barnard 12:58

Oh, that's a good question. I have a quote down here because I love my quote. So I'm just going to read this one, is "To nip the bud before you have to burn down the forest." So I always try to check myself. When I start to feel that dip in my energy or like I get mad or frustrated, whatever it is, I'm like, "What am I making this mean?" And really challenge that thought, and is that serving needs to have that thought? So I'm thinking about recently, like, sometimes I can have this thought of "I'm a hot mess", then that makes me feel like crap, you know, to think that. And then realize, and like stopping and being like, how true is that? Really, because the one of the compliments I get the most is that people are like, I feel like you're so intentional about everything you do. And I don't always feel that way. But when I started to like, collect evidence of that, I feel like it serves me to tell myself that I am intentional. And then I start to find evidence of that versus saying I'm a hot mess. So I just kind of like really pay attention to how I'm feeling, and then I have to stop and back it up and be like, "Okay, what are you thinking that's causing you to feel that way?" But it always starts with noticing the feeling first, and then I backtrack.

Phillip Migyanko 14:05

Well, it's something that you mentioned earlier, too, starting off the morning already feeling behind. And I know for me, if I feel behind, if I'm starting off the day feeling behind, then I'm going to like go to my email inbox and then try to respond to every single email and then basically rushed through the day like I am collecting, like, plates in this China store and then like breaking half of them and then I don't know.

Angela Barnard 14:31

Then you act like the person that is always rushing, but you start to act like that. And that's where the identity stuff comes in when I talk about, like, the subconscious mind, but this is a thing coming to our tip number three that I want to bring up which is, like, acting like it's someone outside of you, or separate from you that is saying those things to you. And it's almost like you're talking... you can talk back to it. So it doesn't run your life because what a lot of people do is they let that those thoughts run their life, they make it a part of them and their identity. So one of the best strategies, separate it from you. So some of my clients know that we've done this work, because I will often have people name that voice, name it. So mine is named Lucy. And I say things like, well, Lucy will often tell me things like, "I don't know if you can handle that", or like just negative thoughts when I want to switch and change something. And I know why. Because it's almost like a scared little child, that part of you that wants to stay safe. Your brain is wired for safety and survival, not for necessarily thriving and growing. Like it's more concerned with safety. So we know that about ourselves. So like, I think about it as like you have a vehicle, and like my person, Lucy, can be in the car with me, right? She can share her opinions on things about where we're gonna go and all that good stuff. But she's not gonna control the radio, and she doesn't control the steering wheel. And I'm like talking back to her, like, I see you, I can see why you'd be scared– you've never done something like that before. No wonder why you feel that way. This is where we're talking about, like, acknowledging and validating– validating those feelings are so important. And you will often hear coaches do this because it feels good to just have that part of you be seen and heard. Like, it always feels good to me when I have my coach say, "Of course you'd be stressed out, you have a lot going on in your life." And I'm like, "I know."

Phillip Migyanko 16:25

Well, this is... I mean, and this will bring us back into like the next hip, which is, it's the idea that we all have to take care of ourselves. So I often think about to kind of what we're mentioning here from a positive mindset thing is, it's way more complex than saying a mantra to yourself every day. It's more about what are the things that you're doing both from an internal and external thing to help make sure that you're taking care of yourself. So when I'm thinking about taking care of you, and that's really our tip number four, since you know this change is going to bring up stuff for you, and so much of that really is part of inner control and out of control, you essentially need to focus on what's in your control. And what happens for so many people in this process is they just focus on stuff that they can't control. I know, Ang, they come in, they talk about, "what's going on with the economy?" or they'll go, "I sent an email to this person, I've had to follow up three times, and they're not responding back to me." Or the focus on so many things that take them off of essentially what they can do and where they need to focus, what's in their control. And basically getting down to the basics of being human, which really means showing up. And how you show up the best is to be able to take care of yourself, keep your energy high, and really be able to always do your best, especially in this transition. That's the thing you can control. Did you do your best? Did you do your best when you're coming on with your session with your coach? Did you do your best when you're about to go into conversation? Are you doing your best even at the job that you hate? Are you going and going "alright, you know, at least I'm doing my best here"? And sometimes that's good. Other days, that's not. That's okay, we are all human here. And what I think for so many people, what happens in this process is they over time, and we're all human, me and Ang have both been there, is they do things to essentially take care of themselves less and less and less. So they'll get less sleep, they won't exercise as much, they won't spend as much time with their family, like every... if one problem happens, then a lot of other things tend to go away. So what I usually do for myself to at least counteract that, is that, if I am eating well, if I'm sleeping well, if I'm exercising, if I am prepared. So I do a lot of planning, I've got a planner, I do all those things. But essentially, the thing underneath all that stuff is, I like to feel like I'm ahead, like, I feel like I know what's coming.

Angela Barnard 19:04

You control what you can control, like, those are the things that you can control. And as human beings, we all have this kind of we want to control stuff. So control the things that you can. I think about it, like, you being intentional about the things that you can, give your energy to that, especially if you know it's something that makes you feel good, versus giving your energy to something that's out of your control, like the economy or what someone is going to say back to you.

Phillip Migyanko 19:30

The best way to think about this is we all have a battery every single day, essentially of our willpower. And the more thought, the more energy that you're giving to things that essentially are outside your control, that battery goes down. Which means, when you can start focusing on things you want to control, you're either at a much lower battery or you are depleted. So that then means that you're showing up for the things that you can't do in a way different state and essentially less effective. So what we do with our clients a lot is, or at least what I'm doing a lot with my clients in the first session is like, don't focus on this, don't focus on that, don't focus on this, just do this. And it's really like, controlling when you... the things you need to do. So focus on what's in your control. Ang you were just going into it, but what do you do?

Angela Barnard 20:20

So a big thing that I do is really just taking care of myself well, and making sure my energy is high, so I can maximize opportunities when they come my way, versus feeling like... yeah, I don't... I know this is true for you too, Phillip, it's like, the clients that really are able to land the jobs that are really in alignment with them, a big thing that they do differently is they keep their energy high, they take good care of themselves. Because let's be real, if you don't have the basics stuff, you know, the basic things, like, think of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, kind of thing. You don't have the basics of sleep, you're sleeping enough, you're eating the right foods, you're moving your body, you're going out in nature, like if you weren't even doing like the basics, then how can you expect to like uplevel, and maximize opportunities if the basics aren't even being met. So like in our, we're gonna go into this in our next tip, but kind of alluding to this is that it's really important, like during this process that you're really intentional with your time and taking care of you, like, taking care of you has to be a part of this whole process of your basic things. So like, for me, the things that I do, like, everyday, like, I call it "The Three M's." So it's mindfulness, movement, and mastery. So like every day, if I spent some time being mindful like, and I like to journal a lot and get my thoughts out, I kind of also think about this is like, when you feel really overwhelmed, this is a strategy that I use, is I start writing things out, I kind of think about it as like, when I feel like I'm slowing down, my energy is dipping, because I'm feeling overwhelmed. It's kind of like a computer that has too much stuff on it, and maybe I need to get a hard drive and start taking some stuff off so it can run faster. And your brain is really not meant to store a ton and ton and ton of information. That means, we really don't remember, like, a lot of things. So anyways, taking it out of your head, putting it somewhere else will really, like, free up more energy for you. So that's my form of mindfulness is that journaling component. And then movement, always moving my body, like, I show up better when before, you know, I have a session or even just like being a better wife, daughter, sister, and all the things, I show up better when I've moved my body and I'm taking care of myself and being a good, what I would consider a good all those roles I just listed. A big part of that is, like, me taking care of myself. So my energy is better in those situations. And it always involves some kind of movement for me ahead of time. And then mastery is where every day I tried to spend time working on something that I just want to move forward. That's for me. That's not just for everybody else. And that's when I feel my best. So a lot of times with my clients, I'm often asking them these kinds of questions like, What are you doing to get your thoughts out? Are you exercising? Like a lot of times, if you're my client, I will ask you a lot about your exercise routine and your whole life and all the things because I know that in order for you to be successful through this process, you got to be taken care of you. And that brings me to our next tip, which is really to be intentional with your time. So Phillip, tell everybody like one of the things that we make everybody do when they join Career Change Bootcamp.

Phillip Migyanko 23:26

Yeah, well, not only just join Career Change Bootcamp, but this is what we do when people join our team too, like, if I can make this requirement for every single person in my life, I would totally do that. But the thing that we do is like being really intentional with your time. And what that means in practicality is, we're having you basically do what we call a "master schedule". And maybe you've heard this before, maybe you're like, "Oh no, Phillip's gonna get on the soapbox about master schedule again." But really what this is, it's the concept of time blocking. I think if you boil down people to their top priorities, you can look at two different things. We can look at, one, how do you spend your money? And essentially, how do you spend your time? And essentially, your time is where your largest priorities, or where you're going to go. So this is the thing that I'm always talking with my clients is, I really appreciate when they come in and they go, like, "I put, like, blocks of CCB on here. I'm gonna work on this stuff all the time, and like, five hour blocks" and like, "That's great. Thank you so much for doing that." But hey, what are you doing for self care? Like, where are you doing the things that you enjoy? Like, let's make sure that time is actually blocked. So if self care or some sort of actual, whatever you have self care is actually on your master schedule, if it's not already, it should be. And to be more specific, don't just put self care on your master and go, "This is 8am to 9pm, it's self care time." And then what's gonna happen is you're gonna get to 8am and you're like, "What do I do for self care again?" Be as specific as possible about what that looks like for you, for a lot of people, it's different. But I'm just going to make an assumption here, probably what that means for most people is getting away from your phone or any sort of social media and technology, that generally means getting some form of outside or away from the busyness of life. And it also probably means moving in some sort of way. So for me, this means morning walks, sometimes this means exercise, sometimes this means run, sometimes this means just literally going to my backyard, and then just having lunch in my backyard without any technology, whatever that means that for you, this can also mean you are having time with people that you love, or scheduling time for essentially having fun. This will make sure that you are not only just moving through the process, but thriving through the process. Like I said before, and like Ang said before, this career change process is hard. And we essentially have to go, how do we make this enjoyable for you? And what I often find with a lot of our clients is that, if they are finding progress, and other points of their life, or having fun and other points of life, this makes this so much more enjoyable, because it's already hard enough anyway. So essentially, master a master schedule. Now, you might be in a position where you're like, "Well, I don't really have control over my work day. But so that's just blocks of time. So that doesn't seem as applicable to me." That's usually one of the things I hear all the time.

Angela Barnard 26:28

Yeah. And then it's like the time before and after, what do you have control over though?

Phillip Migyanko 26:32

Yep. And then also the weekends and things like that, or what's the stuff you can consume, even if you're on a commute on the way to work and the way from work and things like that. So if that happens, then we have to make sure that we are being very intentional with your time, because what can happen, that can go really fast. And this is what Ang and I also talked about all the time, which is, this is all easier said than done. I personally look at my master schedule every three to four weeks, and I go, "Is this still in alignment for what I'm looking to do? Am I honoring this? Or am I like looking at time and like passing by anyways? And how do I change this up? And being very intentional about where do I operate the best? Does my schedule reflect that?" and all those kinds of things. I know, this is something like being intentional with your time. But even this master schedule stuff, that's stuff, mean, you talked about, I know if it's every week, but it's probably almost every other week or stuff like that.

Phillip Migyanko 28:12

Well, it goes back to that. So the other thing that you might be thinking as you're listening to this would be, "That's easy for both them to say. They both work remotely, they can control their schedules, blah, blah, blah", any other limiting stories you might be saying yourself. And sure, maybe that might be true, that doesn't necessarily matter. What matters is that really underneath being intentional about your time, it actually has really nothing to do with time, it has actually more to do with priorities, like, how are you managing your priorities. And if you look at your calendar, and you spend your time sitting on the couch, watching whatever just came on Disney plus or Netflix or whatever streaming service that you have, and you're like, "I don't have time to read books", like, wait a second here. Let's look at where your priorities are. And it's high level priority management, which is a very difficult skill to learn. And that's one of the first things that we teach our clients is, how do you prioritize? And what we know is the better that you prioritize things that give you energy, like taking care of yourself as to things usually correlate is, it leads to better overall feeling through the process, and that then translates...

Angela Barnard 27:26

And the same is true for like with my clients, we are always having... we're always learning from our master schedule, like, you will potentially put things down that you're going to focus on, I call these "focus blocks", where it's like you're blocking out time and focusing on specifically myself care doing XYZ or focusing on, you know, quality time, like I put in my calendar... My calendar is filled with, like, fun things, it's filled with time for learning, time for creating, it's because those are the things I value most. The things that you value most should be in your calendar. And one of those top things that you should value most is yourself. So that needs to make it in the calendar, right? And then the time for fun. It's like prioritize having fun. That is the number one thing I hear people say is they're not having enough fun. And I'm like, "Well, are you prioritizing it? Is it in your calendar?"

Angela Barnard 29:21

Better results.

Phillip Migyanko 29:22

Better results. Exactly. So if you don't have time, it's usually not really a time thing. Sometimes it might, but generally it's not. But it's, what are your priorities?

Angela Barnard 29:33

It's a priority thing. And I think one of the things I'm, like, so passionate about is just like helping people intentionally design their life and that has to do with like looking at your time and see where it's going and then asking yourself, "do you want it to go there? Are you living in alignment with who you want to be? Truly? Are you?" That was something I asked myself a while back, you know, and I was like "No, I'm not." Because I don't want to spend, intentionally, spend my days watching Netflix all night when that doesn't move me forward in my life.

Phillip Migyanko 30:03

That happens to me when I'm like feeling really drained after each day of the week or looking at myself, I'm like, "why am I not getting anything done?" And then usually, that's what Scott always comes back to me and go, "So how do you spend your time? Let's look back at your master schedule." And what's the question you can ask yourself, depending on how much you have control over your schedule, if it's a little, if it's a lot, whatever it is, if you could wipe everything clean, how would you spend your time? And then literally, put that as your schedule. Now, there might be a distance between how you spend your time now, and where you're wanting to go, that's okay. The bigger thing is, what are the little things you can do to get there. So if your goal might be you want to read more, and on your master schedule, you have like hour blocked to read and write a whole thing, and like, "Phillip, realistically, that can't happen." That's okay. Instead, maybe that's 15 minutes, maybe that's 10 minutes, maybe that's you read a page. Regardless, you're doing one action to get closer to the life that you want, instead of letting the fear drive the bus, all those kinds of things we're talking about before and just hoping and wishing that something would happen without actually you putting it as a priority and doing something about it. Even a tiny action. This is what we... Ang, I don't know if you see this all the time too, people have this zero or 100 mentality, and it just throws people off, you're like, "No, you don't have to go do everything at once. In fact, that's not how things actually happen."

Angela Barnard 31:33

And that's not even how your brain works. Like, it's all like these micro changes that lead to the results that you want, you need to build the habit. So you want to start small, like you would build a snowball.

Phillip Migyanko 31:42

And that's part of the positive mindset here is it's not just about doing everything really big, it's trying to figure out and go, "what are all the little things that are going to get my way, whether it's the feelings that I have, the baggage that I'm coming in with, how I'm doing those things, and ultimately, essentially gonna do about it, like taking care of myself, putting it in the calendar, making sure I'm actually doing it when I put it in the calendar."

Angela Barnard 32:06

It's the "when" question. That's the thing that you really need to think about is like, all of us have these different goals and dreams like we all do in some way, even if you're like, you've made me feel like, "Oh, I don't know what my goals are", there's still things that you're desiring every day. So the next question to think about is like, "when are you going to work on that being that person?" I see people all the time who set goals, but there's nothing in their calendar that shows when they're working on those goals. And it's like, well, of course, it's not gonna be a reality for you when you... there's nothing like prioritizing– you're not prioritizing your time to be that person.

Phillip Migyanko 32:40

Yeah, I'll find the time, I'll find the time to do this or find the time to do that. And there's like, it doesn't always work that way. And part of having a positive mindset here is that you have to be making progress and things outside, essentially, of this career change stuff.

Angela Barnard 32:57

Yes, you're the common denominator, like between everything, you know, and it's like, a lot of times I see in this process that people always want something externally outside of them to change so much. And the reality is, it is like you have to change first in order to have that external thing change. And the fact is, like, if you always think like, "this job is gonna get me exactly what I want", like, it takes your power away, you know, when it's always based on something externally outside of you for you to feel better. So I see that the people that create just really cool results in their life, it's because they focus on themselves what they can control and keeping their energy high. And that's why it's so helpful to have a coach that helps you like, this is why Phillip and I both have coaches, it’s because we know, like, this energy stuff has to do with everything that we create in our life, like we really, like, and we're sharing these tips, guys. And this is stuff that we struggle with, like being intentional with our time as far as our master schedule. Like it's a regular conversation between us where it's like, "Oh, I noticed this really drains my energy. What if I shifted this?" Some of the things that we've even been brainstorming is, you know, we all have zoom fatigue, a lot of us at least, where you're on Zoom constantly and the same is true for our clients. And we're like, "Well, what if we could have more sessions where we walk to, and then we also get more exercise, and we also get out in nature, and that's what some of us want to do?" So it's like sometimes looking at your schedule and your time, like there's so much opportunity there where you can shift things around to align with how you want to feel but it starts with you actually like noticing the stuff first. Look at how you're spending your time, start to be intentional with it and realize that we're going to shift things around. We're going to learn from this whole experience. No one has ever created a master schedule. No one in history– I'm just gonna say, has ever created a master schedule and followed the exact thing to the tee. No, like it does not happen, like, you learn from it. And sometimes you realize too, you're like, well, that's kind of dumb for me to schedule something during that time because that's when my energy is the lowest, that makes no sense. And sometimes we call each other out, like, Phillip will be, like, "Why or do you have it scheduled out for you to work that late?" I'm like, "yeah"

Phillip Migyanko 34:59

Or people will put, like, "you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to work. I'm going to work on all this career change stuff right when I get home from my long commute." I'm like, "Oh..."

Angela Barnard 35:08

You're right. When I get home from the job that I can't stand, my energy's the lowest ever. And then I'm trying to feel inspired to work on this. It's like, I had a conversation recently with the client about this, more like, "you know, is your energy good here?" And she's absolutely not. I'm like, "Well, then why did you choose to work on that during that time?" It's like, "I have people calling me out on the same kinds of things."

Phillip Migyanko 35:26

I didn't say not to call you out, but to call you out. So Ang, she took this awesome, amazing trip to Italy. And she was getting back on a Tuesday. And she was planning on working on the next day Wednesday. And I looked at Ang, and I was like, "Hey, Ang, so just speaking from experience here. I know this is a trip, I know you want to get back in when it gets start working, but what I have learned is, on vacation if I get back, I should always take the next day off." And she's like, "I should probably do that."

Angela Barnard 35:56

And I was so grateful that you said that because I loved having that time to adjust back. And plus, it was a big time difference I was adjusting to, and it's just... we're all... the point here is that we're all learning through this whole process about, like, what can we do... I use this language of getting better into alignment, to design our life very intentionally, and it's not easy to do. That's why there’s so many people out there who don't enjoy what they do every day, who live a life where they feel like they're just going through the motions and they feel down. It's like they don't know how to be more intentional about it. And this is why we're sharing this podcast with you guys, because these are five things that we've learned that have been really helpful to people when it comes to, I would say, not only having a positive mindset during career change, but intentionally designing your life.

Phillip Migyanko 36:43

Those are super powerful. So yeah, so recap, what are those five tips?

Angela Barnard 36:47

So tip number one, just to recap here, is to acknowledge that your mind will want to go negative sometimes, especially when you're trying to change your life for the better, become a different person, it's normal, that's the subconscious mind doing what it does, trying to keep you in the same position. So I want you to acknowledge and validate that. Now you need a plan to handle that. So notice it, tip number two is to notice it and reframe it. So this is where some, like, pick a thought that really serves you and have that running like when you notice the negative thought play it back, the thought that serves you. This is not just about some, like, "Oh mantra. I am a statement, like, fluffy stuff here." This is you training your brain, training your mind to be who you want to be. And then the third thing is to name that negative scared voice, name it. Like I said, mine was Lucy. Then the fourth tip is to take care of you. Prioritize taking care of you during any transition, you're moving, you have other major life transitions, relationship stuff, all the things, prioritize taking care of you first. You need that foundation there so you can keep your energy up to deal with the changes that are coming. And then the fifth tip is to be intentional with your time. And you know what that means, you know what you need to do, you need to prioritize and schedule your time out, tell it where it's gonna go. Don't just wait for life to, like, take your time and other people steal your time, you decide very intentionally where it's gonna go. So you can be proud of how you lived your life. That's it. Mic drop. Have an awesome day, bye.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:24

Many of the stories that you've heard on the podcast are from listeners that have decided they want to take action, and taking the first step of having a conversation with our team to try and figure out how we can help. And if you want to implement what you have heard, and you want to completely change your life and your career, then let's figure out how we can help. So here's what I would suggest, just open your phone right now and open your email app. And I'm going to give you my personal email address, scott@happentoyourcareer.com just email me and put 'Conversation' in the subject line. And we can absolutely connect you with my team. I'm not answering my email right now, but I have a team member, Kate, who absolutely will make sure that you get connected with our team and the right person on our team so that we can figure out the very best way that we can help with that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:20

Hey, I hope you loved this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And if this has been helpful, then please share this podcast with your friends, with your family, with your co-workers that badly need it. Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you next week.

Liz McLean 39:38

If you are using your resume as the thing that helps you switch, what that's doing is putting you into a pool of other candidates. You're being evaluated based on that piece of paper, and they may have a traditional background in that career already with a good 20 plus years experience.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:02

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.

Angela Barnard 00:01

When I think people are really saying when they say I want to be more creative, because I hear this all the time as a coach, I feel like what they're really saying is I want to live in more of an alignment. I want to feel better about what I'm doing. I want to feel good. I want to have more fun. It's like this feeling that they're really chasing.

Introduction 00:23

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:48

Okay, it's Scott. But you're not going to hear from me in this episode, because I'm taking some of our HTYC advice, and I'm stepping away from work. And this time for an entire month to be able to spend time with my family, and unplug. So I'm not going to be on this episode, or the next few. I am leaving you in great hands, of the Happen To Your Career podcast team, I know you're gonna love it.

Angela Barnard 01:09

Have you ever thought, I just want to do something more creative for work, but struggled how to make that a reality for you? If so, listen up, because you're in for a treat. Today, on the HTYC podcast, you're hearing from me, my name is Ang. I'm one of the career coaches on the team. And you're also hearing from another member on our team, Celena. So Celena is in charge of our book projects, and she also happens to be a fellow HTYC podcast listener. She was a former career coaching client. You heard that right. She used to be a client before she ended up working on the team. So it's really cool, because we get to get her perspective around that thought that she used to have, like, I want to do more creative work. So Celena, tell us a little bit about that thought, like, when you had it and what did it led to.

Celena Singh 02:03

I wanted to add one thing about me, is that I retired from the corporate world last year. And that is what led me to working with Happen To Your Career. And in my previous life, in my corporate life, I had so many thoughts about bringing creativity into... I used to work in safety, and safety is not the most exciting topic for people. So how can we bring in some creativity? And I really wanted to start a podcast. And it just didn't happen because work was piling on all the time. And I linked that because I'm in my early 20s, I wanted to become a sports broadcaster. So I can relate to so many jobs that I had that I wanted to become. We use creativity, but because I wasn't in a creative role, I thought that things that I was thinking about was not creative.

Angela Barnard 02:57

Yeah. And I was listening actually to something recently about, like, our thoughts around creativity. And a lot of us tend to think, because I think we've been trained this way, to think of being creative, like, it's only for the arts, specifically, music, drawing, like, things like that. And I think we've even been, like, programmed that way to believe that like, even in our school system around, like, what we thought was creative stuff. So then we, like, grow up, and we're in roles and we think like, well, "because I'm not, you know, a musician or legit like, artist, then I'm not creative." Like we start to, like have these beliefs, but there's still that desire in us that wants to be more creative that we're seeking. So that got me thinking about the whole definition of being creative and what that is. And I was on Google, Googling, like, "what is creativity". And really, in a nutshell, it just means that you are creating something, right? Or you're using your imagination to create something new. And when you think about it that way, it's like, all of us are creative in some way. And what I think people are really saying when they say, "I want to be more creative" because I hear this all the time as a coach, like, I always hear people say, "I want to do work that's more creative." I feel like what they're really saying is... I want to live in more in alignment. I want to feel better about what I'm doing. I want to feel good. I want to have more fun." It's like this feeling that they're really chasing.

Celena Singh 04:29

Yeah, that's almost like a psychologically safe environment that they can be themselves

Angela Barnard 04:33

Yes, that's it! It's, like, being in alignment where you can be yourself and you can, like, work to create something that you like to create.

Celena Singh 04:41

And you don't feel judged or, you know, you can really create. And I feel, like, working at Happen To Your Career and working with the coach that I did, really opened me up to realize that a lot of things I was doing more outside of my job was creative, and it's like, "that's creative." It's like, yeah, but you're looking for something. You're looking for that thing, right, that makes you feel good, makes you feel in alignment, right?

Angela Barnard 05:09

Yeah. And when we think about being in alignment, it's like some people might be like, "Oh, what do you, like, really mean by that?" I feel like it's a term, like, Celena and I are like, but... so we're always chatting about, we just geek out about all this stuff.

Celena Singh 05:21

We can just flow into conversation, right?

Angela Barnard 05:23

Yeah. And it's like, really like the whole getting into alignment. We always, like, mentioned those terms. And it's like, you know, like, when you're in the zone, or you just feel really good, you feel lighter. You see a lot of people that we think of as creative. Like when they get in the zone, it's like, you want that. It's like, I see you going into the zone. I want that.

Celena Singh 05:40

Like when Oprah would interview someone, right? And she would get into that zone. And you really know she did her research, because she would be like, "Oh, on page this..." like, she was just so...she used her voice, her kind of boss style, and to kind of twist if she could on one minute, like question somebody and the next minute, she's like, making the person cry. Right? So everybody has it. It's finding that and channeling it so that you can go with this, you know, go with the flow of it, and let it guide you.

Angela Barnard 06:12

So when you think about that feeling of being in the flow, like, doing work that I would say is creative, what are some of those things that you do now to add creativity into your life, or that is creative to you?

Celena Singh 06:25

So many things. So after I retired, I decided to start a podcast, I had no idea how to do a podcast. So I researched how to do a podcast and I wanted to... it wasn't something I wanted to do for a living, it was more I wanted to share my story. And that was a creative way to do that. And I learned something and I connected with people. But also so many things, I do yoga, meditation, I became a holistic nutritionist. I started learning how to play the piano during COVID. I just recently started an apprenticeship to learn more about astrology and tarot reading. So those are some of the things that I do for, you know, outside of my job to help me with creativity.

Angela Barnard 07:10

I love that you like pursued your curiosity. Like that's something we always talk about is like being in that energetic state where you follow your curiosity, so that you can align and be that creative person, I think that we want to be, because it's like those feelings that we're really chasing. And when all the things that you said that you did, you know, in your free time, or you're doing now, those are all examples of, like, you being creative, you creating something. The piano stuff, you create music with it. The podcast, you create content that people want to listen to. So it makes me think about like, if you were feeling like this, you're listening now and you're feeling like I want to do more creative work. I want to know, as a coach, just because I'm nosy like this, I want to know like, what do you really mean by that? Do you mean that you want to have more fun, that you want to do something that lights you up? Like what exactly do you mean? Because when you get that clarity, then you can decide what that looks like to you, and then you can take steps to be that person. And I want you to think about in your life, how can you, instead of, like, do something that's more creative, like if I get this job, then I'm more creative, then I can be more creative. I want you to think about how you can be more creative now in your life now. Like, how can you bring that creativity to whatever it is that you're already doing? So that got me thinking, Celena, for you, like, do you have an example of where like, maybe you were doing some work that you thought was kind of boring, and then you like brought creativity to it?

Celena Singh 08:38

Being in roles that I have been in the past, like, I used to do a lot of project management. And project management, a lot of times people, like, it was really boring. And I was also in safety, which is another very boring topic to people. And I loved both of those things a lot. So one of the things that I like to do is, even in my role at Happen To Your Career, any anytime I'm doing a project, is I really like to get to know the people who I'm going to be working with so that I get to know like how to work with them the best. So I feel like that's something creative, that engaging and building relationships with people, not just managing the project and making sure everybody's getting things done. It's building relationships, engaging with the team, and even how we manage the project, like listening to people's ideas and how we can work collaboratively together. How can we track things and you know, see, like, as we're working on a project where we started and where we ended up and that journey that everyone's been on, so I love to incorporate that somehow, and that didn't always come across very well in different roles I was in, because there was like, "why we're just gonna track things?" and I thought, well, sometimes people can feel more creative and inspired if they see that people really care about what they're doing. Even if somebody was doing one thing on a project, if they didn't do that one thing, it can affect the entire project. So seeing, visually seeing their progress and results and where we came from is something I really like to bring into my work.

Angela Barnard 10:15

Well, I love that. And that makes me think about how, like, what you're actually creating there is like you're creating these joyful experiences. That's what's happening there. And I see you do that often on our team of like, you just point out the goodness that is there. And then from there, this is really what we're talking about is like this energy that we all want to create more of. And if you want more of that kind of creative energy in your life, that joyful, fun energy in your life, what you need to do is generate it. And that's what you did to be more creative. So thinking about in our lives, like instead of always thinking that it needs to be external outside of us, like when I get this creative job, then I get to be more creative. Think now, how can I generate creativity and joy to where I am now even if it's, like, the most boring estate? That, maybe other people would be like, "safety?" What role, you know, snooze, you know, project management, like there's some stuff like that people will be like, "Well, you know, I already do a boring thing." I used to teach a HIPAA class. Okay, HIPAA class that people were required to go to. And I made that thing so much fun, because I remember the first time I taught it, people were like, I could hear the sighing, they did not want to be in the class, people are falling asleep, and it's like, this is so boring, like, I cannot be in the space. And I thought, like, okay, if I'm a creative person, how can I bring creativity? How can I bring joy here? This also reminds me of another statement I love which is this whole concept of rejoice always. So rejoice actually means to bring joy to. I remember when I first heard that concept, I thought it meant like, you know, it's like, okay, so I'm supposed to be happy. And like, the most miserable situations, like, how does that happen? It's like, no, you're being called to bring joy to. So then it made me think about, okay, and that HIPAA class, Ang, you can bring joy to this, you can bring creativity to this, you are in charge of like the energy that's there. Like, if you don't like the energy that's there, then shift it you have power to do so. So what I did was I made up these scenarios where people had to like act out things, like, there was HIPAA violations that would happen, we'd always talk about this is what could happen if you had a HIPAA violation, and you've violated, you know, a patient's privacy or whatever. You're the actor, you're the person that's going to call, you're going to answer the phone, and like yada, yada. So I put people in these different positions. So it was like, it was fun, because we used to, like, have a fake phone and be like, "hello, I'm calling to report..." We just like, laugh so much about this, but it's still like taught the entire concept.

Celena Singh 12:43

And people will remember. People will remember that because you're able to connect with each other rather than just reading slides or reading a book. Right?

Angela Barnard 12:51

Exactly. That's what it's really about. And I think about anything that you're doing, like I don't even care what it is, it's like, you can make it fun, you can bring a great creativity there. You don't need to feel... wait to feel good when you get an X job that's more creative.

Celena Singh 13:06

I think we were talking about this one day, it's like, when we have our status meetings, you're going for a walk. So you know, going for walking meetings, like incorporating nature, you know, just changing things like that. I know, one thing that I learned about recently is something called sentence stem. So you could say something like, "I really want to be a part of this project, because..." and give people like two or three minutes to write down why they want to be part of something, and then you can share it or keep that so that when things get really hard, you can look at that and go, "This is why I wanted to be a part of this" and then you can look at your values again and go, this is lining up with my values, this is lining up with what I really want to do.

Angela Barnard 13:50

Yeah, that's cool. So it's like when you think about it, it's like, what are the creative approaches that you can bring into what it is you're already doing? You can think about it that way. And then sometimes you get ideas. Sometimes you're like, "I still don't resonate with being creative. So I don't know what you're talking about. My dad's going to pick me." Like you still go there. But what if you switched it to kind of like, what else can you do to make this more fun? Because if you think about it, when we're saying, "well, I want to be more creative." A lot of times we're saying, "I want to have more fun. I want to enjoy my life more. I want to live more and more in alignment." What else can you do that to have more fun? How can you bring joy here? How can you bring creativity here? How can you be the light kind of thing? And what I've seen, as a coach, is like when you can do that with where you are and you stop making it about, like, I won't change to feel different until my circumstance changes, like, when you take your power back and you're like I can feel good here where I am, I can be creative here. I can bring joy here. What happens is, you shift into the state where opportunities come your way, more opportunities to be creative, come your way. And I think that's what happened with you, Celena, because if you think about who you used to be to who you are right now, like, you're doing so much creative stuff. Like it's crazy. You could write a whole novel here of all the things that you...

Celena Singh 15:07

I don't even recognize, like, what I felt and what I'm, like, what you're describing, it's almost like embracing things that people want to do as a child, but they, you know, your circumstances or people's expectations get in the way. And now, because I have this freedom, it's my time. I just have this, like, all these ideas that it's like, okay, it's okay that even if it's something people think is stupid, who cares? I can do it if I want to, and or not. And it's just really embracing my inner child is what I feel I've done or I'm doing right now.

Angela Barnard 15:39

Yeah. So that makes me think about how you said, it's like that childlike state of us that we want to like, bring back out where we used to feel like we could be ourselves, we could play. It's like, how can we bring that energy more into whatever it is we're doing. But I think what happens is, like, stuff gets in the way, like you were alluding to, it's like, the rules, like a lot of like structure in rules...

Celena Singh 16:03

Applications, structure, stigma, like stigma gets, like you're saying about, oh well, people who do music, they don't make very much money unless they're, you know, they become Taylor Swift, right. But that's okay if they're happy. And so I think I grew up around that, like, any creative things, like music, or... I was in sports, and that was creative, all of those things I love to do. And then because I was working at a very young age, it was like, that wasn't as important. It was more like, "Oh, you gotta go to school to become a doctor or lawyer." And so all the creative things, they're still there, it's just they get pushed down.

Angela Barnard 16:42

And there's this rule that you have to follow. Like, you need to be this kind of person. Like, I was literally just talking to one of my clients earlier today about this, how he went to law school, and he was talking about what he's interested in now. And instead of like, writing and stuff, like coming up with these stories, and it's so cool, and I can tell you, so like, gifted in that way, and he lights up when he talks about it. And he was like, you know, like, it's really interesting to me, because it's almost like that part of me has been like, no, like, you need to focus on this side, like be a lawyer or do this thing. And then that creative side of him was like, kinda like, tucked away. And he said, in his own mind, he also never thought of himself as a creative person. And now he's like, "Wait, like I am creative. There is stuff I'm interested in where I create things." And, you know, it's interesting to see, like that shift starting to happen. And I think a lot of that unfulfillment that was showing up for him, for a lot of us, is because we desired to be that creative person.

Celena Singh 17:39

And we don't want to be vulnerable about it. Because it's like people like, "why would you want to do that?" You know, it's like, because it lights me up.

Angela Barnard 17:48

Exactly. It makes me think into about like, how energetically if you think about when we start placing rules around how things have to be like, we're like, you have to do something exactly this way, kind of stuff it, like, we're not creative any more about it. I was just listening to an author earlier talk about how... when she knew that she wrote her book, like without a publisher and everything, like she did all of her stuff on her own, because she was like, I know myself, and I know, as soon as they start placing expectations around this whole process, my creativity isn't going to come out. And that makes me think about, like, the workplace and how there's all these expectations around like how people have been behaving, like, even in meetings, like you come to the meeting, you know, starts like this, and it ends like this, yada yada. But like, no one thinks about, like, the creative things we can do to make this meeting more fun. Because that got me thinking about when I was doing consulting work before I came to the HTYC team, I was coaching on my own, and then also doing crisis communications consulting work. So I was working with a lot of governmental contract stuff where we're designing crisis scenarios to train people on how to handle them. So I'm in these meetings with a lot of people, primarily men, I was like, one of two, I think females, and it was random in a very, like, rigid way of like, you know, just boring and not shouting.

Celena Singh 19:02

Like military. Very structured.

Angela Barnard 19:04

It was very much like that. And it would just be... you could tell everybody would disengage. They were never listening. They're always doing something on their laptop, you know, like watching, like, I've seen someone watching YouTube videos like, while someone was, you know, presenting. And I'm just thinking like, they zoned out because it's boring. And I remember being like, "Hey, I have a recommendation. Can we do a quote of the day? Just a quote of the day at the end of the PowerPoint." And I remember that the leader was like, "Okay", and I was like, "Well, I know you like quotes because I remember you shared me that you like these quotes", and he's like, "Yeah, okay." And then I remember he's next PowerPoint, and it had a quote of the day like, I was so proud. And I told him, I was like, you know, "I think other people would really enjoy it, would inspire us, keep us on track, like, you like to do, you know", and he, like, put this quote of the day and it was always like a funny thing. At the end of the PowerPoint, we're all waiting to see what quote he came up with, and it will make people laugh, and it like shifted the energy and I saw people even take their headphones out when they knew the presentation was about to end to like, listen to like the corny quote of the day. But it's like little things like that. These are really what I like to think about it as like energy shifters. I remember also back in the day, when I used to do a lot of auditing when I worked in county mental health, we had to prepare for all these crazy audits. And people would be like, "Oh, it's gonna be hell week, you know, these audits happening." And it's like, that's where people's mind goes. And I'm like, I'm gonna figure out how to make this fun. Like, how can we make this a fun thing. So what we did was like, we brought each other presents, like every day, like, I just did this thing where it's like, we're gonna drive high. Each day, you know, like, we have different presents we're bringing, some small, like, you know, candy bar, or something, I don't know, like tiny little things that, like, got us excited. And then we vow that we were dressing nice that week, we like, put ourselves in this other little room. And then I did like these competitions, because we noticed that we were really low in our performance indicators, with mental health, and I started doing competitions for like, each group where there was like, pizza parties that you get if you won, and like I would display information and like weird, childlike ways. And I remember even having so much mind trash about that– are they going to think I'm silly or whatever. But then you have to remember this, going back to what you said earlier, there is an inner child in each of us that's wanting to come out. And like if we play on that, it's just like, someone has to be the first person on the dance floor so the party starts.

Celena Singh 21:21

Like you were for our fun squad photo challenge. You were like the first one, right?

Angela Barnard 21:26

Oh, yeah, I was. That was fun.

Celena Singh 21:28

You kicked it off. And then everybody started sending the pictures, and everybody was so... it was so much fun. Like nobody really cared who won, it was so cool to share everyone's personality, right, or their inner child for the different categories we had. Like, that's some fun things that we do at work, you know, that helps us to be more creative as well.

Angela Barnard 21:46

So I love that you're bringing up that story. Because at HTYC, we really try hard to practice what we preach. We learned so much, even from our clients, we've all felt like those same feelings. So it's just like a really cool place to be because one of the things we practice is being intentional about having fun, being creative, and things like that. So we have like this, we have our fun squad who like has activities, and you know, like we generate that. So I'm just thinking about those that feel like maybe you work in a boring place, like can you be the change that you wish to see in the world? We need to go back to quotes, you know. Like, how can you start that there? Because what if the creativity and stuff isn't happening because no one's taking ownership to start it and be that person they're waiting? Like they're waiting to like, move to an external thing? Versus like, how can I be creative now because the thing is, if you can bring that to where you are now, watch the doors open for you, the opportunities to be more creative will show up for you. Because now as, Celena and I would like to say, you're in alignment with that.

Celena Singh 22:46

Amen. This is exactly why I started listening to this podcast is because we're very consistent with our message because the message that Scott started when he started his journey, we believe this is, you know, this is the HTYC, not just our why but the why for like what we want for the world, right? People having meaningful work, having a psychologically safe environment to work in, being able to be your inner child and not be judged. And you know, we want to serve the world this stuff so being... It might be hard work at the beginning, but the results and the way you get to live your life going forward is priceless.

Angela Barnard 23:24

Yeah, it's about like, it definitely is priceless because oh, that brings up another thing I always do talk about is because now that I'm here to be, like, selling you on the whole coaching process itself, like, I like to always say, "it was all you on yourself", because it makes me think about the concept of priceless like, when you think about investing in yourself like you did, like you invested into this whole coaching process. Because you know that it was priceless to truly enjoy your life. And you knew that there was like, you needed that clarity, you needed that help and that support and you were willing to invest in yourself to be that person.

Celena Singh 24:03

And ask for help. That was the thing for me, is to ask for help.

Angela Barnard 24:07

Yeah, and I don't know why I brought that up with the whole creative thing, but I just felt like it's in alignment because we're seeking to be more creative, to create more and do more things, you know, like be our true self. But sometimes there's that hurdle, that thing that's getting in the way, and then really what is happening here is you just need help. I kind of think about it as like I'm a hiker, so I always like really everything back to like hiking. Like let's say I'm trying to like hike up these crazy boulders and I just know I want to get over those boulders and get to this top of the mountain have this beautiful view and just really enjoy it, this boulders in the way, and it's like I can't because my bag is heavy. I got the sticks and all the stuff and I'm like trying to get over it and I can't, but maybe I just need to, instead of giving up and just like being like, I guess I can't do this, you know, look to see who can help me, give me a hand to pull me up. And maybe it's someone that's already up there that got there. And that's how I think about with HTYC is like, our whole team, all of us on our team had been in situations where we did not like what we were doing, we felt like we were meant for more.

Celena Singh 25:15

We were looking for our second mountain because we like this valley, right? And it was like helped me start climbing up, but, you know, we're all in these jobs where I can say firstly, where it's making all this money, and, you know, had all these inner side, like, "but I'm not happy", and then you kind of fall into this not so good place. And then that's when you know, HTYC kind of helped save my life, so to speak. Because then, I started asking for help to go up the second mountain, which is more about community and more about serving others and helping others and helping each other. When you say what you said, it resonated with me. And I thought, I have to say this, because we have...we're all supporting each other on our second mountain in life. And that's what we want to do for others.

Angela Barnard 25:59

Exactly. Like, truly, I hope people can hear that, like, what I love about our team is that... and I'm glad that you guys are getting to hear from more of us is that, I believe, we're just authentic, like we really are here to help you– our entire team. So like when you come to work with us as like, even coaches, it's not just us that you get, you have access to our whole team. And we're really cool. But I'm obviously very biased.

Celena Singh 26:21

Very cool team.

Angela Barnard 26:23

Super fun to hang out with. But we just like to give you the space to be your true self, you know, to say how you really feel. So there's one quote, I think, I want to just give to wrap this up. And actually I'm gonna recap two tips, two things that you can do, because I'm all about strategy. But before we get to that, the quote that I just want to say to wrap this up is like, "the reason why you feel so drained is that you're not doing enough of what lights you up." And that's really why you feel that way. So just paying attention to your energy, what else is going to light you up. And maybe you just need to bring a match into the space you're already in and lighten up where you already are. But it's something to think about to get clear... So the tips in a nutshell, in summary, that we think that you should do, the next steps you should take is, number one, get clear on how you want to be more creative/ maybe think about it as having more fun. What exactly would that look like to you? How can you bring it into what you're doing now? And then the second tip relative to the first one is that I want you to think about being a creative person, not just doing creative things, but being a creative person. If you were a creative person, how would you act where you are now? How would you do the work that you're doing now? So think about that, ponder on that, plan it out, like, this week. Can you think of one thing that you can do that's more fun or more creative for you? I think about this comes from like, if you're familiar with the book, "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron, she writes about a play date. Are you familiar with that, Celena?

Celena Singh 27:54

Yes, yeah.

Angela Barnard 27:55

Like having a playdate every week, like one day a week. And I just love that concept of just being committed to like, putting it actually in your calendar that you're going to be creative, you're going to show up creative, at least one of those days, like whatever goes into your calendar, I like to think about it as the things that matter most to you that you want to prioritize. And if you're feeling, if you're asking yourself the question, or you're saying, "I want to do more creative work. How can I do that?" Then that means you got to prioritize being that person now. That's how you become a creative person, is you act like a creative person now. That means, you use your time in that way so it needs to go into the calendar. So in a nutshell, put it in the calendar. Anything else you want to add, Celena, before we go?

Celena Singh 28:36

I would just say just to add to what you're saying, is believe it and you will see it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:40

Hey, I hope you loved this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And if this has been helpful, then please share this podcast with your friends, with your family, with your co-workers that badly need it. Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you next week.

Angela Barnard 29:03

It takes your power away, you know, when it's always based on something externally outside of you, for you to feel better. So I see that the people that create just really cool results in their life, it's because they focus on themselves, what they can control and keeping their energy high.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:22

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.

Kate Wilkes 00:01

It's like, you have this sense of self doubt related to, like, your work or your life accomplishments, like you've done these things, and you're just feeling like a faker. You think it's luck. You don't ever attribute it to your own abilities and your own skills.

Introduction 00:22

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:47

Okay, it's Scott. But you're not going to hear from me in this episode, because I'm taking some of our HTYC advice, and I'm stepping away from work. And this time for an entire month to be able to spend time with my family, and unplug. So I'm not going to be on this episode, or the next few. I am leaving you in great hands, of the Happen To Your Career podcast team, I know you're gonna love it.

Cindy Gonos 01:08

Hey everybody, it's Cindy. I am back for another HTYC team episode. Scott is still in Greece. So we are still taking over the podcast. Today, I am super, super, super stoked to have Kate who is our Chief People Officer here at HTYC. With Me, Kate, why don't you introduce yourself? Tell us a little about yourself.

Kate Wilkes 01:30

Oh yeah, the dreaded question of tell us about yourself. Thanks for that one. That was really nice.

Cindy Gonos 01:34

I already feel you. I want everybody else to get to know you better.

Kate Wilkes 01:38

You do know me. Don't tell everybody that we're work besties because it'll make our other work besties really jealous about us. So yeah, I work with the team. I help Scott out on a lot of stuff so that he can do big things. And they gave me a fancy title, it's called Chief People Officer. I don't know why I gotta say it funky. I just do. But no, I'm excited. I'm not sure the world is ready for us, yeah, but we're gonna do it anyway.

Cindy Gonos 02:02

They're here. They're ready. So just to remind everybody, I'm Cindy. I'm the Director of Client Success, aka usually the first person that you talk to here at HTYC. So Kate, I want to tell you about this dream I had. Do you want to hear about this dream I had? And I think that everybody may be able to kind of relate to this. But I've been having this recurring dream, right. So I'm like, waking up in the middle of night in a cold sweat. It's a nightmare. Like it's recurring. And I'm having it all the time. So I'm here in this large, sterile board room, right? And I am surrounded by a bunch of like, old white dudes in, like, black suits, like, men in black type suits. And for some reason, I am also, myself, an old white dude in a black suit. Right?

Kate Wilkes 02:48

Of course.

Cindy Gonos 02:49

Of course. Because it's my worst nightmare. For any of you that don't know, I am not an old white man. I'm a middle aged white lady. But so I'm in this room, and then all of a sudden, the man next to me, a table, he stands up, and he says, "I've solved the mystery of why our business has been failing." And just like the ending of every Scooby Doo episode ever, he proclaimed, "We have an impostor." And he turns and then he rips off my old man mask. Right? And there I am. And now I don't have a black suit on. I need it, but I have this red nose and like the clown suit, right? Like I'm dressed as a clown. And I look around the room and everybody is just staring at me. And in my gut, I'm like, "I know what they know, man. I don't belong here." And I got up and I shook my fist and like Scooby Doo style, and I say, "I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids."

Kate Wilkes 03:52

Meddling kids.

Cindy Gonos 03:54

What is that about, Kate? Tell me what that is about.

Kate Wilkes 03:58

Oh, you got the imposter syndrome. That's like my worst nightmare. I have it right now. I have it every day.

Cindy Gonos 04:07

So you know we're going to be talking about impostor syndrome. So you've done some research, right? Well, you know some things. So Kate, tell us what you know about imposter syndrome, which you found out.

Kate Wilkes 04:18

Yeah, I've always felt like a bit of an imposter myself. So digging into the why behind it or the reasons that we have it was really eye opening and people that you don't even expect to be imposter have imposter syndrome habits. So yeah, it was exciting to read. And I was just like, every time I was reading something new about it, it's like, you have this sense of self doubt related to, like, your work or your life accomplishments, like you've done these things, and you're just feeling like a faker. Like it's not even because you're awesome that you did these things. You think it's luck, or you know, you don't think it's... you don't ever attribute it to your own abilities and your own skills. So come to find out 70% of us... 70% of us have felt like an impostor at some point. And I even came across an article about Tom Hanks, Emmy Award winning, Master of the big screen, sitting at his house. And he's thinking that we're going to find him out. So even though imposter syndrome is more common in women, there are men, even famous men, even famous old white men, (sorry, Tom, you're not old, you're just older) have this, where you feel like you're gonna have your mask ripped off of your face, right? And it's so uncomfortable to live in that space. You can get burned out, if you stay there if you allow yourself to stay there.

Cindy Gonos 05:58

I hear that for sure. I know a time when that happened to me in real life where I recognized it, right, I was able to recognize that it was imposter syndrome, like right there in the moment. And so I was doing... It was my last interview with the final boss. We'll just call him the final boss. Right? So I'm feeling really confident, like we're chatting, there's a lot of head nodding, and you know the head nodding, like, that's a good thing in an interview. And I was feeling really good. And then all of a sudden, he stopped me. And he said, "What books have you read?" I'm like "Books?" He's like, "Yeah, you know, business books. You know, Think and Grow Rich, Start With Why." And my head is buzzing and I'm thinking, okay, I'm trying to think of books that I've read, business books, he's talking about sales books, all this stuff. And I'm thinking, "He's asking me about this. Why is he asking me about all of these things?" I'm just talking about how I build relationships and how I motivate teams and stuff like that. So I'm like, in my head, screaming, "Cindy!"

Kate Wilkes 07:05

Think of one book.

Cindy Gonos 07:07

Ever read a sales book in your life? Say it now. Say the name of it. I don't even know the name of any sales book. So I was honest, right. So I said, "I don't think I've ever read any sales books." He was shocked, "Never read any sales books?" I shook my head, "No, no. Sales books, leadership books. No." And he said, "How can that be?" I didn't know what to say, so I just shrugged. Right. So I'm trying to play cool. But I'm getting a little bit nervous. Because he's talking about well, "How do you know the strategies? How do you know all these techniques? All these things that we've been talking about, if you haven't read these books?" And he picks up my resume. And he's looking at me, he's looking even more confused. And I'm thinking in my head, "Oh God, what is he looking for?"

Kate Wilkes 07:52

He's trying to connect the dots.

Cindy Gonos 07:54

I guess. In my head, though, the self doubt starts creeping in. And I'm thinking, "Okay, this is when it's going to happen. He's gonna see on my resume that I don't have a college degree. I didn't know any of the books he was talking about." Like, the classic imposter syndrome. I felt like it was. And I pause for a moment, I got my stuff together. And I got it. And I thought to myself, "I know exactly why I'm here. I know exactly how I got here." And now that I'm supposed to be here. And I got my little devilish grin on my face. And I just told him, I said, "You know what? I can tell you exactly how I learned all of this, and how I know all of this." And then, so it began. And that was my fleeting moment with imposter syndrome, right, where I knew I was like, "No. Dude, you're just having imposter syndrome." Have you had that? Have you had that happen to you?

Kate Wilkes 08:47

Yes. I mean, I think I'm the poster child for imposter syndrome. And I think to this very day, in my role working so closely with Scott, I'll always start to say, "Well, I'm not used to doing this or have never done that." And he'll say, "Well, I can give you bullet points of all of the times you've done things equally as good or greater than that. So stop doubting yourself." And you can hear that and you can say, "Yeah, I'm not really a guy under a mask. There's no Scooby Doo moment about to happen here." But I have felt it, you know. Especially when you are in the administrative world where you're assisting other people or teams, you're the last voice to be heard. You know, you have big ideas, but nobody ever cares. So when I joined the team here at Happen To Your Career a couple of years ago, I sat down at the table with the big kids. And even as an admin, you know, Scott looks at me and starts asking me what I think and what my input is. And I'm having that moment of panic in my head, like anything you say, can and will be stupid, like, I have nothing to contribute here. I had to learn how to like, get over that and just say my ideas and turns out, some of them are really great. But if you don't let yourself get out of your own head, and just realize that you do have contributions to make, you do have great ideas, like you could totally live in a place of constantly feeling like you're wearing a mask when you're not. And it just gets you down.

Cindy Gonos 10:30

Yeah, of course, I work with you all the time. And it sounds like especially in this environment, you are able to overcome, there are ways that you found to overcome that imposter syndrome, right? And I think there's this misconception that when you have imposter syndrome, it's something, like, that anytime you have self doubt, that's what it is. Or any type of question, that it must be imposter syndrome. So I started to ask the question, because I've been doing some research on this myself, what if it's not imposter syndrome? Right? What if you are an impostor? And I know that sounds really intense impostor, right? Sounds like you don't belong there. But what if you don't? Right? What if you find yourself in a situation where the role or the organization is not what you expected it to be and you're just not in the right place? By definition, that would make you an impostor. Right?

Kate Wilkes 11:32

Yeah. Have you ever found yourself there?

Cindy Gonos 11:36

Yeah, I have found myself there a number of times, actually, to be honest. But I can think of one time where somebody else had to tell me, I guess, in so many words. So I worked for an organization and I went in there as a leader. And my biggest problem, Kate, was that business was booming, right? So this was... I had moved on from my role with a final boss, I was really excited to make a really big meaningful impact in my new org. And I had everything, I had all the things on my resume, the skills, you know. I was the top performer. I was getting awesome reviews from my leaders, my team was engaged, I was facilitating and leading trainings for other of my peers, like everything was going exactly the way that I was supposed to be, right, on paper, everything was going the way that it was supposed to be, I should have been ecstatic. But it didn't matter. Like no matter how many new processes I created, or how many goals I hit, how many successes I had. It didn't feel good enough. And I was working, like, overdrive to overcome all the areas that I had considered my weak spots. But then all of a sudden, everything was feeling like a struggle. And I'm thinking, "Okay, it's just a matter of time until somebody finds out that I should not be in this role." One of my girlfriends, and she's like, "Oh, you're crazy. You're crazy. You're doing an amazing job. You're just having some doubts." You know imposter syndrome, right? So I could have just dismissed it like that. How do we get it, right? So I was thinking back like my final interview, and, you know, I looked up some ways to overcome imposter syndrome and, and all of that, but then I was not getting what I wanted. So I talked to the one person who knows all the things, in my opinion, and that was my dad. So my dad is like, I like to call my dad like blue collar, Obi Wan Kenobi, like my dad just knows all of the things. So shout out to my dad, if he's listening. So I'm talking to my dad, told him this situation, and he just like, really, plain as day, he just asks me, "Well, what if it's just you?" "Does it, what?" He's like, "What if it's just you? Like, what if it's not the role? It's just you don't belong in that role. Like, what if it's that?" He doesn't know anything about imposter syndrome, or, you know, he's not, like, savvy with stuff. But my brain exploded. I was like, "Whoa, wait, yeah. Maybe it was. Maybe I wasn't supposed to be in this role." Right? And I'm thinking about, hey, you know, what's my favorite movie of all time? Jurassic Park. So I'm hearing Jeff Goldblum in my head, I know right, "Oh my God, we were so preoccupied on whether or not we could that we didn't stop to think if we should." We do that so much. So sometimes you just have to take a step back and say, "Maybe it's not imposter syndrome. Maybe I'm an impostor." So for you, I struggled a little bit with imposter syndrome. But tell me a time when you've been the impostor.

Kate Wilkes 14:44

Oh, this is a great one. I was so young. And let's go way back. Let's age ourselves a little bit here. Let's go way back to age myself. Okay. So by the way people, Cindy is just about my age. So I'm aging both of us. So we're going back to the late 90s. I think it was 1997. I had the opportunity with my ex husband to move to Mexico. We didn't have kids, we had dogs, we piled them in the Honda and we drove to Mexico, the whole thing seemed like a big imposter syndrome. The company was paying for us to move. He was going to go teach the people how to do the work at the factory that he worked at. So I'm just living my best life, right? Playing golf with my girlfriend, and, you know, whatever. And a friend of a friend of ours came up to us at dinner one night, and she said, "Your Spanish is getting really good. We have an opening at the school for a Spanish teacher." And I'm like, "What? You want me to do what?" like, she said, my Spanish was getting good, but like my biggest phrases were like, besides curse words, because the first thing everyone teaches you when you move to Mexico is how to curse because they think it's so funny that all you can do is curse, like, my husband would not teach me real Spanish because he just wanted to see me curse. Hilarious. But to me, I was not the person to teach Spanish or to teach English to Spanish speaking people, because I was saying things like, "No habla espanol." Like that was my go to. And "dónde está el baño" because if you go to a restaurant or a Walmart, and you can't find that, like, you have to ask people, so I was not ripping out these big sentences and paragraphs and having a lot of conversational Spanish, it was very small. And then they gave me a job. And they gave me an office. And they gave me students, and it was executives who, you know, ran big companies in Mexico. And they were going to be coming to the United States for work with their families. And so, you know, all the kids had to learn English, or the mom and dad had to learn English. And I was here to teach them. And I remember sitting down that first day and thinking, "What am I doing here?" I had like, my pencils and my paper and my dry erase markers. And I was just like, "We're not even going to get past hello, how are you, I'm fine, thanks. Like it's not going to happen." And I'm a "fake it 'till you make it" kind of girl. So I definitely was like, they asked me to be here for a reason, I'm going to do my best and then try. So I did it for a few weeks. And every day got harder because I was more in my impostor fields. I was more like, starting to think like, really, these people paid me money for this. And I feel like, you know, I'm not giving them the best of anything. So, although they never fired me, they never said "you need to do better", my Spanish did improve just by existing in that space every day. I got to a point where I was like, "Listen, I've got to go back. This is not for me." Because every moment.... if you doubt every moment of your existence, because you know that you're not the best quote unquote "the best person" for the job, it would eat you up. So I was exhausted from, like, trying to practice at night and lesson plan. I might not be a teacher by a longshot. So I had to peace out. I was like, "I love you. Thank you."

Cindy Gonos 18:18

All the Spanish words you know at that point.

Kate Wilkes 18:22

Exactly. And it's not a good feeling. But once you realize, and you're like, "Okay, this is the deal. This is the actual deal. I am an impostor. I am a faker. I'm a poser. Okay, now I'm gonna walk away and do something that oh my gosh, it feels like I'm living in the right space." So that was super fun.

Cindy Gonos 18:42

Yeah, I think that's a great point to bring up. Because it makes it harder when you have people who are telling you, "oh, you're totally doing a great job." So it's not, yeah, it's about well, how do you feel about it, right? Because they don't know. Especially if they think you're doing a good job, you're probably not outwardly showing them how much drudgery you're feeling while you're going through.

Kate Wilkes 19:04

I was panicking quietly in my office.

Cindy Gonos 19:07

You're freaking out. Right? So okay, so if you are still feeling like you don't know, right? Is it imposter syndrome? Am I impostor? There are some ways that you can find out, right? Okay. There's some questions that you can ask yourself, if you're in a situation where you're starting to question, "is this imposter syndrome? Or do I really need to get the heck out of dodge? This is the wrong place for me." So what are some of the things? Let's kind of help the people, Kate, that's what we're here to do. Right?

Kate Wilkes 19:39

Absolutely.

Cindy Gonos 19:40

Help the folks figure out what are some of the questions that they can ask. So.

Kate Wilkes 19:44

Yeah, I think the first thing you have to ask yourself is "Am I using my strengths to my living and working in my strengths every day?" Because when we're doing things that we're naturally good at without even trying and we can even maybe lean into those and up our game there a little bit, then you're never going to feel as much as an imposter. Some of us will always have that. Because, no, we're always a little bit afraid. But when you're working in those strengths and doing those things that you know, like, "I kick ass at this. I'm good at this." Then that's, like, puts you in the zone and you feel so much more confident about your work and yourself.

Cindy Gonos 20:21

Yeah, totally. I think that's a great point. You can kind of feel it, you can feel it when you're there. Right? Like, okay, this is... strengths are tricky, right? I always tell folks this when I talk to them, because strengths are the things that were naturally good at. So sometimes we dismiss our strengths and recognize them. You know, if something comes with too much ease, if something's too easy, we don't usually look at it as a strength. We usually, "Oh, that's an easy thing."

Kate Wilkes 20:46

We feel like cheater pants because we must be lucky.

Cindy Gonos 20:50

Yeah. So the question is, do I feel like I have a level of mushroom while I'm doing this? Because if so, you're probably seeing your strengths, right? That's kind of how you get in the lit up Mario. Wow. Okay, just dated myself again, not talking about those Mario brothers anymore, whatever the games are. Okay, what else? Like what else can people ask themselves? So am I using my strengths daily? What else?

Kate Wilkes 21:12

I think also, you have to ask if your role that you're in allows you to grow and develop.

Cindy Gonos 21:17

Yes, I think that you, Kate, are a really great example of why you should not ever have imposter syndrome. Because when you came on board, the team, you were our executive assistant. Right? So you are not pigeon holed, you've had an opportunity. So coming in as an EA, tell me just a couple of the things that you have got to do.

Kate Wilkes 21:39

Oh, gosh.

Cindy Gonos 21:39

As a part of your role here at HTYC, as our EA than a typical EA would not get an opportunity to get to do.

Kate Wilkes 21:47

Yeah, everything. Everything. We live in this wild space as a small company that's grown a lot these last couple of years, where we're still a few people trying to do great things, a lot of great things with big goals. So on week three, or four, when I'm just getting into the groove with Scott as the CEO, and my boss, and he says, "Hey, we need some help with this website stuff, because we don't have anybody really on the team, and we've got stuff going wrong." And he says, "Hey, our audio guy, our content guy is really just going to pull back the reins and do some other work that he needs to do. And I need you to dip a toe there and write some content and work on the podcast." And so I'm just like, "What is happening? What is happening here? How am I supposed to do these things I have?" Of course, I'm a worker, right? Like, I'm a worker bee. So if you ask me to do something, I'm gonna go "sure I know nothing about that. Let me go try it." Even with all the fears inside, so, I assume in the time that I've been here, I've basically learned the whole business, which has been wonderful to even work with a company that would allow anybody to know the whole business, which we all really do well here. But so, you know, it becomes a place that you go to where you're eventually not afraid to try new things. But also, you're just willing to lean into whatever strengths you have that might apply to, you know, might apply to something, and like you get your confidence up when you try those new things. But, you know, sometimes that little imposter syndrome guy sits on your shoulder, and he says, "why are you doing this? Well, you know, you're not qualified to do this." But you can do it anyway.

Cindy Gonos 23:42

Yeah. So I think when you find yourself in a space where, I guess first and foremost, you kind of have to ask yourself, "Where do I want to grow? And where do I want to develop?" Right? So if you find yourself in that situation where you're like, "I don't know if it's imposter syndrome, or I don't know if I'm an imposter", ask yourself. If I am to grow, what do I want that to look like? And am I in a place here where I'm able to do that? So, you know, with your role, you had an opportunity to try out a lot of different hats here. And when it came time before it was dubbed Chief People Officer, I remember that you and Scott sat down and you guys talked about your strengths and where you really shine and where you really make an impact on the team and where you really love to be. And you grew into that and you grew there and you got there and now you're the CPO, right? So I think that you have to ask yourself, you don't have to be the CEO, but you do have to ask yourself, "Okay, is growth and development important to me? And if so, am I able to do that here?" And if I'm not, that doesn't mean that you have imposter syndrome.

Kate Wilkes 24:50

Right.

Cindy Gonos 24:51

That means DTFO. Right?

Kate Wilkes 24:54

If you're trying to make your peg fit into a whole different shape, and you're just trying to, you know, drive it home and make it work, maybe you are an imposter. Maybe it just doesn't match up.

Cindy Gonos 25:05

Yeah. So what is one other... we'll give the folks one other question. There are more. There's a way to get them. But tell us one more, Kate. One more question to ask yourself, if you're up to.

Kate Wilkes 25:16

I think it's really important to ask yourself, if you're at the end of the day, if you're fulfilled by the work that you do, because if you're an impostor, like for real for real, you are probably not going to feel that sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, because you can barely keep up. You're back here researching how to do the things that somebody in that role maybe should already know how to do and you're trying to train yourself up, you're not going to feel a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment as one would if you are in a role that you were meant to be in doing the things and the areas that you're meant to do them in.

Cindy Gonos 25:53

Yeah, I think that's a really great point. So I mean, I know lots of... we work really hard. There's lots of days when I'm tired. When I get done with work, I'm tired. My voice is gone. I know it's good. My husband knows that I've had a productive day when I can't talk at the end of the day, because I've done it so much during the day.

Kate Wilkes 26:09

That's right.

Cindy Gonos 26:10

I think there's a big difference between being tired and fulfilled, and being empty. It's like a different kind of tired, right? Like tired was a, like, human is like this beautiful sigh that just like *sigh* and like the other one is like "ugh", at the end of the day, right?

Kate Wilkes 26:28

Right in the "ugh" it's so much more painful, because you know it's just going to come back again tomorrow. And you have to make yourself go to bed and get back up in the morning and trudge into that "ugh" again. So you know, the first thing I do if I feel like I'm an imposter is try to get myself out of that space and go find something I love.

Cindy Gonos 26:50

Yeah. I think that's a really good thing to do. Because I think too, we get in that mindset of "Just keep going. Just keep going. Just keep going." Right? I saw some articles about overcoming impostor syndrome and using it as a challenge. You said, "you fake it 'till you make it", right. And I think there's a time and place to fake it till you make it. So I think it's a really short amount of time to do that. And then to be able to figure out, "Okay, what's the real deal here? I've been a faker for so long." So...

Kate Wilkes 27:22

I got a job one time with a huge payroll company, they asked me in the interview, "What is my level of Excel... what level of competency I had with Excel?" And I had never used it, but I got in there. And I, by golly, in the first, like, few weeks, figured out how to be a master at Excel. But all of the other things in the role were things that were my strengths, but I did it, I learned that thing. And I really succeeded in that role for several years. Because the rest of it, I didn't have to fake until I make, you know, it's like that one little piece or whatever.

Cindy Gonos 27:54

Yeah, I think you brought up a really good point just now, when you said that you succeeded in that role for a few years. But then it was time to move on. So I think that's the other thing, too, is being someplace for a long time does not make you exempt from being an imposter.

Kate Wilkes 28:09

No, not at all.

Cindy Gonos 28:10

Like, it's not make you exempt from being an impostor at all. So imposter syndrome, I know, by definition, it's you doubt your abilities, and you doubt that you deserve things. And, you know, I think there's elements of that that come along with being an imposter as well. But I think the big difference between the two is, if your heart's not in it, then you're probably an impostor. And if your heart's in it, and you have doubts, you probably just have a little bit of self doubt and imposter syndrome. So it can be tricky. And I think a lot of folks struggle with it. I think more folks struggle with trying to figure out if they have impostor syndrome than actually trying to figure out if they need to make a move into something that's more meaningful, or that would make them happier.

Kate Wilkes 28:59

Absolutely. And I think we, often as a society, especially here in the US, we put the old American Dream first, the work hard every day, you don't have to love your job, but you got to make money and you gotta put the roof over the house and all that. And instead of doing work you love, that you might actually be better at, that you might actually could make more money at, you know, instead of just trudging through life.

Cindy Gonos 29:24

Yeah, I hear that for sure. But you know, I talk with folks every single day, who… they don't say that they have imposter syndrome or hear it, right. So I chatted with a lady today. I will not say her name, but she was amazing. And I adored her and we had the greatest conversation. And we started talking about strengths. And I was commenting on how she had a really great mix of the top five strengths and all the different categories. And she said "Yeah, that means that I'm not really a master at any of these strengths." No. I was like, "What that means is you are amazing at every single one of these things." Right? But she couldn't see it. She couldn't see it.

Kate Wilkes 30:09

Those were her superpowers.

Cindy Gonos 30:11

Yeah, no, wait, back up. Yes, you're amazing at these. That's why they're your strengths. So I love that you said that's the first question to ask too, is, am I using my strengths? Because I think once you know what you're good at, and you know what... I love the term fills your bucket, right? My man used to say that, fill your bucket up. So that's what we're looking for. We want you to have, like, we want you to have whatever it is that fills up your bucket in that way. So, Kate, I've had an awesome time talking to you.

Kate Wilkes 30:41

This was super fun.

Cindy Gonos 30:42

Amazing. They may never let us do it again. This... you may not ever hear Kate and I on the podcast together. But I think we have more, right? We have more to share with you folks.

Kate Wilkes 30:53

We do, we have more.

Cindy Gonos 30:54

So there are some other questions that you can ask if you have doubts about whether or not you have imposter syndrome, or you are indeed an impostor. So there's lots of questions, questions that we didn't have enough time to talk about today. But I will give them to you. I'm not shy. I will give you all the things. So if you want to know what the questions are to ask yourself, or you want some more resources about, how do I use my strengths? Or how do I know if I'm an impostor? Or if I have imposter syndrome? Or if you want to read my article, that's fine. Send me an email. Normally, people get to email Scott. But today, you guys get to email me and I have some goodies for you. So if you email cindy@happentoyourcareer.com and you put "Impostor" in the subject line, I will send you all of those resources and the questions that you can ask yourself. And if you still don't know, right, if you still don't know after I give you all the resources, we can chat about it, you can reach out, we can set up a time to talk, you can tell me about your situation, I can help you figure it out. And if you find that you are an impostor, that's okay, that's it's totally okay, and you can make a change. And if you find that it's imposter syndrome, that's okay, too. There's ways you can cure that.

Kate Wilkes 32:07

You can overcome it. It's not a deadly disease, you can overcome it.

Cindy Gonos 32:10

You have the cure.

Kate Wilkes 32:11

There's a treatment. Well, thanks, Cindy. This has been fun.

Cindy Gonos 32:16

Thank you, Kate. This was amazing. I can't wait to do this again with you.

Kate Wilkes 32:20

Stay tuned, folks.

Cindy Gonos 32:21

Stay tuned.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:28

Hey, I hope you loved this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And if this has been helpful, then please share this podcast with your friends, with your family, with your co-workers that badly need it. Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you next week.

Angela Barnard 32:45

When I think people are really saying when they say I want to be more creative, because I hear this all the time as a coach, I feel like what they're really saying is I want to live in more of an alignment. I want to feel better about what I'm doing. I want to feel good. I want to have more fun. It's like this feeling that they're really chasing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:06

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.

Liz McLean 00:00

I tell my clients, every industry, no matter what it is, they have problems they're trying to solve right now, debates that are happening right now that you can just go join the conversation. That's what I told her to do, just get involved, get in the conversation. And she landed a job that way.

Introduction 00:21

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:46

Okay, it's Scott. But you're not going to hear from me in this episode, because I'm taking some of our HTYC advice, and I'm stepping away from work. And this time for an entire month to be able to spend time with my family, and unplug. So I'm not going to be on this episode, or the next few. I am leaving you in great hands, of the Happen To Your Career podcast team, I know you're gonna love it.

Phillip Migyanko 01:07

People often ask, "Okay, so what do the most successful people do?" And you can imagine, we get this question a lot. You might be having this thought about, "you know, I know I need to be doing things differently. But I just don't know how." And today, we thought we would tell you stories of people who have been successful through the process, and we're going to dissect what made them successful. And after you hear each one of those stories, you're gonna get those learnings and implement those strategies now for yourself. Not tomorrow, but today. Well, hey, this is Phillip. I am the Director of Client Results here at Happen To Your Career. And as you heard from Scott, the rest of the team and I, we're going to be taking over the podcast for the next few weeks. And today, I thought what a better opportunity to bring over some people to help answer that question about what do the most successful people do, then there are amazing coaches who actually help people do that very thing. And you've probably heard them before on the Happen To Your Career podcast. But today, I thought I would welcome both Ang and Liz.

Liz McLean 02:12

Thanks, Phillip. Super excited about this topic.

Angela Barnard 02:15

Thanks, Phillip.

Phillip Migyanko 02:16

Well, one of the things that we, as a team, often talk about are, you know, the people who just do this really well. And were bringing a story from somebody today that we thought was really successful, and just want to share that over. So I think Liz, let's start off with you. I know you have a really specific person you were thinking about.

Liz McLean 02:35

Yeah, I do. I was thinking about my client, Kylie. Let me give you a little bit of backstory. When I met her, she was... I wouldn't say quite mid level career. So she was a little bit newer in her career tenure. And she worked in the fashion industry. And I met her because she had gone through a transition or a layoff. Transition being a euphemism, she had been laid off from a large fashion company, retail brands with probably 20,000 plus employees. And so she was living in New York City. And I think she had originally gotten that job through a college New Hire program, right. So she was coming to this job search, you know, with the tool she had already learned via, you know, school career services, or on campus hiring events. And she found herself stuck, cuz she was applying. And it was a time when her industry was down. You know, there wasn't the demand for her skill set at that time. And so she was really struggling, she was finding postings, you know, very, I like to call it "the reactive side of the job search coin". And so we met and she was just lovely to work with. And I said, "Well, you know, let's see if we can be a little bit more proactive about this." And I said, "Well, what do you really love about this work? Like what got you into it?" And really tapping back into her curiosity. And I said to her, I said, "If you could go talk to anybody, about any topic...." and she really loved like niche–I like saying niche, but I alread said niche. She loved you know, these really narrow areas within her field. And I said, you know, she was really curious. The the word. That's the buzzword of the day. Curious about these topics, and I said, "Well, why don't you just go find people that are creating great content, and connect with them?" And she was like, "Well, I can do that. But I haven't done this." You know, she came to the...we hear this all the time from clients, right? She's like, "Well, who am I? You know, I haven't worked in this specific area. Who am I?" So, you know, if you just show up authentically and curious, that's the key being authentically people can smell you coming from a mile away if you're trying to fake this technique, and just engage with their contents and start consuming. So the good news is, it's something you like, and you want to learn more about and engage with our content, and start to comment, because and you know, we know this as coaches, there are lots of people that really love their topics and are creating content out there in the world, and are just getting crickets. And how much would they love to have someone come and say, "Yeah, I'm really excited about this, too. I just... I want to talk about it." So I encouraged her to lead from that... lead her job search from that place of curiosity. So she started doing that. And what happened was, people started to get curious about her. And they turned it around, and they said, "Well, hey, who are you? Like, what are you doing? Are you looking for a job?" And that's how she ended up landing her job is, and I coached her to say, like, as much as you can make it about the work itself, and the content and take yourself out of it, get out of your own head, gather your own way, as far as like, who am I to show up, I don't know these things, just follow what you love and what you want to know about. Because there are people out there that would love to talk about these topics. And I mean, I'm not a fashion person. We can be like, I don't know that world. She's like, "What should I talk about?" Like, I don't know. But guess what you do? You know that. And every industry, I tell my clients, every industry, no matter what it is, they have problems they're trying to solve right now, debates that are happening right now that you can just go join the conversation. That's basically what I told her to do, just get involved, get in the conversation. And that will cause that reciprocal curiosity. And she landed a job that way.

Phillip Migyanko 06:50

That's super awesome. I think it's funny, because it's one of the things that I think goes for all of our clients, in one way, when they are proactively tapping back into what makes them curious, and engaging with that content, whatever is put out in the world. And I think there's things about each one of our stories, but what we see so much for the people who do this process, and when they mean this process, it's this career change process, or when they're basically in the middle of a conversation when they're talking to somebody they have never met before. And you might find yourself in the same situation all the time. But as coaches, what we tend to find is the people who do very well are the ones who are tapping back in the curiosity point, but really engaging in that, and making a really genuine conversation from that. And I'm curious, have you found the same thing with your clients, you find the same kind of thing... I know. I'm teasing you Ang, because I know this is what she also talks about all the time. We all read the same thing. We've had hours long conversation on this. But yeah, I'm curious. Ang, do you have a client that's been like this as well?

Angela Barnard 07:56

Well, I love that you're curious, you're starting off with that. That's the key word right now. And the thing with that is, if you guys notice that when you show up from this place of curiosity, it's about the energy that you're projecting, instead of being like, worried about what people are going to think about you or if you're good enough to do X, Y, and Z thing, you're just curious. And that energy leads to the opportunities that light you up, right, but it starts with that energy. So I'll tell you about someone who I would consider to have really good energy that led to the opportunities that he has in his life today. I would say he's one of my favorite clients, but I say that about every one of my clients. So just keeping it real. But the client that I'm thinking of is Josh. So Josh came to me a while back, and he spent his whole career working in retail, everything from shoes, to suits, all the things and he was a really good leader, like he was always at the top of these agencies. But the thing with him is he had a family and he worked a lot of hours. And he worked a lot of weekends. And that's kind of what is common in the industry that he is in. So the thing with him is he had a lot of doubts, and if he could do something different. Because his education was basically, and what he had done, he didn't go to college at all, he just kind of started at a young age and, like, worked his way up in the industry. So he's like, "Well, do I need to go back to school? I don't even know exactly what it is I could do next." And that's very common with the people that Phillip and Liz and I work with is that people are like, "I have no idea what I could do. What is it that I even want to do?" And then there's always the question, would you guys agree, that people ask us, "Do I have to go back to school?"

Phillip Migyanko 09:43

Oh my gosh! All the time.

Angela Barnard 09:46

And they're like "Oh, so I'm gonna have to be in debt and all this" and then we have this whole story about it, right? So this is...I love to share Josh's example because he did not have to go back to school. And the other reason why I'm sharing his example is because the job that he got on paper, if you looked at the job description, he did not meet actually any of the qualifications on that job description, including the education one, the years of experience in the field and the written job description. But then he grew fast into this company. So let me tell you what happened. All he said to me was like, "I know for sure, Ang, that I want to work a nine to five role, basically. I'm thinking of maybe like, it'd be cool to be in kind of like an office setting where I get to meet people on a regular basis, because that's completely new to me, I'm not used to like being in an office setting, I'm usually on my feet running around, managing all these retail stores, traveling a lot. It'd be nice to have some more, like, stability and consistency with a nine to five, so I can be home for the family. Because I know for sure I want that." And I said, "Okay, so what kinds of roles are of interest to you then that have those characteristics?" And he's like, "Well, one of the things, I guess, is kind of like the banking or financial industry. I've been curious about that. Then again, I don't have any experience working in that field." You start going down that path again. I was like, "What if you just showed up really curious and you got to learn more about the field? Do you know anyone that currently works in the field?" And he was like, "I do have a friend that works in the fields." And I was like, "Well, what if you just reached out to him and just see if he knew anyone else, maybe someone could chat with you for a little bit." So he reaches out to his friends, he says, "I'm curious about this field." So anyways, his friend introduced him to someone else. And this guy really connected with him. And long story short, this guy ended up getting a job at a major bank, they paid for him to get all this special training and certifications. It wasn't long before he was running the entire bank there. And I'm talking like a year guys, it was fast. And then he gets this job, he truly loves that overall, the people that he works with and everything. But then I check in. He's like, "You know, Ang, I really love it overall, because I get to be with my family. But to be honest with you, I'm getting fat. I've been sitting around a lot. It's like, all I do all day is sit and I want to be walking around more. I'm feeling that urge to get out there and start walking around more." And I was like, "Okay, so what have you been curious about?" And he's like, "I'm curious about doing some like, where I get to kind of like, build partnerships or meet with a lot of people." So anyways, he started talking to me about that dream. And I said, "Well, let's just explore that. What would that look like?" So then again, he started reaching out, right after this same thing, he met with someone, had something in common with them, the person really liked him, offered him a job. And now he's the VP of like, client partnerships, or I forget the role. And what he does on a regular basis is take people out golfing. And he loves it. And I love his story. Because the bank role, somebody might be on the outside thinking like, "Okay, well, he found this job, and then he didn't like it." But I want you to see that that job actually led to his next job. It even gave him more clarity. He had more connections, he just had more confidence in himself. And I felt like that was a stepping stone he needed to get to where he is now. And I don't think he's done. I don't think any of us are ever done. This is an ongoing process. We were just talking about this, like, what do you guys think? Like, it does even.

Liz McLean 13:13

It's iterative, like, life.

Angela Barnard 13:15

Yeah. And because I want to say this, because a lot of times clients show up and they're like, "you know, for sure I'm gonna find the job that I want. And this will be the end all be all... like, this will make me so happy." And I was like, "No. You're the kind of person that wants to keep growing." And that means this is an ongoing thing. We constantly keep getting more clarity about ourselves, and we constantly keep shifting, and we constantly are just curious. And that's the kind of energy that leads to, I think, an awesome life. So that's my story.

Phillip Migyanko 13:45

It's super interesting, because I think partially from both Liz and Ang's story here is that, one of the commonalities to use, one of those terms we're going to use just in a second, is that what people are doing is just kind of getting out of their own way and showing up in a curious way, which actually in reality, means that they are showing up present, they're having really great energy, they're asking really great questions, and they're seeing the opportunities. And what can happen for people when they get to spots, where they don't feel like they're enough, they feel like if they go back to school, they feel like this is the person who's going to have the job as they get attached to this outcome, they get attached to the thing that's going to happen here. And it kind of detracts from actually having a really quality conversation and ends up really working with somebody that could be a really great person, that could be part of your tribe or be a good friend moving forward as well. I think all of these things kind of coincide with each other in the aspects of, yeah, showing up being curious is really important from an aspect of like, what are you going to talk about, but actually, it's so much more important than that because it allows you to really build a connection, which to your story with Josh, Ang, it serves you years on down the line.

Angela Barnard 15:04

And I love that you said, the whole concept of not getting attached to it. Because what happens there is when you start to get attached to the specific outcome, your energy shifts now to a lower state, you can be that kind of needy person, and then you don't leave room for the amazing surprises of life. Because Josh would have never known coming to start a coaching process, like, he would have never imagined that he would be where he is right now. But I felt like he just showed up and he was committed to being curious and then led to where he is today. And just to kind of summarize some of the consistencies that I've seen, and I know from hearing things from Phillip and from Liz, is that this whole, like, people show up with curiosity, the ones that do well, I would say, through this process, find a role that they're really excited about, they show them curiosity, they often, in those conversations, find something that they can relate to the other person on where that person feels like they're a part of their tribe. There's commonalities that are talked about there, where that person feels like they want to help them get to where they want to go. And that starts first off with curiosity. And then they show up intentional, because each person got clarity, some little bit of clarity around what it is that they wanted. And they were intentional about pursuing that, but they stay unattached. So I think those three things you need to pay attention to, if you want to be successful. So that was Josh's story. But I know that Phillip also has a really good story to share. So, Phillip.

Phillip Migyanko 16:44

Yeah. So you know, I'm just thinking about, okay, I've got a client who is actually going through this process right now. His name is Tom. And when we first started working together, and after working through his ideal career profile, he started gathering a list of what he was describing as target organizations. At the time, he was thinking about sustainability. And he thought that was the answer. And, you know, he started gather a list and got to a point in this process, and I know Liz and Ang, you've also been here as well, where they start to gather a list of, like, "Yeah, I'm gonna go out there. I'm gonna go do it." And then they just suddenly, like, lose motivation over time. It's like, when you start off sprinting, and they're like, "Okay, sprinting was really hard. Now I gotta go to run" then it turns into a walk. Tom was basically like that. He started gathering this list, and kind of talking through it one of our sessions, he just suddenly stopped getting so excited. And we got to a point where I did the same thing that Ang did with Josh, and then Liz with her fashion client, we're like, "Okay, let's pause. Rewind. Let's get back to what you're actually curious about." So I asked him the question, which is something you can ask yourself right now, which is, "Hey, Tom. What are you curious about? Like, what do you want to know?" And to be honest, it was like a deer in headlights situation. He looked at me like, "I don't know. I'm not sure what to think or what to say" which is totally okay. He took some time, he went back and thought about it. And the next week, he came back to the session enthusiastic to share a list of education technology companies. Now, these weren't just any kind of education, tech companies, these were very specific ones that focused on skill building for children that were under 10 years old. Now, Tom has an infant daughter. And this was very important because it mattered a lot for him, his family, and it was kind of similar to the space he's been working in right now. And he began doing his reach out. So his target organization-based on these companies, and during his reach out, and he's making them personal, he's making valuable, direct, and doing lots of follow ups. And the reason he was able to do that, based on, kind of, the similarities what Liz and Ang are mentioning with our clients, is that he found somebody who made a lot of content. And her name was Hannah. And Hannah was a project lead at one of these target organizations, where she would create lots of these YouTube videos. And Tom loved it. Like he was able to not only look at her LinkedIn profile, but he looked at her YouTube, she had like, I don't know, five plus hour long videos, just detailing things out. Like he'd come back. He takes notes. He have questions on stuff. And so it just allowed him to be really curious about not only what the company is doing, but who an actual person at the company and what they were doing. So Tom watched all those videos. Yeah, he took notes. He wrote down the questions he was curious about, like, you know, "how does this tie into this? And how does this thing tied to this?" And allow Tom not to just have, you know, one great conversation with Hannah, he later reached out to her and had a really great conversations, but allowed him to have multiple, hour and a half long conversations with Hannah that she later introduced him to the chief revenue officer, which then later introduced to the CEO. And during all those times, the thing that Tom did really well is he completed what we later called sessions, these "conversation prep guides". And so before each call, he knew, like what Ang was talking about, he knew the things that he was going to do to build rapport, like building commonalities. He can call things he liked about them, especially Hannah's videos, and her energy bringing in there, he kind of knew how he's going to take the conversation. Every time we're always talking about, "Okay, so what would great look like for this conversation? Where do I want to direct this thing?" And he also knew that the questions he was actually curious to ask, not these ones about, "So Hannah, tell me about what life looks like, as far as a project lead?" Like none of those kinds of questions, they were actually ones he was very, very curious about. So he was no stranger to running meetings at all. So he knew how to really get the conversation where he wanted to go and wrap it up. But it really just came back to treating the other human being like a human being. And Tom is able to do this again and again, where now he's in discussion with this organization that Hannah works for, and ultimately creating rules for himself right now. Now, you might be listening to this podcast in the future, and he might have the role there, or he might not. But really, the more important piece is that he's doing what a lot of our really successful clients do, and he's building really great conversations that allow him to create a role for himself or, and/or actually, get introduced to people who are going to create the rule for himself. So he's doing this right now. But the one thing I didn't tell you is that he's not just doing this for one organization, he's actually doing this for another organization at the same time. And, you know, we have so many clients who come in, and they think I'm going to build this huge client company list and people list, and it's just ginormous. And they usually put Apple on there, they'll put Meta on there, they'll put Google on there, they'll put Amazon on there. But Tom only has four organizations. And you might be thinking only four, but really, he got ultra specific, focused on what he wanted, got really intentional with his curiosity, and really started to see all those things that he wanted to work for. So yeah, Tom, he's just doing this really well. And the bigger aspect here, and what we often talk about our sessions is that, you know, something might come from either one of these opportunities or might not, but he's gained the skills to essentially create opportunities for himself. And he's doing those within the conversations he's having. So Ang, I just want to turn it over to you. Wrap it up all the points that we're seeing as part of the stories.

Angela Barnard 22:40

Okay, so I am a note taker. So I'm gonna be here taking notes and everything because...and you should be too, because there's so much goodness here. Okay, so we know for sure that showing up with a curious mindset versus being attached is key through this process, number one. The second thing that we know happened is that all of these success stories involve conversations, you being curious, and having conversations with humans, other humans that can help you meet your goals, or introduce you to other people, like, you don't need, you know, a mile long list. A lot of times, you can just talk to one person, and they kind of hand you off to someone else, because that happened a lot. The thing is, I liked how Phillip brought up the list. And when you know, Tom started having this long list, you saw that shift in his energy where he started getting attached. And then the same thing with Liz's client where she...you helped her Liz, like, kind of shift out of that attachment to it. It has to be a certain way. It was kind of like, "yeah, we just stay curious, you love this stuff, follow what it is that you love." So let's stay intentional. We knew that each client of ours had something they wanted to pursue an idea, some kind of level of clarity and they started down that path. There was intentionality behind it, all of them, whether we mentioned it or not, did some kind of prep work before they talked to someone so they could find something to connect with that person on. So this is where that tribe mentality comes in. That's something I'm always talking about is really just focusing on building almost like a sense of friendship. And really, kind of, I see it as like you're going out and talking to people to see if you would really, like, click with them. If you could make a new friend. It's like, if when you approach it in that way with that level of curiosity that again, like, backsies key.

Phillip Migyanko 24:32

Okay, so we get people in here who might be asking, "All right, but what do I do about this now?" And like, I always tell people, Liz is our train conductor. She's usually the person who's like, "So guys, let's get to the point. Let's keep going. Like, what can we do about this?" So like Liz, wrap us up. Like, what can people do here with this information?

Liz McLean 24:51

Yeah, sure. Are you talking about like tactical steps, like literally, I'm gonna go out and do something right now. So we've already cited a lot of examples, right. So it would be, you know, obviously getting your mindset right, being curious, sometimes I'll recommend clients actually get away from their desks to do this, like if they really can't get to that place of curious energy, go to the bookstore, just go for a walk. And when you're in a relaxed state, where does your mind naturally go? And then just start to see if you can tap into that, and follow that, right? Just get to that energy and feeling like what that feels like, again, so you can do things like listen to a podcast, like "Oh, I love this topic. I remember, I really loved botany, like, I'm gonna go listen to a podcast on this. I'm gonna go what's really some really interesting episode." Oh, and then guess what? You can go reach out to the podcast host or you can reach out to the guest, and show up and express gratitude, right? I mean, Phillip, you are always saying like, "just go have a conversation, just go talk to people", right. And I would say, you know, no conversations, like, equals no opportunities, if you will. Like, you can't stay in your own head and not get out into the world, and connect with people to create these opportunities, right? So, you know, we live in 2022. The good news is, is like that you can get to a podcast, you can get to a book, some clients will lead with... lead from the company, just even a company that you like, or admire, or you're curious about, like, "I really love this product or service. Let me go learn more about that. How did they come to be? What is their culture like?" I mean, fall down the rabbit hole. Don't stay there, though, because we know, Ang and Phillip, we've talked about having clients where it's like, "you gotta get them at a research mode." And they'd be like, "Alright, who you're gonna go talk to?" Right. Now just go have the conversation. Go have it imperfectly, and that's okay. And just get out and keep having those conversations. And we've already talked about, you know, with the sum up intentional not getting attached, like how you do it, and you will get better at it as you do it.

Phillip Migyanko 27:12

Yeah. So you already hear where this stuff really comes down to is just getting into those conversations. And, you know, this is something we've been secretly wanting to record this podcast for a while now, because we often talk about so much like, "what do clients just need to do?" Like, they just need to get into conversations. And this is what you know, it sounds like when all of us, as coaches, we're talking together, we're talking about people, we're talking about the things they need to do, and really what ultimately need to believe in, you know, this is something we believe that it's just not something you can just teach in about getting to your next job, this is more about helping you but helping see the bigger picture here that it's just not about just having the next conversation, it's much more about, you're gonna keep having these conversations again, and again, and again, and again. And it's so much about evolving your career, both now and later. And this is my personal feeling where it's also in service to others. Because you might be thinking about this, from your perspective, but in X number of years, there's going to be somebody else who's in those shoes, who's gonna be coming to you and going, "Hey, I just want to learn about you and what do you do and blah, blah, blah" and then your job is to ultimately potentially help that person, and things later on down the line. This is so much bigger than all of us. And it's come so much back to more of how are you connecting with people on these ideas. And, you know, the other thing you might be thinking here as well as like, "Okay, Phillip, Liz, Ang, guys, this is just for extroverts." But we really see this as it's not just for extroverts. It's not just for introverts, like we've seen both groups do well with this as well. So you're gonna continue to build your tribe, your community, the people, your network, because we believe that this is where the opportunity is, and ultimately is created from and this is what we see our most successful clients do. They do those three things, and they get started now. So there's no better way to wrap it up than that, but thanks so much, Liz and Ang, for coming on, for showing everybody what the coaches look like, how we talk, how we think about all our stuff. So thanks for coming on.

Angela Barnard 29:15

Thanks, Phillip.

Liz McLean 29:16

Thanks, Phillip.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:22

Many of the stories that you've heard on the podcast are from listeners that have decided they want to take action, and taking the first step of having a conversation with our team to try and figure out how we can help. And if you want to implement what you have heard, and you want to completely change your life and your career, then let's figure out how we can help. So here's what I would suggest, just open your phone right now and open your email app. And I'm going to give you my personal email address, scott@happentoyourcareer.com just email me and put 'Conversation' in the subject line. And we can absolutely connect you with my team. I'm not answering my email right now, but I have a team member, Kate, who absolutely will make sure that you get connected with our team and the right person on our team so that we can figure out the very best way that we can help with that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:18

Hey, I hope you loved this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And if this has been helpful, then please share this podcast with your friends, with your family, with your co-workers that badly need it. Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you next week.

Kate Wilkes 30:37

It's like, you have this sense of self doubt related to your work or your life accomplishments, like you've done these things, and you're just feeling like a faker. You think it's luck. You don't ever attribute it to your own abilities and your own skills.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:56

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.

Phillip Migyanko 00:01

Experience is experience. And you don't start over by going and doing something new. You actually take all your experiences, you take all of your learnings, you take everything about you to the new role. And it comes from this scarcity mindset, where you feel like I'm not bringing anything to the table, and usually nothing is farther from the truth.

Introduction 00:24

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:49

If you've listened to the HTYC podcast for more than one episode, you've probably figured out we do things a bit differently around here. So today, you're actually not going to be hearing from me. I'm taking off work for an entire month. Yes, an entire month. Let's back up here. How did that happen? And it turns out that it's actually something that we, as an organization, had been working on for close to three years. And it started out with my wife and I wanting to be able to step away from the organization, step away from HTYC for a month at a time, and have it not be dependent on us. We felt that our message and what we're doing here, the work we're doing here, is too important to depend upon just me or just her. And it's taken us the last few years to really be able to get the organization to the level where we were able to do that. But we don't just want to do this for the two of us, we want every member of our team to be able to step away when they need to, or when they want to. I want that level of flexibility for everyone on the Happen To Your Career team. Because most organizations, well, it's not really possible to do that. Right? What our organization actually stands for is not just helping people make career changes, not just helping people find their ideal career and ideal work. But legitimately changing the way that we do work as an entire world, and also how we think about work. And this starts with our very own company. So my wife, Alyssa, and my kids are actually currently out practicing what we preach, what we teach. And we're combining this month off of work with a trip to Greece, which I talked about, on another bonus episode of the podcast here. So take a listen to that if you want the full story. But we're in Greece right now, if you're listening to this, which means that next week, and the week after, and the week after, and the week after that, the team is taking over the podcast. So you're gonna hear from our entire HTYC team discussing different topics, not just in the realm of career change, but also many of the questions that we get all the time as an organization, those things that we haven't been able to talk about, and even some things that we talked about behind the scenes all the time, but now we want to share them with you. So I'm really excited for you to get to know them because they're pretty amazing and they do great work. So here you go.

Phillip Migyanko 03:06

It happens to the best of us. You wake up one day and you're 40, or even your 50s or 60s, and you feel like you're having a full blown midlife career crisis, your career fields off track, and you realize that you want more, something's missing, then the questions begin. Is it the company culture? Is it the industry you're in? Is it your day to day responsibilities in your current role? Or maybe it's a combination of all of these. You can feel that you want or need to make a change, but then the assumptions and limiting beliefs start to creep in. There are a lot of limiting beliefs that come along with making a midlife career change, which leads to what we refer to as a midlife career crisis. Hi, I'm Cindy, and I'm the Director of Client Success at HTYC. As you heard from Scott, the rest of the team and I are taking over the podcast for the next few weeks. And today I'm joined by Phillip. He's our Director of Client Results. And you've heard him many times on the podcast before.

Phillip Migyanko 04:04

Hey, thanks for the introduction, Cindy. And yeah, our team, we're taking over the podcast. And today I'm super excited to talk about midlife career change, because it's something that we talk about all the time behind the scenes, and it's something that me and you specifically see all the time in working with clients. And you know, I think it's an interesting fact to include in the beginning of "why", you know why people want to make a change at this age. And you see this a lot, it's from one of the books I think you recommended to me, is that right?

Cindy Gonos 04:33

Yes, absolutely. So it's from Arthur C. Brooks book "From Strength to Strength". I was really, really moved by this book. Phillip, you know, I am a person who is in midlife. So this resonated with me really well. But one of the things that he said is there's an interesting set of findings that says that "success early on is based on one of two types of intelligence." The first is called fluid intelligence. This gives you the ability to solve problems, to crack the case, to innovate faster, and to focus harder than pretty much all the competition early on in your career. So this is like your Elon Musk brain. This increase is through your 20s and into your 30s, but it tends to decline through your 40s and 50s. Meaning that you need to move to the second kind of intelligence, which is increasing in your 40s and 50s, and even your 60s, and that's gonna stay with you for the rest of your life. And that's what's called your crystallized intelligence. This is your wisdom, your ability to compile the information that's in your vast library to teach better, to explain better, to form better teams. In other words, not to answer somebody else's questions, but to form the right questions.

Phillip Migyanko 05:37

That's super interesting. And I think I like the part about Elon Musk's brain the most. But with everything that is said, and like Cindy said here, we talk to a lot of people that are going through this mid life career crisis, or at least, that's what we call, it definitely feels like a crisis. And today, we're going to tell you about four... just four of the most common limiting beliefs that we see all the time in people that are in their 40s, and their 50s, and their 60s, and they're wanting to make a change. So even if you're sitting here and you might be in your 20s, your 30s, or in your teens, this stuff is still relevant to you, because this can be stuff later on. And even if you're in that age right now, it's super relevant. And, you know, we're going to tell you about some of our clients who were able to overcome these limiting beliefs, and really find what they love. So, without further ado, I'm just going to go ahead and get out of the way and let Cindy get started. So Cindy, I know there's one specifically that you wanted to start with, what is that?

Cindy Gonos 06:32

Yes, definitely. Because I hear this all the time when I'm having first time conversations with folks. And that is that they feel like they're going to have to start over in an organization, like, they're gonna have to start from the very beginning, they've built up this title, they've built up this procedure in their role. So a lot of times this is about starting over as far as job title and role. But my friend, Dan Ruley, would tell you that job titles don't really matter. So I love Dan's story. Technically, he took a step down when he left his director of sales role for a large organization to be the Senior Program Manager at another organization. But here's a spoiler alert, Phillip, he makes more money and is able to focus on what he does best in this role. So this started off with a conflict between family and work that caused him to lose his job. And he really started to reevaluate his priorities. So he started to ask himself, what do you really love about sales leadership?'' And the answer was always to mentor and to help people grow. He had had a career in sales training before and was really happy. But he didn't make that much money. And that was ultimately the reason why he pivoted into a higher paying director role. And it worked out for a while, but then it didn't. So he went full force back into trying to find a job that was in sales enablement and training. He said the hardest thing was probably getting out of his own way. So he'd spent the majority of his career trying to make sure that he was in these larger leadership roles. And it was hard for him to think about stepping down and being out of an executive leadership role. And going into what still is a leadership role, but not quite the same executive level. With his level of experience, it was a really big pill to swallow. But at the end of the day, it didn't matter because the title didn't matter. Being happy with what you're doing, that's what matters. And now Dan's doing that. He's getting to do what he really loves. He's in an organization that recognizes his skills and his experience and allows him to create success for his team in his way. So now he feels like he's a truly valuable person on the team. And yeah, like I said before, he's making more, he's making almost three times what he was making with a smaller title. And he's not complaining about that, either. So it's a win-win for sure.

Phillip Migyanko 08:46

You know, and that's an interesting thing in there as well, because it's... just to be clear, so that's... it's the feeling of, like, you're having to start over. And, you know, we talked to lots of individuals who feel like this all the time, we have a whole guide about, what do you have to do all these nine steps you don't have to start over? And I think the interesting thing about Dan Ruley's story from what you're mentioning here, and if you've listened to his podcast episode, it's that thinking about this in a larger picture aspect, meaning, that title really wasn't that important to him. And that really thinking about five years ahead, that, you know, would I rather be unhappy for five years in my current spot? Or am I going to go do something different even though that title doesn't matter? And going back to what I am liking before because experience is experienced, and you don't start over by going and doing something new. You actually take all your experiences, you take all of your learnings, you take everything about you to the new role, and it comes from this scarcity mindset, where you feel like I'm not bringing anything to the table. And usually nothing's farther from the truth and that can actually hurt you in the long run but also hurt you in your conversations as well. I don't know if you see that as well, Cindy.

Cindy Gonos 10:00

Yeah, I hear that all the time, Phillip, when I'm talking to folks. I tell everyone the same thing that you tell your clients is that "Everything you have goes with you, you get to take it with you." You're never ever really starting over. And those experiences are the things that make you who you are. So yeah, I don't think that anybody ever really starts over. But it's definitely one of the most common limiting beliefs. Phillip, I know you have a ton of experience with working with clients. Can you tell me a little bit about Michael and his limiting belief that he overcame? I love his story so much.

Phillip Migyanko 10:35

Yeah. So this is Michael, if you've heard him on the Happen To Your Career podcast, he is a great story. But he really highlights the second one of the four that we're talking about. And it's one that I see all the time. And usually, when I talk to anybody, no matter their age, they'll usually wear it as this badge of honor, like "I'm a 50 something year old, and I've got this much time left." And it also comes from this aspect of like, "Hey, I can't afford to make this change. Basically, I don't have enough time, and I don't have the time before retirement, and I gotta do everything I can before I get my fancy watch. And then I go and retire." And that's really kind of highlighted, you know. Basically in Michael's story, and he's really the definition of somebody who could not afford not to make a change. Hear that again. He could not afford to not make a change. You might be listening to this, you might be going "Okay, wait, that might be me. I can't be sitting here in the spot anymore. And I'm listening to them on my lunch break. And now I have to go back in and oh, I can't be doing this anymore." And, you know, his story sounds really glamorous. And I hear this all the time, right. He was the vice president of worldwide distribution, finance at Sony, he loved movies, and he loved TV. And he said that "If you're going to do accounting, do it for a product that you have interest in. And then you'll be excited about the sales and then excited about the marketing. And you'll be engaged in the company and blah, blah, blah." Stuff Cindy, and our entire team at Happen To Your Career hear it all the time. If I just love the thing, then I'll have no problems. If I just love the thing, then I'll never work a day in your life, right? Wrong. He started out as a senior financial analyst in September of 2001. And he could see right away that the more you can handle, the more you would just, they would just throw at you. I'm sure everybody can raise their hand if you've been there before. But at the end, it got to a point where the demands of the job felt like they were 24/7. The work just kept piling up till it was physically emotionally and everything was just, he just couldn't keep himself going. It was literally killing him. And mentally, he was just overwhelmed all the time and worried constantly about too many things. Now, not being able to fix anything perfectly or make anything work perfectly, that was not a good combination for Michael. Remember I said the perfectionism thing. And it was just this constant routine of lots of work, keep going, more stuff to do, perfection and stuff getting in, what's the next big raise, keep it going, get another bonus, keep going and going going. I'm on this trajectory to basically get to retirement and then die. And he had a great team of people under him. And that sustained him for years. And he felt like it was his duty to suffer through this job. Now, I hear this one all the time, like work is just hard. I just have to do these things. And maybe it's just hard, and I'll just, you know what I grit my teeth. And I'll go for another five years, I'll go for another 10 years. And because he wanted to see his team advance, because he really cared about them, and to see them get promoted and take on more responsibility, he stayed. And this is great. And he did that until he physically couldn't do it anymore. He wasn't sleeping, he was eating. Remember I said all the physical and mental and just stress he got on. And like no joke. And if you listen to his story, he even talks about this where he lost 20 pounds in that last year. And he kept telling himself, you know, "It'll get better, it'll get better, it'll get better. It's just the emotional roller coaster" and until he was completely burned out and gave us notice in the beginning of 2019 with no backup plan, he was like, "Okay, it's not gonna get better. I just have to go." Now, he reached out to us, I remember having the first conversation with them. And that first step for him was letting go of the "I have to stay on the path that I'm on. I have to stay entertainment. I have to stay in finance, I have to (insert whatever that is) maybe in your story" and I very much relate to this where I often say for Phillip, "I became the slave to my own ambition." And, you know, for him and his story and maybe for a lot of our people who are in this midlife career crisis, we're saying, you know, they spent so much time there, but if I don't do that, then I'm throwing away everything else. And you know, we mentioned here that if this is... we can't afford this, it's not just afford financially, but it's also afford for time aspect, for opportunity. And that if I'm starting from the beginning, that I'm basically having to feel like I'm starting over, it's very similar to the one that Cindy was just mentioning. And long story short, he had to let go of that belief. That was really, really, really hard to do. And that advice came from his coach Mo. And it was that decide what you want in your life now, like, decide what you want your life to look like now, and lay it out and pick how you want to live your life structured, before you start looking for a job in another company. What that means is that get started now that as everybody in their midlife knows that time is fleeting, and that we have a philosophy and we have really one of our values here at Happen To Your Career, which is one life. And I don't mean to Yolo anybody here, and that for all of us non millennial people, that is you only live once. But really what that means more is that we have limited time. And that we're thinking about the bigger picture is what are you doing about it now, because if you get too far, in a bad job for a long time, it takes so much longer to get out of that, and then actually make the change. And really, that's indicative of Michael's story, because today, he's a mortgage broker and a loan officer. And he says he would never want to go back to sitting somewhere, and getting paid by the hour over an annual salary. And what that's given him is a sense of purpose, a sense of control for his time now, and in control the volume of his business, how fast or slow he wants to go. And most importantly, he can take a break, really whenever he needs. And Cindy, thanks for mentioning that story. I think Michaels story is so good here.

Cindy Gonos 16:45

Yeah, I have to say, as I'm talking to folks, I don't know if there's any one podcast episode that has resonated so deeply with folks as Michael's story. I'll get on calls and people will tell me that his podcast moves them to tears. So I think that it's easy to see yourself and Michael story for a lot of folks because especially like you think about he's got his team underneath him. He thinks he has what he should want. Right? He thinks he's there. He thinks he has it. So he starts to out like is the grind worth it? And I think a lot of folks, especially those of us who are like Gen X, like we grind, like that's what we were taught to do, that's what we were brought up to do. Our parents were boomers, or we ourselves are boomers, you know, or our parents were the greatest generation or we are the greatest generation, you know, just those generational things of you just like work, work, work, work work. And Michael's a really great example of, "You don't have to do that. Please don't do that."

Phillip Migyanko 17:49

Yeah, definitely not feeling like you have to do that and just keep going. And to the point where you just physically mentally exhaust yourself, it goes back to the thing about bigger picture here. But I know that there's another one that you want to talk about that is... we're not supposed to pick favorites here. But I think secretly this one's my favorite. So Cindy, tell me about this one that you see all the time, especially with people who jump on conversations with you.

Cindy Gonos 18:15

Yes, definitely. So I'm going to tell you about Thomas R. Williams. I also don't like to play favorites, Phillip. But I love Thomas's story so much. Thomas struggled with the thing that we all struggle with no matter what age we are. But I think that it especially comes into play as we start to get a little bit older, a little more mature. And that's our self doubt or self confidence. Right? That we're not enough. So Thomas R. Williams knew he had one purpose in life, what God had created him to do and the reason that he was on earth was to play football. So for five years he played in the NFL, he played for the Jacksonville Jaguars, he played for the Carolina Panthers and for the Buffalo Bills. But then on October 30th 2011, he sustained a neck injury. And as he lay on the ground paralyzed for almost two and a half minutes, his doctor gave him a choice. Did he want to walk for the rest of his life? Or did he want to play football for a few more years? Thomas didn't realize that at that moment, but football was just his passion that was going to lead him to his purpose. He was scared but also exhilarated because there was a feeling inside of them in his stomach that told him "The time is now. Time now to transition." And so for him on that day, it was a whisper inside of his ear that said "You're finished." And even though it was easy for him to understand, it was really difficult for him to embrace. So at first he struggled with his identity. He had gained so much confidence while he was an athlete, right? So that confidence came from repetition over and over again on the field. So to fix that identity piece, he had to start gaining confidence doing something new that he had never explored before. And I think importantly, he had never been complimented on before. He had to start looking for the yeses from people who saw what was inside of them. So he told himself, "don't focus on developing weaknesses, go to your strengths first." He looked for careers and opportunities that allowed him to do the things that are trusted people– his advisors, his teammates, his friends, these are the things that they told him that he was good at. And what they told him is that he had been an inspiration to everyone around him. That's how we ended up finding public speaking, personal development, coaching and consulting, and even coined his own catchphrase, Phillip, which is like, I'm just absolutely obsessed with this. He said, "I never stopped playing football, I just don't tackle people anymore." He created a mindset of taking that same determination, the same grit and all of the other characteristics from his football career. And he was able to apply them into the life that he has now. And I think that's pretty amazing.

Phillip Migyanko 21:00

I mean, that's super amazing, especially that quote that you said, of, you know, "I never stopped playing football, I just don't tackle people." And, you know, it comes back to the third point, which is, you know, not feeling enough or not feeling like we are enough. And like you mentioned, every single person no matter their age has the same feeling. But it just has a different flavor. It has a different taste for this midlife career kind of crisis, because it almost comes back to that perfectionism. That was also Michael's story. But even the same thing here. And I'm kind of teasing the fourth bullet point a little bit in here, too, where it's so much around– who am I? What's my new identity now? And what am I going towards? And the feeling of not enough. Feeling like, well, I've only been doing this for so long, I've been in this career for so long. Or maybe you're on the other side that where I feel like I've jumped around to so many places and done so many things. And it really becomes a story that we tell ourselves that doesn't actually serve us and can really hinder, one, the ability to come out and ask for help to join on a conversation with Cindy or myself and then, two, join on conversations but really be able to look for the life that you want to build later because I don't know about you, but I'm never gonna feel like I'm making my life my career that I want if I don't feel like I'm feeling great.

Cindy Gonos 22:20

Yeah, no, I feel that for sure. I mean, and I will speak as a recent empty nester, Phillip, you know this. My husband is a very recent empty nester. And I think that it's that identity piece, right. Even with the other examples that we were talking about, it all kind of boils down to embracing who you are in that moment and knowing that who you are in that moment is enough. And I think that we see that with so many of our clients. So tell me, Phillip, round it out, bring it home, we got one more limiting belief to talk about. So bring us home with this last limiting belief, Phillip.

Phillip Migyanko 22:58

Yeah, so you mentioned the beginning. So my team, our client results team, the team that I lead, we work with people all the time in this mid midlife career spot. And this is one that I hear a lot, especially from this group. And from looking at the data, what stops people for often making these big changes is this when I call this internal identity change, meaning, I can't leave something I know or I've worked so hard for. (Insert) I've worked for a place for 10, 15, 20, blink blink years, or I am known to my organization is blah, blah, blah, this thing. And what happens is, is that there can be a lot of limiting beliefs, or at least mindset stuff where they feel like they can't leave the thing that they've done so much, and go to something else. Now, we see this as an internal identity thing, like I've always been an astronaut, right. And I cannot not never been an astronaut anymore. Or I've reached the point in my organization where I am known as the fixer. And if I go to another organization, will they know me as the fixer? Will they not know me? Or I've gotten to a point where I have so much PTO or so much time off how many I get that same vacation that I do every single year that I have pre booked in this new organization. Will they be okay with that? Would they not be okay with that? And it really starts a couple of things. And one of the things that you might have heard this podcast from Jenny Briggs now, Jenny, she was a research scientist who you know, she loves science, but ultimately hated her job. And she was afraid of disappointing others and giving up on all that hard work that she'd done in her career and losing the benefits of her education, which held her back from finding her ideal role. Hint. Now, this comes back to I feel like I've put so much into the thing that I can't go find the next thing. Now, Jenny here, she wanted to love her job but she didn't. She hated it. And her family could generations of professors too, and to deviate from that path as adds another layer of complexity here. So, you know, what she mentioned that she worked both in the education realm for a while, and as a field biologist, and she definitely had a series of part time jobs during college, they led to some great adventures and learning experiences. But she had the realization through graduate school that she didn't really want this traditional career as an academic professor. And we see this a lot, especially with our midlife career changers, where they're seeing these things are like, "Okay, wait. People are doing it differently here." Or "The person who I've been working with for the last 10 years, they just left" Or she... Like I said, her family, including her dad, did this academic type of work. So she's seen lots of examples of what this career path has done, and what's intrigued her about it, and what she hasn't liked about it. And so she learned really from all of her experiences before that, "Hey, I don't know if this would, you know, best be the fit for me." And it took... long story short, it really took Jenny three years to work through all those fears, all those anxieties, all those things that she did, and ultimately landed her into her ideal role. So really, within here, it's one of the things that Jenny was struggling with was that I've just seen how it's worked for so long, and this is part of who I am. It's bred into me that I can't see doing anything else. And I'm working with clients right now and so was my team, who are... and this is... you might be a lawyer, we have lots of people who go, "I can't see myself being a lawyer anymore. I can't see myself doing these things anymore." And it's a really, really, really difficult script to flip in your head. Anything else to add there? Anything else I forgot?

Cindy Gonos 26:45

No, I love that. And I love the fact that you kind of called out that with Jenny, it was the expected path that she was supposed to go down. It was bred into her to do that. And it's so funny, because I'm thinking of a particular client, Phillip, you and I both know and adore her. But she's one of our older clients. And I remember having a first time call with her. And she let me know, "Cindy, I'm in my 60s. And I don't know what I want to be when I grow up." And she had been in a role for a long time. It was established. She had the prestige. And her heart just wasn't in it. And I think that there's something that's so empowering at any age, being able to say, "I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. But now I get a say. Now I do get to pick, I get to choose, I get to decide what I want to be when I grow up." At any time, at any age, you can decide what you want to be when you grow up. And sometimes when I do first time calls with folks, I'll ask them, "When you were a little kid, what did you want to be when you grow up?" And it's so amazing how you'll see that connection between the things that they cared and valued when they were kids and the things that they still care and value now, and how in some way, shape or form, we can bring those things together, because that's what fills their bucket. Like it may not be that they're an astronaut, right, maybe that's what they wanted to be when they were a little kid. But what we do is we focus on their strengths, and we figure out how they best show up and where they make the biggest impact. And in my heart, I believe they become an astronaut. You know what I mean?

Phillip Migyanko 28:28

Totally. And you know, one of the things that we haven't mentioned here and we consciously chose not to do it, but just to bring it in for a second. Ageism. That's one concern that we hear all of the time. It's like oh, and just to just to validate those fears, there is total ageism out there, Scott's told stories, I've had stories, Cindy I'm sure you have stories of seeing that both on the hiring side, but also feeling that on the other side. And regardless of that, one of the things that we're kind of pointing out here and really, for all of our top four kinds of things, you know, it has less to do with that. And really, at the end of the day, this is what I often tell my clients is "We don't really want to be working with those people anyways, like why would you want to be working with somebody who's going to be like, wait, what's your birth certificate? What year were you born? What generation you're in?" Okay, that's going to dictate all of those things. And I remember working with one client, and that was a huge concern for her. She was concerned like, "Well, I'm a 50 something year old, and they're going to, that's the first thing they're going to look at. And they're not going to do all these things." And how we got around that, basically, was she just created relationships. She just talked to people and she talked to people as people. And she connected on values. She connected on experience. She connected on things that she cared about. And ultimately Cindy, I think that's your point. So kind of to wrap up over four here, I think number one, and you let me know if I missed anything in here as well. Number one is I don't want to have to feel like I've started over. Two, I can't afford to make a change. Three, I have not enough. And four is internal identity change of, how can I move on from something I've been doing for so long to something completely new? Did I get all of them, Cindy?

Cindy Gonos 30:12

You got them all, Phillip. You got them all. Yes.

Phillip Migyanko 30:15

Nice.

Cindy Gonos 30:15

So I guess the big question now is...

Phillip Migyanko 30:18

So yeah, what to do next?

Cindy Gonos 30:20

What do you do? What do you do, right? So easy peasy lemon squeezy. Just ditch those limiting beliefs sounds so easy, doesn't it? Like, no big deal? Just let them go. No, I think one of the most important things that folks can do is get some clarity, right, you need to gain some clarity, really dive into discovering what you want and how you can get it. I think that once you start to do that, then things start to become more real life. You start to like, understand that these things can happen, you really need to just get some clarity. So that's the first thing you can do is get some clarity. The second thing is to promote your strengths. We focus a lot on trades. We talk about trends all the time. So take pride in your experience and your willingness to learn what you don't know. And keep in mind that everything you have comes with you. Every experience, every strength, every skill, everything comes with you. And then I think probably the most important thing that you can do is ask for help. I think that's the hardest thing. And I think it's probably the most important thing. So usually, Phillip, Scott would tell folks to reach out to him.

Phillip Migyanko 31:30

Yeah, but he's out of office right.

Cindy Gonos 31:32

But they cannot because he is going to Greece. So if you would like to talk more about your situation, if you feel like you are having a midlife career crisis, and you would like to talk to another middle aged person who happens to know a lot about helping people get through their midlife career crisis, then you can reach out to me, you can email me at cindy@happentoyourcareer.com you can put "Midlife Career Crisis", put midlife career crisis in the subject title, and then we can connect and we can talk more about your midlife career crisis. Or you can go to the website happentoyourcareer.com/schedule and you can actually schedule a time to talk with me. And we can grab about old school style, like life about midlife career crisis. But, either way, I would love to hear from folks.

Phillip Migyanko 32:25

Yeah, to brag about Cindy, just for a second, she is just absolutely amazing in these calls. Anytime I am getting somebody who is in this stage, who comes to us right from a call, they're usually like, "Oh my gosh, she's great. She knew exactly what's going on." Because like she said, she's a person who's felt these things before and really understands and relates to this stuff. So reach out to ask for help. This stuff is difficult. All those four things, nobody does anything alone. And it's not like, "Oh, I'm gonna get clarity and flip my script." And we spend a long time helping people get their strengths. So don't hesitate. If you're needing help, usually sooner rather than later. And yeah, email Cindy at cindy@happentoyourcareer.com or go to happentoyourcareer.com/schedule and we love to talk to you and figure out a way that if we can help, let's help.

Cindy Gonos 33:16

Phillip, this has been awesome. I love our team takeover of the HTYC podcast. And I think that people might be hearing more from us in the next couple of weeks. Right?

Phillip Migyanko 33:26

Yeah, thanks so much for bringing me on and super excited. I know we've got a lot of different things planned coming down the pipeline. So this is not the last time you'll see either one of us and especially last time you see one of us take care of the podcast, maybe we might kick Scott out of his seat and try something new. So when he gets back from Greece, maybe Scott might sound differently, or you just might hear some other ones. But thank you so much for bringing me on and excited to talk to you all.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:58

Hey, I hope you loved this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And if this has been helpful, then please share this podcast with your friends, with your family, with your co-workers that badly need it. Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you next week.

Liz McLean 34:15

I tell my clients, every industry no matter what it is, I don't know the topics that they have problems they're trying to solve right now, debates that are happening right now that you can just go join the conversation and that will cause that reciprocal curiosity. And she landed a job that way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:36

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.