Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 00:01

You know when a chapter is over, you're like, "I have learned everything that I can learn from this experience, and I wanted to go home." And I just had this calling of like, "I think I've learned everything I need to learn."

Introduction 00:18

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:43

What should my next step be? It's the question we hear over and over from people wanting to make the shift to more fulfilling work. But here's the truth, it's actually the wrong question to ask. True fulfillment doesn't come from following a step by step guide. Surprise! There's no one size fits all checklist to get a perfectly fulfilling career. Because real fulfillment, well, turns out, it's different for everyone. This is probably not a massive surprise to you if you've listened to this podcast before. It's not an external process that you have to get through, it starts with you. So instead of starting with, "What should I do next?" Ask yourself, "What do I actually want?" That simple shift could change everything.

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 01:29

This quote of, I'm sure you've seen it before, "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive. Because the world needs more people who've come alive." I really believe that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:42

That's Karen Woodin-Rodríguez. From a very young age, Karen knew she wanted to make an impact, so she set out with a simple goal of changing the world. Very simple, right? So she got her degree in political science from Columbia University, worked with social enterprises across the globe, and ended up in India where she founded her own business in international development. She was doing work she was great at and she was very successful. To everyone else, it seemed like she was thriving, but deep down, something was missing. This is a common theme. You've heard it on this podcast before, and she found herself wondering, "Is this really it? Is this all there is?" Here's the key thing that happened here, though. Instead of ignoring those feelings, Karen used them as an opportunity to look inward through that reflection. She realized that her true calling was still about changing the world, but on an individual level–working with people one on one. So she used all of her experiences and her connections to transition into full time career coaching. This is where we got to meet Karen because over the years, she's personally helped over 500 people make meaningful transitions to work that fulfills them. But today, we're lucky to have Karen's unique experiences, insights and expertise as a part of the Happen To Your Career team. So in just a minute, you're gonna hear Karen, and she'll be sharing how she stopped doing what she thought she had to do to change the world, and then figured out what that really actually meant for her. By the way, the voice you'll hear is Samantha. She's our content manager, and she's talking with Karen about where her career first began.

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 03:22

I was raised in Monterrey, Mexico. It's in the north of Mexico. I did the International Baccalaureate, which is like this really like advanced critical thinking bachelor's degree. And the reason I'm talking about high school when I'm like a grown woman is because that is where I have the seeds of I wanted to change the world. I'm a millennial. I drank the Kool Aid. I wanted to change the world. And that's why I went to, like, the most intellectually demanding high school I could. And at the same time, I was doing theater and Model United Nations, which is a debate, a simulation, and I was doing leadership classes and that I felt so fulfilled as a human being, and that experience allowed me to get into Columbia University and get a full ride, need based, full ride to Columbia University. And that opened up the doors of the world for me. So I had that opportunity, and I thought, "Okay, I want to change the world. How do I do that? Let me... I'll study political science", because I want to work in politics, or I want to work at the United Nations, that is the way to go. So I did that, and all of my internships throughout college were around social enterprises. Why? Because if you want to work in politics in Mexico or at the UN that takes time. But what was immediately available was working at social enterprises, which are these businesses that are trying to solve some sort of problem, like, access to clean energy, access to clean water, alleviating poverty, etc. So I did that. I did internships in Guatemala, Ecuador, Singapore. I did a stint in Kenya, and junior year changed my life. So...

Samantha Martin 05:06

Junior year at Columbia?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 05:07

Yes. So what happened is, one of the coolest things about Columbia, a very well resourced University, is there's these internships abroad. And I was like, "I'm going to use all of them." So they had this one in Singapore for a social enterprise. And the way that I chose that, Samantha, was I asked myself, they had another one in Hong Kong, they had one in London. And before this, I had never left Mexico. I'd only left Mexico to go to McAllen, Texas, which is where my grandparents lived in South Padre Island, and like a little bit of Texas, but that's it. And suddenly I was traveling internationally with social entrepreneurship, and there was an internship in Singapore. And I chose it because I thought to myself, "Let me go to the place that I would otherwise never go to." Like, I thought I'm always going to want to go to London, but like Singapore, I don't even know where that is on the map. So I went there, and then, you know, I did my internship. And I remember there was one weekend where, like, I went with a group of like, other interns, and they're like, "Do you want to go to Thailand for the weekend?" And I was like, "What?" So we went to Thailand for the weekend. And I remember being like, in the ocean swimming, and just being like, "Can this be life? Because this real life, is this me coming from, like, never leaving Mexico?" So that really cracked something open for me where I was like, "I think I want to live internationally." And that's what I mean when I say that Columbia opened the doors of the world for me. So then I was like, okay. And at the time, everyone in college was either being an investment banker, doing teach for America, or, I don't know what, so I didn't know how to answer the question of what I want to do. So instead, I answer the question of, where do I want to be. And I want to be internationally, and I want an adventure. So fast forward, that led me to India, where I worked at a multinational, which happened to be a social enterprise incubator. I have a career in international development that happened in India for five years, moved back to Mexico, leveraged that to work in microfinance. So basically, for the past eight years, I worked in international development across India, Latin America. I became Portfolio Manager for a microfinance organization called kiva.org and it was amazing. I loved it, right? That was my way of changing the world.

Samantha Martin 07:22

What took you back to Mexico?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 07:24

Oh, that's a good question. I always wanted to go back. I always wanted to go back. When I got the admissions to Columbia, my middle school coordinator said, "You're never coming back." And I was like, "Oh, but I am." And I did. And I did. I loved being in New York. I loved it, but I was also like, "What else is out there?" Right? I really... I have a deep sense of adventure and seeing the world, so I went back to Mexico. And then so eight years, International Development. That job... Now I'm going to tell you how I became a career coach. So the goal was to alleviate poverty through microfinance, right? So my job as a portfolio manager was, I needed to onboard social enterprises. So basically, I did social entrepreneurship for a long time. Kiva hired me because of that expertise. So now working in microfinance. One of the partners that I onboarded was a social enterprise that was a technology boot camp. So basically, people go through this certification program to become software engineers. Basically, it's an upward mobility program, and it was targeting specifically deported and returned youth from the US to Mexico. So it was the social impact thing, changing the world, right? So I work with them. I onboarded them, became friends with the founder, and she said to me, "Hey, our graduates need help getting hired. I know you're really good at getting jobs, so can you help them?" And I did. And that's it. That's how I became a career coach, right? And I realized I loved it. I got a kick from taking people from like, "Oh my God, I don't know how to do this", to "Wow, I did it." So I discovered that I love it. And what I discovered is that I now change the world, but I do it one conversation at a time, as opposed to through policy or through social entrepreneurship or by working at the United Nations or by being an elected official.

Samantha Martin 09:14

So, I do want to go back and crack open your story a little bit. So you were living in India, and then is that, after you were in India, you went to Mexico City, back to Mexico City? Was that a job change, or what made you leave that job?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 09:32

Yeah, that is a good question. So I was in that role for three years. I was a brand manager, and the way that this company was building their brand was through social entrepreneurship. They created an accelerator for social enterprises in the country. I loved that. But then, honestly, what I realized is, and maybe a lot of people have this experience with their first job out of college, I had to be there from nine to five, and that just didn't make sense to me. Because sometimes I had a lot of work, but other times I didn't, and we would literally sit in our office and just, like, wait for it to be 5pm and we would leave. And I just thought, "This is silly. There has to be a better way." So started reading about entrepreneurship, and I actually started my own business leveraging Model United Nations, which I'd done in college. And I discovered that, like Indian students, wanted to learn this because they wanted this extracurricular activity to get admissions into a US college. So I found a niche, and I started a business called Project Model UN, ran it full time for three years, and during that time, I worked with nearly 2000 students across five cities in India. Also worked across one city in Mexico. So it was, I loved it. I was training people in public speaking, skills, negotiation, how to present your ideas, collaborate. I loved it. But then I decided that, you know, when a chapter is over, you're like, "I have learned everything that I can learn from this experience. And I wanted to go home." And I just had this calling of like, "I think I've learned everything I need to learn." Obviously, India is a vast country. You're never going to learn everything. But for me, it was time to make a change.

Samantha Martin 11:11

So you were working with Indian youth. And then when you got back to Mexico, you were working with youth as well. Is that right?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 11:19

Yes, but different youth. So like in India was high school students and middle school students. Then it was more like young professionals.

Samantha Martin 11:26

So when did you transition to helping people with their careers? Not youth?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 11:32

Yeah. So basically, when I was in Mexico, I had five years of experience building my own business and working at social enterprises in India, and I was in the new market, didn't know how to find jobs there, so I thought it was a big crisis moment for me. I mean, in full transparency, like I experienced depression coming back. I had been out of the country for nine years. I had my identity was being the international student from Mexico, or, like, the foreigner from Mexico. And now I was like, the Mexican in Mexico, like, social, you know, I was like, "What?" It was a big crisis. But then I really, I had support networks for my friends, family, and I just did deep introspection and said, like, "What do I actually want? What are the common threats between these two experiences?" And for me, it really was social impact. However you define that. There's many ways to define that, right? But for me, I was like, "I need to be doing something that makes some form of positive impact in the world. So I was like, "Okay, social impact. And then what?" That was, like, still very broad. So I was like, okay, my experience, I've done business development, I've done partnership management. I can do fundraising, because I did it for my business. So I was like, okay, that led me to, like, partnership management roles, or project management roles because of what I've done. And that is how I found Kiva. So kiva.org has a mission of alleviating poverty through micro loans. They were looking for a portfolio manager. So I actually didn't meet all the requirements. I knew nothing about microfinance, but they needed somebody who had expertise in social entrepreneurship, which I had. So I leveraged that to get into that new role, and that role is what then led me to working with career changers and to coach them. But it was almost an accident. I was like, "How am I here?" Which is, like, how a lot of our careers are, right?

Samantha Martin 13:25

Yeah, so what's the connection between helping in microfinance to career changers?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 13:30

So at kiva.org working in microfinance, one of the partners that I onboarded in my role as a portfolio manager was called Ola code, and they were a technology boot camp that works with students. So I onboarded them to Kiva, became friends with the founder, and then she said, "Hey, we need help getting our students hired. I know you're really good at this stuff. Can you help us?" So I started doing it pro bono, just being like, "Yeah, I'll run some workshops. Yeah, I'll help out." Then I got laid off from my job at Kiva, and she's like, "Come work with us." So I did that, and I like, created... Basically, what I realized is, "Listen, I can coach people all day, all night. It is going to be far more effective if we get hiring partners who buy into our mission, and we're going to hire based on potential, not on execution." So I was like, and I'm already great at that, because I used to run my own business and I did partnerships management for my first job at Mahindra. So I started sending cold outreach emails, and I got 100 hiring partners, and got students hired. And then I was like, "I love this. I love working one on one with people." So then I took that experience to get my next role as a career coach at Springboard, which is another technology boot camp.

Samantha Martin 14:41

Interesting. I want to get dig more into your time when you were feeling just like a Mexican in Mexico.

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 14:49

Yes, like, what is special about me?

Samantha Martin 14:51

Yes. Do you think that that was having, like, a huge impact on you that you weren't feeling special because your goal had always been, like, "I'm gonna change the world" and you felt like you weren't in that moment? Or where was your misfit coming from? I guess.

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 15:06

Yeah. Well, you know, I was an entrepreneur, and I felt very proud of that. I felt very proud of the fact that I had seen an opportunity in the market, and I was serving students, like, middle and high school students, and I was very good at that. And then I realized this no longer serves me. I'm ready for the next chapter of my life. And I didn't know what it was. And I said, "That's okay. I want to explore and see what that next chapter looks like. So I'm just going to leave this business, close it down, I had some savings, and move back to Mexico." Honestly, I really wanted to go to New York, but I was like, can't afford New York. I have family in Mexico City, so I was like, "Great. Let me do that while I figure it out." And then slowly, well, actually, before that, my dream had always been to be an actor. So I was like, "What would I do if I had a rich family?" And I said, "I would spend time in New York pursuing acting." I was like, well, I can't spend a lot of time, but I can do a summer intensive. So I did that. And it was so fun.

Samantha Martin 16:06

In New York?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 16:07

In New York at Stella Adler studio of acting. I'm actually a part time actor now. But I came back and I slowly started feeling not good. Just like the constant thought that wouldn't leave my head was, my life is never going to be as amazing as it was before. And it was this anxious thought that actually led to depression. Because I was like, "I had made it. I had this business, I had replaced my income, I had doubled it. Was working the hours that I wanted. And now, who am I?" And I, on purpose, didn't line up a job for myself or clients in Mexico. The truth is, I was over doing Model United Nations like I had outgrown it. So I was like, "I don't want to run this business." I still have a friend who runs a Model UN business, and he loves it. And I was like, "I don't have that passion for this." So I know it's time to move on. It was very hard. I just, you know, I went from being an entrepreneur, like, doing whatever I wanted, feeling really excited in this amazing life in Bombay, traveling, to being in Mexico City, staying with my aunt who's, I love her, but like being at her house, not having anything to do and feeling terrible, right? So I'm like, "What?" I think it's kind of like, when people say, "I moved back to my parents house", it wasn't quite that because it was a different city, but it was kind of like, and I didn't believe in my potential. I was just like, "What? Like, why did I make that stupid choice?" Right?

Samantha Martin 17:38

But you closed that chapter because you knew something wasn't right and something needed to change, and you took the leap to make yourself make it.

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 17:44

Yes, I did. I was like, "This country is no longer serving me." And I remember going from like, again, I would cry. You know, people who've experienced depression know this. Getting out of bed is a huge endeavor, just like you don't enjoy... I didn't enjoy watching movies. I was just, like, dull. It was just terrible. And eventually, what happened was, again, I have a very supportive family, like, I stayed with my aunt, I didn't pay anything, then I stayed with my friends, like, I had a big support network. That's very important to mention. No financial stress. And then here's the thing, in 2012, I actually took a course. Just like, to start my business, and then I took another one on how to find a job that you love, and I took it at a time and I had a job. I was like, "I don't need this." But this guy said something that really hit me, and he said, "Top performers always have another job lined up. As a top performer, like knowing where to get your next opportunity is a skill." And I was like, okay. So I did it. I did the course. Didn't use it until four years later when I was depressed and I remember, like, "I'm so grateful that I did that. That I did that for future me, because I knew exactly how to find a role that I loved. I knew exactly the system to follow." Right? So basically, I was like, sad and depressed, and then November was terrible. And then this was just my experience, I'm not saying it's for everyone, but there came a point where I did see a light at the end of the tunnel where I did feel like, "Okay, I can do something about this." Like, there was four months where, like, nothing, and then I was like, "I think I could do a little bit." And that's when I applied to the role at Kiva. I did my entire, like, outreach system.

Samantha Martin 19:32

And it sounds like you did have another role lined up, just like that guy told you to. Because when you got laid off, that lady was like, "Come work for me." Right?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 19:30

There you go. And it worked out. Then exactly, then it worked out later, right? So it did. It actually has played out. That's actually how I got this job at Happen To Your Career. I wrote it in my journal, "July 31st, 2024, get a job at Happen To Your Career." And I made it. I have, like, my action items, and I reached out to. I did the thing. I did the process.

Samantha Martin 19:59

That's cool. So is that, I'd want to call it manifesting, but if there's a better word for what you use, or was that that guy used before?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 20:07

Yeah, the way that I think about it is, I mean, I guess you could call it manifesting. But I think it's really, and this is like, what I do with my clients, you know, it's like, "What do you want? Let's connect with that desire, and then we're going to bring a deep inner belief that it can be done." And I knew that it could be done because I done it four times before. Myself, and then with my clients hundreds of times before. So then once we know like the target, we believe that it can happen. I just executed the system to get to that. I know that that doesn't sound as exciting or exhilarating, but it really is a process.

Samantha Martin 20:43

Yeah, it's a process. It doesn't have to be exciting if it works. It's exciting because it works.

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 20:48

It's exciting because it works. Exactly. Like, the process doesn't need, I mean, and it was exciting, but, like, I just executed the process that is proven, and here I am, and that's what I love to do. I love working with other humans to get to where they want to be.

Samantha Martin 21:03

So a big thing for you is starting with you said, breaking down like their goal, but as a desire, like, what they really want?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 21:11

Yeah, 100%. Like, the most important thing is, what do you want? Because people, like, 10 tips to be successful. What is success to you? What do you want? Right? And for some people, like, really, really care about working remotely, I'm one of those, I really care about direct, tangible impact, and I get that through one on one coaching. But just like, what do you want? And you'll see it in my profile this quote of, I'm sure you've seen it before, "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive. Because the world needs more people who've come alive." I really believe that. I believe that our desires are... they exist for a reason. You could say that they're divine, that they're God given, that whatever like is in your belief system. But, you know what? I learned this actually by going through therapy and, like, working with multiple coaches. You know this thing about, like, being an actor, for example. I remember going to therapy and being like, "Well, of course, like, everyone wants to be an actor. Like, what is this dream?" My therapist was like, "No. Actually, no. Not like, I don't want to be an actor." I was like, "What?" So I think this, I had this tendency of whatever I desired to be like, but everybody wants that, like, duh. I want to be well paid like everybody wants, well and no but you want it, and you want it in a specific way. So that thing, that's one of my biggest lessons, like, "What do you want?" And Elizabeth Gilbert talks about it too.

Samantha Martin 22:37

Eat, Pray, Love?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 22:38

Eat, Pray, Love, but she has another book. I don't have it here because I lent it to my friend, and she hasn't given it back yet. But this idea that our desires sometimes come screaming.

Samantha Martin 22:49

Big magic, right?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 22:49

Big magic. Sometimes it's like somebody on a megaphone being like, "You want this!" And sometimes it's like a little whisper that you follow. But I always know what I want. Like, I remember when I got laid off I did like, all of the journaling, all of the post its, all of the things about what I want to do and like, who do I admire and what do I like about them? What is the threat in my career? I did all those things. And then when I sat down in silence, in the truth of my heart, you've always wanted to act. You did in high school. You love it. You feel the most alive there. So I did. I did a three year, four year acting conservatory training program, and now I act part time. I'm rehearsing a play right now. But anyways, number one is desire, right? What do you want? And then let's turn that into like, how might we make this happen? Given like that we live on planet Earth, and there are these career options for you, right? So we pair it with your ideal career profile. And then one of the things that I love to do is take imperfect action, right? I love the reflection that is really important. That is... I journal every day. I journal three pages every day. For New Year's resolution, I journal 70 pages. I love introspection and being in dialogue with myself. That is the first step. And then after you've done that, you have to, have to, have to take imperfect action. And what I mean by imperfect action, follow up with somebody. You want to set up a conversation, send the email, even if it's not perfect, even if it's a little wonky, right? Maybe we're doing a strategy where you're going to be posting on LinkedIn. Sure, I'll give you a template, but then just post it. It's fine. The world isn't going to end if it's kind of like a bad post, right? So you will learn so much more from doing the thing than from thinking about doing the thing. Yeah, so that's like, I will be on calls with clients. I'll give you one specific example, a student I'm working with. "How do I reach out to this person? I don't know." I'm like, "Great, let's write it down together." I gave her the script. She seemed a bit paralyzed. I was like, "Let's just do it now." We crafted it. We tailored it. All good. "Bye, Sandy. See you later." She comes back to me weeks later. She's like, "Karen, I haven't sent it. I'm just like, I don't know why I'm sitting on it." And you know what, I'm a great listener. I'm all about like, what is a talk track? Let's think through that. But then I was like, "Actually, just pull it up. Is it ready? Send it right now." You know, I'm like, "Just send it right now." She's like, "Oh my God." I was like, "Actually, share your screen and do it right now." She sends it out, and she, like, almost has a heart attack. And I'm like, "Oh, my, great. You did it. We can move on from this." And what was great about it, I saw her, like, three weeks later, and she's like, "Karen, guess what? I sat on that for weeks. Within two hours from sending it, the head of design responded to me, and we had a call."

Samantha Martin 25:42

Isn't that how it goes?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 25:43

And I was just like, "So, I love that. Listen, we can talk about strategy, we can talk about all the things, but ultimately, imperfect action." And I love to do that with my students. I'm like, "You haven't done it. Okay, let's do it right now." That's it. Sometimes, like we're busy professionals, like, sometimes I just need co-working sessions. You know what I mean?

Samantha Martin 26:01

Yeah. So you mentioned earlier, I had taken it back to when you were in high school and you were fulfilled. Is I think you said in all different areas, and then you said, and that's where you are now. Can you expand on how you feel fulfilled right now in all these different areas? Because if I'm understanding correctly, like in India, you were completely fulfilled in the career realm. And then you went through everything when you came back to Mexico. But now you're feeling like thoroughly fulfilled in all areas, acting, relationships, career, whatever it is, can you expand more on that?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 26:43

Yeah, I think what really attracted me to Happen To Your Career is, "What is the life that you want to live? And how can we find work that supports that?" And when I say that I'm fulfilled, that's kind of what I mean. I love working, oh my God. And I love working with people one on one. I love helping people achieve their dreams. I'm so passionate about that. And I love acting, and telling stories, and rehearsing plays, and auditioning for things. And I love traveling, which is why with my partner, we take at least one international trip a year. And I love having deep, meaningful relationships with my family members and my friends, which is why I'm moving to live closer to my aunts. So that's what I mean. Like, there's different parts of me that I'm tending to with these life choices that I've made. Does that make sense?

Samantha Martin 27:32

Yeah. So when you wrote like, work at Happen To Your Career in July, what was the whisper or the megaphone that you were hearing when you were like, "I want to work there." What was moving you towards that?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 27:45

Yeah. I think it was like multiple whispers coming from multiple directions. I think a big part of it was, so I think two. Number one, I was looking for growth. And growth for me looked like a new challenge and learning new things. You know, for the past almost five years, I've specialized in working with. I specialize in working with creative professionals who are transitioning careers into technology, specifically into product design or user experience design, which is designing the digital products that we use in our lives, Google Calendar, Zoom, etc. And I love that. I love love, love that. And also I started to get the itch of, "I want to learn something else." And I...

Samantha Martin 28:25

Is that the thing you were feeling in India?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 28:27

Yeah. Like, what also I want to do with this? And for me, I realized I love career coaching. I know that is the thing that I love to do. How can I grow and expand my impact? And for me, at Happen To Your Career, I was like, "Oh, how exciting would it be to work with people from, like, very different backgrounds", which I kind of did before, "but also who don't actually know where they want to go to." So I was like, "How can I help answer a more beautiful question?" And the more beautiful question is like, what actually I want to do with my life? And what is the role? And what does that look like? So that was exciting to me. And then number two, my favorite part about my previous role, in addition to working with students, was the coaches that I worked with. I learned so much from colleagues. And then speaking to two of the career coaches at Happen To Your Career, and then also listening to the content, listening to the audiobook, I just kind of had a feeling of like, "These are my people." I like what they believe. I like what they think, they're top notch. I think it'll be very good for me to be surrounded by people who are world class what they do. So that's what led me here.

Samantha Martin 29:30

Nice. I wanted to ask, you said you were working with people focusing on creatives, moving into user design, user research. Is that right? So what are like some examples of careers that the creatives had before they moved into?

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 29:48

Yeah. So whenever I work in my previous role with clients, I use the term creative professional. But like, what even is that? I would say two things. Number one, literally, every single one of them says to me, "I want to be more creative in my career." And that tends to be like a defining thing of people who go into user experience design, not as much as for example, I was talking to one of my colleagues who coaches data analysts and data scientists. You know what they say. that they like to solve problems, and they love solving puzzles as kids. So I'm like, "Oh, these are different profiles", so that's their desire, and the careers they come from vary widely, everything from, obviously, graphic designers, architects, interior designers, psychologists, educators, people in marketing, sales, yeah, like, in quotations, the soft side of tech, right? The people who consider themselves empaths, who love creativity, who love building things, those are the people who I've primarily been working with over the past five years.

Samantha Martin 30:57

Okay, we talked about how you like to start breaking down your client's goals into their actual desires. So once you solve that with them, I guess that's the word, once you figure out what their true desire is to move forward, not what's your process, but what's your favorite parts of the process, or what do you like to focus on? Or...

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 31:20

I'll tell you an example. Yeah. So we have an idea, right, which is your ideal career? Well, it's not even that, it's before that. It's like, what do you want? And then we're like, what does that look like in the real world? Like, does this exist? How might it exist? How might we breathe it into existence? And then we'll form hypotheses around that. So for example, "Oh, maybe I can work remotely for a company like YouTube. Maybe I can be a content designer. Maybe..." so we look at specific roles, like, what roles exist at what companies that might fit into... we're just going to make us an assumption. And then what I love is having people talk to the humans in the positions that they think they want. So I'll give you an example. My partner, she works in sales at Amazon, and I've been coaching user experience designers. So she would listen to my conversations to get really curious. And then I looked at her and said, "Actually, you would be great at user research. Oh, my God, you would love it." And she got very curious about it. She started reading books. I know people who work in UX research. I was like, "I want you to talk to Caleb and Edith, to all my friends. Just ask them about what they do, their day to day. See if it's exciting to you." She did. And she left those conversations being like, "Oh my god, I love it. Who else? What else do I do?" Right? And then that led to like, okay, this does align. This is what I want to do. Then what? So then she asked people in the industry, "how do I learn?" And they were all like, "Oh, a Nielsen Norman Group is really the standard." So then she took a course, and then she's very lucky that she works at a company that at Amazon, they have something called subject matter expertise, which, every year you need to do a project that is outside of your area of expertise, outside of your team, and like, become an expert at it. Her team actually was developed that way, so she's doing that, and now she's on path for promotion to then get the role of user experience researcher. So I love that story, and that's I'm like, let's test it.

Samantha Martin 33:20

So what she did is, we like to call test driving conversations. So like having conversations with the people that you knew in the industry that she was interested in, the role that she was interested in. But I also wanted to say, it kind of goes to show that sometimes the people around us that are closest to us know us, not a little more than we know ourselves, maybe a little better than we know ourselves, but like, can help us figure out what fits us. And we can go to them and say, like, "What am I good at?" You know, all those types of questions. And we, I know our clients use that a lot, because they don't realize some of the things that their closest people in their life realize about them that can be so helpful when they're trying to figure out what their next step is, so that's an interesting example of that, because you were like, "Hey, you..."

Karen Woodin-Rodríguez 34:04

"You. You would be good at this." Yeah, that is so true. Like our friends. Another question to ask yourself is, what do your friends come to you for? What is it that they're like... All my friends like careers, interviews, help me with my resume, my LinkedIn profile, because I know I'm very good at that. What do your friends come to you for? And maybe there's good information there, maybe not. But in this case, there was. I was like, you'd be great at this, and now she's changed your career. So that's great. So one last thing I'll say is, if you're listening to this and you've been having this whisper that you want to change, that something's not working, that this isn't the career that you want, that there's something bigger or better, or just a better fit or more aligned for you, I just want to say that you're not crazy. It exists. It's there. How you go about it is different thing. But I just want you to know that you're not crazy and that what you're feeling is real and it's true and it's valid. And what I want for you is that you honor that, and you go after that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:16

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:09

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:14

I've started five businesses. Two of them are dismal failures, and three of them profitable and successful. Consequently, every single day I get questions about starting businesses from clients, from people at the coffee shop. Questions like, ""How long does it take? When should I take the leap to full time? What's a good amount to have in savings?" And I answer these, but honestly, most of the questions that I get asked are the wrong questions. In this episode, I give you better questions to ask when you're interested in starting a business on the side and potentially taking it full time. And more importantly, what most people never think to ask.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:53

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.

Introduction 00:05

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:29

If you've sent any kind of networking or connection emails in the last year, you might wonder, why are they being ignored? Why are you not getting responses? Is it the wording? Is it the timing? Or is it simply that they're getting lost in a flood of AI generated pitches and spam? When I first started this podcast, way back in 2013, LinkedIn was the go to place to connect with someone about your career. And while it's still possible to connect with people there, the landscape has drastically changed. People are now much more skeptical when it comes to their LinkedIn messages, thanks to the overwhelming number of sales pitches that are flooding them constantly, and also with the influx of AI. That's the case on almost every platform on the internet. So here's what we're gonna do today in this podcast, we're gonna walk through the best ways to identify the right place to reach out to someone, whether it's LinkedIn, email, another platform, and then how to craft a message that maximizes your chances of building a meaningful connection right from the start.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:36

When it comes to reaching out to people with the purpose of exploring the new industry or role or a company, the most common term you hear is networking, of course, but we like to focus on this in a different way, shock and surprise, right? Here at Happen To Your Career, instead, we refer to this step of the career change process as test driving conversations, and it's part of the experimentation stage when you're trying to determine what makes an amazing fit for you. So before we jump in, I just want to quickly explain the difference. Networking and test driving conversations can both involve connecting with others, but they come at it from very different angles. Networking often is either just for the purpose of connecting, or it's for a transactional purpose, a very focused purpose, a means to an end, expanding your professional circle or unlocking career opportunities.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:35

So what are test driving conversations? They're much more about exploration and discovery. You're not pushing for anything right away. Your goal is to have a low pressure conversation to simply learn if there is a fit in whatever area it is that you're exploring, whether it's the people, whether it is the organization, whether it is the type of role that you're investigating. The perfect way to approach someone without the expectation of immediate outcome. That's the additional benefit. And then they can spark genuine connections that might lead in the future to somewhere unexpected. But we don't want to expect that. Okay, so we go into this much more in detail in a past episode, which we'll link in the show notes here.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:20

Let's discuss a question that most people never ask. Where should you connect with someone? Most people automatically assume it should be LinkedIn. But is it? After all, LinkedIn is flooded, inboxes are overwhelmed. And if the person you are trying to connect with has 1000s of followers on any social media, chances are, their feeds are filled with pitches too. So what's the solution here? And as you can imagine, there's no easy answer. Often, when we're working behind the scenes with clients, we are looking at every single situation on a case by case basis. But one general rule that you can use is it's all about meeting people where they are, where they're spending their time, where they're already giving their attention to. You need to figure out what they care about and where they're most active. Sometimes that's LinkedIn. Sometimes email is going to be the best way. Sometimes it might be through another type of social, like Instagram or Facebook, or even contacting them through their personal website. The key is understanding where you're most likely to get the best response, and giving some kind of thought into where are you going to get the best response. So I want to give you a couple examples as we go along here. Reaching out on text could be effective in some cases, but let's be honest, in certain situations, it could also feel intrusive or creepy, depending on what the context is. So always think about the environment that you're entering here. Be sure to connect with them in a space that feels comfortable and natural. The goal here is to reach out in a way that aligns with how they engage, wherever they engage, that's going to make them feel much more comfortable. So keep that part in mind as we go here. But if they're on Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn or X or what about even if they have a page or write a continuous post on Medium, YouTube channel, something else. Google, by the way, is going to be your very simple best friend to figure out what places they are active online. On LinkedIn, specifically, when you search for them, you can actually pull up all the activity that is referenced by them. You can't see their individual messages, obviously, that other people have sent them or they've interacted with behind the scenes, but you can see the public activity, and this will at least start to give you a clue as to "is this an area that they are responsive on?" Okay, so you can do the same thing for other avenues too. Here's a recent example from someone that we were working with and helping them to understand, you know, where somebody is active. We learned that the individual they were trying to get in contact with had spent quite a bit of time posting on Medium, you know, had, you know, maybe 8 or 10 posts on there, and not long or not short posts either, these were pretty extensive. So clearly, this individual had put some time into it, and it was semi-recent. So if I wanted to build a relationship with this individual, then I'm gonna go to a place where they've already put time and effort in because that heightens the indication that there's some level of emotional connection in that particular place. So I'm gonna go read through and I'm gonna make a comment and just interact with them in a way that is useful on their Medium page. Okay, so here's what that looks like in that case. Read through all of their articles and share the parts that I loved in particular, and thanked them for, you know, putting those posts together. Did we comment on every single article? No, just choose one and make references that read the others too. Now, here's something that is important. You can't just do this as a tactic. You have to actually mean it. If I read all those articles, and I hated every minute of it,definitely not going to do this. We all have built in BS meters that will go off like crazy if we see that somebody is not being genuine. So this, of course, comes from many years of evolution, and it still works well today, so we can't fake this. Okay, if you can't find where somebody is active anywhere online, you may have to jump into the next level of sleuthing, which might be a scavenger hunt of figuring out what is their email address. And you can try formatting for how their company uses email addresses, you know, maybe it's the first-dot-lastname@company.com maybe it's first-initial@lastname@company.com usually you can find other people's email addresses, and this type of detective work can be really useful. But when we're doing this work, again, behind the scenes, we're using tools like Hunter.io or BeenVerified.com and then that helps us minimize some of the detective work by providing more reliable contact information than those email addresses for us. You don't have to do that, but I want to just expose you to there's a variety of methods out there in order to be able to reach the people that you want to reach here. And the other thing here is you can engineer familiarity and engineering familiarity becomes a really helpful strategy. For example, if I come across somebody the first time, and I've never heard that person's name or seen their image before, then it's going to be unfamiliar. However, if I come across them again a few days later, if I'm not thinking about it very hard, then my unconscious is going to think that there's something familiar with that which that actual activity tends to lend an additional amount of trust. Okay, so I don't want you to misuse this instead. We do want to use this for good in order to build relationships. But I want you to recognize that when people see your name in more than one place as or multiple times over, then the more familiar they become with it, which makes you feel like less of a stranger. Okay, so what you might do is contact them in two different places spread out over a short period of time. This might be sending them a LinkedIn connection request and then emailing them later. It might be commenting on their Medium article and then a few days later, sending them a message on LinkedIn. Okay, all of the research and sleuthing, once we've done that, this takes us to the tactical side, which is the reach out itself. So we found them. We know the best place to contact them. Now, how do you actually contact them? What do you say? What do you put into the message? I want to give you a general formula that works very, very well overall here. When the purpose is, and it has to be for this purpose, if it's for a different purpose, this is not going to be effective for you. When the purpose is for test driving conversations or exploration phase, the goal here is to be able to get to a place where we can have an actual conversation, build the beginnings of a relationship, but more importantly, begin to learn something that's useful in your career change or career fit process. So that's why we call this the experimentation phase overall. So part number one, let's dive into each part here, and then I'll come back and define it for you. Part number one is led with emotional connection to create familiarity. Part two is share who you are and answer the question, "why are you reaching out." Part three is the simple ask that they can say "yes" to.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:14

Okay, number one, leading with emotional connection. The first line of your message, it's crucial. It's your chance to grab their attention, and if it doesn't connect, either rationally or emotionally, it's going to get lost in the sea of other people sending very generic messages. So if this first line doesn't work, it's likely they'll never even see the second line. They'll never make it that far. Okay, the stronger the emotional relevance in that first line, the more likely your message is going to stand out and the more effective it's going to be. This is the line where you show them that you've taken the time to learn about them, their work and what they care about. That's the opposite of what spam is doing, right? Spam is unsolicited, unrelevant, not wanted, all of those things, right? So here's what all the messages in my inbox sound like. "Scott, your experience looks interesting." It's just so generic that it could be anyone versus that customized personal connection. So I want to share a couple of other examples here that Laura, who is a coach on our team, she shared with me just by literally pulling some things out of her LinkedIn inbox here. This one says, "Hi, Laura, I came across your content. It's powerful, and I'd love to connect." This other one says, "Hey, Laura, I wanted to connect with you because I saw that you're a coach, and I think it's amazing what you do." That's great and not very specific, and certainly really doesn't create much of an emotional connection, especially when giving messages like this constantly. It doesn't show that the person made any effort to get to know Laura. Maybe they scanned a profile for all of three seconds. Maybe not even that. The best connection is finding that commonality, finding that particularly emotional commonality and thread, whether it's a shared experience or a common interest, maybe you both went to the same school, maybe their work resonated with something that you're going through right now. How about that for an emotional connection? Here are a few ideas to get you started on where you might find some commonalities. This could be geography. You're both in the same city, you're originally from that city, used to live in the same place. This will create familiarity. Sometimes it takes an extra degree in order to make an additional emotional connection. Another example would be school. Alumni of the same university, perhaps even the same degree or same school within the university. Could be a career change. Maybe this person made a dramatic career pivot, maybe that's part of their story. Maybe some of the changes that you can see along the way are relevant to you as well. Okay, another area could be a volunteer cause or a, well, let's just call it a cause that they care about. You have a commonality and desire to help this population, or you volunteered in a similar capacity. Maybe it's a former company. You both used to work for the same organization. For example, you know, I used to leverage this. I used to work for Target. Target was a phenomenal organization for me to work for. I had a great experience there, and I found that many other people have too. Not everybody in the world, but many people have. And so that's something that I share. Could be something else, of course, that they mentioned in their profile, their about section might reveal being a parent, maybe they have pets, they're a dog parent, a football fan of your favorite team, maybe something else that creates that trust, familiarity, connection in an emotional way. By showing you understand their journey and care about their perspective, you're building a real, meaningful connection from the very start, and that's what's going to get their attention.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:03

Okay, part number two in our formula here. Who are you? Why on earth are you reaching out? This next part of the message is about explaining who you are in a way that directly ties into why you're reaching out to them. We have to answer those questions really quick because, as humans, we're constantly scanning, like, what is the relevant thing to me? Why is this even happening? What is going on here? That is something that we always looking for. So if we even just answer those questions up front, it makes it easy for them to focus on the connection part, right? Which then allows them to focus on the ask part, which we'll talk about here in a minute. The key here is to be clear, specific, and make sure they know you're not just another person looking to network or connect or expand their circle. Oh, my goodness, if I get another email that says, "I'm looking to expand my circle", you have actually a focused purpose that is, in fact, relevant to them, maybe even useful to them. The "who you are" part that was relevant to them, might mention that you're in the middle of a career change and you're wanting to learn more about their particular role because they've had experience there. Or it might just be that you're not just reaching out for a vague network reason, instead, you're making an effort to understand a space better, like an industry, or like a particular organization, maybe they have background or experience that aligns with your goals. You've done your research. You're indicating this here in this section. And by the way, when we say this section, we're often talking about a line or two. We're making it very simple. We'll come back to that here in a minute. Using language that shows intentionality is important here, for example, "I saw that you" versus "I found that you". This is where we can leverage language that shows intentionality and shows forethought as well, which creates a more valuable message. For example, saying, "I saw that you" or "I found that you", I prefer saw because it tends to be more informal in conversation. But either way, can work in certain circumstances. It shows that you've taken the time to look at their background, it lets them know why you specifically think they are the right person that you're trying to connect with and engage with. For example, it might be, "I saw that you transitioned in the day to analytics after a background in education, and I'm currently exploring whether it's the right path for me."

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:30

All right, let's go on to part number three, the ask. Finally, last but definitely not least, maybe most important, but the other two parts set this up so it can be successful. Always end with a direct, clear ask. It's got to be simple. Most importantly, it has to be easy to say "yes" to. Sometimes there can be so much thought that goes into making it easy to say "yes" to and reducing cognitive friction, whether it's asking for a 15 minute chat, a piece of advice, or insights about their journey, we have to make it easy for them to do or say "yes" to no matter what it is. Okay, what I'd like to do now is I want to go over some specific examples of how to craft a message. Let's go back to some of Laura's LinkedIn messages earlier. "Hi Laura, I came across your content. It's powerful and I'd love to connect." Okay, pretty generic, right? Complimentary, but pretty generic and unspecific. And it's powerful, is a powerful word, but it's not particularly emotionally connecting without additional context. So here's a better example. "Hi, Laura. I saw that you worked for Full Stack Academy and HTYC as a career coach. Right now, I'm researching companies that hire career coaches versus stepping out on my own." Okay, now that becomes much more relevant to Laura, right? Here's the other one that we talked about. "Hey, Laura. I wanted to connect with you because I saw that you're a coach, and think it's amazing what you do. Blah, blah, blah". All right, better example for that might be and here's how we can make it better. "Hi, Laura, I see that you used to volunteer with Homespun. I attended one of their webinars last week, and their mission speaks to me as a military spouse working to piece together their career." Okay, much more relevant. And we are signaling to, in this case, Laura, that we have a whole bunch of information about it for something that she likely has a connection with. Very, very different results, right? And this is just part number one. As you can imagine, this can take a little bit of time and energy to be able to put together. It takes some forethought, but they help the receiver know precisely that you took the time and energy to get to know them, which means that if you're showing care and you're showing relevance, there's a higher chance that they might reciprocate, right? In a moment, I'm going to show you some actual messages that our clients had worked on behind the scenes, and then we've worked with them to be able to improve and turn it into a much more effective message. But before we do that, I want you to be able to listen for some of the common problems and look for those common problems so that you can recognize them as we're going along.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:30

Number one, too wordy. Nobody wants to read a long message. Not for the sake of reading a long message, keeping it short and sweet, concise is important. We want to be able to grab their attention in as few as words possible and get to the point without overwhelming them. How long? Well, as long as that takes, and a lot of times it can be shorter than most people think. The second mistake is too much information. We don't need to share everything right away. We need to share just enough. Keep it focused. Leave room for a conversation. Let them ask follow ups if they're interested. Number three here, is it too generic? Could it be sent to anyone? This is the, "your message is powerful or whatever". If your message could be copy and pasted to 100 other people or even two other people, it's probably not personal enough. Take a minute to show that you've researched them, you understand them, it's creating relevance, you're a real person reaching out. Another area that people struggle with is making things too formal. There can be certain occasions to make it formal, but most of the time, I want you to write how you talk. A message that sounds like a stiff letter is not going to connect. It's going to come across as weird. And we want to keep it conversational and approachable, like you're talking to a friend. Again, there's exceptions, you know, certain academic professions, you know, there could be exceptions, and depending on what is the context in the modality in which we're contacting somebody. But other than that example, the general rule is we are trying to build relationships, which means we are conversing. We're talking to friends, new friends. The ask at the end, if that is buried, then that's going to be a challenge. So number five is make sure that your ask is easy to find instead. Don't hide it at the end of a long message, make it clear, simple and easy for them to say "yes" to. All right, let's look at a few of these messages here. This first message, "Hi, Tamara. I hope my unfamiliar name in your inbox sparked the curiosity and not your desire to resign this email to the spam folder. I genuinely am seeking to connect. I found your LinkedIn profile when I was searching for information on what it is like to working in the Customer Success field. I saw that you have experience and strategies supporting organizations to enhance their digital experiences. On top of that, your post on LinkedIn shows that you have enthusiasm for what you do. I currently work as a store manager for a big box retailer, leading the team of 115 people. I'm at a crossroads in my career, and I'm starting to do some high level research on adjacent roles. I feel privileged to hear more about your experience working as a customer success manager or other insights you have. Would you be open to having a 15 minute call? I've got a few pointed questions about customer success in the software as a service industry, and would love to hear a little more detail about your experience thus far in the role. If yes, I will make it as easy as possible to find a time that works for you with gratitude and appreciation." Okay, what do you notice about this? First of all, it is very long. It is very long. And we're not talking... when we say long, we're not actually as much talking about the length, we're talking about it has enough unrelevant or not useful items in it to make it feel long, right? Okay, let's go over the improved message here. What you'll notice is it is functionally a lot shorter. We've eliminated a lot of the pieces that are either obvious or not adding value. We eliminated entire sections, in fact. So instead, here was what we came with. Improved message says, "I hope my unfamiliar name in your inbox sparked your curiosity, and they don't end up in spam, winky face", which already feels much more conversational, right? "I found your profile when I was searching for information on what is like working in customer success field. I saw that you currently work at Shutterfly in a CS role. I constantly use Shutterfly, so I was intrigued about your work there. I currently work as a store manager for a big box retailer, leading a team of 115 people. I'm at a crossroads in my career and starting to do some high level research on adjacent roles. I'd love to hear more about your experience working as a customer success manager, or any other insights you have." And here's the ask, "Would you be open to having a 15 minute call? If yes, I'll make it as easy as possible to schedule. Thanks." All right, so we've taken out massive sections. The other changes. Let's go over what changed here. Removed, "I am genuinely seeking to connect." This is kind of like an inside joke, almost. Or when somebody tells an inside joke, if they're not on the inside, it's not funny. It should be obvious to those people. And that same concept transferred over to here, not about joking, this is not a joking manner, if it's not already obvious that you're genuinely seeking to connect, then you've lost that person. You don't want to have to explain that you're genuinely seeking to connect, just like you don't want to have to explain that you're telling an inside joke. Instantly, no longer useful. We take out the word LinkedIn. If we're messaging them on LinkedIn, it's obvious that we're using LinkedIn. Okay, so there's all kinds of small pieces there. We're just removing the pieces that are irrelevant. Okay, "what is it like in customer success supporting organizations?" This is missing specifics. We needed something to show that this message is intentional for the person, like, in this case, the company name, and then we show our emotional attachment to that company. We don't know for sure if this person has any kind of emotional attachment to Shutterfly, but Shutterfly is an organization that has a lot of raving fans that also work there. Okay, "I'd feel privileged to" this can be great in certain circumstances, but it tends to feel very formal. If this is how you talk, and it's pretty likely that the other person will receive it in the same way that you talk, then I would say, go ahead with it. And that might be an indication. Otherwise, this feels incredibly formal. If this isn't something you wouldn't say out loud, then let's omit it. Let's get rid of it. Write how you talk, not how you write. The ask, originally, was way too long, so long. We simplified it so that it's clear and concise and not buried amongst other paragraphs. The ask is simple. "Would you be open to having a 15 minute call?" By the way, in this case, we're asking for 15 minutes because that's something that somebody can say "yes" to. It's easy to answer. And what we're not doing here is dumping, we're not saying, "just tell me a time that you can do and I will make it happen." That can work, but now, if I've asked that type of question, and that's now my ask, then I'm putting all that cognitive friction onto the other person. They have to look at their schedule, they have to think through what's going to be a good time for them, and it seems like we're making it easier on them, but in actuality, we're dumping up a lot of decisions onto them. Decisions create cognitive friction. So what is a better decision that they can simply say "yes" to? "Would you be open to having a 15 minute call?" "Yeah, sure. I'm open, especially if you're telling me you're gonna make it easy on me." Done. All I have to do is respond and say, "yes". Okay, we shrunk this message by about a third. Makes it more digestible. It's easier to read.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:16

Could we continue to improve this even further? Yeah, absolutely, there's opportunity. But let's go on to another one, another example here. All right, so this one, and read it out here first says, "Greetings, Gene. I hope you do not mind me reaching out, but I saw your profile on LinkedIn, which led me to your portfolio, which is impressive. I saw that we both live in Charlotte, North Carolina area, and have a background in mechanical engineering. I'm researching different careers, sort of an experiment to understand if they might be a good next step for me professionally. Would you be willing to spare 20 minutes to connect so we can discuss your experience as a data analyst? Please understand I'm not looking... I'm not asking for help getting a job. I'm trying to learn about your experience and the role to understand it better from someone who has walked some miles in those shoes. I would appreciate any time and experiences you can share. Thank you." Okay, what can we improve here? Well, we can certainly make it more specific here. Let's look at the improved version here, and then we can analyze what changed. We changed it to "Hi Gene, I found your profile on LinkedIn, which led me to put your portfolio. I enjoyed reviewing your fraud detection projection" Whew, that's a mouthful, "done in SQL. I recently completed a SQL course, so seeing new angles of projects gets me thinking outside the box. I'm also located in the Charlotte, North Carolina area, and have a background in mechanical engineering. I'm researching different careers, sort of an experiment, to understand if it might be a good next step for me professionally. Would you be willing to share your experiences as a data analyst on a 15 minute call? If yes, I'll make it easy to find a time to connect by a zoom or a phone. Thank you. Timothy." Okay, what changed? Well, we changed to a much more informal greeting. If you remember it said "Greetings Gene" which I mean, could be a strategy to if we need to get a laugh or something like that, but I don't think that was going to be effective in this case. So we changed to an informal greeting that is more how this person would speak, like, "Hey or Hi," and we removed the part about, "do not mind me reaching out" and "impressive portfolio". As not only is this language is overused, it sounds robotic, it sounds AI generated, and it sounds like a start to a sales spammy message. This first line is critical. You've got to create connection, commonality, or rapport in one way or another. It's even better if we can level up and find an emotional connection too. Okay, so we changed the word "saw" to "found". "Found", in this case, can even level up. We talked about that briefly in being intentional in saying "saw" or "found", but in this case, we could actually show additional intentionality in certain cases. "Found" can imply more intentionality in certain cases, perception wise. Simple words can make a big, big difference. This, by the way, is when you've done this a lot, you start to see what works over and over again and see what creates better and better results. And you notice observationally, those different pieces, or you can pull in other psychological practices, or even, you know, marketing practices or sales practices that involve psychology, and you can leverage those in this type of reach out messaging too. Okay, another thing that we did here, we changed the impressive portfolio to show a more specific aspect about what was impressive. And in this case, what we're doing is we're showing... We actually took the time to dive into their portfolio by showcasing those specifics. We also changed "please understand that I am not asking for help" this sounds pretty formal and could be useful, but this is often better saved for the second email. I don't think it's really useful in the first email after they say "yes", this could be mentioned in that second email, or it could be mentioned once you're actually having a conversation with them too, "Hey, I want you to understand I'm actually not here asking for help. I'm not asking for a job. That's not my intention here. I truly want to learn. I truly am interested in learning so that I can find the right fit." By the way, we also eliminated "to spare". It sounds a little awkward. Took this out to simplify our ask where it had said, "Would you be willing to spare 20 minutes?" Yeah, we took that out. And then we clarified call or zoom so it makes it obvious that we're not meeting in person, because if we're in the same town, then that could be confusing. And we also want to try and make it easier. Sometimes, it can be relevant to ask for a meeting in person. This one not the case. We also show that we want to make it easy and low mental lift. So again, we're making it easy for them to say "yes" here by asking, "Would you be willing to share your experiences as a data analyst on a 15 minute call? If yes, I'll make it easy to find time to connect by zoom or phone." All of that is built in. We didn't have to have a separate thing saying, "Oh yeah, we totally, you know, could do a zoom or a phone" or anything like that. It's literally built into those two lines. We don't have to include extra words. Here's what didn't change. We didn't change "Charlotte, North Carolina" because we're leveraging geography to show a connection to this person, and proximity of location can also build trust. We also didn't change "researching different careers" this gives context, as we talked about earlier.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:00

All right, I want to share another important piece here, particularly for LinkedIn. LinkedIn, the way that you engage over there is often you are requesting a connection, and inside that connection request, you are given the option to add a note, and this is a must use. So many sales users on LinkedIn write a generic message that gets ignored or they send no message at all, they simply send a request, this is your opportunity to stand out by creating a customized and compelling message that gets you to be set up for a "yes" in certainly accepting your request, but maybe a later "yes" too, in being able to connect at a different level with this person. You have to keep this below 200 characters at this point in time when I'm recording this, they have it set at that limit, and your only goal here is to get them to accept the connection. You don't need to put in tons of other information. You don't need to, that's not a space to ask for a conversation. Instead, you can leave that for the following message if they do, in fact, accept, but you want to get to the point where they can accept the message request and then build in a little bit of context if you're going to continue to interact with them. All right, so I want to show you an example here. We took this original where John had said, "Hey, Karina. Greetings, Karina. I like the work you did on your GitHub portfolio. Thank you for sharing it on your profile. Will you mind connecting with me on LinkedIn for network building with other data analysts and enthusiasts? If not, no worries. Have a great evening. Respectfully." Okay, this is okay. It's not terrible. It's not particularly specific in a lot of different areas, but it does provide a little bit of context for reference. Building, you know, building network with other data analysts and enthusiasts. But we want something that's great, not just okay. So the improved message would sound like, "Hi, Karina. I saw your profile that you pivoted from teaching to data analytics. That is awesome. Would love to connect as I'm making a similar switch from HR to data analytics." That's it. Super short, right? We reworked the first sentence to be less generic. Originally it said "I liked the work that you did on your GitHub portfolio. Thank you for sharing it on your profile." Sounds robotic, right? And it also we now are showing that we did our homework. We understand a bit about them and their story, and we show the instantly within that first line the "why them", which in this case, is making a similar career switch to what this person is. We made the message more brief to fit the character limits, and we took out the "respectfully" to be less formal and instead make it more conversational.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:53

So there you have it. These are some of the most effective strategies for crafting a reach out message and even a formula that actually gets noticed. And I hope the examples were particularly helpful here. The key is emotional connection, clear intent, keeping it simple. If you take the time to understand the person that you're reaching out to and show genuine interest, key point being genuine, and then also make it easy for them to say "yes", you're already ahead of the game, and it's much more likely that they might show genuine interest in you and reciprocate. The best part of this approach is you're not just freaking networking. Does anybody really actually want to just freaking network? We're actually test driving. We are building real relationships. We're building meaningful, genuine connections that can help you explore new opportunities and grow, and maybe you have the opportunity to help that person in the future too. Who knows where this is going to lead for both of you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:50

If you found this episode helpful, by the way, we'd really appreciate it if you would share it with somebody else who you think could benefit. And if you're thinking about making a change in your career and you want to see if we can help or the very best way that we can support you, here's what I want you to do. Just pick up your phone right now and email me directly, Scott@happentoyourcareer.com, you can put 'Conversation' in the subject line, and then I'll connect you with the right person on my team, and we can figure out the very best way that we can support you and help build a plan that's going to fit what you need.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:28

All right, here's what's coming up next week right here on Happen To Your Career.

Speaker 2 38:33

You know, when a chapter is over, you're like, "I have learned everything that I can learn from this experience, and I wanted to go home." And I just had this calling of like, "I think I've learned everything I need to learn."

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:45

What should my next step be? It's the question we hear over and over from people wanting to make the shift to more fulfilling work. But here's the truth, it's actually the wrong question to ask. True fulfillment doesn't come from following a step-by-step guide. Surprise! There's no one-size-fits-all checklist to get a perfectly fulfilling career. Because real fulfillment, well, turns out, it's different for everyone. Okay, this is probably not a massive surprise to you if you've listened to this podcast before. It's not an external process that you have to get through, it starts with you. So instead of starting with, "What should I do next?" Ask yourself, "What do I actually want?" That simple shift could change everything.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:31

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.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:00

It's 2025. A lot of people are struggling to even get interviews. It's a competitive market, and standing out feels harder than ever. And you might think if you could just get an interview or talk with that hiring manager, you'd absolutely crush it, and maybe you would. But what if I told you that all that effort could be a waste of time? There's one thing you need to do first, and once you do everything else after it will become much, much easier, no matter how tough the job market is. So what is it? We break down that game changing insight in today's episode of the Happen To Your Career podcast.

Introduction 00:43

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:08

If you've ever been in an emergency situation, you know how chaotic it can feel. When you're in an emergency situation, when there is chaos, when there are other things going on, distractions, etc, you have to be specific. People are panicking. And it turns out, if you scream, "Help! Help. We need help." It doesn't actually cause anybody to come and help you, many times. Instead, what you learn, and there have been many studies to show that this is absolutely the case in emergencies. What you learn, what they teach in these emergency trainings, is that you need to give clear, specific instructions. "You in the pink shirt. I need you to call 911, right away. You in the corner. Bring me a towel", or, you know, whatever it is that you need. You have to be extremely clear about what it is that you want and what you need for that situation. These studies have also shown that it carries beyond emergency situations. Knowing what you want and being extremely clear about what you want is the very best way to get what you want in most situations. It's all about getting really specific, and that allows you to be able to communicate very differently. And you may have heard me say this on the podcast in the past, but when you know what you want, it becomes easier to ask for what you want, and when you ask for what you want, strangely, you get what you want more often, right? You may have guessed it by now. But the strategy of knowing what you want and being able to clearly communicate it is the most effective method for job searching today. It sounds so simple, and yet so few people do this. Part of the reason is that knowing what you want can seem abstract, and it's a step that many people will skip right over or think that they can do on a good enough level. But when you get really concrete about what you want and what you need out of your career, then it allows you to get different results. You can do this by defining first what we call your must haves. Now we dedicate a large portion of career change, at least the process behind the scenes when we're helping other people. We dedicate a large portion of that process to defining these must haves. And we use a tool that we call the ideal career profile. It's a very simple tool. Think about it as a large checklist of everything that you want, or the most important things about what you want and what you need that creates and adds up to fulfilling work that becomes truly meaningful to you. Now, if we oversimplify the ideal career profile for just a moment, then it's in two parts. The must haves or the deal breakers, the things that you absolutely have to have for the seven key elements that define meaningful work, and then the ideals. The ideals are aspirationally what we're working towards. You need both of these to be really be clear about what it is that you want. Now, if you want to learn more about the ideal career profile and the seven elements of meaningful work, we'll include links in the show notes and description to past episodes where we've discussed this, and also we go over this in detail in the Happen To Your Career book. However, I want to say all of that to then explain that knowing what you want is not innate. It's not. It's not just a job title. It's not one singular element, like a job where I can work from home. It's really complex. And once you've figured it out, it changes everything for you. Okay, so we already acknowledge that most people haven't done the work to get clear on what it is that they want and what they need out of their career, so they don't really know what it is that they're looking for, even if they think that they do, even if they think that, "Well, I'm looking for something that has more growth and a mission driven company. Okay, all right, let's start." And then they wonder why they're not able to find that, let alone, when they think that they do find that why they're not getting those opportunities in a way that's useful for them and the organization. The very common job searching scenario is going on Indeed.com or LinkedIn, and then you find an open role, and then you try to get that job to fit you, right? You look at this and you're like, "Well, I think this could work, maybe, I guess." And then that's how we lead to long times of depression and wondering why there's no good jobs out there that actually sound wonderful, or the ones that do sound wonderful require 347 years of experience and also 10 certifications on top of that. Either way, it's not a great recipe for mental health. So when you're applying for jobs that just don't fit, the other thing that a lot of people don't think about is your communications, your application, even when you're interacting with people, let's say that you get pushed through to the interview, even when you're interacting with other people, when you don't know exactly what you want, you don't know how this comes off as generic. You don't realize that it does until you've seen it from the other side over and over again. And I've been really fortunate to be involved in a lot of hiring processes, literally thousands of them over the last 25 years. And those overwhelmed hiring managers that I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, well, the generic applications, generic people coming in, this is what they get bombarded with constantly is actually not that helpful to anybody, including the people applying. So when you know what you want, this allows you to be able to communicate more specifically. I think we've covered that, right? But the part we haven't covered is it comes off as more useful, more interesting, more relevant and more genuine, which is something that we all are looking for. This is what makes you actually stand out from the rest in a really useful way, and organic way too. Okay, I want to give you a couple examples here. The example and the difference of communication are from two specific applicants, and we pulled some of this verbiage, kind of a combination together from different types of applications that have seen over the years. And the first is what we normally see when someone's applying to roles they're interested. The second is someone who obviously knows what they're looking for and can truly see themselves in that role.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:00

Example one, "I am a highly motivated professional with distinctive talents and skills that enable me to effectively educate and communicate the value of products/services, fostering trust with clients/customers. I firmly believe in the pivotal role of hard work, dedication, self discipline in achieving success for both myself and the company that I represent." I'm not even sure I can get through the rest. It goes on to say, "The values upheld by your organization resonate with me and I'm eager to join your team blah, blah, blah, contributing to the collective success and blah, blah, blah by becoming an integral part of your professional family." Oh, my goodness, this was a lot of words, but it didn't really say anything. It comes across like this person is just saying what they think they should and pulled the rest from ChatGPT. It is basically whatever they think the hiring manager wants to hear. This is what people got bombarded all day with. Imagine being a recruiter or a hiring manager or an HR professional, talent acquisition, imagine reading this stuff all day. This is what people think they need to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:12

Let's listen to the second one. "My entire career has been customer-focused, and I thrive in this type of environment. The thrill of knowing you impacted someone's life, whether that is big or small, with minimal effort or a heavy lift, it makes me feel so freaking good. When I am given the opportunity to be myself and communicate with someone freely without the hindrance of feeling robotic or scripted, I do my absolute best work. In my 14 years with my current company, I primarily focused on customer experience and providing what we call white glove customer service. I eat, sleep, and breathe effective customer communication, tone of voice, being your best self, positive word and phrasing, planning and organization follow through follow-ups and so much more. Needless to say, customer service is my passion, and it's something that I truly enjoy. It makes me happy. I strive to provide the best experience possible to each customer as if it were my only one."

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:10

Okay. Now, this isn't even what I would consider to be a phenomenal response. But you can see the difference, like it is very, very heavily different. One sounds much, much more genuine, it sounds like this is actually what they want. They've put not just some thought into it but they understand themselves enough to be able to communicate in a very different way. And then that very different way, appears to be more organic, more specific, more genuine. And it turns out that we, as humans, we respond to that, we get different results, were attracted to levels of clarity, were attracted to levels of specificity. Okay, so they made their own experience relevant to the job listing on top of it. And overall, it was an enjoyable read. It was relatively free of fluff, or lots of corporate jargon, there's a little bit in there that no one wants to bother with. They also did the most important thing. They clearly communicated what they love doing and explained how the open role fits them. It was built into it. It almost didn't feel like they were, a lot of people call the selling themselves. But in this case, it didn't feel like that. They were just communicating what they loved. Okay, I want to get into something that most people overlook here. If you are communicating what you enjoy and love to do and are great at and in the ways that you can contribute the best, but also, you're getting much back out of that, and you get hired for that, that's a great situation. But let's say that you're communicating the things that you think that you have to even though it doesn't fall into that category of enjoyment, or the right challenges, or the right types of contribution for you, and you get hired for that. That means you're stuck in a situation where it's actually not that great for you. A lot of people miss this logic. And this is where I want to get into the nitty gritty of job searching and how you can use this knowledge from what you need in your Ideal Career Profile to land the right opportunity. Not just any job, your ideal role, or what we often call your unicorn role. Okay, let's first point out the obvious, our society has shorter attention spans than ever before getting shorter by the minute. In fact, the recent research shows our attention span has decreased in specifically just the last 15 years. In 2000, even it was 12 seconds, now it shrunk to about 8.25 seconds on average. And the funny thing, this means humans actually now have a shorter attention span than goldfish, who can focus on a task or object for like nine seconds. So how do we break through all of the noise here? Well, what's been proven time and again, is that customizing your interactions actually stand out, making them relevant to the person who is listening, relevant and useful to the person that who is listening. Think about it. We live in an age where everything is customized to you. Your phone is set up to your preferences, the ads you see are personalized recommendations, even the music you hear on your streaming services, we've come to expect it at every single term. Customization grabs attention. And that's even true when it comes to job search– customizing your interactions, cover letters, resumes. And guess what helps you do that? Knowing what you want. Since you know what you're looking for, and what you bring to the table, it makes it that much easier to get really specific on how the role or organization you're discussing fits you. You can tailor every interaction to show why your strengths and your experiences are a great fit for the role. This type of customized job search, well, it takes longer than just clicking an Apply button.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:05

Oh my goodness, we have we opened up a role. And by the time this episode airs, it'll have been closed for a couple of months. But we opened up a role and I'll tell you, just recently, we have hundreds, hundreds of applications for this role where people have just to click the Apply button. And then it automatically sends their resume and the resume often has absolutely nothing to do with this. And then, you see the stories all over the place where it's like, "I've applied to 250 different roles." And people wonder why. People don't quite connect the dots normally for how this is pretty much a waste of time. It's a waste of time for the people who are applying, it's a waste of time for the organization itself. What really makes a difference? So you're not just finding just another job. And instead focusing on finding work that truly fits you is this customization. Now, I have to mention how AI can play into this. Like I said earlier, AI can come off as really generic and bland. But this can be really very helpful in a different way, though. If you're using AI to help you distill information or collaboration or get ideas on something, that's going to be very useful. If you're causing AI to write for you, a lot of times, it's going to write in the most bland way possible. It's going to come off much the same way or candidate that we just read earlier came off as very robotic. That doesn't mean AI can't be very useful. Think about job search as a marketing process. And it works just like any other type of marketing. We actually just used AI really recently for creating marketing, and copy for our Airbnb property. We made a big list of all our benefits and all the features that the house has. And then we asked ChatGPT to rank them. And then I asked him to rewrite them so it would fit our particular target market. I shared with ChatGPT the specific target market that we're looking for, and that we want to attract to rent the house. And then I said, "Hey, write a..." I probably actually did write "Hey" you don't need to if you don't want to, but I probably did, I said, "Hey, write a benefits-driven description of our house using these bullet points in 500 words or less." And then it popped out something. And then I was like, "Okay, now take this and make it shorter, make it more concise." And then once it was completed, I went in and personalized it and made it sound like if I were saying it out loud. By the way, that's a super easy secret if you want to stand out and feel more genuine. There are spaces where that doesn't make sense– academic could be an example for that or other professions where you need to adapt to that particular profession, or that particular person, which again, is about customization and knowing your market. In this case, though, writing as if you are talking is a huge hack that makes it feel more genuine. Here's an example of how you're doing this if you're tailoring your resume. Have your list of all your features and benefits. In this case, your results, responsibilities, experiences, achievements, the same things you might normally find on a resume for yourself. And then you're going to leverage AI to find the highest priority ones for a particular target market much the way what we did with Airbnb. In this case, the target market is whoever this resume or application is going to go to. So one of the ways that you can do that is by feeding the job description into AI as well. Then ask AI to find the highest priority, responsibilities, achievements, and bullet points on your resume and ask it to write a summary. And then you can generate multiple different options quickly, as opposed to struggling to write it for yourself, because that's where a lot of people get caught up. AI can do the initial work for you and then you can modify it. Once you have AI write multiple versions, the modification is much much easier, then you can make it sound like you and make it feel genuine. Make sure it aligns with what you actually want. If you're struggling to adapt this to where it feels like you are talking out loud, another simple solution would be to pull out your phone and use the dictate function or talk-to-text and just talk about each point and then take that and modify it from there. Sometimes it's easier for us to communicate authentically when we are saying it out loud verbally. And then once you have it down on paper, you can edit it so that it makes sense and you can come up with something really great. To some people, these might seem like a lot of extra steps in order to go from understanding what you want to be able to communicating what it is that you want. However, when you do this, you up the chances significantly. And I'll share just for me personally, it's been a while since I have personally done a job search although I do personal marketing all the time in various different ways. And obviously this is what we have done for thousands of people over the last 10-plus years now. But I'll tell you, for me personally when I was using the same exact type of approaches, I would get pushed through to the interview process almost every time. It was a rarity that I wouldn't get at least a first-step interview minimum. And the reason is because now we're customizing or tailoring, we're making it relevant to them, and therefore we are standing out amongst all of the other things at the bar is very low sometimes, and you can use that to your advantage.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:15

Now, let's talk for a minute just about recognizing what you want. AI can, of course, save you time. When you're job searching today, it can help you get past some of those stuck points, it can help even prioritize for you. There's lots of that it can do. But knowing what you want may save you even more time. Here's what I mean. Completing an Ideal Career Profile helps you focus on jobs, industries, organizations that actually fit you. And consequently, the thing people don't think about is it makes it so much easier to identify if you're applying or going after the right roles, the right jobs, instead of wasting your time applying in interviewing for jobs that ultimately will not end up working out for you. It's very counterintuitive, because it seems like that it's a lot of work upfront to be able to customize, and to be able to tailor for each and every situation. However, if you only need to focus on two or three or four organizations and roles and opportunities until you find the right one versus the story that we just talked about a couple of minutes ago, where you hear it over and over again, like, "I applied to 250 or 350, 900, I applied to 900 jobs." Applying to 900 jobs, even if it's just a simple click easy button still takes a really, really long time– reading through all those job descriptions and finding them like that is insane, and it feels terrible on top of it. Instead, what we're talking about is yes, taking more time, but doing it for a much, much, much lower amount of opportunities because you have a higher level of assurance that these are right opportunities for you. And then it doesn't really come as a surprise when you're customizing, when you're tailoring, and when you are better aligned, when you know you're better aligned with that upfront, that you get better results. Not a surprise, right? When you've done the work to figure out what you want, and to begin applying for jobs that fit and talking to people about those opportunities, even more important than it is, that it's more effective. This process actually becomes more fun because you're interested in it, and you're excited about it. If you're not enjoying talking about those opportunities, or you're not getting excited when tailoring your resume to that job, that's probably a sign. Like even if you don't love tailoring resumes is still probably a sign that you might not enjoy working in that role every day. Pay attention to these feelings. I want to give you an example from Samantha on our team. She's our content manager. And recently this process showed her that she had been applying to the wrong roles for a long time.

Samantha Martin 23:09

Yeah, I found this when I was changing my resume for this role. Actually, I was finally enjoying what I was translating, like, I was taking stuff I actually enjoyed doing in my past roles. The things I actually liked, not just every single thing I was doing or the things I accomplished, but the things I really truly enjoyed in my past roles. And then I was translating those things into what this role was looking for. And I was excited about that, like, it was an enjoyable process because I was talking about things that I liked. And it was just finally all clicking into place and it started making sense. Like in the past, it was so hard for me to translate my marketing experience into what the application was looking for because turns out, none of those roles I was applying for were ever a good fit for me. And I was just continuously trying so hard to make it work. And so it was like red flag after red flag. Because I was like, "This is so hard and grueling to do. Why is it so difficult? I shouldn't be able to write a resume. I'm a writer." But it turns out it wasn't my lack of skill. It was just the universe trying to tell me like stop trying to make this happen. It's not the right role. And when it finally was the right role, I could tell from the very beginning.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:29

Okay, we got specific on tailoring, resumes, tailoring applications. Let's talk about actual interactions with real people where you're, you know, having conversations with during the job search. Let's say you found an open role that fits you, tailored your resume, submitted your application, we recommend taking it a step further. Reach out to someone in the organization, make a connection. It's actually pretty easy to find most people on the internet today between LinkedIn or their company website. A lot of times, I can find somebody in less than five minutes, sometimes less than five seconds. A lot of job listings even have contact information for who the hiring manager is specifically, not all, but a lot. And once you find your method of contacting them, what you want to do is begin to build a relationship with that person inside the organization. Just a short paragraph, like the example earlier in this episode can really get through when you know what you want and it can connect with that person inside the organization. We had a client, Jenna, who had figured out the exact type of organization she wanted to work with and made a list of organizations that fit that description. And there was one that kept topping the list. So when a role became available, she applied. And then she took it a step further to start building relationships with the people, the real people inside that company. She created loom videos, these are video messages, there's lots of ways to do this. And talked through what she wanted out of her next role, what skills and strengths she could bring to the organization. It's not the perfect solution for everybody but it's a great example. Here's Jenna, talking about how she did this.

Jenna Bias 26:11

Just one step of research led to another and I found myself just learning a lot about the company that way. And then furthermore, when I decided to apply to certain positions in their application process, they often would have a little blurb about the hiring manager there. They're very transparent about who would be hiring. And I almost feel like, it's almost like an invitation like, we're telling you, "Hey, I'm the person doing the hiring here. I'm introducing myself to you via the application. I almost felt like it would be a disservice to not then go introduce myself." Like they're almost asking you, how do I felt. And so and I think for me, that made it a little bit more comfortable. So as far as reaching out, like via LinkedIn, or email that wasn't super challenging, it almost like I said, seemed invited. But then I did kind of take it to the next step and created a few loom videos to just kind of further introduce myself, but further express my interest, like face to face, because I mean, you can say so much in an email. But I feel like until you hear someone out and like see their genuine expression, I feel like that goes so much further. And at the end of the day, lots of people are sending emails. So I feel like if you can create a little video and kind of put a face to the name, I think for me that ended up being priceless.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:30

Well, it was not perfect for every single situation, but in your situation, I think it was highly effective because, one, as you said, you can put a face to the name, which creates more personal type of approach. It also, in your case, it was a casual company already, like that's how they operate, you had already done the research to indicate that that wasn't just a thing that they did on their website, like, they operate this way, right. So in your reach out, if you're modeling that in the same tone, it strategically feels to them like you fit. And more importantly, you'd already done the work yourself to realize that that's what you wanted. So you're simply answering their call to help them understand why you're a good fit in ways that they don't even necessarily, it's not like on a resume or anything like that. It just feels like generalists.

Jenna Bias 28:22

Right. I think too, I didn't mention this but the fear that goes along with it is like oh, the potential of them not responding which: A, I realized now it really doesn't matter. They get so much influx of information. It's like, who cares if they don't respond. But for me, my CEO did end up acknowledging my video and just sent me like a simple email back, telling me good luck on the interview process. And from there, I ended up applying to, I think, four different times through a few different roles. And every step of the way, I just sent her an email updating her on my journey. And she responded to every single email not being like, nothing like extraordinary, but just the response itself was like, to me, again, just as exemplified, this is a company I want to work for. Here's this busy CEO taking time out of her day to just shoot me a quick email, acknowledging the work that I'm putting in to try and be a part of our organization. And then yeah, as far as applying to multiple roles, it just came down to, "I knew this is the company I wanted to work for." So again, rather than spreading myself thin across different companies, I was like, "No, I'm just going to focus here." And even though I actually got denied initially for my current role, obviously in the end, it ended up paying off when I applied the second time and I think a large part of that was because I had already touched base with the hiring manager, we did already kind of have that rapport. And yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:49

Okay, so let's dig into that for just a second. What did that look like? Take me through, I think you said you applied for four, how many did you interview for? What did the process look like?

Jenna Bias 30:00

Yeah, so one of them that I applied for initially, to be frank, I knew was, not that it wasn't a good fit, I was just like, highly underqualified. It didn't so much, I think there's a lot of situations where you can pull from your past work, and kind of more fit to fit new roles. In this situation, when I tried to do that, it was a stretch, to say the least. But I gave it a go. And that was one of those situations where I did create a limb for that hiring manager, as well as their recruiter. And I sent her a LinkedIn message just introducing myself. And she was very sweet in her response and transparent in the fact that I probably wasn't going to have what they were looking for in that role. But again, it was the response for me of how they handled it that didn't turn me away because they were so inviting, encouraging. Not everyone's gonna be a good fit for every role. So I didn't take it personally. Late, fast forward, I applied to one other role that I never actually heard back from because I think what happened is I applied to my current role. And at that point, I had made contact with the recruiter. So I went through the recruiter, like a phone screening, and then got to the first round interview with the hiring manager, which it went great. I really connected and talked about the role, and it was something that I thought it'd be like a really good fit. And then I didn't make it to the next two phases of the interview. So then at that point, we exchanged some emails. She again, when I got the denial email, I asked her just for positive feedback, you know, "What can I do differently? Any recommendations moving forward." And she sent me like a novel, which was super awesome. I could tell she took, like, time out her day to give me feedback. Am I ever gonna be working at her company? It can be she doesn't really even know me. But I think that's because when we had our interview, like, we were able to connect, even though I didn't end up being the pick for the role that time, she could still, you know, connect with me on a personal level. And we still learn a lot about each other. So to me that first interview was still a win, because we fostered like a relationship.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:07

Yeah. Wait, can we dig into that for just a second? Because I think that's a frustration for so many people, like, "Hey, I'll ask for feedback", and they won't get anything. But you got a novel worth of feedback because, not by accident, and yes, this is an amazing organization. And clearly, they value people who are interested in them. But also they don't have infinite amounts of time too. So the reason this worked is you've already started to establish some kind of beginnings of relationship with the CEO. I'm sure those emails were probably forwarded, I don't know, but probably they were forwarded over to recruiting, or maybe they were BCC'd or something else along those lines. You had continuous touchpoints all along the way. Maybe they talk behind the scenes, maybe they didn't. But then you had, as you said, begun to build a connection during that interview, and you had focused on that. So you now have the beginnings of relationships. So now, it's not just some random candidate asking for feedback. It is this person that I know and had a great time with. And that's totally different than when you go to make the ask than just some random person that's out there. So I wanted to take a moment and just break that down because you did a really nice job allowing it to get to that point, so that it worked when you went and asked for feedback.

Jenna Bias 33:24

Yeah, I think a big thing for me, I'm sure it's probably for other people as well, is because I had all those touchpoints. And in seeing institutions that like asking for feedback, I know a big thing for me, it was like kind of a fear component. I almost felt like, "Oh my gosh, am I reaching out too much?" You said, oh, they're probably talking behind the scenes, like in a good way. But in my mind, I was like, "Man, are they like that Jenna girl, she applied again?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:50

Never hire that one.

Jenna Bias 33:51

Yeah, can't get rid of her. And of course, that's just your, like, limiting beliefs that I'm sure everyone has. But no. So then after I reached out, got that feedback, it was great feedback. I rather I was, obviously I was disappointed. But like you said, a lot of people when they get denied are kind of turned off and like maybe would like go the other way. But I was just more intrigued and I was more like on board I sent like a really nice email back. And I told her I was like, "I'm gonna continue to like watch your job board. But if a spot opens up in the future, like, please do consider me." And so sure enough, I did watch their job board here and there. And I think it was two or three months after I initially applied for that role that I happened to notice that the role was up again. And so I just reached out directly to the hiring manager before submitting an application just to kind of express my interest in right away. She was like, "Oh, yeah, like you were actually on my list of people to reach out to this week, I definitely would want you to reapply, if you could just go ahead and submit an application like, won't go through the process of interviewing again." So I did that. And then obviously, this time, I made it through the entire interview process, which was that initial interview with the hiring manager, again, I did a mock demo. So a big part of my job is doing demos for my company. So they just, you know, it's kind of a mixture, you can do the job kind of thing. And then I had an interview with my manager's manager. And then the last kind of piece was a call with the CEO. So that was the steps.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:24

All of Jenna's reach-out paid off. She did not end up getting the first role she applied for but she had built a relationship with the people inside that organization. So when a job did become available, she actually turned the tables. And they thought of her as an ideal candidate for the brand new open role because they already had that trust with her, they already had that familiarity with her. It was easy at that point, very, very different. And more importantly, she actually was getting something that she wanted. Pretty cool, right? Okay, you know the most effective way to job search. It all starts with you, and getting clarity on what you truly want, and what you need out of your career is the key to this. Once you've done this, it will be much easier to find roles that fit your ideal career profile. And it'll make tailoring your resume, your cover letters, your in-person interactions, much more natural, much more genuine and ultimately much more effective. Again, check out the show notes for links to the resources that we covered in this episode, I think that you'll really enjoy it. Once you've gotten clear about what you want, all of a sudden, that puts you in a much better position to be able to get specific and ask for and then get what you want.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:46

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:39

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:44

If you've sent any kind of networking or connection emails in the last year, you might wonder, why are they being ignored? Why are you not getting response? Is it the wording? Is it the timing? Or is it simply that they're getting lost in a flood of AI generated pitches and spam? When I first started this podcast, way back in 2013, LinkedIn was the go to place to connect with someone about your career. And while it's still possible to connect with people there, the landscape has drastically changed. People are now much more skeptical when it comes to their LinkedIn messages, thanks to the overwhelming number of sales pitches that are flooding them constantly, and also with the influx of AI. That's the case on almost every platform on the internet. So here's what we're gonna do today in this podcast, we're gonna walk through the best ways to identify the right place to reach out to someone, whether it's LinkedIn, email, another platform, and then how to craft a message that maximizes your chances of building a meaningful connection right from the start.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:49

All that and plenty more next week right here on Happen To Your Career. Make sure that you don't miss it, and if you haven't already, click subscribe on your podcast player, so that you can download this podcast in your sleep, and you get it automatically, even the bonus episodes every single week, sometimes multiple times a week, until next week. Adios, I'm out.

Divya 00:01

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

Introduction 00:28

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:53

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

Divya 01:10

After watching my dad go through his treatment and have had like several close calls, I kind of walked away feeling like, you know, that's what's important, it's the people I care about, the people that I love and like, our health and our well being, and being able to spend time with each other, and all of the other stuff at work that clients would call to complain about, whatever. And it was kind of my job to fix things as a salesperson, that's your job sometimes, but it all just seems so insignificant in comparison to what was going on in my personal life.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:40

That's Divya. Divya worked in a high pressure sales role on the trading floor, managing complex client relationships in a fast paced environment. And for a while, it felt like the perfect fit for her, but then life threw her a curveball. When a colleague left the company, Divya was handed an overwhelming client list. Now, if that had been the only challenge, it might have been manageable, but this happened at the same time her dad was diagnosed with leukemia, and suddenly she found herself trying to juggle it all, holding everything together at work, while also needing to be there for her dad and support her family through an incredibly tough time. And she finally realized that she just couldn't power through and something needed to change. But of course, it wasn't that simple. Her career had always been a huge part of her identity. So considering stepping away, felt like she was losing a piece of herself, and that's when we got to meet her. We got to set along for the ride as Divya learned to give herself the time and space to reevaluate her priorities, and ultimately she realized that she is much, much bigger than what she does for a living. Divya does a great job of sharing the emotional complexities of leaving a job that you once loved and untangling the identity piece. She also walks through the steps she took to try and figure out her next role, from test drive conversations to strategic reach out, and how she ultimately found a new position that fits the life she truly wants.

Divya 03:07

I was never really sure what I wanted to do in my career. I didn't really have a kind of practical dream career going into undergrad. So when I hit kind of my junior year, we had a lot of on campus recruiting events, info sessions, things like that. And so I still kind of had no idea what I wanted to do. I attended as many of those as I could, and just cast a very, very wide net in terms of what I was applying to for internships for that summer. And that's kind of how I just stumbled across the industry that I'm in now. I got an internship offer from a bank, worked there that summer, got a return offer, and went back, and I kind of explored other stuff here and there, like other offers that came in, or other kind of application opportunities, but this just seemed like the best option. So it wasn't really something I sought out. It's just kind of something that where I ended up.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:57

So if you were to go back and do it over again, do you feel really positive about where you ended up, or would you have done it differently? Can't go back, but I'm curious.

Divya 04:10

I think, yeah, funny enough. I do think that the role that I ended up in, or kind of the space that I ended up in within finance, it's weirdly a good fit for my personality type. It's not project based. It's very kind of go with the flow, reactive. It's on the trading floor, so you kind of get in the morning and things happen, and you're just kind of taking care of them, blocking and tackling, very collaborative, like, we don't have cubicles or offices, we're just sitting in a bench-like style just right next to your team. So that, you know, if you describe that to me when I was recruiting, I would have said, "That sounds horrible. Please don't put me there." But hindsight is 2020 and I think that does match my personality well. I have ADHD, and I think that kind of the energy and the reactive part of being in the trading floor is really good for me, and works really well for me, like, kind of the urgency versus being on a project for, you know, two months, and you kind of have to set a routine yourself, set your own deadlines to stay on track. So I think, yeah, it worked out well for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:12

What I'm really curious about if we're going back a little bit here, I know that when you were going to transition from your last role, last opportunity, you had determined that, "Hey, this is not the best fit for me." However, also you had some things going on with your family at the same time. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Divya 05:36

Yeah, so maybe, like, six months before I made the decision to resign, my dad was diagnosed with a type of leukemia, and so he's, you know, knock on what he's doing. Well, today he's cancer free, but back then, you know, it was obviously, kind of came out of nowhere, and he was in the hospital for almost two months, getting like intensive treatment. So as you can imagine, that kind of, you know, and he was in the hospital locally. So he was, you know, maybe 30 minutes from where I lived at the time. So it was kind of a tough situation where I felt like I was local and able to, technically, able to live my life, go to work, whatever. But my dad was in the hospital, literally fighting for his life 30 minutes away. So, you know, my workplace was very, very understanding and allowed me to take kind of extended time off, like three weeks off, to kind of spend more time at the hospital and be with my family. But I think it was just really hard to juggle having, like, being with my family and kind of focusing on that which was difficult and like draining, as you can imagine, and then also being present at work, because it is like a very kind of, you know, things come up, you can't always plan for them at work. So it's not something where you can kind of pass it off to a colleague and say, "These are the five things you need to take care of while I'm at the hospital with my dad." Like, nobody really knows what's going to happen when you're at the hospital, right? And so it was just tough to feel like I was doing a good enough job at work, but still able to be with my family the way that I wanted to, and also at the time at work, like right before my dad was admitted to the hospital, one of my senior colleagues left, and so I think at the time, I had maybe four or five pretty small clients. And after he left, I got his entire client list. So I went from like 4 or 5 to like over 40, essentially, overnight. It was just a really bad timing, like, to be stepping into a more senior role, to be picking up a lot of kind of important clients who, you know, I was a salesperson, so kind of, they need to see my face, they need to hear my voice on a regular basis. So to have that happen while I'm also like, "Hey, I'm leaving for three weeks to go sit at the hospital", it was just, yeah, really bad timing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:48

How did all of that impact your decision for what came next?

Divya 07:52

I think, you know, like I said, my team was really understanding, but ultimately, the clients also matter, and all my clients didn't necessarily know it was going on. So even though I was able to kind of juggle it, I felt like I was falling short at work. And I think also with everything happening with my dad, it just kind of put into perspective the importance of work in my life relative to other things, like, it was causing me a huge amount of stress. And like, after watching my dad go through his treatment and have had, like, several close calls, I kind of walked away feeling like, you know, that's what's important, it's the people I care about, the people that I love and like, our health and our well being, and being able to spend time with each other, and all of the other stuff at work that clients would call to complain about, whatever. And it was kind of my job to fix things as a salesperson, that's your job sometimes. But it all just seemed so insignificant in comparison to what was going on in my personal life. So I think before that, work had always felt very self encompassing for me, all encompassing for me. I was always like, you know, as a high achiever in high school, I went to, like, a very competitive college, and so I felt like very tied into my productivity and my performance, my self worth was kind of very tied up into that, but I think the experience with my dad kind of helped me to take a step back and realize, like, this is not the end-all-be-all or be-all-end-all. I always get that mixed up.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:16

Whichever way you want to go.

Divya 09:18

Yeah, this is not everything, you know. Like, there are things that matter more, and it's okay to kind of step back from this, because other things just need me more right now.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:29

Yeah, that is good. So I'm also curious, you've mentioned this idea of your identity being really wrapped up in what you did and what you were achieving and everything else. Tell me a little bit about what it was like trying to, one, recognize that and then, two, attempt to untangle your identity from your work.

Divya 09:55

It was tough. It was very tough. I think it really started from a place of just like sheer panic and desperation. Like, I remember the first time I brought it up on a call with Phillip, because before that, I had never even kind of considered quitting with nothing lined up. I signed on with Phillip because I was like, "I need to find a new job and leave as soon as possible", the possibility of leaving with no plan was like never on the table for me. And I remember I came home from work one day and just, like, it had just been a long day of problems that I hadn't caused but were my responsibility to fix, and clients complaining about things that kind of, again, felt very insignificant in the face of what I had going on in my personal life, and I had my call with Phillip, and I was just like, "I just need to get out of here. I don't know how much longer I can do this. I don't want to go in tomorrow. I need to get out of here like yesterday." And he was like, "Have you ever considered just quitting?" And that's it. And that was when I really started to do the process of kind of like, because I think that question made me realize, "What would it feel like to quit and not have a job and, like, not have a career identity?" which I've kind of had been clinging to. It was tough. I think in the beginning, I was like, "Phillip, you're crazy" And then I started to think about how nice that would be to kind of be unburdened from that, and I started talking to my friends and family, and then they were like, "No, you're crazy."

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:26

So if we fast forward here, you did end up, well, you did, they end up leaving. So I wanted to ask you about that conversation with your friends and family because it sounded like the reaction you were getting was, "No, you're crazy." So how did you navigate through those conversations? What was that like?

Divya 11:45

Yeah, I think, yeah. The feedback from people around me, I think it was really kind of two categories. One was like, I think family concern that I was in a good spot, I had a well paying job, and things were kind of stable. I was getting promoted and kind of on the right track on paper, and I had, you know, a supportive team. So the feeling there was kind of like, don't rush into something, don't make a rash decision, because you're kind of feeling stressed by the last several months. Give it time and don't rush into it. I think the other category of concern was kind of like, "Okay, you quit, and then what?" And I think the fear was that I would feel very aimless during unemployment, kind of have a lot of difficulty with the transition back into work, or even just kind of, you know, I think interviews, I mean, they still do to a certain extent, but interviews used to make me really anxious, just kind of the thought of putting myself out there, applying to different jobs, like, I used to get really, really nervous about all that stuff. And so the fear was kind of like, that they didn't want me to be unemployed and feel like I didn't have anything going for me, didn't know what was going on, and like, have a difficult time kind of navigating, you know. And at the time, I was like, "Yeah, I'm gonna do something completely different. I'm not coming back to this industry." So, I think that's really where. So, you know, it was... everyone was kind of looking out for my best interest, luckily, there was nobody who was downright unsupportive. But I think that's really, that were the two big categories.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:12

Everybody cared and wanted to spare you some potential bad situation that they perceived could happen. That's really interesting. And I think that's what a lot of people experience when they make a decision like that. And to be really clear, I've left a job, actually, two jobs with nothing else lined up in one way or another. And it is not the right decision for everyone. It's on very much on a case by case basis. Not everybody should do that. But you did, and it worked out. And I think that what's really interesting out of that, to me, is I hear you talk about those two categories of friends and family is that, on one hand, they care about you, and they are wanting to spare you those potentially bad things. Also, I hear you saying things like, "Hey, I used to get incredibly nervous when I was going through these types of activities, like. applying for jobs and certain types of job interviews and everything like that." And it sounds like you in going through that potentially challenging situation, experiencing some level of growth through that as well. You're nodding okay. Tell me more about that. Yeah.

Divya 14:29

Yeah. I mean, I think part of it was just the process that I went through with Phillip, going through the strength exercises, talking with him, getting his feedback. You know, when I was ready to kind of get back into reaching out to companies and interviewing, we did a mock interview, and he kind of helped me a lot with the prep, and kind of, I think eventually getting positive feedback from him. And I did a mock interview with Megan, and, you know, from her, I think I finally started to allow myself to believe that, like, I presented well in interviews, and I was able to do it, and I think, so part of it was kind of just going through that process, which was super, super helpful, and much felt so much different than when I had tried to prepare for interviews on my own. Because I think it's really hard for me, and most people, I guess, to see ourselves objectively. I think I tend to definitely downplay accomplishments, or kind of downplay positives that I might have. And so having Phillip there as a coach to be like, "You're underselling this, you're undercutting yourself. Don't do that. And you should play this up more" was super helpful. I was like, impartial third party. I mean, I like to believe that he likes me as a person, but as my coach to kind of go in there and be like, "On paper, these are your strengths, and you should be speaking to them more." I think also the other part of it was just reflecting more on my previous job where I think I had, I struggled a lot with imposter syndrome in my last goal, and so I think it was really hard for me to recognize when I did a good job there. And so I remember, I can't remember what all five of my strengths were, but like most of them had to do with kind of communicating or working with people. And I just remember being kind of surprised by that because I never, I don't know, I always had this fear that, like, people secretly didn't like me at work, because it's such a social job– you're always on, you're always talking to people. And so it kind of forced me to reflect and be like, "Well, actually, like, I think I was pretty good at that", and recognize other areas that I was good at with some distance from the job and distance from all the anxiety that I used to get while I was in it, I think helped me to kind of look back and identify where I was good and not feel as kind of strongly negative about the places where I could have or where I could improve.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:44

Yeah, that's fascinating. So it sounds like for you, it was really highly important that, on one hand, since you were making a lot of your day to day decisions and continuing to stay at that past role because of fear of what might happen, it required you getting distance from that in order to get that perspective about what really is actually happening here. Turns out, you're very good at interacting with other people, you communicate incredibly well. People like you, and it was hard to see that because the anxiousness and fear would get in the way when, you know, back when. So making the space sounded critical for you. What else? You know, if you think back to what was critical in making this change for you.

Divya 17:37

You mean, what kind of helped me to make the decision, or what made it positive once I made the decision?

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:44

Well, let's talk specifically about a couple portions of the process, if that's okay. So one of the things I think that you did really well was you experimented with quite a few different avenues. So you went through, you made the decision to leave, you did leave, and that was a hard decision, and it turned out to be the right decision. So that's amazing. And as you, later on, started or continued to make the change, you were experimenting with those different avenues, and they were pretty wide reaching, if I remember correctly, you had things like different graduate programs you were considering, was pastry chef on the list at one point, you were considering a lot of different avenues. So tell me a little bit about what you were considering and how you went through and progressed to deciding, "what directions should I go?"

Divya 18:40

Yeah. I definitely explored far beyond kind of my industry. Yeah, I think it was really from Phillip's encouragement. He, at the time, was like, "You just did this big thing. You quit. You never thought you would be able to do that. And the world is your oyster. So don't, kind of limit yourself. Just go crazy, like, whatever you think you might be interested in." Because I really, truly, like, didn't know. I didn't quit with anything particular in mind. I just knew that I didn't like what I was doing. So yeah, I kind of just thought about the things that I like, you know, as hobbies in my personal life, and the things that I'm kind of interested in, like, topics that I'm interested in. And yeah, I landed on pastry as one of them. I like baking in my spare time. I have an uncle who's a pastry chef. So, like, there's a little bit of connection there. Health care. And, like, the health industry was another big one. I think, mainly driven by my experience with my dad. And so that took the form of, like, I know, I looked into, like, a few different grad programs, and then I was looking at companies in the health tech industry. So yeah, it was really just a function of, "look at what you do enjoy" because I was kind of coming at it with a very blank slate and see, like, what can we pull from the things that you enjoy in your personal life, and what jobs are out there that might fit those boxes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:57

How did you decide not to pursue some of those options? Like, for example, pastry chef, or either of the graduate programs.

Divya 20:06

Yeah, I think, well, for pastry, I think it just came down to a lifestyle situation. I just don't think the lifestyle of a pastry chef. Ironically, when I was reading about it, and when I talked to my uncle about it, it sounds like a very similar environment to the trading floor, and that it's like, high urgency, you know, people aren't always... there can be yelling and there can be cursing, and people aren't always, like, sugar coating stuff. And, yeah, so it sounds very similar, but not in a way that I kind of wanted to go back to. And it's something that I do as a hobby. So I kind of felt like I didn't want to ruin that by making it something stressful for myself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:40

Yeah, that's really interesting. I think that's always a question that comes up for people. Not always, I shouldn't say always. Many times, it is a question that comes up for people that we get to help through, navigate through these decisions where it's like, "Hey, I know that I love this. I could see myself diving further into this. But is that going to ruin the experience that I have and the relationship that I have with this type of activity? Because it's fun and it's a hobby. And do I want it to be more than a hobby?" And I think that's a legitimate question. It sounds like for you, in this case, that would not have been a good decision for multiple reasons, not just the hobby side.

Divya 21:19

Right. Yeah, exactly. I think also like, yeah, I think the stress would kind of come from, "I would want to be a high achiever." and then it would also be, like, financially, I'm 28 now, I was 26-27 when I was going through this process. And so it felt like, you know, I'm still in a phase where I want to be saving as much as I possibly can. You know, I'm getting married next year. I want to have a family, probably. So that was kind of on my mind too, and I didn't want it to turn into something where I'm like, I know that opening like a pastry business and running it would be incredibly stressful. So, yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:57

Yeah. So it doesn't line up. So it sounds like you moved that off the list. That makes a ton of sense. I think those are really important pieces to recognize. What about the graduate programs?

Divya 22:08

Yeah, the grad programs, I think, you know, I kind of eventually narrowed down to psychology and physical therapy as the two areas that I was most interested in, and those are still on the table for me, I think. I just, I don't know, I didn't feel like I was ready at the time to jump into a grad program. I think those are, like, complete pivots from my background, so it would kind of require, like, probably a year of taking prerequisites. Yeah. So I kind of, now I'm looking at it as something that I could explore for a second career, when I'm done with this one. Whereas at the time, it just felt overwhelming to think about, you know, I just took some time off from work, and now I'm going to jump into a grad program that could be four, or five, six years, paying tuition and kind of not being able to work for that duration of time just felt like a bit too much of a stretch for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:01

Yeah, and it didn't fit what you wanted, it sounds like, during that four or five or six years. But I think what's really interesting, I love how you're thinking about this, though, and not that, "Hey, I made this decision. Now, I can never go to a graduate program that I was potentially interested in." You're saying, instead, I hear you saying that, "Hey, this could be a future potential. I've not taken these fully off the table, even though it wasn't right for right now" or what was right now at that time. That's really cool. It really, truly is an iteration. And I love that you're looking at it like that.

Divya 23:34

Yeah, I actually, I think part of what helped me have that perspective is I spoke with somebody who I happened to meet while I was going through this process with Phillip, who is a psychologist now. And she started her career as a lawyer, and I think went back to school to get her doctorate in psychology in her early 30s, I believe. So that was kind of, that's what made me realize, like, "Okay, you know, I don't have to do it right now. It's not like the gates closed." So that helped me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:04

That's amazing. And I think that's part of the benefit for being able to go and have interactions with other people that have done these things or had these experiences, is you can pull from what's going to be useful to you as you're making decisions. So nice work. That's not always. It's easy to talk about on a podcast like this, and it's another thing, in its entirety, to go and actually do that. So nice job.

Divya 24:28

Thank you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:29

Yeah. So another thing I was really curious about, how did this particular opportunity that you're in now, how did that happen? You sort of take me through like beginning to end, because there's a lot of things that you did, as far as going from deciding where you wanted to spend your time and what could be potential options, eliminating options, like we talked about earlier, but eventually you accepted an opportunity, right? So how did that happen? Can you, sort of, take me through beginning to end. What did you? What did you say? What did it?

Divya 25:05

Yeah. So I kind of came across this over this past summer. I was kind of focused on reaching out to companies and, like, the health tech space, but I told myself that I think by the end of June, if I'm kind of not making headway, which I was, honestly, I was struggling to, I think, it was a tough time to be looking for a job at a startup, especially with no startup experience. So I kind of told myself, for my own sanity, to kind of stick to the timeline that I set for myself. I'm going to also reach out to old colleagues and let them know, you know, "I'm looking, I'm open. If you have anything that you think I would like, feel free to let me know." So I did that, and kind of reconnected with some colleagues from my previous job, and one of them put me in touch with somebody who works at the company that I'm at now, and I think maybe a month after I first spoke with her, she got back to me and said, "Hey, there's another team that I work with and they're hiring. I think you might be interested. Do you want to speak with them?" And that was it. I think it helps that, again, like the kind of sub-industry I work in is a very small world. So I was able to go back to my colleagues and say, like, "This is the team. These are the people. Do you know them?" And they knew, and they were able to give me really good advice and kind of feedback on the opportunity. So that helped a lot. I think, in general, I definitely seek a lot of advice, guidance, wisdom from the people around me. So it was really nice to be able to go to people who, like, know the people that I work with now, and are familiar role and who know me well. So I kind of trusted that they think it's a good fit, it probably will be a good fit.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:41

Yeah, when you... So you were you're saying that this particular opportunity was a byproduct of you recognizing that within your overall comprehensive set of goals, you also had some timelines that you wanted to hit too. So you recognized that you needed to focus, not entirely on startups, but sort of expand the areas that you're looking if I'm understanding correctly. And then so that caused you to reach out to the people that you already had relationships with. And when you reached out to those people, like in this case, for whatever led to this opportunity, do you remember what you said, or was it an email? Did you pick up the phone? Did you text somebody? Or what did that look like? Get into the nitty gritty here for a minute.

Divya 27:29

Yeah. So this was an old client of mine. I texted him initially and just kind of let him know, you know, we'd been in touch already, so we hadn't fully fallen out of touch. But I kind of shot him a text and said, like, "Hey, as you know, you know, I've kind of been out of the industry for a little bit, and I'm putting feelers back out to kind of see what is out there. So if you see anything interesting, let me know." And he had already been, he had sent me some opportunities in the past, and then kind of stopped because he realized that I wasn't looking, you know, before that he would be open to sharing. So that's how it started. And then we eventually met up for coffee again to catch up in person, which was really nice and kind of you can speak more freely. And I think he got a better understanding of what specifically I was looking for and what I was not looking for.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:14

And at that point in time, you'd already done a lot of this work for yourself to be able to say, "Hey, I don't want more of this, and I do want more of this area." So it sounds like you're able to articulate more of that. Well, what's an example of something that you told them at that time? Do you remember? I'm really putting you on the spot.

Divya 28:32

No, just, I mean, I'm trying to think of an example that's not hyper specific because I think so many of... there's, like so many tiny little things that mean something to people in my industry that are like gibberish to. I think I kind of was looking for it. So in my previous role, I was in sales, and I covered a bunch of different products. So it was a very, very wide span of things that I was responsible for. So essentially, anytime any of my 40 clients transacted in any of these areas, I had to be involved. And so this time around, I wanted to narrow that scope, and not feel like I was constantly kind of spread thin over six different areas, and feel like, okay, I'm working on one, I'm working on two, and I really understand what I'm doing to kind of combat that imposter syndrome from before. You know, a lot of times I felt like I was just like having to talk intelligently about things that I didn't feel like I could talk intelligently about, but I just had to.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:29

Well, that does wonders for imposter syndrome.

Divya 29:33

Yes. It was kind of the perfect storm. So I knew, like, back into it, I wanted to be more specific in my scope and narrow it down so that I could kind of mitigate that feeling, and I could spend more time understanding what was going on and feeling like I had a good grasp on things, and not just like running around, you know, with my hair on fire. So that was one thing that I told him. And then, yeah, kind of led to the role that I'm in now, which is exactly that it's like, I focus on kind of two areas, and it's a lot more specific.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:03

What else, you know, as you think about your role now, what else stands out that fits for you? Because we started out part of this conversation saying, you know, the role that you were coming from, you know, it was good for a time period, but it ultimately was not a fit at the point in time when you left. So as you think about this role, what else fits?

Divya 30:26

One really big thing is that I get one day remote per week, which is getting to be very, very rare in the finance industry. So that's huge. I think that, you know, my previous job was five days a week, or five days in office per week. So, and it was really... there was, like, very little leeway unless you were, like, actively ill.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:49

That's an interesting one too. Because if I remember correctly, I think when you came out of the other role, you had thought you wanted to go 100% remote, and then determined you actually did want to spend some time in person. Is that right?

Divya 31:04

Yeah. I think that was just, like an overcorrection.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:08

I don't want this. I want the opposite.

Divya 31:11

Exactly. I was like, you know, came out of, like, being in office five days in, like, a super intense environment, kind of constantly feeling. You know, I mean, we don't have cubicles, like I said, which is fun sometimes, but sometimes it's like, people are looking at me all day long. And so I kind of just came out of that, and was like, "I want to fall into a hole where nobody ever has to look at me again." And then I realized, like, you know, I definitely don't think that full remote would work for me. I just get, like, a little stir crazy and sad when I'm at home just all the time. So I think hybrid is perfect for me. And having that one day to work from home, and I don't know, be able to cook lunch and be able to throw a load of laundry in between calls, that means it makes a huge difference for me, especially, because I have to get in, you know, I usually get in between 7:45-8:00, so it's a pretty early start and just kind of having leeway helps a lot. I think in terms of other things that make it feel better this time around, isn't really actually related to the role, but I think it is more so my perspective on myself and on kind of myself within the context of a job. I think I was really able to shift away from feeling like my job was my identity, and feeling like, you know, if something bad happened at work, that was like the end of the world. I think I felt everything very, very strongly in my last job, like, performing well just meant so much to me, and I still want to do a good job. I'm not here to slack off. But at the same time, I think it's a lot easier for me now with the time off that I had, and with the experience that I had with my dad, and kind of realizing that I was able to step away for a year and I was able to come back and everything was okay. It just helped me to realize, "Okay, it's fine. You know, if you have a bad day, it's okay. If somebody gets mad, it's okay. If you can't solve all the problems, like that's fine, you know." And kind of not taking everything as hard has just made it... that's just like an emotionally exhausting way to live is kind of feeling very deeply. I think it's really the perspective now that helps me to kind of separate from things that happen at work and not necessarily bring that negativity home, which was harder for me to do. And I think also the fact that, you know, the first time around, I did kind of stumble into it, like I told you, I just kind of found myself there. And at the time, I did not feel like it was a good fit. Now, you know, I explored all of every path, right? I explored pages, like, I really took my time and looked at other options, and this is where I landed up. So now I feel like, okay, this is something I picked, like I looked at what else was out there, and I really thought about my experience in my previous role, and I made the active choice to come back, and that just feels like a much better position to be in than feeling like, "I kind of just ended up here. This is just the job that I got. And there's probably something like perfect for me out there, and I just haven't looked", because this time I've looked, you know.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:11

Yeah, okay, so something else I gotta ask you about, let's back up here a year and a half, you know, almost two years. For someone else who is in the same type of place where you were, where you're like, "Okay, I know this is not a fit. I'm starting to recognize that a lot of my decisions here are being made based on fear. I want to do this anymore." What advice would you give that person who's in that place that's starting to recognize that they want to make a change? What advice do you have for them?

Divya 34:38

I guess I would want to add that, I think part of the process, the decision making process for me when I was trying to decide if I should leave with nothing lined up was it was like this big, scary question of, how am I gonna explain myself? You know, what are people gonna think when I start interviewing again and I have a gap on my resume, like, a gap on the resume is the worst thing that you could do, right? Like, I wasn't productive for an entire year. How am I gonna do that? And I think I probably had maybe 20 to 30 conversations with people across networking. And, you know, all of it added up. I think only one person seemed to negatively respond to that. The vast majority of people did not care, didn't even ask a follow up question. You know, I kind of, in my interviews, I always offered I said, like, you know, "I just want to make sure you know that I'm not working right now. Alright, so we're on the same page, and feel free to ask me any questions. Like, I'm happy to speak to that." And almost nobody cared. I think that was like, such a big fear of mine when I was deciding if I should quit, like, thinking about, and I remember I talked to Phillip about it at the time too, I was like, "If I'm going to do this, I need to get my story straight now, so that I feel like I'm ready when they come at me for doing this." I think if I had known back then that, like, everyone was very understanding, even in finance, which is not known to be an understanding industry, yeah, nobody cared. Nobody asked. And when they did ask, it was just to be like, "Okay. Is your dad okay?" So that, I think. would have been a huge reassurance to know. So if anybody out there is considering doing something similar to what I did, I think you might be pleasantly surprised that people are more understanding and people are like also just humans who get that things happen sometimes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:30

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:22

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:28

It's 2025. A lot of people are struggling to even get interviews. It's a competitive market, and standing out feels harder than ever. And you might think if you could just get an interview or talk with that hiring manager, you'd absolutely crush it, and maybe you would. But what if I told you that all that effort could be a waste of time? There's one thing you need to do first, and once you do everything else after it will become much, much easier, no matter how tough the job market is. So what is it? We break down that game changing insight in today's episode of the Happen To Your Career podcast.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:07

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.

Petchell Luepke 00:01

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

Introduction 00:19

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:43

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

Petchell Luepke 01:12

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:28

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

Petchell Luepke 03:15

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

Samantha Martin 03:35

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

Petchell Luepke 03:39

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

Samantha Martin 05:36

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

Petchell Luepke 05:40

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

Samantha Martin 06:10

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

Petchell Luepke 06:15

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

Samantha Martin 06:42

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

Petchell Luepke 06:46

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

Samantha Martin 07:00

Did you enjoy the internship?

Petchell Luepke 07:02

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

Samantha Martin 07:46

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

Petchell Luepke 07:51

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

Samantha Martin 08:29

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

Petchell Luepke 08:34

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

Samantha Martin 09:22

Right. Like another different industry.

Petchell Luepke 09:25

And a whole other industry.

Samantha Martin 09:26

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

Samantha Martin 10:35

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

Petchell Luepke 09:31

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

Petchell Luepke 10:47

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

Samantha Martin 12:05

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

Petchell Luepke 12:10

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

Samantha Martin 12:32

That's really cool.

Petchell Luepke 12:33

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

Samantha Martin 12:46

Oh, it has to be an option.

Petchell Luepke 12:48

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

Samantha Martin 12:59

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

Petchell Luepke 13:07

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

Samantha Martin 14:42

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

Petchell Luepke 14:59

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

Samantha Martin 15:46

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

Petchell Luepke 15:52

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

Samantha Martin 16:16

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

Petchell Luepke 16:27

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

Samantha Martin 18:02

Oh, he knew.

Petchell Luepke 18:03

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

Samantha Martin 18:09

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

Petchell Luepke 18:17

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

Samantha Martin 18:46

You're shifting for sure.

Petchell Luepke 18:48

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

Samantha Martin 19:52

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

Petchell Luepke 19:58

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

Samantha Martin 20:03

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

Petchell Luepke 20:13

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

Samantha Martin 20:15

In the DC area where you still were?

Petchell Luepke 20:17

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

Samantha Martin 20:46

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

Petchell Luepke 21:15

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

Samantha Martin 21:47

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

Petchell Luepke 21:54

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

Samantha Martin 22:15

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

Petchell Luepke 22:20

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

Samantha Martin 22:35

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

Petchell Luepke 22:56

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

Samantha Martin 24:09

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

Petchell Luepke 24:17

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

Samantha Martin 25:04

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

Petchell Luepke 25:09

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

Samantha Martin 25:58

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

Petchell Luepke 26:14

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

Samantha Martin 26:59

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

Petchell Luepke 27:24

Correct, yes.

Samantha Martin 27:25

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

Petchell Luepke 27:50

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

Samantha Martin 28:53

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

Petchell Luepke 28:58

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

Samantha Martin 30:35

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

Petchell Luepke 30:58

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

Samantha Martin 31:26

It's like your career DNA, almost.

Petchell Luepke 31:28

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

Samantha Martin 33:12

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

Petchell Luepke 33:28

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

Samantha Martin 33:36

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

Petchell Luepke 33:43

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

Samantha Martin 34:08

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

Petchell Luepke 34:23

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

Samantha Martin 34:52

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

Petchell Luepke 35:08

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:31

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:23

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

Speaker 4 36:28

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:51

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:09

All that and plenty more next week right here on Happen To Your Career. Make sure that you don't miss it, and if you haven't already, click subscribe on your podcast player, so that you can download this podcast in your sleep, and you get it automatically, even the bonus episodes every single week, sometimes multiple times a week, until next week. Adios, I'm out.

Sandra Cloud 00:01

He granted me severance when they really don't do that. And it was because I asked. But I really needed support to ask for that because it was obviously such an uncomfortable thing for me to do.

Introduction 00:19

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:44

Severance packages often aren't something that people give much thought. Actually, it's something most people try not to think about. It sounds like a terrible thing. You're either on the wrong end of a layoff or you're needing to leave a job, usually a pretty stressful time, right? But there's an entirely different way to think about severance. And if you understand the power of asking for severance, particularly at the right time, you can use it as a tool to assist in your intentional career change. Now, I'm not here to tell you that asking for severance is easy. It's not always even the right thing to do. It's not. However, receiving a severance package is not impossible. In fact, people actually do successfully ask for severance at all different types of organizations, even in industries where severance is practically unheard of. It requires a completely different level of thinking and expertise. By the way, this is an advanced level maneuver, and today we're gonna dive into this bold strategy and show you how asking for severance can not only benefit you, but also benefit the organization that you're leaving as well. And we're gonna show you some examples for how you can do this from Sandra's story, who you may have heard on the podcast back in episode 589. However, we cut this chapter out of her story at the time because we realized we needed to dedicate an entire episode to it. Because Sandra did what so many people claim is impossible. She negotiated a severance package in a field where it's pretty much unheard of. So let's discuss how you can make the impossible possible in your own career.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:23

Before we dive into Sandra's story, we're going to cover the specifics here and her unconventional approach to severance. I want to take a step back and talk about why this even matters here. And, let me paint you a picture. You know it's time to leave your role, maybe it's draining you, maybe you're just bored, or your priorities outside of work are shifting, whatever it is, you may have outgrown it, you know you need to quit. By the way, if you're not quite there yet, trying to figure out if you should quit or not, we have an episode dedicated to that part of the process. That's episode 509. I'll link it up in the show notes, the description right on your podcast player. But once you have decided you need to quit, that's when things get really interesting. Because when it comes to how you quit, you actually have options, which a lot of people don't consider. One of those options is negotiating the severance package. And when we talk about negotiating severance, it's easy to think about finances, but when you're asking with the purpose of making a more intentional career change, it's about a lot more. Severance can help you create space, both financially and mentally, so you can work on figuring out what your next step should be, what type of work truly fits you, and then transition into that next chapter with ease. It's not for everybody, but it can be a career change strategy that can give you financial runway to support your transition, breathing room to recover from burnout, mental space to focus on what's next, time and bandwidth to explore or experiment with more fulfilling career paths. Negotiating your exit can transform what feels like an overwhelming leap into strategic, intentional steps towards your future. Okay, so instead of just putting in your notice, what if, instead, you could use this transition to set yourself up for success in your next career move. But not only that, what if you could come up with a plan that makes your exit a great situation for the organization and allows you to walk away with setting them up for success, as well as a severance package. Okay, this is where we cover why severance doesn't have to be selfish. I mean, it certainly can be, but it doesn't have to be, and I don't think it should be, quite honestly, I think it should be a great deal for all parties involved. You might be wondering, okay, well, how could asking for severance ever be good for the organization? And it sounds kind of self-serving on the surface, but when done thoughtfully, it can be mutually beneficial. Now I'm going to ask for you to think about severance as a service rather than just a payment. It turns out that in many situations, paying a severance can actually be a great way to support the team and organization that you're leaving behind. So here's a few examples of how severance can benefit you in the organization. It could be part of the deal that you're working ahead. You could use your remaining time to complete projects, wrap up loose ends, anticipate what's coming in the future, work on those upcoming projects with severance tied to hitting specific milestones. It could mean helping with a handoff like training and onboarding your replacement to make the transition smoother for everyone involved, and set your entire team up for success. How would that be, right? It could mean avoiding costly disruptions. Sometimes by staying a little longer, you can help the organization avoid big headaches like handling tax reporting or wrapping up quarters in tasks. In those cases, paying severance could actually save them time and money. It becomes an investment. Very cool, right? What about leveraging retirement benefits? If you're close to retirement, negotiating severance that includes retirement benefits or continues to retirement benefits, could actually help the organization maintain stability during the transition, or it might allow them, you know, to close out some of their past retirement packages if they've made changes during the time that you have been there at the organization. This is all very situational dependent. That's why this is an advanced maneuver. But I want to give you an example here. I actually had a family member negotiate six months of severance by staying on just long enough to train her... find and train her replacement, and this gave the organization the time that it needed to be able to stay on track through the hiring and onboarding. And by staying to transfer this knowledge and wrap up her responsibilities, she created value for both herself and all the people that she worked with. Pretty cool, right? The company agreed that six months of severance was a much better deal than risking costly mistakes. And to be clear, in this situation, this was six months of severance beyond the additional claim that she stayed. So, a great deal for her, a great deal for everybody who was impacted in the organization. But let's talk about Sandra's case. Because if you did listen to episode 589, with Sandra, you might be thinking, "Okay, all that sounds great, but it wouldn't work for me. My situation is different." That's what we tend to think as humans. This is a form of psychological bias, and it protects your ego, and it's really wonderful at certain times, it also tends to hold us back. So I've heard this countless times since we've been doing this since, I don't know, when did we start–2012 and 2013 is the business. And there's always resistance to the idea of negotiating severance. People think it's impossible in their situation, their industry or asking would actually burn bridges. Maybe that's true, but what if you knew how to do it so you could be the exception? Well, that's exactly what Sandra did. And to be really clear, I'm not sure that I would recommend this advanced level maneuver, going alone without taking a partner that has expertise in these areas. And that is what Sandra did. Sandra worked in education where severance packages are practically unheard of, people can get easily offended, and she could have quietly put in her notice and walked away, that's a thing that could have happened. Instead, she decided to push through the discomfort, create a plan that would help her organization and then ask for what she needed. Now, Sandra framed her severance request as a solution to her problem, particularly her departure through a critical time that could have created disruption. So it's her problem because she felt attachment to this organization, she put a lot of time and effort the school, in fact, that she put a lot of time and effort into getting it to the point that it was at, and also it's a problem for all the people that she was leaving behind. And instead of just leaving, she agreed to stay on for a brief period and wrap up loose ends and actually be able to work ahead to set that organization up, this school in education, for the entire... basically about a year ahead, almost. With support, she built a plan to approach her boss, navigate a tough conversation, and ended up successfully negotiating the financial runway she needed to transition to her next steps. What we've done here is we've broken down Sandra's strategy into five key considerations that you can use to tackle your severance negotiation.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:54

Okay, let's dive into how she made the impossible possible. Number one, let's talk about assessing your relationship with your boss. This is a big deal. Reflect on past difficult conversations with your boss. Have you asked for other things in the past? How did that go? Approach the severance conversation with care and, of course, strategic planning. We're not wanting to burn bridges here, so instead, this is the part where you're likely to need support and likely to need outside perspective to assess. Is this very likely to work in your situation? Do you have the level of relationship? If you feel like you have a great relationship with your boss, that's a good sign to be able to consider next steps. If you've had past conversations that have gone particularly well, difficult conversations for your boss and for you, then that's a sign that you may be able to go forward here. In any case, I want you to get an outside perspective in order to understand is this a possibility, in addition to these road signs that I'm giving you here. Okay, by the way, we have an episode all about how to navigate relationships when you're leaving a job, it's called, Build Bridges: Don't Burn Them. How to Leave a Job on Good Terms. It's episode 551, we'll put all the mentions and references here inside the show notes, so you can just go in and click on it and listen to it if it's relevant for you. But this is step one is, assess do you have the potential relationship in order to make this possible for you? Most people, this is a fun thing that we found. Most people that are taking the time that care about developing themselves care legitimately for other people, they typically build those relationships naturally without even realizing it. So most people that are listening right now, if you're listening right now, chances are high you might already have that type of relationship in place without even knowing it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:55

Okay. Number two, I want you to go into this having an understanding of what your company's past practices. Could be policies, but usually we're interested in past practices for severance because the policy made different from the past practice in one way or another. Often, organizational policies are written for what is going to meet legal criteria or prevent additional risk. However, what is done behind the scenes could be completely different than what are those upfront policies. This is something I've seen over and over again. It is something that many people don't quite understand how that can work behind the scene unless they've delved into risk assessment from a legal perspective, or sometimes, if they've worked in HR or gotten to see behind the scenes how that works, maybe they've been in, I don't know, maybe you've been in a high executive level where you've seen this thing happen and taken in HR or a legal partner in order to do it over and over again. You'd be surprised how many organizations offer severance outside of the usual policies. If the situation warrants it, I would encourage you to speak to former colleagues or even people who have left the organization, so you can find out how it's been handled, and be able to collect some information in one way or another. And by the way, in the past, I worked in HR leadership, for a variety of different companies, who only did severance in certain situations on the norm, or, you know, in front facing policies. However, being on the HR team, there were so many specific situations where we went outside policy to provide severance. And I'll just give you a quick example. One of them in particular was somebody who was a former high performer in the organization, had a wonderful track record, been there for many years, and in his case, his performance started to dip significantly. It was no longer a great fit for the organization, but had this wealth of knowledge, and had all these balls in the air in the form of different projects and other things along those lines. So it was definitely time for him to go. It was no longer going to be a great fit for the organization in the future. But also needed to make sure that all of these balls weren't dropped and they were handed off and set up accordingly. So worked with him over a period of a couple of weeks to be able to wrap up, negotiate severance, and send him on his way and so that we could bring in a new person who would be a better fit, and he could get to a place that was going to be a better fit for him, quite frankly, and it ended up being a wonderful deal for everybody. I think in that particular case, I think that it was a pretty small amount of severance. I think it was like two months or 10 weeks or something along those lines, not a massive amount, either way, nothing in our policies saying that that's a normal thing that we would do. But it created this soft landing for him, and it avoided all of the normal performance types of processes in many different ways, was really truly the right thing to do in this person's case and for the rest of the team too. Point here, I want to make sure you have a good grasp on your company's history and policies. Also want to make sure that this gets integrated into your strategy as you're building it to be able to explain why this is a reasonable request, beyond reasonable, why it's actually a great thing for you and the rest of the organization.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:34

Okay, this is where we move into building your negotiation plan. What do you need for a smooth transition? What's your ideal package? I want you to consider factors like severance pay, health insurance, PTO, what are you able to offer? What value are you able to create as you exit? Sometimes, it might be you vacating the spot, like in the example I just gave, like that truly was a value for the organization. We needed to vacate that spot and get somebody else in there that was going to be a great fit, and do that quick so that could be value on itself. But other types of value can you hire and train and find a replacement? Are there projects that are going to be incredibly high value for you to focus on? Are there things that you can work ahead on? We've given all of those examples here, those are great places to start. Or is there a reason why for staying on for a certain time frame that would benefit your company? Like, if you were an accountant, particularly like a tax accountant, they might not like you to stay on through tax season. Or a teacher, they might appreciate it if you could finish the semester out. In any case, make sure you figure out your needs before the conversation, so that you know what you want and what you can ask for. And usually if you listen to any of our advice on negotiation, of any kind, we want to develop a negotiation plan. The most basic pieces of a negotiation plan here going into it are understanding what your minimums are that you'll accept in a variety of different areas and your ideals or targets that you would love to receive or end up with. You don't have to share that minimum with your boss or whoever you're negotiating with, but it's important for you to know and you understand so that you don't accidentally or unintentionally accept below that minimum. Sandra, for example, asked for twice what she needed that she asked for much closer to her ideal target, because she knew her boss well, and she knew asking for double would likely land her with what she actually required to be able to leave. So here she is talking about how she came up with her negotiation plan.

Sandra Cloud 17:45

So, actually, when I first talked to my director about leaving, there's a thing in schools that apparently I was not as right about that as I thought that I was. But one of the things that you try not to do is leave mid year, mid academic year. That can be pretty hard on a school to try to scramble and figure it, figure that out. So I was really determined to make it through June, if I could of this year. And so my original intent was to ask him to figure out either some type of sabbatical or me working from home on Tuesday, Thursdays when I wasn't teaching, some way that I could still do, you know. So open enrollment for the school was in March, and that's a pretty busy time for marketing, so I didn't want to leave them in alert on that end. And so that was my original ask. And he actually said, "Well, why don't you leave in December? You know, it sounds like, health wise, that might be a better plan for you. It also sounds, you know, we have a beautiful Christmas party every year on the last day of school before Christmas break and you could winter break so you could go to the party and say goodbye to everybody, and that could be it. And I was a little resistant. And he said, "Well, what's your resistance?" And I said, "Well, all these things, I don't want to leave you in the lurch." He said, "Well, I think if we have you just focus on getting the marketing things in place then, you know," because that's also the end of our, we do spring term and fall term, so that was the end of the term. So he just wouldn't schedule me to teach any classes in the spring. So I noodled on that, and that's when I thought, you know, Oregon, getting a job in Oregon in January is not an awesome perspective. I just couldn't figure that out. I hadn't yet thought about tapping into my retirement account, and so it made me really nervous, and so I was just honest with him and said, "I can't imagine trying to get a job in January. Is there any way that you can do severance pay?" And I went through that terribly uncomfortable conversation. And after I talked with Ben, it was really good to have somebody to just to bounce ideas off of and brace myself with. So when I had that conversation with him, I've watched him negotiate before, and he likes to negotiate. And so I knew if I was... My tendency is just to say, "this is actually what I need." But I just had this feeling that I needed to ask for double what I wanted, which was at least two months salary. And basing, you know, if you look at businesses, they do a lot more in severance than two months. Education is not known for paying any severance at all. So he talked with the powers that be on his end, and they ended up granting me a consultant fee for my January paycheck, basically, and then had me continue on payroll as the marketing person, even though I got all the marketing done by December 15th. So everything was ready, everything was shared out, all the things that I take care of, I'd mapped out. And it's amazing, you know, I'd been so tired for so many years that I'd never gotten to the marketing really much before the first of December, and it carried through always until open enrollment in March. But somehow, having the clarity of what my next was, my activator and my strategy kicked in, I got everything done so early, so much earlier than I'd done for years, which felt really good to have all that time. So yeah, he granted me severance when they really don't do that. And it was because I asked, but I really needed support to ask for that, because it was obviously such an uncomfortable thing for me to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:21

I heard you say, "I was really proud of myself because I went and did it anyways", even though it was insert all the emotions here, like, scary, uncomfortable, anxious, like, all the things, right? And you did it anyway.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:42

To make the conversation go as smooth as possible, I want you to build a plan to maneuver through the conversation that you feel good about. This includes points you want to be sure to hit on, and that takes us to our next step, which becomes practice the conversation. By the way, a lot of people skip this step and then they realize it too late. When you're face to face with your boss and you can't think of how to approach it or what to say first, or you didn't prepare for something to go awry, I don't want you to skip this step. There are at this point, many different studies that if you do simple run throughs, simple practice in a variety of different ways, then that's going to increase your confidence going into this. So that might be a mock conversation with a partner. That's a lot of times what we'll do here with our clients. It might be charting out and having you record a run through of what you're going to say, so you can see yourself on video. That feels painful for people, but it makes a huge difference having gone through it and understanding how it's going to come off. Any case, you have to be able to have practiced it in one way or another that's going to change how the actual conversation goes. And also have a plan for how you're going to handle potential pushback. Having this rehearsed plan gives you the confidence to tackle the conversation that will likely feel uncomfortable at first. Okay, this last step is gonna sound ridiculous, but it is making the ask, having the courage to ask, in fact. You might think this goes without saying, obviously, but it's the hardest one, so we need to talk about it. You've done all this work to prepare, it's time to do the asking. You're probably going to be feeling so many emotions– could be scared, could be uncomfortable, anxious, all the things. Maybe you don't feel ready, often at that point, your brain will talk you out of it, or at least attempt to, you're never likely going to feel absolutely 100% ready. Why? Well, the one thing I've learned after working with thousands of people in all different types of negotiation, is that courage usually precedes confidence. Meaning, you don't need to feel fully confident to take the first step. Courage will help get the ball rolling, and then confidence will follow after you've done the thing. It's backwards, and it kind of sucks in the moment. But it's the truth. I promise the confidence will appear when you've just about given up hope. Sandra's story shows that the simple act of asking can be a huge leap toward creating the life and career that you want, even when it feels scary, just asking can create the space for opportunity to materialize. By the way, here's Sandra and I discussing exactly how it felt for her.

Sandra Cloud 24:33

One of the things that had happened was I said, "Ben, do you think I should ask for severance?" And he said, "Yes, you should ask for severance." So he helped me come up with the way I was going to ask. And I got to tell you, Scott, I am a fairly confident person. My boss and I have a friendship, as well as a mentorship, as well as he's my boss, like very multifaceted. I squirmed. I turned beat red. I brought out in sweat. I couldn't look directly at him. I had to look in my lap to get through this conversation to ask for severance. So I was really proud of myself for doing that. And I asked for twice what I needed, knowing how he tends to operate. So he gave me half of what I asked for, which was actually what I needed. And then I realized, I could tap into my retirement. I could just take some time and heal up. And so I did that. So now my slate is clear, like, I have no commitments, and I can start resting and trusting myself and listening to what my body seems to want.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:39

Okay, you've heard Sandra's experience. Let's quickly cover those steps again that you should take to prepare for your own exit package conversation. I want you to assess your relationship with your boss, do your research, outline your negotiation plan or your ideal package, as well as your minimums, I want you to practice the conversation. And then, of course, the ask itself. And those are the steps when we really break it down. Next time you find yourself thinking something like, "That is just not possible in my situation." Or, "that could never work for me." Whether it's doing work you love, getting paid a certain salary, taking a month off to travel, which I've done numerous times, it's definitely worth it, by the way. We're asking for severance. I want you to think about not my situation, but Sandra's situation, or the other stories that you've heard here on the podcast. All of the stories that we tend to share are people who, at one point in time, thought it was impossible for them. But what if you could be the exception? Maybe it's impossible for some people, mostly because they won't move forward. But the biggest thing allowing you to be the exception is thinking about, "Why not you? Why not?" It's going to be somebody. Why not you? Don't wait for the perfect moment, make the choice now that your future self will thank you for. By the way, whether that's asking for severance or making a career change or leadership coaching, or anything else that is in your career that's a challenge or problem or aspiration, those are the things that we help with. We would love to be able to support you. Feel free to pick up your phone, go into your email right now. Email me directly, Scott@happentoyourcareer.com and put 'Conversation' in the subject line. I'll connect you with somebody on my team. We'll figure out the very best way that we can support you. That's Scott@happentoyourcareer.com put 'Conversation' in the subject line. And again, all the resources that we mentioned, you can find it in the description in the show notes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:35

And here's the sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you next week.

Speaker 3 27:41

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:55

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:24

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.

Steph Strine 00:01

I have a lot of friends that have pivoted out of corporate jobs, and they now do yoga retreats where they do instructing full time, and I see these actual physical examples of people doing what I wanted to do, and I'm like, "Oh, I can't do that."

Introduction 00:19

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:44

We all have a place where we feel comfortable and natural in our actions, where we're excited about life and happy to be ourselves. But what if you could feel like that all the time, even when you're working? I've heard people say, "I feel like I have to be a different person at work", or "I feel like I'm living two different lives." Many times throughout my years working in HR operations and interacting with clients at HTYC, I've heard this over and over again. Well, it turns out work doesn't have to be this way. To thrive at work, you must first figure out where you feel most like yourself and where you can be more of who you want to become.

Steph Strine 01:27

I just had this overwhelming sense in my body. I was like, "I am not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Like, I need to go do this now, even if I don't know what it looks like."

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:37

That's Steph Strine. Steph had known for almost nine years that she felt most alive and most like herself in fitness studios, but had never allowed herself to believe that she could actually build a career in fitness. Steph is a former Marine Corps Officer, and when she got out of the service, she was hired with Amazon, where she quickly moved up the ranks. And as you can imagine, her life had always been very structured, so it took a lot for her to step off the traditional career path and go after what she truly wanted. Okay, so you're gonna hear my conversation with Steph, and I want you to pay attention to how she articulates her realization that she could make a living doing what she most loves, and how she completely upended her life, or at least, you know, felt like upending it to go after that exact thing that she wants. Steph's story is inspiring, not only because she got outside her comfort zone and broke the mold on what her life had always been, but now that she knows she's on the right track, she's continuing to blaze a path toward what we call her unicorn role, those roles that you didn't think were possible, or, you know, thought might be mythical. Here's Steph talking about her initial effort to carve her own path by joining the Navy.

Steph Strine 03:00

I grew up in Cornwall, New York, which is in the Hudson Valley area, so it's about north of New York City, and I went to the Naval Academy. I have a very big military family. Both my parents went to West Point, and so I shocked everyone when I went to the Naval Academy. But yeah, I really am grateful for the experience that I had. I was an active duty marine for about seven and a half years, and then transitioned out and did operations at Amazon for my first almost two years out of the military. But a lot of my focus in my career has always been about people. I was an administrative officer, so I did a lot of the behind the scenes stuff that, you know, to get the Marines out the door, the stuff that would keep them up at night if they didn't get their paycheck, and stuff like that. So my focus has really always been on people, and then to kind of couple that with, I played soccer growing up, like since I was five, I was playing competitive soccer, and so I was always like, on the go, and I played soccer at the Naval Academy, and fitness was always like a passion of mine, but I never really thought that I could do anything with it. So a little bit more of that later, but.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:10

Yeah, and I really want to dig into that because fitness has not always been there as a theme for you, it seems like, but now it's a much more central theme, and we'll talk about how you transition into that in a little bit. But I'm really curious what made you, aside from you having a military family and everything, what made you decide to go into the Naval Academy?

Steph Strine 04:35

I made a list. I'm very organized, and I like a set of like structures. So the military for me, was something that was very familiar. But why the Naval Academy? Definitely the soccer piece. Like at the time, that soccer team was performing super well. I really resonated with the team when I went and visited and hung out with the girls on the team, and then I made a list, like, growing up of what I was looking for in college and Annapolis actually hit more than West Point, and my mom still works at West Point too. So I was like, "I just kind of want to do my own thing." And so that was kind of the why behind I would say, like, soccer first. And then it was, I wanted to carve my own path, which I can see now is like, very, very a theme that's woven throughout a lot of my career story.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:22

I could see that. What did your family think when you first told them, "you know, I'm thinking Annapolis."

Steph Strine 05:27

So, yeah. It was blasted in like the newspapers where I grew up. It was like, "Strine picks navy, not army." So my mom was devastated, to say the least, but she got over it. She has like, more Navy apparel than I do now. But, you know, I mean, they're excited. I mean, at the end of the day, like, it was a great school and yeah. So, I mean, would they have loved to have another West Point graduate, sure, but there's plenty of my family, and so I'm happily go Navy, not the other side. So...

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:56

That's amazing. And it sounded like that really was a better fit for you.

Steph Strine 06:03

Yeah. I was talking about this the other day with a friend, and I used to be like, and it still kind of trickles in, but like, people pleasing. And I think the easier choice would have been to, like, go to West Point and just follow in my parents footsteps, but I just knew that it was the right choice for me. And, yeah, I couldn't imagine life any different. I wouldn't have been able to be a Marine Corps, or it would have been a little bit more challenging, too, at West Point, you know, it wouldn't have unfolded the way that it did.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:30

When, well, I heard you say just a few minutes ago that you were in for about seven and a half years or so. What caused you to realize it was time to go, time to make...?

Steph Strine 06:43

Yeah, a couple things along this period of years that I was in the Marine Corps. I had gotten sober, and I had something that happened personally to me that I wouldn't be able to stay in the active duty any longer. So that was one thing. And then after I finished rehab, I kind of just had a new perspective on life, like most things, when you do something incredibly crazy like that, and flip your entire life around. And so I knew it was time because I wasn't, like, I wasn't invested in what we were doing, and that's also been a theme in my story, is like, I just knew that there was people that were more passionate about it, and they were going to charge the next wave of whatever the Marine Corps was to develop into, and it wasn't my time anymore, and I knew that it would also be unserving to me to stay in an environment that I knew I couldn't grow in because of the things that had led me up to getting sober. And like, I'm not ashamed of it at all. Life happened. And for me, it's happened in a very amazing, beautiful way. But I just also knew that there's life outside of the military as well. And if I can stay sober, then I can do anything.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:54

How has going through that type of experience and then going through rehab, how has that changed your perspective on life?

Steph Strine 08:03

It was very humbling. I mean, as someone that, like I mentioned, is very list oriented, and like, that was not on my list whatsoever.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:10

Nowhere on the list.

Steph Strine 08:12

It was not on there at all. And so it was very unexpected. I think the biggest thing that I learned was, like, life is very precious. I'm very fortunate to, like, kind of be alive today, and I have a lot of friends that unfortunately have passed away from substance abuse or overdose. And that was kind of the biggest kicker for me to leave Amazon, too, was like, I have one life to live, and if I don't do this, I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life, no matter what way it happens. So I think that was one of the biggest things I learned was just how precious life is, and then humility at the end of the day. Personally, for me, I believe that we all kind of want the same things as like, to be supported, to be protected, to be loved and to feel cared for in some sort of capacity and like, that's what I've found in my sobriety, is the complete opposite of addiction is connection, and that those were the two things that I think I left that experience with that I take with me still to this day.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:08

That's awesome. That is amazing, actually. And I'm really curious, because you mentioned that some of the same reasons that you left the military also were some of the same reasons that you left Amazon, or at least some of the realizations that, you know, pretty much have one life. And I'm curious what some of the differences were, too. So let's start out, let's go back for a little bit here and tell me a little bit about when you transitioned out of the military, how did you end up at Amazon?

Steph Strine 09:41

Yeah. So it was... I had all these, as per usual, I had a plan. I knew exactly when I could get out. I was like, "I'm going to start an internship with a skill bridge", like most military transitioning officers are enlisted to. And then the pandemic happened, and I was like, "I do not want to do a virtual internship, like that's just not for me." I was in San Diego at the time, and I think I was, like, a little bit over a year and a half sober. So I still, kind of like navigating this new life that I was living. And I got out in September of 2020, and I wanted to stay in San Diego. San Diego was opening and closing non stop. And so Amazon kind of came about in a very strange way, like, I was unemployed for about four months, which was very, very challenging for me to kind of deal with as someone that was like, "I'm a transitioning military officer. I went to a service academy, like, "I'm a female, I'm also a minority", like, but it was also the pandemic, and we had no idea what we were doing, right? So and on top of that, trying to stay in San Diego, which is one of the nicest places to live. I made it quite challenging to transition out with those things that I was looking for. All to be said, I also was limiting myself, like I said, I did human resources in the military, and so I was just gravitating towards, like, I'm going to go to these HR specialist roles, and I'm going to look at these like, HRBP roles just because, like, that's how my brain thought that I could only exist within this box. And I was getting my master's around that time, and I transitioned to virtual as well. And someone has just been like, "Hop on an Amazon webinar and just see what positions they're offering" whatever. And I was like, yeah, okay. Like, I could never work at Amazon. I've never been, like, a data driven gal. I've never loved, like, math or science or anything, and so I just didn't really think there was a place for me at Amazon. But, you know, there's a military pathways program there, and they look for transitioning veterans within their first year that are about to have their master's degree. And so it seems like a pretty good fit at the time for someone that was also in dire need of income. And yeah, I went for it. I was like, you know what, if anything, like, it'll just be a learning experience and see what happens. I'll learn a lot about all the orders that I buy off Amazon. That's how it kind of came about. And then so I started in January of 2021 so I had about four and a half months leading up to me starting my first job out of the military.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:13

So tell me about then, when you got to Amazon, I heard you say just a minute ago that I never thought I would be the type of person who would go to Amazon, necessarily, and not data driven, not interested in math, not interested in science, necessarily. And in some ways, the polar opposite of how you viewed yourself at the time. So what parts of that, once you actually got to Amazon, what were the parts that actually, surprisingly, were a fit for you, and then what were the parts that you discovered were definitely not a fit? Tell me a little bit about both sides.

Steph Strine 12:46

So, first couple of six months at Amazon, I absolutely loved it. I was having the best time, I had a great boss, he taught me so much about the business. And the cool thing about the Pathways Program is that you get additional guidance from seasoned leaders at Amazon. And so I really enjoyed that time that I got to have with my direct manager because I was able to, like, very much ask the questions that maybe I was not afraid, but like simple questions that an Amazon manager should know. But as someone that's completely new, had no idea. And so I would say, like, that piece was something that I really, really enjoyed in the beginning was the ability to make mistakes and not be micromanaged by that boss specifically. And then it's very structured. I mean, when you think about it, I'm sure like most people, like, I order a lot off Amazon. And so, like, it is nonstop. We have a 24 hour or they have a 24 hour operation and customer fulfillment. And so it is a well churn machine that is operating all times. And that comes with a lot of steaks. So they look for people that can be there for 12 hours at a time, and kind of put their life on pause during the holidays, like I didn't work... I mean, I don't know, I worked every single holiday for the past two years. Luckily, I left before the peak of last year, but like that was a huge piece of that I was not used to, I mean, we got holidays off all the time in the military. And so that piece was a little bit challenging. But you know, at the end of the day, what I found was that like, there's people that work in the Amazon facilities and that until they make it completely automated, it's going to be a people driven business. And for me, like I mentioned, like, people are my passion. And so that leadership piece came to me very easily. I was, like, very good at building relationships, like, cross collaborating with different stakeholders in the fulfillment center that I was working at the time. I was able to help promote and grow, not only like Amazon Associates, but also the managers that reported to me. So that piece for me was really easy. The piece that was really challenging was towards the end, because I started working nights. I moved from a fulfillment center to a delivery station. And for us to start getting vans on the road, we had to start working at like midnight.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:11

So then, tell me a little bit about what led up to this... let's call it deciding that fitness is going to play a bigger part in your life and your work.

Steph Strine 15:23

I got my 200 hour yoga certification when I was stationed in Okinawa, Japan. For those that have been in Okinawa, Japan, you know, it's, like, very small, I didn't know what it was when I first got there. And so when I got there, I was like, "Oh my God..." There's a lot to do, but I was 23 and super naive. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, I have nothing to do. My life sucks." And I decided to get my 200 hour yoga certification from someone that was teaching on base, it's the best thing I ever did. And I started to teach when I was a second lieutenant on base. I taught at a local CrossFit gym in Okinawa. And then when I got back to San Diego in 2016, I started to teach at core power yoga. And I was always doing that when I was not at work. When I would leave work, I would either be going to teach a class, or going to take a class. My life very much revolves around fitness. And that was the case for about almost, let's say, like, eight years. It's almost been nine years since I got certified as a yoga instructor. And then got a couple additional certifications throughout. I was also leading, you know, there's a lot of different training that they do. And so I loved it. I mean, it was just something that became a big part of my life. It was like, I just realized, after a long time, of kind of like downplaying my own skills and talents, like, I had this self limiting belief that like, I could never make money doing fitness full time. Like I always, I think it was something that was just kind of like pitch to me growing up is that like, people don't make money in the fitness world or, you know, you can't do that full time, you won't be making the amount of money that you will, which is true, actually, that is true. But at the time, I was making really great money and hated waking up every single day. I found a lot of joy in connecting with clients during class after class, like, it was just that there was a moment where I was just like, "why couldn't I do this all the time?" And that's also something that coaching prompted for me, you know, it's like, I have a lot of friends that have pivoted out of corporate jobs, and they now do yoga retreats, or they do instructing full time. And I see these like actual physical examples of people doing what I wanted to do. And I'm like, "Oh, I can't do that." And as soon as I got introduced to this program that you offered, and kind of just had like a moment of clarity of like, life is very precious and very short, I just knew that I had to go for it. And once I decide on something, I just kind of get the wheels going. And it's actually pretty quite insane how quickly I started to roll once I, like, made that decision of like, "okay, I'm gonna go for this."

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:09

I think that's really fascinating to me because even in the beginning of our conversation, there's this clear pattern of once you decide on something, then it starts to happen pretty quickly for you. And that seems to be the catalyst. So here's what I'm curious about, then, like it took a long time for you to move through those, I think you called them limiting beliefs earlier. But when you were saying, "Hey, I had these real examples of people doing this– creating a career in fitness." And you're like, "I can't do that." What was causing you to think that at that time? Do you recall?

Steph Strine 18:53

A lot of fear. A lot of fear of failing. That's always been a theme for me is like, what if I'm not successful in this? And there's an exercise that you have us do in the bootcamp that I mean, quite frankly, like, changed my life, kind of getting emotional about it, talking about it, but like, reaching out to friends and family about like, this is how it introduced stuff. And almost every single person said things that, like, I just hadn't really internalized or I thought that was like, "Yeah, whatever I do that", like I bring people together, or I inspire people to make changes in their lives since like... Not that I wasn't doing that in the military or at Amazon, because in a sense, I feel like I did, I brought that element. But like, most of the time, I was doing that in the fitness room. And I just had this overwhelming sense of my body. I was like, I am not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Like I need to go do this now, even if I don't know what it looks like. And as someone that likes to know what things look like, it was a lot of fear. I was like, I don't know how I'm gonna make money. I don't know where am I gonna go. But it was a lot of just like, I really needed to see it. And I read it. And I got it from a lot of people a lot. And I was like, "I can't deny this from people that I trust and value", like even mentors in the military, were saying, like, "A fitness professional", you know, and I was like, "what?" I mean, like, I mean, I guess, but it was just... I needed to see it to believe it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:32

It's kind of a... it's a really funny thing, at least from my perspective over the years, because that type of exercise, and just a little bit backstory for, if you're listening to this, and the exercise we're talking about is one that we regularly use with clients where you might reach out to say, anywhere from 7 to 25 different people that represent a different portions of your world, you know, work, friends, family, all kinds of different things. And you can tell me how you felt about this Steph, but a lot of people are, there's a little bit of trepidation, there's a little bit of fear, because it sort of feels like you're putting yourself out there. And what are these people gonna say, and all these things. So that's something that we see really normally. But also, I cannot tell you the number I've been told, probably over 1000 times now, no joke, probably over 1000 times by different people that we've worked with, that exercise was so valuable, and changed how they thought about themselves. And it sounds like that was the case for you, too. So how did you feel about that before, first of all?

Steph Strine 21:40

Before, I mean, All of you say, I mean, I definitely send it to the right people.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:44

So here's what's really interesting is like, we're asking people to say what are the really positive things about you. So in hindsight, it's like, well, what am I scared of? Like I'm asking for positive feedback. But when you're actually doing it, it doesn't feel that way at all, right?

Steph Strine 22:04

Yeah, I think more so. And it's something that I've had to do, I'm still kind of learning and growing, but like, I've outgrown, I think some of the things that were taught to me growing up, and so I think a lot of... I had a lot of, I'm a former people pleaser. And so like, I very much valued what my mom and my dad and close family members would think about me pivoting to this, but it was, like, a unanimous, like, “You're really good at this, and you need to go do this” in a very, like, flowery, nice, like, positive way, not just like, "what are you doing with your life?" It was unanimously like you bring value to this piece of my life. And the majority is through connection and movement. And after? Yeah, it was, like I mentioned, this just overwhelming sense of, I have a lot of people that believe in me, and why don't I believe in myself. And to kind of go back to what you said, of like, once I make a decision, things start going, something that helped me with my coach was literally looking back on things like, "Okay, well, you did this, and you didn't know what it's gonna be like”, but it turned out really well. And you got your masters or whatever. Or you didn't know you were doing at Amazon as an operations manager. And turns out, you're one of the top performers at your site. Like, if you look back at your life stuff, like a lot of things that you've done and accomplished have turned out really great. So like not to say that this isn't going to be one of those, but like, “why not you?" And that was the question that my coach proposed to me. And I was just like, "wow", I love that session. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, why not? Why can't I go do this?" I couldn't come up with any reason why.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:50

Was it at that point in time where you realized that you had to make movement when you couldn't come up with any reason why or did it still take a while longer?

Steph Strine 23:59

Nope, it didn't take that much longer. Like I started moving things very quickly. I started working with Happen To Your Career in October of last year. And by the beginning of November, I put in my resignation. As soon as I knew that, that was not my path to be going down any longer, like, I knew that I had to start making changes where I wasn't going to go for it like. And so, with not a lot of visibility onto what it was going to look like, I just started to make, like, controllable changes. So the first was, like, to let them know that this is not working for me anymore. And I was going to leave, small things like getting out of my lease and stuff like that. And I don't know, I started moving very quickly. Luckily for me, and one of my dearest friends that helped me get sober, she reminded me of this is that, like, I have a cool opportunity because I don't have a family, and not to like shame on myself or anything, but like I have the ability to go make these decisions. And I have two dogs that will come with me. It's really hard to have dogs in New York City though, I am learning that now. I don't have to check in with someone else. I'm like, I can make that decision as someone that single. And so I had this, maybe down the road, I wouldn't have had that opportunity if I met someone or I had kids or what, life would be different. And so I was like, I have to go do this now with what I got. And so I started to make those, like, changes pretty quickly. And I was in New York in the beginning of December. So it was about like 60 days, and I moved out of my place in Atlanta, and was in my new apartment in New York.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:43

That's amazing.

Steph Strine 25:45

Some call it crazy, but it is amazing to me. Like two months, I did a lot in two months. But I would have stayed if I didn't go.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:57

I think here's what is, we'll call it interesting. For me, what I've observed over the years is that those things that we all, or people call crazy, are often things that are not normal. And what is normal is for people to stay in roles and jobs and work situations that really just don't align with what they want, and really are not ever going to be what they actually want. And so what I've learned from that is that if people are calling you crazy, it's probably a good sign that you're leaning into something that is great for you. So kudos to you, because although not everybody in the world will understand it, I think you've done some really amazing work. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing right now? And also what the future looks like and what you anticipate you will evolve to as well?

Steph Strine 26:55

Yeah. No, I definitely agree. I think crazy is such a relative term. What I absolutely love doing, and I'm really stoked about that. But right now, I am an assistant studio manager at a SoulCycle on the Upper East Side. I'm also teaching yoga at a couple of studios, one on the Upper East Side. And then coming back to core power yoga. However, and I've been very transparent with the team here about it is like, I realized in my last month at SoulCycle that I think I was kind of selling myself short or kind of I see in this role I see myself like relying on those like old patterns of like, the managerial stuff, which is important, don't get me wrong, because the studio cannot run without the behind the scenes stuff that goes on. But I know my life's purpose is to be instructing and in front of clients, whether that's on yoga mats, whether that's on a treadmill, I learned that this last week, I auditioned for SoulCycle. And I was like, “This is what I'm supposed to be doing.” And I left there after like two hours of biking, after auditions, and I was like, so tired but I couldn't stop smiling. Like I don't leave, you know, I didn't leave Amazon that way. I didn't leave my Marine Corps job that way. And I'm not really leaving my assistant city manager job that way right now. So I know that this is just a step in the right direction. New York is really small in the fitness world. So creating those connections period is a great way to just, like, meet people. But what the future holds, I've been doing a lot of auditioning, I have a lot of like instructor roles that are kind of on the horizon right now. And then in the future, I was supposed to be getting my 300 hour yoga certification right now, I was doing a little bit too much, and it ended up just not working out. So I'm actually going to India in November with one of my mentors who introduced me to yoga, another full circle moment. So like, I think the biggest thing for me now, like what the future looks like is like, I'm painting it, I'm creating it. I can also like, change it whenever I want to, I'm not stuck in a place where I don't know. It's quite freeing, but for someone that struggles with a lack of structure at times, I have to create that for myself. And so I try and do that with my dogs. They're very routine oriented. I try and time for myself whether that's like a workout or maybe it's just, like, going to get my nails done or something. I mean, life looks very different now that I live in New York. Very small space, definitely different budget, you know, and that's been interesting to navigate as someone that didn't really have to be so meticulous on that before but I'm making it work and I've been here now for like almost three months. And so hopefully here shortly, I'll just be instructing full time. I don't know where and what capacity, but definitely like, in that career profile, it was like overbearingly, you know, just visible that I need to be doing something that's instructing base. And that's like something I'm invested in. And so that's why I know right now that like, this is just kind of like a stepping stone. It's not my forever job. It's helping me to make ends meet so that I can do the next best step. And so that's definitely a growth for me, because I think I looked at this as like, you know, I don't want to let people down if I'm leaving, it's like, no, like, this is my life and I'm going to do what I want to do. And I know that I want to do fitness, instructing full time. And so it's actually been really empowering to know that, like, to make these decisions on my behalf and not just settle for something because it's giving me a paycheck.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:49

I think one of the really fun things about your set of experiences and your story is that it's still rapidly developing. And I think that that is awesome, because a lot of times when people will listen to the Happen To Your Career podcast, and we'll share a story, sometimes it feels like there's some level of finality when they've accepted, like one opportunity or something else. And what gets lost sometimes in a 35 minute episode, is that no, the stuff is ongoing developing. And the thing that I loved and do love about your story is you're actively leaning into this more and more and more, and you're getting more, like, you're getting those moments that sometimes people go their entire lifetime without where you're like, are leaving and can't stop smiling. And I think that the more that you can lean into that, the more you find more of those as well, or understanding a greater level of detail about what you need in the future. And I think the really cool thing about where you're at right now is you're getting a lot of doses of that which you can then incorporate into, here's what the next evolution and the next evolution and the next after evolution after that looks like. So I really, really appreciate you sharing all of that, and everything that comes with it. That is super cool. And one of the things that I wanted to ask you, for other people who are in a similar situation, whether they have transitioned out of the military, or whether they are recognizing that they need to change in one way or another, and they're back at that initial stage where, like, "okay, I need to do something different." What advice would you give that person who's right there?

Steph Strine 32:40

I would say, trust your intuition. I mean, if you're kind of “woowoo’ like me, you get that or trust your gut or, like, you know, what's best for you. And I think, like, that can be as simple as, like, "I know I want to be in this location", and maybe locations really important to you with family or whatever. Or like, “I know I want to be, you know, IT-driven, or I need to be in that space.” Like, I knew what was best for me for a really long time and I just was too afraid to say like, “I'm gonna go for it.” And I think, especially in the military, a lot of times, or it's been my experience, so I'll speak about my experience, is that a lot of the things that I brought to the table were kind of not muted, but kind of assumed to be like, everyone has those, like, everyone knows how to talk to people. And everyone knows how to have difficult conversations, and everyone knows how to de-escalate. Like, not all people actually know how to do that. So a lot of like those social skills and like those are actually really powerful tools to have. And especially in the military is, like, just know that you bring a lot of value to the table. And to not let yourself get, like, pigeonholed into a specific, whether it be sales or operations is like, yes, we can do those things, but we can also do many, many, many other things that we don't even know exist. And so that would be my advice, follow your intuition. And then also like, you bring a lot to the table, no matter what.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:21

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:14

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

Speaker 3 35:19

So, yeah. He granted me severance when they really don't do that. And it was because I asked. But I really needed support to ask for that because it was obviously such an uncomfortable thing for me to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:35

Severance packages are something we often don't give much thought to. Actually, it's something many people try not to think about. It sounds like a terrible thing. You're either on the wrong end of a layoff, or you're needing to leave a job, or maybe someone else is forcing you to leave a job. It's usually a stressful time. But there's an entirely different way to think about severance. And if you understand the power of asking for severance, you could actually use it as a tool to assist in your intentional career change. Now, I'm not here to tell you that asking for severance pay or a severance package is easy and it's not always right. It's not always the right thing to do either. However, receiving a severance package is not impossible. In fact, people actually do successfully ask for severance at all different types of organizations, even in industries where severance is practically unheard of, like education, for example, it requires a completely different level of thinking and expertise. This is advanced level negotiation maneuver, and today we're diving into this bold strategy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:48

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.

Kristen Rocco 00:01

I think I opened myself up, finally, to the possibility of something else in my future. And I finally started to put more into myself, learning about myself, discovering myself.

Introduction 00:20

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:46

Everyone's heard the whole proverb about "The best time to plant a tree is, you know, 20 years ago. And next best time to plant a tree, right now." Okay. Well, here's the thing, what if you could start planting a tree in the form of doing the work now, just little tiny bit by little tiny bit, to decide what it is that you want to spend your time doing? What you want to spend your time doing in the form of a career, what you want to spend your time doing in the other areas of your life too? Well, I'll tell you that, if you do that, it can make a massive, massive change for you when something unexpected happens.

Kristen Rocco 01:30

It took me a while to depersonalize it. From, "Oh, this is me. I just need to find how I can fit in and get it right." versus, like, "No, I'm never gonna get it right. This isn't the right environment for me."

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:44

That's Kristen Rocco. Kristen had been in PR Communications and Marketing for the entirety of her career, but she had started to feel burned out and like she was no longer aligned with her role. Kristen was sick of feeling stuck, and she knew deep down that a change was absolutely necessary, so she began working with a coach. Just as she was making progress on what more fulfilling work would look like, life threw her curveball. She was unexpectedly laid off, but because of the work that she had been putting in, Kristen was able to look at this as an opportunity. She had already done the groundwork, and now she could fully embrace what she had built, which happened to be her very own content marketing business, and podcast. I want you to listen to how Kristen got unstuck and how she figured out what she wanted to pursue for her own business. Here's Kristen sharing where her career first began.

Kristen Rocco 02:39

I started 15 years ago in PR, it's how I got my first step into this, you know, area of marketing, and I was planning and producing and helping my clients tell their stories in the press. And it was a really interesting time to start in marketing broadly and then PR specifically because the space was evolving in such a fast way. So when I came into PR, social media was just getting going, and so we were taking advantage of social media for business and trying to figure out how businesses could benefit from social media outreach to their potential audiences. So got my hands dirty with that. And then again, about five years later, content marketing was kind of new to the scene, and then it was like, "Oh, wow. In addition to reaching out to the media with pitches and story ideas, we can actually write these stories and produce these articles for our clients, and create editorial calendars and build out all of their own media for them." So I was able to get into that kind of early on and out the gate. And so that's kind of how my career went over the first eight years. And then after I moved from New York City to Atlanta, I decided to take a break from corporate America for a while and start a new business called Love Notary, where I brought storytelling to the wedding industry and started helping engaged couples document their love stories. And so it was a really interesting business because I was able to define a new category in the wedding industry, right? There was, I don't know if you're familiar with the New York Times vows section, but it was kind of like that, but bringing it to the more general market, right? Because that was kind of for fluent, elite celebrities and people to get their stories told in that way. And I just thought that it was cool to give engaged couples this legacy throughout their wedding planning process. So I did that for a couple of years full time, and then I decided again to go back into corporate America, this time really trying to focus in on content marketing, just because, in addition to the creativity of the storytelling, I also have a real business mindset and very strategic mindset, and so it was cool to me that I could couple the creativity with the business side of it and drive leads for businesses through their content marketing approaches. So that is kind of what took me through the 15 years of my career and then reached out to you all to help me think about what my next transition would be.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:28

What caused you to say, "Okay, it's time for me to make another transition." Tell me about what you remember.

Kristen Rocco 05:38

Yeah. I think it was a particular event over time. In my last job, I started to feel really out of alignment with, not the role, I loved what I was doing. Of course, you can see I'm very passionate about my space, content marketing and storytelling, but the way in which we operated as a team felt very out of alignment with how I wanted to do my work, and that took a while to come to a realization that it wasn't me that didn't fit into that equation, that that company didn't fit into my equation, if that makes sense. I think I took a lot of... it took me a while to depersonalize it from, "Oh, this is me. I just need to find how I can fit in and get it right", versus, like, "No, I'm never gonna get it right. This isn't the right environment for me." And so that's kind of what led me to Happen To Your Career, and I did a lot more discovery around those themes while I was doing the coaching, but initially it was because I felt very out of alignment with my role and the team, I guess.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:55

What caused you to begin to realize, or what caused you to realize that, "No, it's actually just not in alignment with what I want or what I need", as opposed to, "I need to", as you said, the opposite way, you know, "I'm trying to fit myself into this thing, and I might be doing something wrong." Do you remember what caused you to realize that it was the polar opposite?

Kristen Rocco 07:17

I mean, I think it was feeling demoralized on a day to day basis. I think it came down to that feeling, but if I were to think about it from more tactical points, I think I had a lack of control over my calendar. There were meetings six hours a day that people just plopped on my calendar, and I can't shed all responsibility, or I would need to have meetings, because we had so many things to do that were all conflicting priorities that needed to be done at once or at relatively the same amount of time, and so we just needed to get the work done, and it caused a lot of overwhelm, and locked up my calendar so that I spent the majority of my days in meetings and not having enough focus time to complete my actual work. And I think that day after day after day causes burnout, and then also not, I think that culture plays into it a lot too, and I think that the culture that was at this organization was a very challenging culture, not necessarily a culture of praise and a complimentary culture. And for me, I have thick skin. I worked in PR for eight years and had to get rejections almost every single day, multiple times a day, so that wasn't the case. But everybody needs a sense that they're moving in the right direction, they're doing great things, otherwise, they're just not going to feel satisfied in their job. And this culture didn't allow for me to feel like I was recognized for my best work. And so the combination of those things made me know that I needed to make a switch.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:00

So when you first started working on that, working on that switch, and I'm really thankful that we got the opportunity to help and sit side saddle with you on that. But what was hardest for you when you first started moving through that and doing the work about, like, what comes next?

Kristen Rocco 09:21

Yeah, I think I've said this a couple times, too, in variety different situations. I think that my brain was so locked into a daily just like a demoralized capacity, if that makes sense. And so seeing opportunity was challenging initially, and understanding what possibilities were challenging, initially. Being curious. My coach would ask me, "What are you curious about?" And I remember thinking, "I don't know. I don't know what I'm curious about", because I was just so focused on getting through everyday, and then trying to relax and power myself up for the next day that I really didn't spend enough time thinking about all of those other things, right? And I think I opened myself up, finally, to the possibility of something else in my future, and I let go of trying to control or not even let go of control, but I finally started to put more into myself, learning about myself, discovering myself through the process. Actually, it's a little bit like therapy, you know. But learning about myself more along the way, from a work sense, like values, what I wanted out of my life, and then what success looked like to me, how I define freedom, all those kind of things, so those were some challenges initially, it's just getting out of my own way, basically, and removing the blockers of what I was currently sludging through, because it did feel like a sludge to see that a brighter possibility on the other side of it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:09

Okay, so here's my question for you, then. When you started moving down that path of beginning to explore again for the first time in a while, what really created some level of extraordinary for you, not just what you're curious about, but what could be amazing for you, what did you find helped move you down that path, and what did you learn about yourself as you were beginning to move down that path?

Kristen Rocco 11:37

Yeah, so initially I was following the modules and going through the progression to get to the ideal career profile. And I was serious about that, right? Like it wasn't just something that I was trying to get through. I was actually putting time, attention, and detail into those questions and trying to think about what I wanted to be doing, and how I wanted to approach the work. And I'll say that I didn't necessarily know at the time that I wanted to do what I'm doing now, which is consulting, but I knew how I wanted to feel, right, that was a big factor in trying to figure out the next step. And then I think what I did, I tried to think about how I wanted to feel on a day to day basis, and connect that to organizations that could help me feel that way. And so looking for organizations that publicly, I guess, had a great culture, and then privately, trying to suss out whether that was true, and then really thinking when I was in interview processes, interviewing them as much as they were interviewing me to make sure that the culture was going to be really aligned with who I am. Again, that's what I felt out of alignment at my other job, or maybe I never fell out of alignment with it, which is more than just not knowing what I was getting into when I joined initially, and, you know, some things changed along the way as well, so that all kind of plays in as well. But thinking about how I wanted to feel and thinking about culture fit that would be the right place for me, and then also I was like, "Maybe I want to work for a mission driven company or something that was more connected to a bigger... something that had a little bit bigger meaning and purpose than the organization that I was in at the time." And so that's how I started. And then, you know, I think once I started answering those questions and putting more focus and energy into it, I was able to kind of identify companies and other things that way. But I also then, you know, started to, the visioning worksheet really sticks out in my brain, actually, because it was all about, "what do you envision your typical day to be like?" And again, I got to tell you, I was like, "Oh man, I haven't thought about this in so long, or in this way that what is even possible. When I close my eyes to imagine it, what would I even think?" But I was able to get through that and really come up with something that I thought would really fulfill me. And so I talked about in there, "I would like to have a variety of conversations with interesting people, and be able to share my insights with them and have them share their insights with me so that we can collaboratively bring more into the world, more learnings, more opportunity into the world, to help educate people and help them along on their journeys." And I said I wanted to work with a variety of different types of people, and I can't remember all the specifics in there, but basically it was a lot of connecting with people. It was a lot of empowerment messaging and just inspiring people as well. And so then that helped me think a little bit more about myself, I suppose, and like what my values are. And my coach helped me too, right? She looked at the visioning statement, pointed out some of the themes to help reflect that to me what I was saying, like, "Oh, this to me, sounds like you, you know, want to blah, blah, blah." And so I was like, "Oh, yeah, that really does resonate. I love how you sum that up. That speaks to me." And then we talked about, like, "Okay, well, what are my values?" And getting more into the personal side of things and less on the business side of things to kind of help bridge both of them together. And so then through that process, I was able to make a lot of progress.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:45

Okay, so here's my question to you then. You know, when you, let's fast forward here for just a moment, because what ended up happening is you're doing all this work to define what the next step looks like, and is becoming more and more clear that there needs to be a next step for you, and then at some point you experienced a layoff, right? So tell me a little bit about that and how it happened, and then also bring us up till now.

Kristen Rocco 16:14

Yeah, so at the beginning of the year, in January, my first session with Phillip, he said to me like, he's like, "As you reflect back on the year, what would you tell yourself at the start of all of this that you wish you would have known? You know, something to that effect. And I said, "I would have quit my job" or something like that. So I think I spoke this layoff into existence, to be honest. But yes, I worked in a technology company, and I think kind of, February was a time where there, and still there's a lot of volatility, and there's a lot of speculation on what's going to happen. And so my company did lay off some people, and I was part of that. It was the first time I had been laid off in my career, and I surprised myself completely with my reaction to it, because I feel like the old Kristen would have been really scared, fearful, anxious, overwhelmed, like, "Oh no, what do I do now?" But I was... I flew. Actually, the day I got laid off, the very next day, I had a family wedding in Florida that I was flying to. And so I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is great. I just got laid off, and I get to go party with all my family now, how amazing." And so it was just a choice that I made to not live in that, like, quote, what I consider or how I can relate it to, like playing small. I'm going to embrace this, and I've done a lot of work over the last eight months to push myself and know myself better to go into the right next fit for me. So I'm going to make a choice to not do things the old Kristen way and celebrate this that it's just that push forward to the next best version of myself. And so I took the weekend dancing away at the wedding, and then came back here, and I guess five days later, when I got back, I started creating my consulting website and putting together, not necessarily business plan, but my thought processes on how I was going to go to market with a new content marketing consulting business, which kind of comes full circle around why I now call myself a storytelling entrepreneur, because I have weaved in and out of corporate America, but I started the love notary business, which is storytelling in the wedding industry. And now I'm doing my own business again, this time focused on content marketing, support for businesses, and so I'm just really excited about this next chapter. But, yeah, it all kind of led to an unexpected conclusion because I didn't, obviously, I wouldn't have thought that I was going to be laid off. I thought I would make the transition myself, and I am a really, like, high performer. So it's not like, I mean, layoffs can happen to anybody. It doesn't matter your performance level when it's related to the recession or the economic environment. But I think that it happened to me this time because finally my mind was open and had wanted to go in another direction, and this was like the kick in the pants to just do it. Because I don't know, I was still very scared to quit myself without having complete confidence on what the next step looked like for me. And now I didn't have a choice. I had to get this website stood up, put thought process into how this is going to deliver services to my clients, and get the word out. And I'll say that I launched my business about a month after I was laid off, and after that, I was fortunate enough to... and I can't be more grateful for the people who showed up for me and my network. But I got a lot of referrals, and I now have a couple of clients that I'm working with full time, so I'm really excited about this.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:22

I'm excited for you, and I know I had told you that already before we hit record. However, it also begs the question of it's really, first of all, fun for us to sit here and talk about this now, is seeing that some things have worked out, but it's also easy for us to do so and that it's already happened. So what I'm curious about is, what do you feel like you did that allowed you to be able to make those choices differently when the layoff happened? Because I suspect, as you said, the old Kristen would have done it differently, and you also said that you made the conscious choice to behave differently after it happened, but what allowed you to make that choice? Because I don't think it was just, it wasn't just like, "Well, I'm gonna make a choice and everything's gonna be okay." Like, there's probably some things that happened that got you to that point or that you did.

Kristen Rocco 21:21

Yeah, yes. I want to say, like, going back to my strengths, like I'm an achiever. I'm going to do all the work, and I'm going to put in all the activities. And so what first had to happen for me to be able to do what I did was a mindset shift. And so I know we talked about it in terms of a choice that I made to be optimistic, to know that there were possibilities out there, to not let overwhelm and fear get in my way. And that was a really important shift for me. I really had previously kind of operated out of a scarcity mindset, and I was able to finally make an adjustment to an abundance mindset, and so that was really important for me. But my achiever mode and my ability to just keep pushing and excelling got me to this place where, "Okay, I now have no work to return to tomorrow, so I have to guide what I'm going to do." And I said to myself, "I could either start submitting a thousand resumes a month, or I could submit proposals to clients who might be interested in working with me one on one." And so I'm like, "Why not give the consulting route a shot? What's the worst thing that can happen? You know, I don't get, you know, a new business or whatever, and then I can just go and apply for jobs." And so I chose to count on myself and go all in on me this time around, and not leave the decision making in the hands of a recruiter or a hiring manager, but rely on the fact that I've been doing this for 15 years, and I know what I'm talking about, and I deliver great value to all of my clients I've had previously all the organizations I've been in, and do it for myself. And so that's what I chose this time around to submit proposals.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:29

I think that something that's really fun there is that you, and this probably comes from your strategy strength, I would imagine, recognized that if we're pulling out and saying, "I'm gonna spend the time doing something in order to..."

Kristen Rocco 23:45

I'm not going to be the person that's gonna Netflix and chill.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:50

Yeah. So if you're gonna spend the time doing something, there are multiple choices about what that something could be, whether it is, as you said, "I'm gonna submit resumes, or I'm going to do things to be able to a lead to a job", or "I'm going to use that same time to submit those proposals." So I think first of all, that's really cool that you had that recognition that it doesn't just have to be... the thing doesn't just have to be, "Oh well, obviously I need to get to submitting my resumes now. Like, okay, all right, let's move on." So after that, though, it also seems like the other thing that is really pretty cool about that is you were able to connect back that choice to all of the other mindset shifts that you have had along the way that enabled you to understand that that was the right choice for you.

Kristen Rocco 24:44

Yeah, that's a good point too, because when you are your own operating your own business, there is a lot of uncertainty naturally with this path. I don't have the consistency of a paycheck every two weeks. These contracts will eventually come to an end, and I will be looking for new clients again. And I did need that shift in my mindset to be able to do this effectively, because otherwise I could get way too deep into being scared of not getting new clients to let that affect my work product with my current clients, right? Or, you know, however, that could manifest within my business and what I'm doing on a day to day basis. And so, but now, I have everything sort of calendared out in terms of how I'm going to approach my time on a week to week basis. I have given a number of client hours that I need to fulfill weekly, and then I segment out, okay, these are the couple of hours every week I'm putting towards new business, and I'm going to work on that this time this week. And I know I just can kind of feel it in my gut that things will work out, and even if they they don't work out on my timeline, that laying those seeds always grow flowers, and so it's a matter of being patient and just continuing to plant the seeds or put one foot in front of the other to do the work that you know is gonna produce the outcome that you want. So that's kind of where I am right now in terms of my mindset and approaching all of my responsibilities with as being a business owner.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:33

So let me ask you this then. Let's go all the way back for a moment to where you were at the point in time where, like, "What am I curious about? Like, why are you even asking me that question? I don't understand. I'm not in a place to be curious." But let's go way back there, to that point in your life, what advice would you have for someone who is sort of living that right now and recognizes that they need to make a change, wants to make a change, but isn't totally sure, like what or how or when or when, what advice would you give to that person?

Kristen Rocco 27:10

I think that the word... there's two words that come to mind for me when you ask me that question. The first word is stuck. I totally know how this person feels. They feel stuck in their current situation and unsure about how to get out of their situation. And then the other thing that's coming up for me is recognizing that feeling is important, but also knowing that you can unstuck yourself by doing the work, and the work looks a lot like what we do in the program. But there's also another thing, way that I look at this, and I've learned this through coaching as well. That the how, right, so like, "How do I get to the next step? How do I find the job? How do I reach out to that recruiter?" Whatever the how is, the how isn't as important as the who, which is, I know what you coach through the program, right? And which is, it's all about reaching out to people to learn more and find out more about what they do, and making connections with people, so you can start evaluating these things. But the reward really is in the who, because that's how the how comes. And so I just recommend that people think not about the process of the how, but who can they meet that is going to open their eyes up to what the possibility is. And so I think that my advice is focused on meeting people, asking a lot of questions, and building your connections, because it's the who that's going to help you get from where you are today to where you want to go in the future.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:00

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:53

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

Speaker 3 29:58

I have a lot of friends that have pivoted out of corporate jobs, and they now do yoga retreats where they do instructing full time, and I see these actual physical examples of people doing what I wanted to do, and I'm like, "Oh, I can't do that."

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:14

We all have a place where we feel comfortable and natural in our actions, where we're excited about life and happy to be ourselves. But what if you could feel like that all the time, even when you're working? I've heard people say, "I feel like I have to be a different person at work", or "I feel like I'm living two different lives." Many times throughout my years working in HR operations and interacting with clients at HTYC, I've heard this over and over again. Well, it turns out work doesn't have to be this way. To thrive at work, you must first figure out where you feel most like yourself and where you can be more of who you want to become.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:55

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.

Morgan 00:01

I love saying the motto, like, "sometimes you have to slow down to speed up." And that truly was what I was doing. I had to slow down for a second to be able to come in with a fresh perspective. Because I don't think if I did that, if I did not do that, I don't think I would have been able to think of some of the potential solutions or directions that I could have gone in.

Introduction 00:29

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:54

Sometimes, the hardest part of a career change isn't figuring out the next step. It's trusting yourself enough to take that next step.

Morgan 01:03

At some point, you have to give yourself the permission to let go and say it's okay, and no one else is going to do that, or no one else is going to say that except yourself. So if you're waiting for somebody to tell you, "it's okay to go ahead and let go", make a change, do something different that comes from you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:19

Morgan spent most of her career in HR following the path that she had started back in grad school while studying industrial organizational psychology. But even as early as her internships, she had this nagging sense that something about the path wasn't quite right. Fast forward to 2023. Morgan was in deep burnout, feeling stuck. She knew the role she was in was absolutely not working, but the fear of making the wrong move kept her from taking action. This is a place that many people have been before, and this is where we got to meet Morgan. She reached out to our team, and she worked up the courage to leave her misaligned role with our team support. Woohoo! But she quickly realized burnout had crept into every corner of her life. So instead of diving straight into the career change work, which she was really excited to do, we suggested that she take what she now calls reset and rejuvenation time. You'll get to hear all about Morgan's reset from burnout, rebuilding of her confidence, her new awesome role that she's super excited about. But here's what I want you to pay attention to. Pay attention to the big hurdle that Morgan had to overcome. Because we see this all the time, and it keeps so many people stuck in not so great situations. She realized that she has been searching for the perfect end all be all role, and what she really needed to focus on was taking intentional steps toward something that she identified as her ideal next step, not the perfect role, but a role that aligned with her strengths and fit her life. Okay, this is subtle, but this mindset shift finally helped her break free from that stuck feeling. Also last thing, I want to call out something fun. Our team actually got a chance to meet Morgan at our in-person meeting in St Louis last year. We don't get to meet all the people that we work with in person, but we make an effort to get to know folks and put a call out when we're nearby. So that was really exciting, and we had a great time. When we met her, she had just started working with us at that point in time to make her career change, so she was still in the thick of burnout, and early in that change, and that's where our conversation began. Here's Morgan reflecting on when she met our team and she knew it was time for a change.

Morgan 03:43

Yeah, just before that time. I mean, goodness. Now, if you want to talk about when I chatted with the team and we were hanging out, I was probably, you know, past the red zone that you hit when you should have left and made a change. Looking back, I would absolutely not recommend you wait as long as I did when, you know, you've realized, okay, a change needs to happen, and you ignore it. You ignore that signal for a very long time. Until you've gone past the point of, "Okay, I'm really drained. My energy is taking a hit. I'm snappy with my spouse. Now I've gained 15 pounds. What is going on? I can't even give myself motivation to go to the gym anymore", which is a huge part of my identity. If you talk to any of my family, my friends, like, I am always a go getter at the gym, I will always be there, staying on top of the fitness, like, my mom would joke with me if I haven't gone to the gym, she can tell because I am very like a type of way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:41

You're a different person. You act differently.

Morgan 04:44

Oh yeah. So once I felt that piece of apathy come in about not even feeling like you could have the motivation to even want to go to the gym, that was the biggest red flag to me, where I knew I had greatly overcast that boundary. But before, earlier in the process, it was these little, you know, maybe, like quiet, little whispers, maybe of, "Hmm, I don't know if I'm vibing with this or I'm not sure if the impact, the purpose of what I'm doing is really lighting me up", like, I can do it and I'm getting great reviews and lots of positive feedback, but I'm not feeling that energy from that, you know, that prideful feeling that you get when you go at it full force into a project. And you should, and, you know, at the end, like, "I should be really proud about this", but then you don't feel that thing, and you're like, "Uh-oh, this is not like... This is a sign."

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:41

Yeah, I remember you mentioning that too, when we got to meet you in St Louis. And for context for everybody else, we happened to do a team in-person meeting there, and that was super fun. So I'm curious though, you mentioned you felt you stayed way longer than what you should have. What do you think, in your case, and lots of us do this, I think it's a human tendency. But what do you think caused you to stay so long?

Morgan 06:10

Multiple things. The biggest thing truly was, I recognize that the role that I was in was such an amazing opportunity for somebody who had pursued an IO Psych master's degree. And I was very, very much wrapped up in that identity and trying to pursue the expected, traditional path that somebody for that degree should go out and get. And so in my role as a, I was an organizational development partner for a retail company here in St Louis, and I looked at this role, and I'm like, "this is an amazing opportunity for somebody who is absolutely a go-getter in organizational development practices and loving that." I mean, even just saying that right now, showed the disassociation from that identity now that I look back at it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:02

For somebody who should do it. Yeah

Morgan 07:06

Yes, for somebody who's into this, if you say that to yourself, you should probably take a step back and reevaluate. But you know, it's fine. There were such great opportunities in that role, and I am so, so very thankful for all of those experiences, it's going to make me into a better person as I continue down my career path. So I have absolutely no regrets at all whatsoever doing that, but had such amazing resume builders and ability to have visibility in the organization, working with senior leadership and the CEO even, which was super, super cool. Got to put my name on projects and initiatives across the company, be super creative in that. There was very... It was a very flat organization. So it was a wonderful sandbox, basically, where you didn't have many levels to reach up to that upper leadership level to partner with them. And yeah, it was just super fun. Lots of variety, but at the same time, I realized it was that wide variety that started to drain me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:08

Well, so, what do you mean when you say "it was the variety that started to drain you"? That sounds important.

Morgan 08:15

Yeah. So I was overseeing some different buckets, and I was looking over the performance management process, the talent assessment and succession planning process, the employee experience, listening, survey strategy, data analysis and insights, and also some career frameworking stuff as well. And there was such depth to all of these buckets, and we were in a place where we were still building these processes up. And so the amount of work that just went into each of these buckets, the level of detail needed for each to make them great things, was just I couldn't give it that kind of attention, which now if you want to go back to considering strengths, for me, was such a tough thing, because I cannot stop maximizing stuff. I cannot stop thinking of new ideas for things. I am super big in maximization ideation, and I just, I can't stop doing those things. So the fact that I couldn't, I think that that was a huge player in it, for sure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:19

So you had all of these categories in which you had responsibilities for and you were feeling compelled to, or couldn't stop yourself from generating ideas and not enough hours in the day to be able to really get any one of those significant progress, or at least what you wanted to. Is that right?

Morgan 09:38

Right. Yeah, correct. Because also to add a little spicy flavor to that, we had an implementation going on with a new HCM, human capital management system, that was brought in. So we were also integrating these processes with that as well, which there's such, you know, a level of depth to, you know, setting up the technical components, especially with the employee experience, listing surveys, all the embedded data fields and, oh my goodness, it was crazy. But yeah, there was a little spice there with that as well, just adding to some of it. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:10

Yeah. So you had this massive project that required depth going on, along with all of your normal responsibilities, duties, activities, and this is not adding up to something that is fulfilling any longer with all that variety. That makes total sense. And I can appreciate that too. You and I share some similar strengths in, I'm very much a maximizer. Very much want to get everything out of every minute, every section, every project, every conversation, whatever. So I can definitely appreciate that. And then the ideation side too, like, if that is a strength of yours, it's hard to stop that. Hard to stop. So what then caused you to say, "Nope, I'm doing this. I am making a change." At what point did you say, "No, this is... I've had enough. I've realized this. I've had enough of these small little tidbits, these clues", and you're like, "This is it. I'm going to do this."

Morgan 11:15

Oh, my goodness. It took a bit to get there. I'm not gonna lie. I only got there when I started working with my coach, and I felt such a dedication to the projects that I was working on that I just, I literally did not feel like I could leave them, because I felt, you know, a sense of guilt of putting that on somebody else without having the deep technical knowledge that went into those projects. So there was a lot of guilt leading up to that decision of allowing yourself to let go. That was a huge learning for me in this process, was at some point, you have to give yourself the permission to let go and say "it's okay", and no one else is going to do that, or no one else is going to say that except yourself. So if you're waiting for somebody to tell you, "it's okay to go ahead and let go, make a change, do something different" that comes from you. So it took me a minute to get there, but I finally cracked open the possibility of doing that in my head, after visualizing what that would look like. I'm a highly visual person. That is something that I have to see what something's going to look like. I have to walk through the steps and feel how it's going to feel before I do the thing. So when I was working with my coach, we had talked about visualizing and mapping out what some of the options would look like if I decided to leave or if I decided to stay. So okay. Option A, you stay, here's what it looks like. Okay. Option B, you leave. Okay. Now, what dates could we look at to leave? What do those look like? How would that go, like, timing wise? How does that feel? So I started mapping out all of those different options, and it wasn't until I did that where, you know, one date in particular, kind of stood out to me, and I looked at it and was like, "You know what? I could make that work. I could do that." And that feels like, I definitely feel like I don't want to overstay my stay past that date. I just came to that conclusion, as well as some financial planning and analysis. Of course, that was super, super helpful to me to understand the minimum needs, the moderate needs, and then the maximum needs. Mapping all of that, having a conversation with my spouse was super, super helpful to keep them in the loop as well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:30

Well, and let's add a little bit of context in here. When we first started working with you, if I remember correctly, you were pretty hot to trot excited, I don't know, insert your choice of words here about some form of career change, even if you weren't ready to fully commit, if you will. And at some point along the way, you were working with Ben as your lead coach on our team, and at some point, you had decided that, "No, I need..." what Ben had called a reset along the way. Tell me a little bit about that. How did that come about? What caused that realization?

Morgan 14:16

Yeah, so the reset you're referring to is in leaving the job and reset rejuvenation, right? Is that we're talking about?

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:25

Yeah.

Morgan 14:26

Yeah. So I left in July, and it's so phenomenal, like, you're blasting music on the way to your last day in the car, it's, "I'm quitting, I'm done" music, and you leave, you turn on your laptop, and you walk out of there, and you're like, "oh my gosh, the world is my oyster. I can do anything." And it's super funny, because I immediately came out thinking, "Okay, gonna get the resume together. I'm gonna talk to the people. I'm gonna do all the things. I'm gonna do the experiments. It's gonna be phenomenal." And Ben was like, "What if one of your action items for until the next time we talked was just to sleep really good, go do some workouts. And then also, like, what else would you like to do to take care of yourself?" And, you know, I was like, "Oh yeah, maybe, like, go swim at the pool in the middle of the day when the gym is like, not super busy, and things that you couldn't do if you were in your day job." And so I focused on these super basic things. And then I really realized that there is a period of time after you leave a job and you've kind of been wrapped up in an identity and kind of going, going, going and not really thinking about what you're doing, and then all of a sudden, all of that stops. And I was just like, "Oh my gosh." And I slept a ton. I literally spent a day where, I think, for 16 hours, I just read a book, and it was the most phenomenal thing ever. We took a trip to a national park, we went to Iceland, and there was this whole like reset rejuvenation period where... I love saying the motto, like, "sometimes you have to slow down to speed up." And that truly was what I was doing. I had to slow down for a second to be able to come in with a fresh perspective. Because I don't think if I did that, if I did not do that, I don't think I would have been able to think of some of the potential solutions or directions that I could have gone in. So, yeah, that was a little bit of the reset phase.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:29

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I think that what we've seen, and if you would ask me 15 years ago, I don't think I would have recognized that this is prevalent when people are making a, not just a career change, but any big life change. It's almost very similar to people go through stages of... it's similar to, like the stages of grief. Let's call it that.

Morgan 16:52

Oh, 100%.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:53

And I think that really is derived from your making a transition and reassociating your identity, and so many of us tend to cling to pieces of our identity that are wrapped up in our work and in untangling that, it causes us to be going through those stages that are really similar to what we called grief earlier. So what I'm really interested in is what you said about how had you not done some form of a reset, you don't believe that you would have been able to make the same type of decisions, or have the perspective, if you will, going into that. When you're thinking about that now, obviously, we're quite a bit in the future, and this is all in the past, so it's easy to see, but when you think about that now, what do you think would have been different? What do you think might have changed the outcome?

Morgan 17:49

Oh, gosh. Well, I mean, I do have experience where I was trying to make a change before I left, and I did have a couple offers lined up the year before I left. One of them being a life coach position for a university, the other being a career coach position for a different university here in St Louis, and I truly was making a decision based on fear, what we've talked about here in the HTYC podcast, I was definitely trying to run from something versus run towards something. And I think if I hadn't given myself some perspective, I still would have done that same thing, running away from something or running out of fear from something, "Oh, I need money right away, so let's go ahead and get something with a really high salary, or anything different at this point sounds good, like anything and everything, I'll take it." Those are kind of the ideas I would probably run down if I had not allowed myself to just slow down, take a beat, evaluate, be super strategic in what went well in the past, what didn't go so well, what gave me energy, what drained me, all of that good stuff was very good to keep in mind. And of course, the ICP, the ideal career profile, of course, taking a moment to really structure that outline that it sounds so basic like, "oh, let's think about what we want", but it's really so important. And we talk about it in IO Psychology too, define your criteria. You can't measure success unless you define your criteria, that's exactly what you're doing. So really taking the moment to define that criteria allows you to move in the direction towards something, like move towards something versus away from something. And I don't think I would have done that had I not taken a beat and taken a moment. Yeah, probably now I'd be working as a career coach for a university where they were about to have an org change. I don't know who my boss would have been. That's what I was about to walk into when I was in the model of getting away.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:55

Dangerously close to that. What caused you to say, "No, I can't accept these." Because I think it would have been easy to accept the opportunities that are right there, right in front of you, but something calls you. Yeah. There's definitely. There were things going there.

Morgan 20:12

Yeah. Oh well, there was the possibility to go travel for a week in Spain, all the glittery things that was calling my name. Yeah, absolutely. But I really did some deep questions with the hiring manager, and she was so great to do a couple, you know, follow up questions with me and or a couple sessions of that. And I think she could tell I was really trying to pick apart, you know, if it was going to be a better fit than where it was at. And I wasn't so sure. I think she kind of had an idea, but I really got clear on, you know, because your boss makes it or breaks it. And the moment that I knew that they hadn't even hired for who that position would be reporting to, that an org change was coming down the line, and there was essentially no guarantee of what the role would look like six months down the line, I was like, "Those are two big things." So, yeah. That's kind of the moment when I evaluated and said, "I might just need to stick it out a little bit longer and re-evaluate in a bit."

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:22

Well, kudos to you for digging in and trying to find some of that, even if it was driven from a place of fear, you still you dug in, and we're trying to decide and learn enough to be able to, I guess, enough to make that decision. You said something earlier that I want to come back to for a moment. It sounded like, as you were going through and identifying like what could create a great fit, it sounded like you were looking for external sources to give you permission. Is what I heard you say earlier. Tell me a little bit about that, because I know from chatting with Ben that this was a pivotal part of your process. So I want to do it a little bit more justice here. You mentioned it, but it sounded like there's so much else that went on here that caused you to recognize that you're seeking permission, and then also move beyond that.

Morgan 22:20

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I was definitely kind of just waiting around for somebody to tell me, "You know, it's fine to go, like, change your job, get out of there." But again, no one is going to give you the permission to do that than yourself. And I just didn't realize that. And I don't think I had the confidence, or the, oh gosh, what would you call it? At the time, I didn't have the confidence to give myself permission to do that until I visualized those options. Really understood what leaving would look like when would make the most sense, and then just, you know, have faith that after that, things would be okay. I'm an adaptable person. That's one of my strengths. So I was like, "You know what? I'm very adaptable. I can do this." So that was also very validating to think about. But when it comes to giving yourself permission to just move on, and not waiting for your spouse to say, "yeah, it's okay", I mean, that does help, I think, when we did the financial analysis and really looked at things, he's a very numerical kind of a person. So speaking that language was extremely beneficial, of like, "All right, here's what it looks like six months out. This is what it would look like if I took that amount of time" and we realized, "yeah, it's gonna be fine." So that helped me give myself permission to leave. And then from there, you know when you're in that process of a limbo, there's a lot of self guilt comes when you're unemployed for sure, which is a whole other topic we could dive into. But there is a component there when you're considering your next move, you are, and you're going through that identity shift, again, there comes a time when you need to give yourself permission to do something different to change, and I think doing the strengths exercises with friends and talking with them about what I personally do well that they might, you know, it doesn't come as easy to them. That was very validating to be like, "Yeah, I am awesome at disarming people in a way where they can be totally honest with me and give me a ton of information. I should use that strength. That's awesome." Or, "Yeah, I am great at rolling with the punches, or super creative, you know, when something totally changes, bringing a ton of ideas to the table and selecting out the best path forward." Like, I should use that strength in whatever way that looks like. And so that was also very validating that did play a pivotal role in slowly building up that confidence to let myself make my decisions. And additionally, like intuition, Ben really talked with me and told me to kind of just take a moment to write down when I started questioning some of my gut feelings, and made me start recognizing those moments that I was questioning that, or putting the mute button on them, and I recognized that it was quite a bit. So once I was a little bit more self aware about that, I was like, "Okay, let's listen to this." And that did help me give myself permission to do something different, like, "oh, I would like to do something in coaching, something in empowering people and motivating people, because my strengths look like this, and I have all this data to back it up, and looking at qualitative data from my past work experiences, and seeing that as a thread throughout different roles, that is something I should follow." So yeah, it was a multi faceted approach, I guess I could say, in things that give you little pieces of confidence to do what you need to do, but sometimes you also just need time. Time to just sit, time to just chill, and sometimes you just gotta do the thing, even though you're not ready to do it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:01

I think what's really fascinating. I'm listening to you talk about, one, how you began to recognize this. Part of this was writing down when you were feeling less confident, and then you started to observe as you were doing that, "Wow, this is actually happening a lot more than I think." But then it sounds like what was happening is that was pulling your awareness to when you were experiencing that and searching for it. I'm just gonna call it validation elsewhere, externally. And then the other thing I was taking from listening to you is that you mentioned earlier about the visualization, like, visualizing what could this look like, fleshing out what would the future look like, how would this work, all the way from a financial side to everything else in between, and then that allowed you to start to disconnect and be able to move forward in a way that was good for you, without waiting for everybody else to say, "oh yeah. Like, yeah, you should totally go this direction, Morgan."

Morgan 27:04

Oh, yeah. It's a great way to keep yourself accountable when you're like, "I can't do this", and then you actually map it out and take the time to detail out what something would look like and be objective about it in that way, it keeps you very accountable. Like, "No. It can work."

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:20

So one of the other things I wanted to ask you about that I think is really interesting in your story is that your work, and even how you're doing work, or in combination of work, right now, looks so different than it did back in 2023. Can you tell me a little bit about, just share with us, like, what is different, first of all, for context? And then I've got a couple of questions for you.

Morgan 27:48

Oh, 100%. Yeah. Well, I mean, first things first, the team is very different. I, you know, previously was on an HR department team, and you know, you've got your total rewards team, your HR BPs, you've got your training experts, and then the org development team, comms, all that, whereas now it's a lot more specialized in like just psychology stuff and career assessment and coaching, so it's a lot more focused into one specific area, which I kind of love, because I really, really love to deep dive and go into all the nooks and crannies. So I was really, really hyped to be working with a team of experts focused on career change, motivating, empowering others who came from a psychology background, because I love the psychology stuff, and I didn't want to leave that behind. I just wanted to apply it and use it in a different way. So the team's different. The working model is 100% remote. So we've got... Our team is... we've got Washington, New York, Mexico City, and like, we cover all the regions. So it's funny because I am an extroverted person. I really enjoy working with a team that really is an aspect that makes or breaks it for me, so it's hugely important. And a lot of times people told me, "Oh, well, if you're extroverted, like, you've got to work in an office, then, like, you have to do that." And I don't know, I was just like, well, I really do enjoy the perks and flexibility of working remotely, and I feel like if I just find a place where the team is pretty tight and they're collaborative and all that good stuff, there shouldn't be any reason why I couldn't feel like I belong on a team and communicating, sharing ideas and all of that. And that's what I found. So it's 100% remote, which is phenomenal. I love my little commute from bedroom to bathroom to kitchen to office. It's wonderful, but I still get all the perks of meeting a ton of cool people. All of our clients that we meet with are from all over the states and everything, so from different countries. So I love that as well. Yeah. I mean, I am working with clients who are looking for change. Instead of leaders or stakeholders across a business trying to improve organizational effectiveness. The end goal and purpose of my work, I really wanted a client, instead of being an organization, to be a person. I wanted to shift my work to make it much more individual impact focused, because I always loved opportunities where I was able to sit down with leaders and really decompress data and insights and visualizations with them and chat about, you know, what we could now do with this data to improve situations or team culture and all of that. And so now I feel like I've shifted in a way where I am still doing what I love in terms of decompressing assessment data and insights, qualitative data from work experience history, and then strategically ideating some creative solutions for clients to make a change, and it's just in a different way with an end impact and who I'm working with that is a lot more aligned with what my ideal was for me. So, yeah, those are, like, the biggest things that are coming to mind right now in terms of, like, environmental differences, team differences and content. Oh, and I, like, had the most random thing I'd put on my ICP, where I was like, "it'd be really awesome to work with people who love travel and adventure?" And the head of assessment, who I talked with, she is such a national parks geek, and that is the thing we absolutely connected on. And it was so great. Yeah, so there's a lot of great things we were hitting on.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:30

That is so funny. It goes back to, I mean, just another piece of evidence for what you talked about earlier that had you not done that, what we would call identification work, to say, "No, this is what I want. It's on paper. It's on purpose. Here's where I'm going, here's where I'm running to" then it may not have happened in that way, right down to the point where you get to work with other people that care about travel and national parks.

Morgan 31:57

Absolutely. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:58

That's fantastic. So how has the way that you think about work changed through this experience or set of experiences? Because clearly, the work that you're doing and how you're doing work has changed. It's very different in all the ways that you just articulated. But what do you think has been the biggest changes for how you think about work?

Morgan 32:21

Oh yeah, gosh, they're significant. I mean, even just waking up, I thought it was so cliche when people were like, "Oh, I wake up looking forward to work." Not a thing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:31

No, nobody does that. That's not... It's fake news.

Morgan 32:33

Yeah, no one does that. No, I wake up and I'm like, "Oh yeah, I can't wait to work on this client today, or dive into some insights today." And, yeah, I just get super revved up to do that. And even when I end the day, even if it's a hard day of work, work is tough at sometimes, regardless of where you go, but how it makes you feel at the end of the day, like how quickly you feel energized, again, at the end of the day is a huge difference. So yeah, earlier I used to just be so drained. And like, you've got the zombie person who was me on the couch scrolling through Netflix, I'm not going to the gym. I can't even care to get into my car. And now it's like, okay, yeah, I'll take a beat. I'll, you know, 30 minutes, maybe a little brain break, and then boom, I'm revved up. We're going. We're getting to the gym, and, yeah, it's just a totally different experience when you're done with work for the day and you just feel excited and you're, you know, I noticed I'm a lot more energetic now when I'm hanging out with friends or with family, going to holidays, for example, I just got drained so so quick in the past, but now I feel like I am a lot more revved up and engaged in conversations, and my relationships are better. My husband is probably most thankful that I'm not as, like, short and snappy with him. I'm a lot, yeah, a lot more tolerant of things, which is like...

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:58

Finally, Morgan, finally.

Morgan 33:59

Yes. Oh my goodness, yeah. That's great, yeah, lots of benefits everywhere, really. But yeah, work, it's funny, like I realized, oh, you can feel like you're having such a meaningful impact, and it revs you up. Like that's not something I was really feeling as much. I saw how somebody, again, somebody who is really into the business effectiveness, you know, development stuff could feel like they're impacting and there are totally people out there who that's going to feel super meaningful for them and rev them up, and that's great. But for me, like I am feeling so revved up and like I'm making a huge difference in the role that I'm currently doing, just more so than I was.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:40

Well, so let me ask you about that, because I think what you're talking about right now is not just important, I would say it is critical. And specifically when we're experiencing the, I'm going to call it like the great opportunity syndrome, where it's like, "yeah, that's a great opportunity for someone", and we feel compelled to continue going because it's a great opportunity, whether we feel guilt, whether we feel, you know, whatever else that tends to keep us there and keep us focused on that, because it's got that great opportunity, which does not, as we know, mean it's a great opportunity for you. So what I'm curious about is, what advice would you give to that person who is in that great opportunity, but they're not feeling all of these other wonderful byproducts, like, "Hey, I'm actually excited to wake up in the morning and thinking about, you know, the things that I get to do, as opposed to have to do." You know, what advice would you give that person that is maybe stuck in that place that you were several years back?

Morgan 35:47

Yeah. I mean, that's a tough place to be. I think it, and this is hard to come to this realization, but it's okay to say no to things. I think, especially with high achievers, which, hello, that's me. Especially with high achievers, hello, I'm high achieving. What's your name? Especially with high achievers, it's so easy to be a 'yes' person, because we have this assumption that if we say no, it means we're not driven, we're not motivated. But really, I mean, you just kind of have to shift the mindset of, it's okay to say 'no', because it just means that you're looking to further align yourself with being able to use your strengths in a more meaningful way, show up authentically, those are all super important things. And yeah, it's just it's okay to say no. So if you're stuck in an area that you don't want to be in, and you know that you've got this inkling of a feeling it's not the right fit, and you get a promotion, I think it might be a really great idea to say, "Hey, I really appreciate this. I'd love to think about it for a little bit", and then deep dive into what do you want your life to look like, how do you want to show up at work, and just check that criteria out and see if it's gonna align well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:13

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:06

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

Speaker 3 38:11

I think I opened myself up, finally, to the possibility of something else in my future. And I let go of trying to control, or not even let go of control, but I finally started to put more into myself, learning about myself, discovering myself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:33

Everyone's heard the whole proverb about "The best time to plant a tree is, you know, 20 years ago. And next best time to plant a tree right now." Okay. Well, here's the thing, what if you could start planting a tree in the form of doing the work now, just little tiny bit by little tiny bit, to decide what it is that you want to spend your time doing? What you want to spend your time doing in the form of a career, what you want to spend your time doing in the other areas of your life too? Well, I'll tell you that, if you do that, it can make a massive, massive change for you when something unexpected happens.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:18

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.

Amanda Love 00:01

I recognized I was burnt out. And here I am, thinking, corporate America just quit. I won't be burned out. That solves my problem, moving on. And it really did not. At all.

Introduction 00:18

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:41

When you're burned out, it's easy to think that finding the perfect role will fix everything, but that's not how burnout works. Simply leaving a job doesn't cure the burnout without giving yourself time to recover and get clear on next steps. Burnout has a way of following you around. But here's the real challenge, not everyone can afford to take a complete break from their career to recover. And that's often where we recommend what we would call a 'bridge role' or an intermediary role. A well chosen bridge role can give you the time and space to step back, reset, and figure out what you really want out of your career transition. Think about a bridge role as a strategic step in the right direction, an intentional step building the bridge to your ideal career.

Amanda Love 01:31

I went to my husband and said, "I need something. I think I can leverage my network to find something that'll help keep the kids fed" because they're teenage boys, "and then we'll be good to go. And once everything picks up, we'll just go from there and decide when it's time for me to step away from this other role."

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:56

That's Amanda Love. Amanda spent the majority of her career working for the world's largest retailer, managing mobility. She was exceptional at her job, but being so good at it came at a cost. She realized too late that she had allowed herself to be overworked to the point of burnout, and she knew she needed to quit. When she started looking for a new role, she thought that her burnout would disappear right away and everything would go back to normal. But that's not what happened. Amanda continued to feel the lingering effects of burnout, and finally hit a breaking point. She realized that something needed to change, but not just her job–her entire approach–and that's when we got to meet her and start working with her. She decided she needed to stop chasing roles without knowing what she really wanted, and instead, she focused on finding a bridge role that gave her some breathing room and allowed her to create an intentional career change. Before we jump in, I just want to point out what we mean when we say bridge role or bridge opportunity. What we usually mean, it's an opportunity that is leading you to the longer term goal of your ideal career in one way or another. And many times, we're looking at it as multi purpose, not necessarily just for the sole purpose of income, but maybe using it as an experiment in a certain industry, or to see if you like one thing or another, or to be able to build relationships in a certain place. In all cases, you're going to hear more about Amanda's experience leveraging a bridge opportunity. All right, let's get to our conversation. Here's Amanda talking about the early days of her career.

Amanda Love 03:31

So right after graduating college with a degree in psychology and zero direction on where to use a degree like that, I jumped straight into sales because I knew I wanted to do...

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:44

Obviously, psychology going to sales.

Amanda Love 03:47

Exactly, psychology-sales. And my mentor at the time told me, "Doesn't matter what you sell, go sell something, and then you'll have this whole data to show people and say, 'look at what I've done. I'm great at sales.'" So I got into the mobility space and worked for several mobility retailers. I wanted to get out of that. Went ahead and got out of that, and ended up at the world's largest retailer managing mobility because it's all familiar, insane. My career at this large retailer was a roller coaster. I'll be honest. There were lots of high highs and lots of low lows. And the low lows were the things that really started to get me down, and I could not find people willing to get behind my development and continue to invest in me. And I felt like that was not consistent with what I was hearing around the office that, "Hey, you can have any career here. Just make a pivot and we'll support you." And those things really never happened for me. So I went ahead and left corporate America to do I'm not sure. I started looking for jobs, got offered a job, worked for this company for 30 days. It was a tech startup. And I quickly realized that tech startups were not for me, and I left and decided, "You know what? I'll start my own business. I'll do exactly what I already know to do– sales." And I became a sales broker for retail partners and vendors, and kind of bringing those folks together. That was kind of the last step, I would say, Scott, that it still didn't feel right. It still didn't feel rewarding or fulfilling. I thought leaving corporate America was the answer, and it wasn't. It really wasn't. And my husband was the propellant for change for me. He was in the mortgage industry for years and years and years, and hated every single second of it. He came to me one evening and said, "I think I want to do video game design." Talk about a 180. And I said, "I support you. Go do what you need to do to learn and get a job." He did those things. I sat down with him, we crafted his resume, we looked at all of the job postings and made sure to bring all of the buzzwords together, and I prepped him for his interviews. We talked about how he had transferable skills, like, we did every single step that I know you teach, and he got a job with an amazing video game company that relocated us to North Carolina. And that was really him being able to prove to me it could be done. And he did it. And then us moving, our family, picking up and moving, that was the catalyst for change for me that I got to hit the reset button and say, "You know what? I want to find out what aligns and will be fulfilling for me, and I've got to find someone who help, who can help with that." And enter Happen To Your Career and my amazing coach, Amy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:05

Was there any particular moment or set of moments that you recall that led up to that?

Amanda Love 07:10

I would say, I wanted what he had. And I told him that very specifically. Because I saw how excited he got when he would learn something new, or when he could show off his skills to appear, or his supervisors, and they didn't know he had that skill. And he would get just so bubbly and exuberant. And I wasn't talking about my career like that anymore. But now, I'm like, "Ah, I just want this day to be over." I wanted that. And I told him, "I want what you have."

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:50

That's very cool. Very cool. Another thing that, before we move on, you were talking about how you, you know, career wasn't working out, and so you made a transition, you thought that leaving corporate would be the thing, right? And I think that that's really common, it's an incredibly common action, and it seems really logical as a thought process. "Hey, if I do this one thing, if I remove what I perceive as the biggest challenge, then it should be amazingly better, right?"And it sounds like it wasn't for you. There was no exuberance, as you said earlier, that followed. So when you look back now, what do you feel like it really was? Or what combination of things, maybe, that it was? If you were to go back and do this all over again, obviously, it led you to here, so it's okay. But what do you think now? How do you think about it?

Amanda Love 08:53

You know, when I look back on the struggles that I had in corporate America, and it doesn't matter if it was the most recent that happened or further back in my career, anytime I had "an issue" with something or someone, it was very projected. That person is no longer on my list, and we get really stuck in those cycles. But what I have come to realize through career coaching, and I have a therapist, right? So I have all of these inputs coming in reminding me that, you know, it's about my own perspective and it's about my own projection, and because I was failing to understand or not communicating appropriately and still not understanding how to story tell, those were the things that I was falling short of and never acknowledging and projecting those shortcomings on others. So what I've really come to learn is, the more I know about myself, the more inward reflective I am. I can take myself out of the situation and be a lot more unbiased and think through the other person's perspective and mine, and then we can have a better dialogue around how we move to next. And I would tell you that I have taken my own program, as I'm auditing my own program, because I had to get a bridge job to pay. I have teenage boys to feed, so I've gotta, you know, have something to feed them as I build my business, and I've audited my program, and I've brought all of these things to the job in corporate America again, and it's amazing. The amount of respect that I receive for setting boundaries, the amount of respect I receive for communicating clearly, the amount of respect I receive for going, you know what? I might have been a little hot to trot on that one. Let me back up and hear your side of the story. And it's really gone really far for me, even in a few months in this role.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:05

That's really cool. That's really cool. So with your kids, and I heard you say that part of this for you, part of this long term pursuing of what you really want to be doing required some level of, I'm going to call it fundraising, in the form of bridge opportunity or a bridge role, right? What made you decide that that's a great direction for you?

Amanda Love 11:34

I did not decide that for myself. My anxiety did.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:38

That is... I'm default. Either way, it got decided. Tell me about that guy.

Amanda Love 11:45

You know, I went to my husband and said, "I need something. I think I can leverage my network to find something that'll help keep the kids fed" because they're teenage boys, "and then we'll be good to go. And once everything picks up, we'll just go from there and decide when it's time for me to step away from this other role." And he was really supportive, and my network came through for me in dividends. So yeah, it was kind of decided for me, for my anxiety, because I needed to make sure that we were going to be okay, and that was the peace of mind that gave me, or I guess, that was the action that gave me the peace of mind that I needed.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:29

So if I'm understanding you correctly, then, you're saying that not having that continuous form of income, in one way or another, not having that continuous, I'm going to call it relationship, in the form of what we're calling a bridge role here, bridge opportunity, which we should probably define too for a moment. A lot of times when we say bridge opportunity, we usually mean an opportunity or role, or in this case, job, that is leading you to the longer term goal in one way or another. So what do you feel like this bridge role has really done for you?

Amanda Love 13:09

It's done a couple of things for me. So what's great about it is that it's pretty easy for my skill set, and I'm able to get a lot of the work done in a much shorter amount of time than maybe some of the some others in this role. So that's kind of a plus for me, because it gives me a lot of balance to be able to go and respond on social media to anything, or to reach out and email my clients. So that's really great. The other component I touched on earlier is that it's given me an opportunity to see if what I put together as my program works. And it does.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:49

It's important, as it turns out. Yeah, I guess one of the things I'm thinking about as I'm listening to pieces of your journey, your story, is that it sounds like, when you say things like, "Hey, my anxiety decided for me." That although this absolutely sounds like the right decision for you that you made, it sounds like maybe it wasn't the easiest decision in one way or another. Tell me a little bit about what was going on at that time that led you to say, "Oh yeah, this is happening because this is going to be a better path forward. It'll allow me to manage my anxiety" and anything else that you've benefited from it.

Amanda Love 14:28

Sure. I went through, and I'm a budgeter, I like my Excel spreadsheets. So I had gone through and kind of ran some numbers and I had told my husband that if I did not hit a certain dollar amount by a certain date, which was by December of this year, we were not going to be able to continue to live the lifestyle that we have grown accustomed to. And while that's okay, we have pulled back and those things are just part of life. Sometimes we add, sometimes we flow. It was more about, it would make me feel better if I could contribute to the household income. And knowing it was not long term, I leveraged my network, got really excited, told everyone in the interview as they asked me things like, "Where do you plan to be here in five years?" And like, "I don't plan to be here in five years. Thanks for the question." I was extremely transparent during even the interview process that this is a stopover for me. And then on day one I started, and I clocked out at five and turned to my husband and said, "I don't like it. I hate this. I hate this so much. I do not even want to continue to do this, but I know I need to do this because I committed to the family to bring in money." By Friday of that week, I said, "Oh, this is going to be great. Because I know more than they think I know, and this is going to be amazing", and it has been. But that very first day that I even started, I even left, clocked out and said, "This is not for me", and it really is not for me long term. I know that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:22

Yeah, absolutely. And that was part of the intention. What caused you, do you think, in that first day or two to really question that? Because obviously, you know, you got to the end of the week and you're like, "No, this is actually going to be really great, and it's going to not only serve the purpose, but be better than I thought it might be." But that clearly wasn't how you felt on day one. So what was the big difference now looking back on it?

Amanda Love 16:46

I think day one, day two, they were a little... they weren't familiar with me– my leaders and my peers. And so there were a lot of, "I'll call you in a couple of hours and see how you're doing. I'll call you in a couple hours and give you more work to do." I'm over here going time out. Please don't load my plate with a lot of filler work. And originally I thought this is the cadence they're setting. This is the tone. And really what it came down to was, we don't have anything for you to work on and jump into straight away. So why don't you learn about the company? And looking back, I could probably provide that feedback to my boss and say, "Hey, next time, just put that out there. And I think that'll be a little more helpful to people to know that you're not a micromanager and I'm not going to do busy work all day. I'm going to do meaningful work for you, and you'll let me just go on my own." And that's exactly what she does now. But those first two days, I really thought I made the wrong decision.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:50

It took a couple of days to get there. Well, kudos to you for giving it more than just the snap judgment and then continuing to have conversations. And it sounds like it has worked out well.

Amanda Love 18:02

Exactly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:03

That's amazing. What advice would you give to someone who is in a similar situation where they're wanting to pursue a shorter term role, like a bridge opportunity, and they're trying to figure out, like, "how do I make this work?" and they know they're not going to be there forever, kind of similar to what you did, what advice would you give to that person?

Amanda Love 18:23

I would say, to do your research. If you don't have that internal connection, go ahead, do your research, find out what you can find out so you're prepared and be very transparent in the interview process that you're looking to learn, to grow, and to really understand if this is a good fit for you, and don't be afraid to share that. I think that that's probably the biggest thing that even I was a little uncertain to share and be transparent with people I did not know who were interviewing me and making a decision about my employment, that was really scary to say, "Look, I'm not going to be here in five years, but thanks for asking. I appreciate that." And knowing on the backside, having been in hiring in the past, knowing that that's kind of a cost analysis that they've got to make on the fly, it's scary. But you kind of read the room, you bring it up at the right time, and you make sure that you spin it in a way that's really exciting and positive. If you just say, "Look, I am not going to be here for five years, so..."

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:37

Deal with it.

Amanda Love 19:38

They're going to move on. "Hey, I'm here to make a really great impact and set you up for success. So that when you hire my replacement, you will have exactly what you need to continue down that path of success."

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:54

You know, I think it's always fascinating to me is most people like the average interview is people coming in and they're sharing what they think, whoever they're talking to that represents the company, wants to hear, right? Like, that's your average interview. The BS is palpable in many different ways on both sides, not even intentionally, necessarily. That's just how it tends to happen. But what I think is really fun and interesting is that when you're addressing in a more transparent, more authentic way, people are tended to be attracted to that. Not always. And you know, if it isn't a fit, it allows people to talk more openly about how it's not right a fit, and then not to waste a ton of time through the interview process. And then, you know, people can move on. But I think more often than not, my experience has been in for myself, and then also all the people that we get to help that when you're able to be much more open, at least open in a way that serves the people that you're talking to, it tends to produce better results. And you know what? Here's what's really funny, like, the data says that people are not going to be there beyond five years, anyways. It's a rarity. So why are we all pretending that, you know, we're going to be there for more years? Yeah. Exactly. Really nice job. And I really appreciate you sharing that part of your story. I think the other thing that really stands out to me is that you had a number of times where either anxiety or mental health came up and impacted this transition as a whole. And I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about some of those other times. We've already talked about one in particular. But I think this is a real thing that many, many people experience, and it doesn't always get talked about in so many different forums. So would you be willing to share a little bit about where else this came up in your process?

Amanda Love 22:06

Absolutely. So here I am thinking, "I have to quit corporate America because I'm burnt out." I recognized I was burnt out. And here I am thinking, "Corporate America just quit. I won't be burnt out. That solves my problem. Moving on." And it never really did not. At all. And I didn't know what I didn't know, and I didn't know how to find what would be fulfilling. I think what I did was I went to Google and said, "Who can help me find what I should do in my career?" And there you were. And I did the mini course, and went, "I'm already leaps and bounds ahead. Let me go ahead and sign up for this program." But when I started working with my coach, one of the first things she said, "So we were supposed to have a 30 minute call" an hour and a half later, she let me at least go on and cry. And I cried and cried to my new coach, who did not know me from anybody else. And at the end, she said, "I want you... It's all out. Now, I want you to dance on it and find you a therapist." And I took her advice because I'm here wanting to learn. If I'm not going to take the advice, then just throw it away. So I called and set up a therapist, and I learned so much about why I was burnt out. I was burnt out because I didn't have great boundaries. I was burnt out because I was constantly looking for praise from everyone. I just wanted to be validated. I can validate myself today, but then I couldn't. And I didn't realize these things were missing in my life, and they were driving a lot of my unwellness, just feeling like yuck every day and not seeing the sunshine in my life. So bringing those two components to someone who can help me find a direction and someone who could help me understand me, that was peace and resistance.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:17

Oh, my goodness. That is amazing. And I'm really fascinated to... One of the things I'll tell you is we work with a lot of people that also are working with a therapist. And we don't have, this is a place where I'd love to collect data, this is the analytical side of me that jumps out here. But my working theory is that people who are making big changes in their lives, whether it be specific to career or otherwise, tend to work much faster and more effectively than, well, let's use the case that we see all the time as an example here. Like, if we're working with somebody, if they're also working with a therapist, our observations are that they tend to be a lot more effective if they're working with both us and a therapist. So you know, you did a great job deciding after your coach, in this case, Amy, had suggested that to you. You still had to make the decision to go and do it. And it sounds like it was a wonderful experience for you. But I'm curious what your observations are. What did that help with as you're going through these big changes in your life, and what maybe were the surprises along the way for you?

Amanda Love 25:34

I think the surprise for me along the way was that my... and I touched on it previously. I issue my burnout was maybe magnified by the person I reported to. But the problem was mine to begin with. And I was not expecting the problem to be mine to begin with. I was expecting this problem to have been theirs and someone on my side going, "You're right. That person was awful", and that did not happen at all. And it was a real eye opener for me that because I allowed this person to come to me and asked me to work late on special projects, or would call me on my day off and have me work, or request that I work. And I would say, "yes". My kids were off doing things, and I should have been with them. And kids don't keep. Children don't keep. And guess what? I don't even speak to this individual anymore, but my kids are still here, and now they're grown. And so there really was no respect for my balance. And that wasn't their problem, that wasn't their fault. I allowed that. And having that look in the mirror that it was what I allowed was probably the biggest and most surprising for me, less than I learned out of therapy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:07

That's really cool. I think that's maybe one of the biggest surprises that I see over and over again, not just for working with a therapist, but for maybe...

Amanda Love 27:18

Maybe as a coach.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:19

Yeah, absolutely. I think that so many people, when they're thinking about making big career moves or even small career moves, in one way or another, they go through what you experienced where it's like, okay, it's obviously the boss, or it's obviously the schedule, or it's obviously, and we're externalizing, or, you know, you called it projecting, it onto something else. And what we tend to find is that, yes, in part, it is about identifying and aligning the right situation or environment or some of those external pieces with what creates a more fulfilling life for us as individuals. But the other part that's just as big is that behavioral piece. And it's really, really difficult to, one, acknowledge where we need to change our behaviors. And then two, actually do it. And you have done quite a bit of both. So that's really fun to see.

Amanda Love 28:17

It has not been easy. I will say that. It has not been easy. There have been easy components, but there have been times during the process that I was so mentally and physically exhausted from all of the work that I was putting into myself or my program or whatever. It would put me straight to bed at five o'clock, you know, because it, like you said earlier, those that work with a coach and a therapist move a little bit faster, and I felt like I was moving at the speed of light sometimes. This is too much.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:57

It creates problems, but better problems, right?

Amanda Love 29:01

Better problems. Great problems to have. Absolutely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:04

Yes, yeah. Oh, that's funny. That's really interesting. For somebody else who's in a similar situation that is interested in doing their own thing in one way or another, tell me a little bit about that. Particularly, you know, now that you have been heading down this road for a while, and you've been pursuing your own business and have been actively building it in various different stages, and having gone and gotten a bridge role to be able to supplement and all the other things that we just talked about. I'm curious, what are your learnings? If you could go back and do it again, what do you feel like you did really well that you would say, "Oh, yeah, definitely consider this."? And what do you feel like you would change that you'd give people advice on?

Amanda Love 29:51

My answer might be a little cliche, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:55

Say it anyway out there.

Amanda Love 29:58

Wouldn't change a single thing, except one thing, and it would have been to start sooner.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:05

What makes you say that? That's awesome. I feel that. And also what causes you to say that?

Amanda Love 30:10

So I built my program around burnout and not getting to the point that I was at where I sat in a corner crying because I felt broken. And I don't want anyone to get there. So I would have started sooner, and I wouldn't have let the burnout get so bad. It took me away from my family, which is my happy place for too long. Sorry.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:41

No need to apologize at all. I think that the part I love about this for you, that even though, like, this is deeply emotional for you, it is also deeply emotional for you and that you care about it tremendously and you care about preventing it for other people, and I really, really resonate with that. What do you feel like, now that we're already in tears, what do you feel is the hardest part of all of this up to this point?

Amanda Love 31:18

I think the hardest part is getting over imposter syndrome. Especially knowing that that background that I've shared about no boundaries, needing validation, having people that I was starting to surround myself with, that believed in me when I couldn't, believed in me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:38

Who are those people for you?

Amanda Love 31:40

Amy was one of them. And the gal that I've been working with doing training stuff contracts. Her name is Andorra. She's a mother. My husband. I probably should have said his name first, but...

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:52

It's okay. In no particular order.

Amanda Love 31:55

In no particular order. My husband, my kids. But you get, you kind of get, or at least I do, I get stuck in this like "but you don't live in my life. You don't experience what I experience. So I'm right and you're wrong. Because I can only see it through this lens." But the more I realized, the more people saw my own capabilities and they weren't speaking to each other, but they were saying the same things to me.

Amanda Love 32:25

I started to believe it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:25

They're not colluding on this.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:28

That's amazing. So you were seeing the, let's call it, evidence, in a variety of different places, which allowed you to even begin to believe for yourself what all of these other people were seeing.

Amanda Love 32:40

Yes, 100%. It's so hard to hear it and believe it if you don't believe it yourself, but when you continue to hear it from relatively strangers, and they say these things about you, it's because you exude those things, those qualities, and you're probably just not giving yourself enough credit for it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:05

Yeah. And I think that that is, in many ways, very human. I think a lot of people, my observation is that a lot of people experience that. And we're also really good as humans about just focusing on the one part and not necessarily the really positive pieces of evidence. Sometimes it has to hit us from many different people or many different situations before we believe it. So there's that side too.

Amanda Love 33:33

Yep, you're right. You're 100% right. So this move, this reset button that I have done to completely take the opportunity that now we live in a different state and we're making brand new friends, I've used it as an opportunity to really just rebrand who I am and be authentic. And, you know, we talk about authenticity across a lot of different places in the workforce, and I don't know that bring your authentic self to work really means bring your authentic self to work. And I'm trying it on for size, and it really means bring your authentic self to work, and if it doesn't, it's probably not a good fit.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:23

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:15

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

Speaker 3 35:21

I love saying the motto, like, "sometimes you have to slow down to speed up." And that truly was what I was doing. I had to slow down for a second to be able to come in with a fresh perspective. Because I don't think if I did that, if I did not do that, I don't think I would have been able to think of some of the potential solutions or directions that I could have gone in.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:43

Sometimes, the hardest part of a career change isn't figuring out the next step. It's trusting yourself enough to take that next step.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:53

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.