Surprising Career Change Advice From 6 People Who Made the Switch

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Making a huge life change such as shifting careers can seem like an intimidating task.

It’s more than just handing in your resignation and then immediately moving onto something better. Sometimes it means letting go of a job that pays well and going through a trial and error process. 

But we’ve also learned that despite the risks, the journey allows you to discover what you really want to do and what you value in a job, so you know what to go after. 

In this episode, you’ll hear from 6 people who’ve successfully made career changes. More importantly they will all answer the question: 

What advice would you give to a professional or exec who’s ready to make a career change? 

From taking the time off to prioritize your health and well-being to asking for help when needed, to removing unnecessary pressure from yourself – they share incredible insights based on their own experiences that helped them secure the role they desire.

what you’ll learn

  • Why it’s important to determine what you want before going after it.
  • How taking care of your health and wellness translates to effectiveness and efficiency.
  • Why you should not see asking for help as a weakness, but a strength.
  • Why you shouldn’t settle for a “good” job.
  • How to reach out for support when you need to make a change.

Success Stories

as I was diving into the bootcamp at Happen To Your Career, and I was really trying to think broadly, I had this moment of thinking, "Okay, should I even should I be a lawyer? What should I do?" so I worked with Happen To Your Career really started trying to dig deep and lay a foundation… it was helpful to have Lisa through the interviewing process, and all the little events like "oh, someone responded like this, how should I respond?" How should I deal with all the steps along the way? I also had a tendency to form myself into what I thought they were looking for and Lisa helped me be who I actually am in the interviews.

Rebecca Maddox, Attorney, United States/Canada

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The transition was so much easier than the last and so much more gratifying because of all that I learned with HTYC

Michal Balass, Social Science Research Analyst, United States/Canada

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I think one of the reasons the podcast has been so helpful to me is because you talk to people in different roles, and all of a sudden I have exposure to people in different roles. Talking about why they got there and what they like about it.

Laura Morrison, Senior Product Manager, United States/Canada

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I just remember from that visioning exercise, being able to say no to something, even if it's a great opportunity or a great experience. It shows that as we moved through these journeys, whether it's life or even business that we… we have to stay true to what we're really searching for and wanting to create.

Matthew Toy, Yoga Instructor, United States/Canada

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Matt Toy 00:01

You allocate time to all the things that keep the machine going, that keep, you know, gas in the tank, essentially.

Laura Morrison 00:08

Particularly as someone who has been successful, it's hard to admit to myself, it was hard for me to say I couldn't do it by myself.

Introduction 00:20

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:44

Welcome to the Happen To Your Career podcast. I'm Scott Anthony Barlow. This is the show where we share stories of how high achievers find career happiness and meaning. Our team, every single day, we get tons of questions about everything you can imagine to do with careers. What should I do differently on my applications to get the interviews that I want? How do I narrow down the list of stuff that I'm interested in to make into a career? How do I translate my skills into something that would be amazing for a job or career opportunity? And here's the thing, we absolutely love that we get all these questions. It's the reason why we do what we do. We'd love to be able to help. And at the same time, what we've learned is that most of the time when we get these questions, they're just barely scratching the surface of what you need to know, to make really big career changes, to design a career in a life that you love. And many of the things that you want if you're listening to this show right now. So we thought, okay, well, we asked many of our students, and our podcast guests, what advice would you give other people that want to make a really big career change to meaningful work? And we do that, at the end of many of our episodes, we do that when people go through our programs and our bootcamps, and they've made a huge change. And here's the thing, these are people that have been there, they've done that, they've made the journey. And we thought it would be really incredibly valuable to take the advice that each of these people have given when they're on the other side. And they know all the things that you need to do and how to do them and what they experienced and what worked and what didn't work. So in this particular episode, we've taken that advice from six different people, most of them students of ours, and we share the things that you wouldn't even think to ask about what it really takes to make a big career change.

Louise McNee 02:46

We all put the pressure on ourselves, I think in a lot of situations, there's not other people putting the pressure on us.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:51

That's Louise McNee, by the way, she made a move to a completely different industry, in this case, broadcasting that she had never worked in before and move to a role that she absolutely loves.

Louise McNee 03:02

You have to take the pressure off yourself. And you have to think about not just the role, but the people, you've got to think about everything because I remember when I did the, you know, what does your ideal day look like? I felt like I was being a bit spoiled by saying certain things. You know, I want to be able to, you know, wake up whatever time in the morning, I want to wake up and I want to be able to have a cup of tea in bed before I go to work, and really get down into those details because I find that it's not those details as such is not going to make you figure out what's going on, that you find a pattern in what you actually really need in your day to get, you know, through the day in the most positive, fulfilled way. So you know, it's like take the pressure off, really get down into the detail. And one of the things to me was kind of realizing that potentially, which is so different from where I was, one of me, I come from making career everything.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:04

Yes.

Louise McNee 04:05

I've now realized that for me, career can't be everything.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:09

Louise's experience is interesting, because it's not that different from what many of us experience. We're adding pressure to ourselves that doesn't even need to be there. It's making it harder for us to make a real change in our lives. And then on top of that, many of us feel indulgent or she called it spoiled, if we really proclaim what we actually want. Now the thing that we've learned is if you never acknowledge what you really want, and you never asked for what you want, then you never actually get to what you want. Rebecca Maddox had a really similar experience.

Rebecca Maddox 04:42

I say you owe it to yourself. Just give it some time, give it... see what you think.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:48

By the way, Rebecca, was a burned out attorney who was also tired of life and the whole game that was being played in Washington DC and she made a pretty huge change to a completely different organization, across the country that truly met her needs.

Rebecca Maddox 05:02

Go look into, like, see what your options are. Reach out to someone, talk to friend, and say, "hey can you even get paid does this sort of thing? I think it's interesting.” And maybe meet up for coffee, because a five minute conversation or even 15 minute conversation, saying, “Hi, I think what you do is amazing. I'm really curious when you do your job.” I would say it's worth it. It's no pressure. And if it works out, that's how most people find their jobs anyways. And if you're in that moment and thinking, "Geez, I'm so entrenched in where I am, like, moving to a different opportunity is kind of a joke." I would say, "Maybe you're right, there's a good chance that you're probably wrong, unless you're an extremely niche field." Because skills are transferable. And if you're in that moment, where you're realizing this is something that's really hitting me hard and hitting, like impacting those around me, right, like, it's when it goes beyond just you and starts impacting those around you, like you may be having that impact on those around you, and realize that, if there are those people in your life who say, get your job, and you stick to it. And that's the one thing that you do, that's not the world we live in. It's more a game of rather than, like, plant your roots and see how deep they go, you feel a little bit more like a game of chutes and ladders. So it's just a matter of where you shift. And ultimately, like if people are telling you, you got the dream, but it's something doesn't feel right. That's fine. Trust that. And if people are angry, they'll come around. Especially if you're like, you know this wrong, you're going to make yourself happy, it's going to make everyone else happy. And we've looked into it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:56

There's a particularly funny thing about the way meaningful careers work. What's the dream, I'm using air quotes, for one person is the next person's nightmare. And just staying in your job or role because it seems like a good job won't actually make that feeling go away. Maybe you've already had that realization, though, and you decide you're going to make a change, whether it's a new career for you, or maybe it's even starting your own thing. How do you decide where to spend your time and what's going to be valuable for your time?

Matt Toy 07:27

The more that you can double down on your health and your wellness, the better. That will go back to effectiveness and efficiency of how you run your business. And also just the decisions that you make.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:38

That's Matt Toy. And in his case, he was starting his own thing. It was a yoga studio, specifically for men. But he found that he was faced with the same thing that everybody does, when they're making a big change like this. We all only have 24 hours in a day. So how you use that time becomes even more important when you're already busy. And now you're adding even more by trying to make a career change or start something new on top of it all.

Matt Toy 08:07

So what I loved about your course was the whole master schedule. So really looking down and saying what's my schedule look like on a day to day, weekly, monthly, maybe even yearly basis and really figuring out okay, where am I losing time? Or where am I not being effective? Or where am I just sitting by myself thinking and analyzing and judging and blah, blah, blah. So that was really helpful to look at it and be like, "Okay, cool. When I am going to be taking action and growing a business, am I still going to go to the gym? Am I still going to practice yoga? Am I still going to eat well?" You know, you allocate time to all the things that keep the machine going, that keep, you know, gas in the tank, essentially, because the downfall or the pitfall that I've seen, especially for younger people, you know, 20s, 30s is that they get all hyped up, they get an idea and they go full fledged, right. Whether or not it's the right idea doesn't matter, but they go full fledge, burn themselves out, just not losing those core principles while you build a business because it's going to be challenging when you build a business, there's going to be lots of unknowns, right. And that puts you in a lot of times an emotional state that's like a little bit frantic.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:19

Something else that Matt mentioned, is one thing that we see that's difficult for nearly everyone, for some reason, most of us think that we can do this thing all by ourselves, but honestly, these types of changes really rarely happen without the support of other people in this world.

Laura Morrison 09:38

Yeah, I think you know, it took me a few months to look for outside help. And that was the thing that I needed.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:46

Okay, you might remember Laura Morrison, she was back on episode 213 of the podcast. She was working in sustainability. She had a great job, but she'd pretty much topped out on growth with the organization and she had an 18 month old baby and knew that she may needed to make a change, but she was getting pretty stuck.

Laura Morrison 10:04

I think, particularly as someone who has been successful, it's hard to admit to myself, it was hard for me to say I couldn't do it by myself. You know, I'm smart person, I should be able to figure this out. But as soon as I, you know, had my first career coaching experience, it completely turned around my approach to finding a new job. And it completely gave me the power back and the tools that I needed to do it. So I think, you know, if you know exactly what you want to do, well, you're probably not listening to this podcast. But if you don't, just know that there are a lot of tools and resources and people out there who can help you. And for me, that made all the difference.

Michal Balass 10:48

Be kind to yourself, be patient to yourself, and that things do always work out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:55

That's Michal Balass, her journey took over a year to make her career change. But here's the thing, if she would have rushed it, though, she might not have found the role that she's in now, or even started a side business in photography along the way.

Michal Balass 11:12

Keep on having conversations, don't have conversations, because you're looking for another job, have conversations with people who are doing things that are interesting, because you're interested in it. And that's going to open a whole world to you that you don't know about because you're not having conversations. And I want to say that I'm a very introverted person, when I walk into a party, I'm not the center of it, and never was, but I can have these conversations now. And I am still connecting. And, you know, even now, where I'm very happy with my current position, and I'm not looking to do anything necessarily, in terms of leaving or anything of that nature, I'm still having conversations, I'm having conversations with other people at universities, I'm having conversations with people outside of my department learning about interesting things, because I don't know what circumstance is going to change, which is going to spark another move or another desire for a career change. And I think that's really important. The important part of having conversations is about that it enlightens you about the possibilities. And when you hear about somebody who's doing something that is so fantastically interesting to you, very inspiring, it keeps me going, it keeps me growing as a professional.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:41

Michal kept doing the really hard things. And in her case, this meant having conversations and building relationships with others, even though this was incredibly difficult for her at first. But she later learned that she actually enjoyed this. But there were many times where she had to do those things that she didn't want to do to get where she wanted to go. Now, Dave Stachowiak, has found the exact same thing.

Dave Stachowiak 13:07

I said, "You know what? I'm not sure how this all gonna work long term. Yes, I'm struggling this week, or this month with putting my time and effort into this. But I said I was gonna do this. And so I'm going to keep doing it." And I love the quote, from... I forget which NBA player it was from. One of the NBA players said, "Being a professional is about doing the things you love to do on the days you don't feel like doing it." And that to me resonates because that's been my whole career, there's been days I've shown up for everything that I don't want to do what I need to do that day, or what I've committed to do to someone that day, or to my clients or to my organization. And so while it was frustrating at times, that also was not something that was... that I hadn't navigated before. And I said, "I'm gonna keep doing this and just see what happens." And it's also helpful and this is where what your listeners here are doing, Scott, is listening to other perspectives and listening other people out there and listening to people say things like, "If you do anything that is meaningful in the world, it's going to take time, it's not going to be an overnight success. And nor should it be." In fact, today that's, you know, it's just part of the journey. And it's very much adapted and grown.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:25

Hey, I hope you have enjoyed this episode. It's chock-full of advice from people that have been there, done that, got the teaser, all the things that you probably wouldn't have thought would be so incredibly important. And if I didn't do this day after day and hadn't made any of these changes myself, I probably went to realize that either. So we've actually taken all of this advice, everything and put it on to a blog post that can be even more useful and we put a little extra into, so you can go over to happentoyourcareer.com and find all of this advice, the transcript for this episode. And even more to get you started in your journey, all the things that you didn't even know, you didn't know would be critical for your career change.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:08

Most of our episodes on Happen To Your Career often showcase stories of people that have identified and found and take the steps to get to work that they are absolutely enamored with, that matches their strengths, and is really what they want in their lives. And if that's something that you're ready to begin taking steps towards, that is awesome, you can actually get on the phone with us and our team. And we can have a conversation to find the very best way that we can help. It's super informal. And we try to understand what your goals are, where you want to go, and what specifically you need our help with. And then we figure out the very best type of help for you, whatever that looks like, and sometimes even customize that type of help. And then we make happen. Really easy way to schedule a conversation with our team is just go to scheduleaconversation.com, that scheduleaconversation.com and find a time that works best for you, we'll ask you a few questions, as well. And then we'll get you on the phone to figure out how we can get you going to work that you really want to be doing that fits your strengths, that you love, and you're enamored with. Hey, I can't wait to hear from you.

Mike Bigelow 16:29

My name is Mike Bigelow, and I'm an engineer who was living in Portland, Oregon, and was moving up to Seattle, Washington to support my wife's career change. And kind of move back home. My folks are still up here as well. As we're speaking now I am sitting in my new apartment having unpacked and most of it in a gap week between when I left my old job, when I'm starting my new job. So yeah, right here. And now it's pretty cool.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:55

Having unpacked most of it, that in itself is a success.

Mike Bigelow 16:59

No kidding man, no kidding.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:02

We got the pleasure of helping Mike make his career change. And in this episode, you're going to hear exactly what the differences are between local versus remote job searching, because we get so many questions about that. And Mike did a really fantastic job with this, not just in his most recent change, but over the life of his career. And also how to maximize your time in both situations, which is incredibly valuable, and then how career coaching can take you from being a good job candidate to a great candidate by offering the path that you want to grow along. And Mike did something really particularly well in identifying what his big value ads were from his past job experiences. And then he gives some really great examples in how you can apply them to nearly any industry. We get pretty deep into how creating a conversational environment during informational interviews and what we call the test drive method opens so many more doors than walking into the conversation, expecting a job offer or traditional job search methods. So all that and plenty more next week[18:10][a] 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[18:30][b]. Adios. I'm out.

[a]@joshua@happentoyourcareer.com

_Assigned to Joshua Rivers_

[b]@joshua@happentoyourcareer.com

_Assigned to Joshua Rivers_

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Your Signature Strengths: The Key To Unlocking Career Happiness

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If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you’ve probably heard me talk a lot about finding your “ideal” role, a role that “fits,” a role where you can “flourish” and be “fulfilled.” But… what does any of that actually mean? Believe it or not, there is hard science behind these concepts and it all points to one central truth – people are happier and more fulfilled when they use their signature strengths.

What is a signature strength? The best way to identify a signature strength is by recognizing certain feelings that a person will experience while using that strength. For example, when you use a signature strength, you will likely feel a sense of ownership and authenticity, like you’re unlocking your best self. You’ll feel a sense of excitement and euphoria, and will be able to learn about the strength rapidly, especially at first. You’ll be excited to find new ways to use the strength, as if it’s a new toy that you’ve just unwrapped and don’t want to stop playing with it.

Why does this matter?

Sociologists have found that people who use their signature strengths on a daily basis are happier, more fulfilled and more satisfied than people who don’t. And the more of a person’s signature strengths that they used on a daily basis, the happier they were. If you’ve seen “The Incredibles,” think of Mr. Incredible working a desk job at an insurance company, pretending not to be a superhero, not using his signature strengths. He’s miserable, wishing he’d never been born. Now think about Mr. Incredible later in the movie, doing superhero work, using his strengths – ecstatic, euphoric, insanely happy to get up in the morning. That’s what it looks like when you’re using your signature strengths.

what you’ll learn

  • The concept of Signature Strengths and why it’s important to know yours.
  • How the relationship between signature strengths and career fulfillment works.
  • How identifying your signature strengths can help you unlock your ideal career.
what are my strengths

Success Stories

“It’s hard to find something that fits, that’s why so many people change careers. When I finally understood my strengths and how I could apply them it all made sense. It just made it easier to see what types of jobs and roles would fit me. In my new career I get to do the marketing that I love with a company I’m excited about.”

Kirby Verceles, Sales & Marketing Director

Get the Full Backstory

I’ve been offered the job! It was great having the opportunity to speak with you prior to my interview. It enabled me to highlight my strengths as part of the conversation and I was able to be clear about my enthusiasm for opportunities to be proactive versus reactive. I also highlighted my desire to provide positive individual experiences. Our discussion not only assisted me in the interview but it also helped to increase my confidence!

Bree Hunter, Project Officer, Australia

Get the Full Backstory

All the stars aligned and I ended up finding the right thing at the right place at the right time, and it was you guys! Everything that you said was speaking to me and the things that you had done in the job that you had transitioned out of and into. Also how finding work that you love is your passion for people! Honestly, it was you Scott, I mean, the way that you talked about it, how passionate you were, I was like, there's no way he's gonna put out a faulty product. So I'm gonna try it, you know… I recommend you to all my friends, you know, even if they don't realize that they're looking for a new job, I'm like this is the first step, let's do this! Even if you maybe don't move out of this career. This is going to help!

Maggie Romanovich, Director of Learning and Development, United States/Canada

My favorite part was focusing on the signature strengths. I really liked that concept and hadn't heard it before. I realize I'll never be a singer or a triathlete… Then focusing on what it is that I really want to do. I also liked that both of you were pretty transparent with your stories regarding career and finances. That is always uplifting, knowing you speak from experience.

Lily Kreitlinger, Senior Instructional Designer, United States/Canada

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Louise McNee 00:02

This was the first time I went, "Oh. I don't actually like this. And I don't know if I want to be doing this anymore." I just did not know what else to do, I did not know if there was another career out there for me. I didn't know how to get out of it. So I just stayed in it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:19

Wanted to make meaningful work that pays well possible for you? Well, guess what, this is an episode of our disappearance series on career happiness. What does that mean? Well, every day, this week, we're going to be sharing actual examples of people like you that have made massive changes in their lives. Every day will be a different story and brand new glimpse into how this career change process works. Every day a new episode, but then guess what? They disappear. So you'll need to listen to them now, before they're gone.

Introduction 00:59

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:24

How do you know when you've made the right decision about your career? Because honestly, sometimes it's pretty difficult. What if you think you know what you want, only to make the change, and then it doesn't work out. I got to talk to someone that has done that, they've been there, they've done that, they've got the teaser.

Louise McNee 01:44

So I'm a Commercial Manager. I've just started working for a great company. It's actually a radio station here in Australia. So it's a completely different industry than I've worked in before.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:56

Louise is a Brit who relocated to Australia, and now she has a job she loves. But before, it was not great for years, in fact, well, I mean, she had a ton of success in her career. But the only problem was that it wasn't the success she wanted. So she changed jobs. And then did it again. Turns out it didn't work. But let's go way back for just a minute.

Louise McNee 02:19

So I started out, and it's quite a sad story, when somebody asks you, "What you want to be?" when you're little. I don't actually know why, but I said, "I wanted to be an accountant."

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:31

Really? That is... Are you the only one in the world that said that when you were little?

Louise McNee 02:38

I believe so and I don't know whether I should admit to it. I think I was about age 6 and my background, I'm the first in my family to go to university and to do professional qualifications. I don't really know where this idea came from, but I used to enjoy counting, my mom and dad used to collect copper coins, and I used to enjoy counting them, so I don't know where that came from.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:05

That's amazing.

Louise McNee 03:07

It's quite sad. I didn't want to be... any of those other exciting jobs that people want to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:14

The ones people that I don't know, I want to be an astronaut. I want to be a firefighter. I want to be a doctor. I want to.... whatever else. You know what, I said accounting and jest. I actually know a bunch of people that absolutely love accounting. I don't personally and I don't have the strengths that are very suitable for accounting but I think that's super cool and I love how unique that is that, you know, 8 years old, like, I want to be an accountant.

Louise McNee 03:42

I probably could have told you what one did. Yeah, that's how I started. So I kind of, I did, you know, business studies at university I went through, and I had a very linear career path. And it's probably wasn't a huge amount of thought into my path. And I mean that in terms of, I was just in that traditional, you get a job, you work hard, you get a promotion, you do a slightly different job and that's kind of what I've done. So I started off studying Chartered Management Accountant and I just moved through roles, you know, with job descriptions of management accountant, financial accountant and yeah I just did that. Every move was a promotion and a chance to gain new skills. But over the last 15 years or so, I've pretty much been in the same career, just moving from, I don't do any day to day transactions stuff now, so I've moved from having to actually make sure that P&L is okay or looking at balance sheets. I hate that. That's not where my motivation lies, so thankfully that's all moved away, that's been learned, done, help me to be where I am today and now it's moving towards the strategic and the real business conversations.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:08

When did you realize, I'm curious. Like where along the way did you have some of those realizations that, you know, going from, hey, I'm 8 years old and want to be an accountant, moving into it and starting to realize that, I actually don't really like the balance sheet stuff. Do you remember any specific moments where you had that realization?

Louise McNee 05:27

No... I just think looking back at those... I just knew that there was part of my job that really frustrated me. And there is probably no specific moment and it's probably maybe only over the last three to four years that I've really thought about, "why do I get frustrated" or "what's not motivating me." And then it's kind of, I just don't like that day to day. Because the situation may change, the industry may change, but what you're actually doing doesn't change. So for me, I just got really bored.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:05

So after you recognized that you were getting bored then, what happened from there? Because you says, you sounded like, you know, that was three or four years ago at this point, and what ended up happening from there in your career as you acknowledged, hey look, this kinda sucks and I don't want to do this forever, it might be somebody's gig but it's probably not where I want to spend the vast majority of my time. What happened at that point?

Louise McNee 06:35

The first time I started thinking about this it probably, or definitely wasn't the way I think about it now. So it was like, okay, this isn't for me. It's not happening to me. Let's just go and do it somewhere else. Oh it's going to be completely different in a new business. So I had an opportunity to work for a company which the role never existed before. So it was a startup element of a huge corporate global company and they never needed somebody locally to look at the stuff that I look at. So I kind of thought that that would be a nice avenue to move away, try something different and see if I could you know crack that wall myself and make it do what I want to do. And I was promised that it would be a mix of the transactional and strategic. So I was like, this is great. You know it's the perfect opportunity for me to get that experience and really opt what I can say to people that this is what I do and really proves that I do more than the typical accountant. It didn't actually work out that way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:51

I was gonna ask you how that happened in reality. It sounds like there's another shoe dropping here someplace.

Louise McNee 07:58

Yeah. I think, you know, and this is a huge line for me, as well, and it has really made me since when I've had interviews with other company. It really made me go to that for jobs, you interview the company as well, they don't just interview you. And the lesson for me that really helped, in fact that I really needed to draw down into bit more detail, because while the intention was there, they just went up the stage, right to have that person who was ready to do what I wanted to do and which had kind of done throughout my career, you know, it's always been a part of my role to do the challenging, the asking the questions, the looking at things a slightly different way. The day to day dragged me down more than I thought it would and more than they thought it would as well. And that, it also wasn't a very good environment. And it's the first time I think I've been in an environment I've really struggled with. A lot of people have been working together for a long time. I've been in similar industries for a long time. And so their thought patterns with, kind of automatically convened. And so you know, I come in, I've worked for multiple different industries, I've changed jobs quite regularly. And so I come in with a whole new different set of thoughts and ideas and ways of seeing things and I don't think they were quite ready for some of my questions.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:34

So you'd infiltrated the club and you've got all of these new different experience. And everything else that goes along with it. And at that point in time, it sounds like they were less than what you'd hoped for receptive. Is that fair to say?

Louise McNee 09:51

That's fair to say, yes. So that was the first time that I let... career is very important to me. It's probably... and I realized this after working with Lisa over the last year or so, I put so much weight on my career, it kind of defined me in a way. And I think some of that might be because of my upbringing. In fact I'm the only one to have done this thing so... and nobody else is going to feel this way but I've put it on me that I had to be great at this, I had to know what I was doing. Now I have to constantly, you know, progress. And that I would just be this one that had it all sorted. This was the first time I went, "oh. I don't actually like this. And I don't know if I want to be doing this anymore."

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:43

That is so interesting. If I might ask you about that for just a second because I think it's fascinating that when we, and I very much, I've done this a lot of different times of my life too where, I will define who I am in some ways by what it is that I'm doing at that particular time. Often it is also with my career. And it's interesting how that can cause you to, in some cases, like stay in a place longer than you probably should have. I'm curious, was that what happened there as well? Because it sounds like at some point you recognize that. But, how did you think about that once you started to realize that, hey this is... this definition of myself is causing some less desirable pieces?

Louise McNee 11:34

Yeah there's probably two things to it. One is, you know, you just tell yourself suck it up.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:42

Yeah, absolutely.

Louise McNee 11:43

You're in a really good position compared to other people, you know, your salary is great, you're working for big name companies, you've had a progression. When you go and speak to people, it's taken me a long time to kind of be able to... be proud of my achievements and be able to sell them to people rather than complain in them. And so it kind of, "oh, just what are you complaining about?" This is just, you've got it all. Don't just get over it, it just must be a phase. Go in three. And then the other side of that is, I just really did not know what the option was or what I wanted. So that was one of the hardest things. And so even from this role I moved again to another company and did almost exactly the same role. I still went through that. It must be the company. It's the company that's making me feel this way. Not the actual role. I just did not know what else to do, I did not know if there was another career out there for me. I did not know... I didn't know how to get out of it. So I just stayed in it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:57

What was that like? Because that's, you know, still semi recent for you. What was that like being in that particular place where you didn't know but realized that something's wrong?

Louise McNee 13:13

Yeah, really hard because I happened to get in the role afterwards. So this was two roles in a row that I was having these feelings and I was so trapped. And it really impacted, you know I'm normally a happy bubbly person. My friends say that I'm always up for a laugh, I'm the one that can have, you know, will try and look on the positive side. I went a complete opposite. I was a nightmare. I wasn't married at the time but my poor husband, I've never cried so much because I just felt completely trapped in not knowing what to do. And as well as, I know my pride myself on being the tough one. For me to just... I just... and I couldn't even tell him what point why I was crying. Because when you're trying to articulate to people why you're feeling, how you are feeling and if they're trying to give examples, I find a lot... they sound really minor when you're trying to give examples because it's hard to explain to people why you feeling the way you are. It's just, when you add it all together in a big bootcamp, it's obviously making you feel so bad. But I found it really hard to not only understand myself but also try to explain to other people. So I felt like I was in a cycle of, I didn't have anybody or I felt like I wasn't explaining to people well enough so they could help me. If that makes sense.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:55

Well, it's hard to understand. I mean, let's be honest, even when you're in it and you're experiencing it, it's hard to understand for yourself to really truly get what's going on, let alone be able to help other people understand as well, because in some ways too especially if you have done well and you have been continuously moving up the ranks, you've done a lot of things that most people would look at from the outside and say, "Wow. She got an amazing life and career" and everything else along those lines. And it is difficult to be able to articulate that in a way that really helps people understand what's going on from the inside looking out.

Louise McNee 15:46

Yeah. Especially because people, everybody gets days right, they hate their jobs, or things are not going well, or they might be lower than they normally are. It's just hard to kind of tell people that that's how you feel almost every minute of every day. And I felt like my energy is just taken all of my energy just to get through the day. Never mind thinking about what I wanted to be doing and how to get out of it. That was way past of me. It was such hard work to get up in the morning, get in the car, drive to work, do a full day at work, get home and feel like I had managed to get through the day.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:25

We see this really interesting phenomenon as we've worked with people over the years and we see that for that exact reason, it really starts to compound and actually it turns an already complex and frustrating problem into an even much larger and more complex one too, because not only are you doing exactly what you described, like you're in a role where it's totally zapping your energy. And at the same time, it's difficult to be able to explain it to other people, understand what is going on, but then even trying to think about what to do about it after you've already spent day after day after day where your energy is zapped and it's taking all of those pieces of you then it turns into this bit of a cycle where... and we call this "The Stuck Cycle" again and again. But I'm curious, what happened where you decided, look I've got to do something differently and how did you begin to get out of this?

Louise McNee 17:24

Yeah. I think I've always been a pretty, my personality, I've always been really big into self development, doing other things, challenging myself, so I do naturally have that mindset of, I don't like to sit and complain about stuff and not do something about it. That's just me. I think one of the and it's quite this being completely open and it's quite comfortable for me to be open. I was out for dinner with my husband let say, we weren't married then but we were planning a wedding. I was crying in the restaurant. And he's like, "This is not what life is. This is not, you know, we were trying to plan the wedding. Got so many exciting things to be looking forward to. Why you're crying in a public restaurant? Embarrassing me" and, you know, my poor husband didn't know what to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:23

It sounds like, that is the ultimate test, by the way. Clearly you've got a good guy.

Louise McNee 18:32

Yeah. He's been very good. And I think it's very hard for him as far. Because when we met, and I have always portrayed that I've got things sorted. Career is really important and he saw a change from the person he met to somebody who was really the strong, knew where she was going, had everything in her sights, enjoyed life to this person's, "why are you crying again?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:02

Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

Louise McNee 19:03

He still married me. So thankfully, he's definitely a good one.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:09

That's funny. There's a test, might be hard to duplicate that exact test but if you find yourself in that place and they react this way, you know, you've got a good one.

Louise McNee 19:22

And then, talking him, you know, he really tried to understand. He does a similar role to me now and he came through in a different way. He did the audit background. I've never done audit. So I think, in one way, it was harder for him to understand because he just thought, while he was having the same experience as me, but it wasn't impacting him in the way that it was impacting me. And I just got to that point, and I thought, this is not me. This is... I've been crying on friends, I've been crying on Mark, down the line. But I can remember Lisa and I had to walk in a few sessions booked in. And I just derailed it completely because the minute she said, "hello" I burst out crying.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:10

So to give a little bit of context. At some point along the way as you recognize that you wanted to make changes, we got the pleasure of working with you. And Lisa, who's one of the coaches on our team, and you hear Lisa's story actually back in Episode 147. You got to work with Lisa and through our Career Change Bootcamp program, right?

Louise McNee 20:33

Yes, I did. And it took me a while to get to the point of asking for help.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:43

What did you perceive as the hardest part to get to that point of asking for help? Like you're talking about.

Louise McNee 20:50

So I think for me, it's just... I thought I had to figure it all out myself, you know, it's that kind of, thought verbatim, saying to somebody, I don't actually know and being open and so for me, I listened to the podcast on my way to and from work. I listen, you know, and re-thinking, yeah this sounds really great. This is something I definitely need. But actually you know, writing the email or making that step to actually say, I need this, was somehow really hard for me. So I remember having a, as I said, I've also got that fundamental part of me that doesn't just like to let things carry on. Once I know something needs to be changed, I will kind of know I need to change it. And there was one of my younger brother, he's just a few years younger than me, but he said something to me once, which I always resonated with me. He said, "things might not work out the way you want them to work out but you've never not done what you wanted to do. You've always found a way. You've just got to be remember that it might be a different way to what you wanted it to be." And that ,you know, I don't know if my brother knows how much that resonated with me and stick with me. And so for me, that was... that right. Okay, I know I need to change. I know I need help. I can't do this on my own, you know what, I have to let my, pride maybe it's not the right word, but I have to let that go a little bit and say to somebody, "I need help." So I actually took, I think I had a few conversations where I got in touch and discussed working on career change bootcamp and then I got a little bit of a cold feet and I backed off. And I went on holiday and then just the thought of actually going back to work after that holiday, so I can't do it. I've been away for two weeks, now I'm really need to be serious about this now and do something about it. And that's when I finally thought right, I'm committed, I'm going to get some help and that's when I signed up for a career change bootcamp.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:08

That is so interesting. And I think that that is so real world and I appreciate you sharing that because a lot of times that's how it happens for most of us. It happens in stages. It's not like this epiphany at the top of a mountain, I don't know, after whatever and all of a sudden like we know what we're going to do and we know how we're going to get help and we know how we're going to make it all happen and everything else along those lines that really happens in those smaller realizations and then that event leads to another event and another event and then all of a sudden we're at the point where it's like, okay, I've got to do something. But it's all of the other pieces that got you to that point as well. I so appreciate you sharing that. What do you feel like, as you went through and as you started after you made that commitment of, hey I have to do something and I've got to double down on this, what was that like for you? As you made the commitment to making the change and putting even more time and effort into that. What happened from there?

Louise McNee 24:16

Yes. So I think for me and kind of makes sense that after Strengthsfinder, write down my strengths. Once I've actually made the commitment and the ball was rolling, I felt like a weight to be lifted off purely because I was doing something. So rather than sitting in my head, you know, praying going over time, constantly thinking but not know which way to go. Even just a simple act to say, "not okay. this... I have a path. There is a structure to this and I have somebody there to help me through this. It really made me feel like there was a way out of this." So even just the beginning was like, okay, I can do this. It kind of, I was still feeling a bit nervous about opening up then, you know, sometimes you feel like you have to have all the answers. I mean you have to have the right answer. And I didn't. And I still don't have all of the answers.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:13

I wish I had all the answers, that would be fantastic.

Louise McNee 25:17

It's kind of, you know, I had to open, you know, get used to open myself up to that. You know being asked a question and not knowing how to answer and having that awkward, "I actually don't know this is going to taking me a long time to think about it." Knowing that there was a structure in the path, there was actually activities to take and also knowing that I really felt like I had someone in my corner. You know it was somebody completely understood what I was going through. So when you're talking to somebody like Lisa and the rest of your team, you don't have to go through the preamble of "why you're feeling the way you're feeling" they just get it, you know, you've worked with so many different people, you've had the same thought yourself. So it kind of cuts out a lot of the initial, you know, introduction of why are you doing this. And you can start off on the whys and you know the reasons why, or all the actual real details that are making you feel the way you feel to get you... become and get into it straight away which I think was great because once I thought I was actually doing something, you know, one is... like execution is one of my actually moving forward and getting things done and focus and finishing the task at the end of the day. That's what I figured out, what makes it work and it doesn't matter what task it is. It could be anything.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:46

You're gonna make it happen.

Louise McNee 26:47

Yes. I feel like I've been productive in the day and then that's me going to bed feeling like I've had a good day. And so the program helped me to know, okay, there's stuff to do, you know, there's a... you know, the StrengthsFinder test, the exercises, planning your day, what your ideal day would be, you know, what part of your job do you like, what parts you don't like. And then even taken it further than that. And, you know, outside of your career as well. What do you enjoy doing? I went through a couple of different notebooks. I just wrote everything down. And it took me a while to get used to it but looking back now, I liked the fact that Lisa would ask me a question and I wouldn't be able to answer it and I'd have to go away and really think about it rather than...

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:45

What's an example of that? I'm super curious. Do you remember any examples of that? What's one time where that happened where Lisa had asked you a question and you had, you're like, "I don't know, let me think about that."?

Louise McNee 27:58

Just the... first one is, "what would you do if you weren't doing what you were doing now?" Complete blank for me, complete and utter blank. And that meant I really had to go down into the detail of what it is. I didn't dislike the entire of my role in what I was doing day to day. I had to get down into, it wasn't specifically task related, the task related part is the easy part. I think you can always say, quite easily, I don't like doing that particular task in a day whether it be standard reporting or admin type work or whatever it may be. It more the interactions with people and what is fundamentally are not working and to be honest, one of the things I only just clicked with me recently and Lisa probably told me at the time that, you know, when your brains working overtime it's taken a while to click in, because I'm so... my strengths are so, you know, I'm in the learner side. I feel like I have to learn constantly. Doing the same role but for different companies wasn't enough for me because even though I was learning about different industries there was no real different thought process.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:30

That's so interesting.

Louise McNee 29:32

It's the same discussions.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:35

So for you, then was it that, it was not the right continuous scope or not the right level of challenge in terms of learning or not the right... What was it about that type of learning as opposed to the type of learning that is really good for you?

Louise McNee 29:58

Because it was... there was... I felt like there was no real development in the learning. So it was... I was learning about a different situation that when you are doing the role that I do, your brain works in a certain way and my brain was always working in that way. It was, find the problem, find the root cause, see who it's impacting, see which people you need to talk to to get it changed, what are your options. And so while the situations may have been very different it was the same process of going through. So you might get a few curve balls from a technical point of view or something different but it doesn't change the thought process for you. Did I explain that very well?

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:53

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And I think that I wanted you to dive into that, one, because I'm always curious about other people's perspectives but I think that's something that's a bit of a commonality with many of the people that listen to Happen To Your Career. A lot of us are very very interested in learning and need that measure of learning in different ways and actually in different ways and a lot of cases compared to the average person. So I appreciate you taking the time to detail that out. So here's a different question though and I'm super curious, you know, you ended up working with Lisa and had a lot of these realizations along the way. What caused you or what do you feel like allowed you to make the most headway on this? Aside from some of the realizations that you had, because now you're in this new role and it didn't happen by magic. It was a bunch of hard work, even before we hit the record button, you said, when you are in the moment it really just feels like a lot of hard work in some ways, right?

Louise McNee 32:07

Yes. I think the real realization and this was where Lisa was worth her weight in gold. It was the realization that I don't have to go from a bad situation to the perfect situation straight away. I just wasn't in that place, you know, going back to my mental and emotional state trying to do. So, I did go and I spoke to 10 or 20 people in the areas I thought I wanted to do in their companies, I wanted to work with. I was doing all of that. And that is actually, I'll probably come back to that later, that was really really beneficial to me but it wasn't getting me into a good place. And so a conversation with Lisa was like, "how do we get you into a place where you can then start thinking about that? Because going from that to that is not working." My brain could not cope with the thought process. I needed to get out of my mental state where I was at the moment, I needed to get out of a company and a role that wasn't making me fall short or was perpetuating this negative vibe. And so that was where the planning of, okay, so what's really important to you, really came into play. So for me, there was a couple of key buckets. So when you look at the culture of the company, location of the company, whether there is a different type of industry, whether you know flexibility plays a part. And also for me, I have such a huge social conscience. So I do quite a fair bit of mentoring through charities for either younger females who might find it tough and also I got one charity that works here in Australia. It's the opposite. It's the overachievers. And these are just new for everybody..

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:27

Amazing. What's the name of that one? I'm so curious now.

Louise McNee 34:29

It's called Aim for the Stars and they give grants or sponsorships to females who are doing really amazing things in the field and it could be any field. It could be musicians, scientists. They did have one lady will be the first commercial female pilot in Australia. There was a particular thing that she wanted to hit the sport. Because these people are so good at what they do, I think they realize that they still need help. They still need someone to talk through with, things with and you know they have those, they maybe have doubts more than other people because they are aware of what they need to do. So I... that for me, that social conscience and in a company where is a big through. The work with Lisa really help me narrow down and so we kind of, we decided that the best route for me, at the time, was to get myself into a really good company that ticked off those items and then we can potentially think about longer term, see how I feel about the role in a new company that does tick off those items. It can have everything flow through. I went to speak to lots of different people and I spoke to people in charities and foundations and worked up really quickly that wasn't the avenue for me because they have a lot of transactional day to day, frustrations that would just leave me from having that scenario of somewhere to somewhere else. Plus the pay and salary isn't exactly where I needed it to be. I had conversations with people who, we were started talking about where I might want to go and there's one lady who asked me to create a page deck and she really worked with me, and Lisa worked on with me as well to kind of create this five or six page deck that would explain who I am, what I want, very succinctly. But also in the most effective strong way. All these things really help get towards, you know, I was applying for jobs and I was going into some interviews and it all helped me sell myself better in the interview but also help me to recognize, "I don't think I want to work here." I'm going to be moving again to a company where it may not be the right fit for me. And so at the end of last year, I've been in my current role for three months now. At the end of last year this opportunity came up and it kind of excited me from a complete perspective, ends up being a radio station. It's got that different vibe and so. I've got myself into a situation now where I probably ticked off five of my main things and boxes of what I need; company, location, the culture, needs to be for me. So the culture at the radio station is amazing and everybody's really friendly. This sounds so small but I was in the kitchen making myself a cup of tea and people were coming up introducing themselves to me saying, "Welcome. We haven't seen you before." Whereas in past companies, I've been in a situation where people are just walking past each other without smiling.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:11

Straight on by. That is... So here's what I think people might gloss over as they're listening to this or might not realize is that to be able to get to that level of specificity in terms of what you are looking for in a role to be able to recognize that in advance, "hey this organization and this opportunity really does tick off a huge amount of these boxes especially some of the most important ones to me." It is no small effort to get there and I think it's, I wanted to call that out. Just one, to say kudos to you because it is the hard work that most people on the face of the planet will not do because it is difficult. And it is challenging and it is thought work and it is hard to do alone too, let alone even with somebody, working with somebody like Lisa makes it possible. But it's still a challenge right. So I don't want to let that to be lost on people. But at the same time, you know really really nice work recognizing that and I love what you pointed out earlier that, you know what, it's about each individual step and it can't be about going from going from the place where you're at to the absolute perfect thing. One because there is no absolute perfect thing out there. Perfection is the enemy of a lot of different things. And in fact, we just, on a recent episode with Caroline, another coach on our team, episode 226, we dug into that bit on perfectionism. But here's what I'm curious about, you know after going through all of that, what advice would you offer, people that are in that same place that you've been where maybe they've changed roles a couple of times and and found themselves close to back in the same place or maybe they're realizing for the first time that I really do want something more and it is ok for me to want something different than where I'm at. What advice would you give those people?

Louise McNee 40:21

I would say, you have to take the pressure off yourself. And it's easier said than done sometimes. We all put the pressure on ourselves. I think in a lot of situations is not the people putting the pressure on us, it's us putting the pressure on ourselves. Take the pressure off but really think about, I found... because you have to think about not just the wrong but the people, you've got to think about everything because I remember when I did, you know, what is your ideal day look like. I felt like I was being a bit spoiled by saying certain things. Now, I want to be able to wake up what's the time I wanna wake up. And I want to be able to have a cup of tea in bed before I go to work and really get down into those details because it's not those... for me, I found that, it's not those details of search that will make me you, you know, have a cup of tea before you go to work. It is not going to make you figure out what's going on. You find a pattern, in what you actually will need in your day to get, you know, through the day in the most positive, fulfilled way. For me, I needed to know what kind of people I wanted to be around. And so, yeah, take the pressure off, really get down to the detail. And one of the things for me was kind of realizing that, potentially, which is so different from where I was, one of me, I can find making career, everything. I've now realized that for me, career can't be everything.

Scott Anthony Barlow 42:21

Interesting. I would love to wrap up on that. Why is that? What is it? What does it need to be in your particular life?

Louise McNee 42:36

Career for me, my role is, it's the fundamentals of the way it's what's going to pay me to make me be able to move. It's going to have a bit of structure in my day. Someone will give me a bit stracture of my day. It will get me around people. I do need to be around people. I need to have these conversations. I'm not one who could, I love working from home every now and again on my own. But I really need that connection. But it's, for me, knowing especially because I'm in the same role that I've been doing over the past couple of years, it gives me that comfort of, I know what I'm doing. I guess, I'm going to get new challenges. It's probably more challenges of how to influence people or how to make people go a certain way or think about things differently. And it gives me stability to then experience and explore other parts of my life that are really important to me. As I said, you worked on that social conscience. I'm going to pick up another mentee, if I've got the time, if I've got a role that, you know, at the moment, thankfully I can do, you know, not quite but I can do 9 to 5. So that gives me so much time then to spend trying to help other people. At one point, I thought would be good to go down as a career that I don't think it's the right career for me. But I can still get it in my life now because I've got the time and I've got the energy. From the learning perspective, I've always had it on my list, I used to be so fluent in French but haven't spoke French for about 15 years. We are going on holiday to France in September. So I now have a goal. I want to be fluent by September. So I know have the time to speak and know directions.

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:38

That is... valuable.

Louise McNee 44:40

I feel like I've got myself into a situation where I'm in a healthy state and I've realized that I can get fulfillment through other areas and not just through work. I've got the time to spend with my husband and with my friends who are in Austalia. My family is in the UK, so I have to make a lot of effort to keep in touch with family and friends. But I'm in a position now where I can do that and I can feel good about what I'm doing and I'm getting what I need, mentally, you know, I'm learning, I've got the comfort of working in a role I feel comfortable doing. It's a new company, so I'm still in that stage of everything is sort and kind of settling in. I actually feel like there is three or four different streams of my life now that I can work in and my company is setting up a foundation, social foundation. So you never know where that might go. I can hopefully spend a lot of time towards that as well that links my desire to do good in the world, in the workplace.

Scott Anthony Barlow 45:53

I absolutely love that. And I so appreciate you pointing that out, too. And that mindset change is huge in terms of looking that, not just your career as being the thing, but having it enable all the parts of your life, and having those work together. So I just want to say congratulations, first of all, because I've only gotten to congratulate you by email so far. And this is amazing to be able to have the opportunity to talk to you about this. And I so appreciate you taking the time to share with everybody else. And I know that so many people are going to benefit from this. Nice work, by the way.

Louise McNee 46:36

Thank you. Yeah, as I said, it's anyone you step back and realize how much work you've done that you can then go "huh. I've done this, this is good."

Scott Anthony Barlow 46:52

If this is not your first episode of the Happen To Your Career podcast, you've probably heard somebody on here that their first step to work that they absolutely love, that fits their strengths, and they're excited about, was going through our free eight day mini course to figure out what fits you. And we've had now well over 30,000 people have that as their beginning step to identifying what they want in their lives. And you can do the exact same thing. And if you're interested in that, it has some really amazing questions to get you started in becoming clear on what you want and what you need in your career. And it's a great way to kick it off and determine what is most important for you, moving forward. You can learn what you're great at. So you can stop wasting time in your job, and start working in your career, even identify some of the internal blockages that are keeping you from fulfilling work, and wealth and career success. And begin narrowing down what you should be doing for work that's fulfilling to you. All you have to do is go to figureitout.co that's figureitout.co and get started today, enter your email and voila will send you the very first lesson. Head on over there, figureitout.co or you can text HAPPEN to 44222 that's HAPPEN to 44222.

Scott Anthony Barlow 48:27

Our team, every single day, we get tons of questions about everything you can imagine to do with careers. What should I do differently on my applications to get the interviews that I want? How do I narrow down the list of stuff that I'm interested in to make into a career? How do I translate my skills into something that would be amazing for a job or career opportunity? And here's the thing, we absolutely love that we get all these questions. It's the reason why we do what we do, we'd love to be able to help. And at the same time, what we've learned is that most of the time when we get these questions, they're just barely scratching the surface of what you need to know, to make really big career changes to design a career in a life that you love. And many of the things that you want if you're listening to this show right now, so we thought, okay, well, we asked many of our students in our podcast guests, what advice would you give other people that want to make a really big career change to meaningful work? And we do that at the end of many of our episodes, we do that when people go through our programs and our bootcamps, and they've made a huge change. And here's the thing, these are people that have been there, they've done that, they've made the journey. And we thought it would be really incredibly valuable to take the advice that each of these people have given when they're on the other side and they know all the things that you need to do and how to do them and what they experienced and what worked and what didn't work. So in this particular episode, we've taken that advice from six different people, most of them students of ours, and we share the things that you wouldn't even think to ask about what it really takes to make a big career change. 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.

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What Career Fits You?

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Work You Love: From Hobby To Ideal Career

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If you’ve listened to the podcast for a while, you’ve probably heard me say more than once, that knowing what you want is the key to making a successful career change. But, for most of us, figuring out what we want can be difficult. We spend so much of our professional lives doing what we NEED to do, that we often lose sight of what we WANT to do. Or, just as often, we know what we want to do, but we don’t think we can do it for a living, so we don’t even bother to ask. We assume that if we enjoy something too much, it must not be possible to do it for a living. Not true!

This week on the podcast, I chat with Chris Bene, a true HTYC success story. Chris loves cars and loves helping people. So, combining these two interests, he loves to help people decide what car to buy. Compact, midsize or SUV? Front wheel drive or all wheel drive? Internal combustion, hybrid or electric? Chris loves to talk about this stuff. And when he participated in the HTYC Career Change Boot Camp, and really drilled down on what he wanted to do, the answer was clear. He wanted a job helping people find their ideal car. But he couldn’t do that for a living… or could he??

What you’ll learn

  • How you can identify what you truly want from your career.
  • Why it’s important to focus on what you want, in order to land your ideal role.
  • How you can turn a hobby into a career that you love.

Success Stories

The role is meeting my expectations… totally owning the marketing function. And luckily the founder/president is always forward-looking – he just presented us a huge strategy doc for the next year. So there will be an opportunity for us to grow beyond our initial audience, which is great. I applied (against conventional wisdom!) and went through a lengthy interview process. I did use the resume/cover letter chapter quite a bit to customize what I used to respond to the ad. I also found that using the Interview chapter was super helpful in formulating “SBO” oriented responses, and I even used some of them in the interview. Having those “case study” type responses was really helpful and I believe cemented my candidacy. BTW – they hired me completely over Skype and phone! I never met anyone from my company (in person) until last week at a conference.

Erica Fourrette, Marketing Director

The way you guys have it laid out it just, it makes it easier to move through the process, because the steps are laid out such a way that it's clear. It's that extra support to help you move through the process that helps you move through the program.

Kristy Wenz, Chief Communications Officer, United States/Canada

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I've completed Figure Out What Fits, and wanted to express my appreciation for you for putting the course together and sharing so many valuable thoughts and concepts through it. I feel that I have gotten value from the money invested, and am so glad that I happened upon HTYC!

Anne-Marie Raymond, Functional Health Coach, Australia

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Chris Bene 00:03
When senior leadership internally has a different avenue to go than the salespeople, who are business development, people that are actually trying to make things happen. That's not a good scenario.

Introduction 00:20
This is the Happen To Your Career podcast, with Scott Anthony Barlow. We help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what it does and make it happen. We help you define the work that's unapologetically you, and then go get it. If you're ready to make a change, keep listening. Here's Scott. Here's Scott. Here's Scott.

Chris Bene 00:44
Basically I've been doing this for free Scott, since I've been in high school.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:49
That's Chris Bene. He lives in Vancouver, Washington, which if you don't know is across the river from Portland, Oregon. For a long time, he was involved in business development in the corporate travel industry. However, he had this hobby he called car consulting.

Chris Bene 01:05
And it just started off that, people would say, well I'm thinking about this type of car and I would start to talk to them and do that. But I really always hesitated from going into the car industry because I'm just going to say it outright and very track sleazy industry that people they've been through the strategy of spending five to eight hours in a dealership just fishing drag through the mud on buying a car it shouldn't be that hard and it's actually a strategy of theirs that they're trying to use to wear you down to where is your conscience buy this car from them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:10
Now I want you to fast forward here for 10 months after Chris had been working on his career change, here he is again.

Chris Bene 01:50
What I'm going to be doing is I’m going to be a consultant for AAA Oregon, and they have this services they call “AutoSource” and it's a car buying service. and what's great about it Scott is that they’re able to talk to me and I’m not a dealer. They'll be able to talk to me as a consultant just to talk him through the types of cars that they're looking for or possibly, like I said, selling and just to give them some great insight information on that. This is something I would, it would not be a job. And this is what you talked about Scott, it's really not a job that I'm going to, it's just something that I've liked to help people with. And I feel I'm pretty effective with that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:32
Okay, let's break down. What led up to this change and how this hobby that he now gets to do for a career actually happened? Here's Chris, with where he started out in his career.

Chris Bene 02:44
And it just started off that, you know people would say, well I'm thinking about this type of car and I would start to talk to them and do that. But I really always hesitated from going into the car industry because I'm just going to say it outright and very track sleazy industry that people they've been through the strategy of spending five to eight hours in a dealership just fishing drag through the mud on buying a car it shouldn't be that hard and it's actually a strategy of theirs that they're trying to use to wear you down to where is your conscience buy this car from them. And I think this is such an option through this AAA service that you don't have to do that, even if you want to test drive the car, I can bring the cars to our building and you can come there, you don't have a dealer or a salesperson right in your back while you're checking out these vehicles. So it gives a great option for people that are just... a lot of them, very adverse to going to an automobile dealership to purchase a car.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:48
You know what I think it's so cool here though is that, as you're talking about that like anybody who's listening to this right now can hear that is something that you're excited about and that is an industry and an area where it badly needs people that are really legitimately excited about that, versus as you said there and using different type of tactics to drag people through the mud and that's no good and I don't think anybody really wants that at the end of the day and that's very much an industry that needs more people that are aligned with what they want and need in excited about it in ways that other people aren't. So congratulations first of all, that's awesome.

Chris Bene 04:24
Thank you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:25
So here's my question, though, obviously, haven't always been in this role or are just going to start here pretty quickly. And prior to that, when you first came to us, we first got to have a conversation and encounter you and get to know you a little bit then you're in a totally different situation. So I'm curious what led up to you wanting to make a change in the first place? What happened throughout your career that led you to here?

Chris Bene 04:51
Well, my career is pretty much a lot of aspects of business travel and people don't know what that is, but you know there's leisure travel of course when you're going on cruises and doing a lot of adventure travel, things like that. But what I did was work with corporations, and typically senior management in corporations and putting together programs for their travelers, for their sales folks, for their engineers, for their technology people that would be traveling and then… So there's programs out there, Scott, that the corporations need, like, here locally, of course, the ones that come to mind are the large ones like Nike, Adidas, Freightliner all those huge companies have a lot of people traveling. And they want to save money on that right? They don't want to spend top dollar on everything from an airline ticket to a hotel, to a rental car. And so there's a lot of programs that we can put together for them even driven now more by safety, more than price to make sure that we know where Scott Barlow is today at this time.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:00
Oh, interesting.

Chris Bene 06:00
You know, on a trip. Yeah. Are you in Boston? Are you in New York? And where are you at specifically? So it's not big brother tracking you but it's really the safety of you if there would be something that would happen in Boston, that we'd need to track you down pretty quickly, and we would have that information out today. So I was on the business development side for that for many years. I've sold software to that program so I'm very familiar with B2B software. Typically, the old days, it was called SAS software-as-a-service. And so I have a lot of… I'm very comfortable, and putting together a value package for an item. And on my hobby side, it was automobiles. And on my professional side, it was software and professional services for business travel.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:50
So you did those for quite a number of years. What was the impetus for no longer wanting to be in that area?

Chris Bene 06:57
It's called “change of leadership”. And I know many of our listeners today have gone through, or can see change of leadership, and that's what my impetus was for signing up for the career change bootcamp, because I saw the new leadership coming through and they were on a different plane than I was, and I'm not talking about an airplane, I’m talking about a plane of thought. And I was a senior director of business development for the company. And so when senior leadership internally has a different avenue to go than the salespeople, who are business development development people that are actually trying to make things happen. That's not a good scenario. So, I saw this coming, took your 9 week class, very informative and really helped me to work together a plan on what was going to happen and actually did happen at the end of January, I was let go from the company and then so I was already on a head start just because of your class, Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:59
Interesting. I don't think I quite realize the timing of that as all of that was happening. So what prompted you, as you recognize, okay, there is a different set of leadership, different set of values. Obviously, there's no longer alignment, you have that realization and the foresight to recognize that that meant, you better do something about it, which is awesome. A lot of us have a tendency to, including myself, delay on that. I have been in the situation where that has occurred and I'm like "Nah, maybe, maybe it'll be okay" and I stay too long in some ways, but you recognize this, you saw it coming and you decided that you wanted to do something about it. So why did you feel at that point in time that you needed a plan? What was lacking or what did you feel like you needed in order to really make this change effective for you in ways that you wanted?

Chris Bene 08:51
Scott, great question. And when I think back to it, it's that I really did want to do something different because I had been in this industry for a while. And yes, to tell you I have a very strong network. But most of the network was in the industry, was in the business travel industry. And especially talking with Lisa Lewis, my career coach, I was able to get some thoughts going along some other lines of business that was turned out to be, one of these, is car consulting, the automobile consulting, really had me starting to think about that. And so my network that I had built up, I mean, I'll be honest with you Scott, I've told four people know, that are in the business travel industry during this journey. Because it just, as you know, with so many people talking in so many different industries, it just doesn't… it's not right anymore. I sent my daughters to private school the whole way through there, they both graduated. So that was kind of done and we just had reached some many milestones and my wife gave me a green light that I could get out of business travel and that was a big one.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:02
That is an important one, the part of green light.

Chris Bene 10:06
I thought about it. That's once you get the green light, then I'm going, “Okay, we're going to move here.” And so, the rest of the story is kind of along the lines of during career change bootcamp, one of the weeks was focusing on hobbies and interest that you could possibly turn into a business. And so when I was talking to Lisa about that, she goes "Right. You sound very knowledgeable about that" I said, “Well, I've been doing it awhile, and I've been having a lot of fun at it.” and she said, "Well what’s really key? I mean we talked about a lot of things but really high integrity." Like I said, I didn't want to be, quote, a used car salesman. I didn't want to do that. And so when I started looking this AAA showed up and they even advertised a 99.3 completely satisfied with their client’s figure. 99.3!?

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:00
Wow.

Chris Bene 11:00
And actually, they're the highest rated service from AAA Oregon and there's a lot of services, of course, in underneath that umbrella. So that impressed me. Once I was able to talk to the general manager and I actually had two conversations with him. The first one was kind of interrupted and so I actually had two telephone conversations that were set up as informational interviews, which I started out right away going, “I do not want a job. I just want to talk to you about how you do these things.” And like I said, we had two great conversations and we just kind of wrapped it up and he's actually giving me the feedback that he goes "Chris, I've talked to a lot of people about these informational interviews because I've never had anybody with the depth of questions that you're asking me about our operation." And I said, "Okay. Well, thank you." And like I said, it went away until almost a year later from me taking that class that I went back and I thought, “This is something I would... it would not be a job.” And this is what you talked about, Scott. It's really not a job that I'm going to. It's just something that I like to help people with and I feel I'm pretty effective with that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:13
It's a whole different feeling. And until you are there it is difficult to describe because it doesn't mean that, like, you're going to get into that role in it doesn't mean like all your problems are going to be solved or anything like that, by any means, that's not what we're talking about. But it is a completely different feeling going and spending much more of your time in those areas that either really are leveraging your strengths and interests. Or they are much more in alignment with what you want and need. And what I'm hearing from you is that this is much more of both of those.

Chris Bene 12:53
Absolutely, and I know with our listeners especially people are in roles, and Scott this is why you probably made this whole Happen to Your Career is that you're in there, you're getting the paycheck, you have bills to pay, everybody has bills to pay, and you're thinking "I'm never going to leave this place. I mean it's terrible, but I'm just going to stay here." That's where I really appreciated. You know that class that I took, the career change bootcamp really helped me throughout the whole curriculum, realized there are other things I can do and let's start going down that path.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:28
I very much appreciate you saying that. I'm curious and I think some of our HTYC listeners might be very curious as well. You know, you talked about what we call test drive conversations and in some ways, they’re a little bit more advanced version of an informational interview and clearly that was the impression that this person had in a variety of different ways and it's for a different purpose for example. So one of the things that you said, I'd love to go back to that for just a minute, cause I think that can be really helpful as people are thinking about or finding themselves in this exact same place and want to do things a bit differently, as they're trying to determine what really is right for them and get to the same type of situation that you are. So for you, why did you say earlier that you declared up front that this was, you weren't necessarily looking for a job? And I heard you mention that just a couple of minutes ago when you were there and you were talking to that person in AAA.

Chris Bene 14:21
I think I just like to be a person that's direct. So I like to put that up front going, I'm not going to ask you for a job at the end of this talk. I mean I put it right up front because that way it puts finding out. I sent an email to him beforehand that I just wanted an informational interview, but I think that's clear once they hear you saying, “That's not my goal right now. I'm just trying to find out information.” So that's why me, Chris Bene, just sent it out ahead of time when I did go through informational interviews, and it did put people at ease. And then once I started in this particular case, once I started asking questions, he knew I wasn't a drive-by job interviewer, that I had really worked at a pretty significant level, not a professional level but significant level with working with automobiles.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:12
For everyone listening a lot of times the next thing people want to know is "What questions did you ask?", and I want to ask you that question too, and I want to preface that just a little bit, because I know from interacting with you that you have a genuine interest in this area, and it comes off very clearly and part of the reason why this is one approach to learn more about a particular area or industry or role, or whatever it might be. And one of the reasons why it can work in building relationships is because you can't really fake that genuine interest part of it. So that almost is a prerequisite but with that in mind, what types of questions did you ask, help people understand a little bit about how this flows in this particular occasion since we already mentioned it.

Chris Bene 15:59
I don't know if you'd call it a flow, Scott, but there were questions. I'm going to go back to the one that I just remember in my mind so much and I just said, "Mr. General Manager, you know, how do you achieve 99.3 percent," I said "I’m doing a lot of customer service, you know, type of roles. I've done this a lot." And I said "That is one of the highest levels I've ever heard of" "Well Chris'’, he said "70-75% of our clientele is either referrals or repeats." and I go "Oh? So they were happy with you the first time and they're coming back third, fourth ,fifth time, to have you consult with them to help them purchase a vehicle" and he said “yes”, and so that opened up a lot of doors and then from there I just kept on asking about how they do things different. So if you say about a flow I wanted to know how they were different than Joe's dealership for Ford or Chevy or Jaguar, or whoever. How were they different? Because I kept on drooling, my main goal was I wanted to feel good about the integrity of that company when I walked out. That was my goal. Yeah, you got to make money and we could talk about salary and we did later on but at this time for information, my key go was ways that they showed integrity.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:28
And I know that you and Lisa, your coach, had spent a lot of time talking about how to make sure that your next role was really within that integrity. So it's not a surprise to me that that was one of the things that you were searching for overall, and even in those types of conversations and questions as well. I am also curious, why do you think that, that conversation where you were going in trying to learn more about what it is that they actually offered and how they were doing some of these things and expressing that legitimate interest, why do you think that left such an impression on them? Because obviously they like almost a year later they ended up hiring you and you never once asked them for a job for all intents and purposes at the beginning stage. So, why do you think that that was such a big deal or why do you think it made such a big deal?

Chris Bene 18:23
A lot of prayers Scott, a lot of prayers, not from me, not only me, but a lot of my friends and a lot of my network. I just really clicked with the General Manager and people know that I mean you and I click but there's sometimes you just go in there and in fact I had this back-up plan with Julie my wife and I had told her "Julie my appointments on Friday at 9:30," and I said "If I call you up by 10 o'clock, I'm saying this is gone. This is another no or another no good and I'm just walking out." Well, this is the one that's recent, not the one a year ago. One recent, two hours later, I gave her a call and she said "I bet you went pretty well." I said yes it is, and I actually had job offer which really shocked her also, and it could have gone three hours Scott. It was that comfort level because I'm always me. At this point, I'm always me. I'm not… right out of college trying to figure out what the whole business world is about. I've been in it for a while and I’m just me because I know that that's the best way to be and I know you have a lot of strategies with interview questions, which is awesome because it's helped me out a lot, especially responses. But as far as just being you when you're in there, there's no better way to be and I knew with this general manager who would be my manager that I can work with him. He did have integrity, he's proven integrity from being in the industry for quite a while to me that this was going to work like just unbelievably great.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:00
I suspect that both in the initial conversation as well as more recent conversations, you being able to go in and ask about and express what you feel is important to you and for all intents and purposes, I don't think I probably felt like this at the moment, but for all intents and purposes, taking a stand on that is one way to think about it. In doing so, being you then I expect that helped it along for them being interested in you too. I could be wrong, but I suspect that them being able to see that that was you and it was obviously genuine and you are legitimately interested in that way that probably moved it along in terms of their desire to have you on their team. Do you think I'm way off base? Feel free to say no.

Chris Bene 20:56
So well, I was just like I said, I was just myself and I felt very comfortable and I feel that we clicked as people and once again, that's my belief on that matter. I'm sure just like I saw things in the General Manager that I liked that we did talk about also. So...

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:16
It’s funny how looking back a lot of this stuff can feels organic people come to us all the time when they're looking for the tips and tricks and techniques and everything else along those lines, but honestly , a lot of what we teach is just how to make those things much more organic and get to real relationships or real value or real situations that feel good to all parties and are good for all parties and I love how you what you have done here, has been a great example of that. But here's another question though Chris, because not everything always went well. This took longer than what you had wanted it too, I think. Is that fair to say?

Chris Bene 21:56
Oh, absolutely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:59
What was harder about going through this type of change for yourself? What was more difficult than what you anticipated?

Chris Bene 22:09
I think being totally human. I think it was the time factor, because it took me 12 months from taking your class , Scott, but from being let go it was a seven-month journey. And some people might say "Man, I've been out a year." Some people might not be out longer than that because of circumstances, but I didn't think it was going to take that long. I mean, of course, I'm very confident, I’m a business development guy and I’m like you, I have a very positive view, that’s one of my strengths. Of course my wife, the realist, said “It’s going to take longer, and you know why? Because…” and I’m gonna open up to kimono here a little bit, I am an older worker and I've been through some of those games already to where I told him, ''No”. I think I told you this already and maybe I did in this interview. I told four different companies “No” that I was offered positions because I knew they weren't the position I was looking for. I knew that. And I'd say three out of the four were in the field that I am a veteran, that I have experience in, that I've worked for a number of people with, including American Express, pretty big names, but it wasn't right. But the ending is a happy ending and I hope to be able to come back in a number of months and tell you how much even better it is than I thought it was going to be.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:38
I am anxiously awaiting that update, Chris, I mean what we talked just a little bit before and you might be able to give me some of that update because we briefly talked about, I think I'm going to be in your area so we'll hopefully get the opportunity to meet up, have coffee everything like that, you can fill me in on what it is like as you're into month one and two. I'm anxiously looking forward to that.

Chris Bene 23:59
That'd be great Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:00
Yes, absolutely. I’m very much looking forward to that. And let me ask you one final question here. For people that find themselves in that same situation, where they recognize for one reason or another that they want to make a change and that there is potentially a much better situation as you pointed out for them out there and something that is a better fit well in a variety of different ways. What advice would you give them? What advice would you give them after making your own journey?

Chris Bene 24:30
Well, and they're not being cliché about it, that really more faith than fear because Scott you know what the people you talk to and work with and your whole team, fear is huge. It's fear of not finding something, it’s fear of changing, fear of change is huge. And that's what I would tell people is that it's going to be a little bit scary, the journey, but it's worth it. Like I said, I didn’t think a year ago, I'd be saying this but you know, I'm a success story, not only your class, but just the journey.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:08
That is amazing and I think that sometimes it's really hard to understand that fully until you've seen all sides of it. But I very much appreciate that advice and it is so true. It really is so true. It's just absolutely fear, I think, is one of the biggest things that has a tendency to cause us not to realize or have things happen for us that we actually want or may want or suspect we might want. And you've just done a really nice job looking that fear in the face, and being able to move beyond any ways, even though it's hard. So congratulations again, sir.

Chris Bene 25:48
Cool. Well, thank you, Scott. And I appreciate you and Lisa and the whole team there and offering the class that did have one key component that booted me out and kept me going. So, thank you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:03
If this is not your first episode of the Happen To Your Career podcast, you've probably heard somebody on here that their first step to work that they absolutely love, that fits their strengths, and they're excited about, was going through our free eight day mini course to figure out what fits you. And we've had now well over 30,000 people have that as their beginning step to identifying what they want in their lives. And you can do the exact same thing. And if you're interested in that, it has some really amazing questions to get you started in becoming clear on what you want and what you need in your career. And it's a great way to kick it off and determine what is most important for you, moving forward. You can learn what you're great at. So you can stop wasting time in your job, and start working in your career, even identify some of the internal blockages that are keeping you from fulfilling work, and wealth and career success. And begin narrowing down what you should be doing for work that's fulfilling to you. All you have to do is go to figureitout.co that's figureitout.co and get started today, enter your email and voila will send you the very first lesson. Head on over there, figureitout.co or you can text HAPPEN to 44222 that's HAPPEN to 44222.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:39
How do you know when you've made the right decision about your career? Because honestly, sometimes it's pretty difficult. What if you think you know what you want, only to make the change, and then it doesn't work out. I got to talk to someone that has done that, they've been there, they've done that, they've got the teaser.

Louise McNee 27:59
So I'm a commercial manager. I just started working for a great company. It's actually a radio station here in Australia. So it's a completely different industry than I've worked in before.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:11
Louise is a Brit who relocated to Australia, and now she has a job she loves. But before, it was not great for years, in fact, well, I mean, she had a ton of success in her career. But the only problem was that it wasn't the success she wanted. So she changed jobs. And then did it again. Turns out it didn't work. But 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.

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Weak Ties: Maximizing Your Network To Land Your Ideal Role

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Friends! How many of us have them? Friends! Ones you can depend on?

Everyone has a network. And here’s a secret… almost everyone thinks their network isn’t big or strong enough to help them land their ideal role. Not true! 

The problem is that most people misunderstand how their network actually works. Studies have shown that it’s not the people closest to us who are the really powerful part of our network — it’s the weak ties, the friends of friends, who truly matter for making things happen. Sociologists call this the “Power of Weak Ties.”

And it makes sense, because the people closest to you probably know many of the same people you do, whereas your weak ties likely know other people beyond your normal networks. These weak ties are your bridge to career change.

On this week’s podcast, I chat with Tanya Malcolm Revell, an HTYC success story who used the weak ties in her network to get an introduction that led to her ideal role.

What you’ll learn

  • Why your network should be tapped into to unlock your ideal role.
  • How to discover the power of weak ties in your network.
  • How to use your network to land your ideal role.

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Tanya Malcolm-Revell 00:01

The job searches were pretty much leading me, I was very overwhelmed and very scattered throughout my searches, not really knowing where to focus or how to focus. And then of course, as I'm looking at the calendar, all of a sudden, a week has gone by, two weeks have gone by, and now than a month, and then two months, three months, and I was getting very bummed out, to say the least.

Introduction 00:30

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:54

Over the years, we've shown you a lot of career changes that most people would consider impossible. We know from being on the inside of these, that it can be really challenging to think about, how on earth someone would make this career change from one drastically different occupation to another or how they might go and get what most people would consider to be a... impossible dream job, and many, many other things between. So that's one of the reasons why we take great pains to show you how it works from the inside. For example, how does someone go from identifying a list of organizations that they might want to work for, and getting an opportunity with their number one company on that list?

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 01:46

I work with Wanderlust and if you're not familiar with them, Wanderlust started as a yoga studio, but now has branched out and produces festivals and events throughout the world.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:57

That's Tanya Malcolm-Revell.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 02:00

I got myself into a position where I am now a part of the production team involved in bringing Wanderlust into Europe and presently into London, into the United Kingdom.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:12

Tanya's story is super interesting because she was trying to find her ideal opportunity in a completely different country. She's from the US, but her husband and her work relocating to London. The way she found her opportunity is even more interesting, especially since she ended up working with her number one organization that she had said "hey, this is where I want to work." So listen close throughout this conversation, as she shares exactly how she did it. Here she is, telling about where her career started.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 02:48

Well, it started in New York City in television production. So I really cut my teeth in the MTV Music Television arena, and was in there, gosh, for about 12, 13 years, on and off doing exploring within television production, and then jumping in and out to different facets of the Music Television arena. So I was, like I said, a TV producer, but I also did experiential marketing around events. And I worked on festivals. And until very recently, I was working as a tour manager for pretty big bands. And like I said, I've done this for years and years and years and the overwhelming process throughout every new job that I would take was, I really don't like this. I really don't like something in my job, because it's not fulfilling. It's not necessarily the work itself, although I'm sure there are bits and pieces that drive me nuts, but it's not that particularly, it's a bigger umbrella, and I can't quite put my finger on what the heck it is. But you know, there's a new job, and it's right in front of me. So I'll go ahead and grab that one anyway. And that been pretty much my story year over a year, you know, the available job and not really diving in deeply into, why am I having these thoughts? You know, why is this job career not really fulfilling? So why is this circle keep happening exactly? So, my journey started, gosh, you heard what I was saying about not being fulfilled about my position, but I’ve been really started to transition really happened when my husband and I decided to move outside of the United States and come over to the United Kingdom. And I was ecstatic for many reasons. But in terms of my career, I thought this would be a great opportunity to just not reinvent myself, but maybe just do that, reinvent myself. Look at what I've been doing and start from scratch, which you know, sounds all well and good and ideally that would have happened and I would have gotten a job the next month or day or whatever.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:00

24 hours later, at least. “We've arrived!” Okay, Where's it at?

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 05:04

Fortunate, after a little bit of a longer deal getting a work be the spouse work visa, I just got sat down and said, I refuse to fall into my old ways, I really need to think about what I wanna get out of my next position. I'm in a great place to do that right now. There's no overwhelming monetary need for me to jump into something. As I felt that years and years living in New York City, it's just all about the next job and who knows you. So I felt like to slow down and really evaluate where I was at. And I tried to do that on my own and realize very, very quickly that I was going nowhere fast. The job searches were pretty much leading me, I was very overwhelmed and very scattered throughout my searches, not really knowing where to focus or how to focus. So getting more and more frustrated throughout the entire process, and then of course, as I'm looking at the calendar, all of a sudden, a week has gone by, two weeks have gone by, and now than a month, and then two months, three months, and I was getting very bummed out, to say the least. And then I think I went online. And I just said, I need to find a podcast about career transitions and finding a job. And I stumbled across your interview with on Mac's List. And I swear, I listened to you and the Happen To Your Career bootcamp, and you were talking about and I said, "Oh my God, that's me." This is what I need. I need some guidance. I need a voice who can help me get to the bottom of what I truly need to get not just for myself, but just that great work life balance for myself, my husband, my career, etc. And I went online and I think we were talking within the next couple of hours. I called or emailed you right away, and voila, I was inundated with the Happen To Your Career process.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:55

I think I got your email, somehow ended up on a Skype call, like I’ll just gonna call her.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 06:59

Yeah, that's exactly how it happened. And I have to say, Scott, you know, it's when I was talking to my husband and I said, "this is the first time where I feel like I have found someone in something that is going to make me focus and give me purpose." But I feel like I, my purpose is about to explode everywhere. And having gone through a couple different conversations with you, I jumped into the bootcamp. And you know, the rest is history, so to speak, in the sense that ultimately, and I'll give you the abbreviated version and then dive in a little bit more deeply, but ultimately putting in the work and the effort throughout the bootcamp really paying attention to myself and my thoughts and kind of my gut as well, what worked, what didn't work throughout my career, what I was looking for, what my wants were, what my motivations were, my minimums, my ideals, etc. And just putting this all down on paper, you know, I realized it's not rocket science, at the end of the day, this is me. But what it did for me is it helped to put me into perspective. You know, it helped me to really think about myself in a different light by evaluating my skills, my beliefs, my needs, and my wants. I mean, it's almost like I was able to see myself through a bigger lens. And then in turn, now, I was able to properly position myself and focus myself like in this career transition. And that's the key that had been missing this entire time. I didn't know how to position myself, I didn't know how to focus and I didn't really know what I wanted at the base. So going through everything, coming out of it at the back end, with this great, like my career profile, and it's there and it's what I want, what I need, and then focusing my search on companies based upon that, that shared my belief system that had the values that I was looking for, I targeted Wanderlust and I think was one of the first companies that came out of my mouth once as soon as I had this great profile, and I was like, "I want to work for Wanderlust."

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:58

Really? That's pretty cool.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 09:00

Absolutely. And then a couple of other places on my list is as you should... That was always key. And number one, so yeah. And then I just did everything that you guys basically coached us to do the reach out, the network, you know, massaging your network to see who knows who and reaching out to them and seeing if you get introductions and being very bold and forward, which is part of what I do in my job. But in terms of a job search, I was very hesitant to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:29

It's outside your normal conventional operating area, like...

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 09:32

And that was the other pieces, I was like, “okay, look, you want something this desperately or this badly, then why wouldn't you work outside of your normal operating levels or your normal conventions?” What's the worst that they can say? You know, but that's better than no answer whatsoever that you wouldn't have gotten in the first place. So I did all of that. And I got into one of the co-founders of the festival, I got directly to him. And he, in turn then, you know, obviously responded to my email. And then, because I'm now in the UK, he shot me through to that arm that deals with all of the branding outside of the United States. So then, of course, in bigger conversations started there with that entity. And it was a little bit of a painful process just because they weren't quite ready to have the deeper conversations, although they did recognize that I would be a good fit. It was one of those things. And you've mentioned this and Lisa, during many of our coaching sessions, reiterated this, it's not necessarily what they can do for you right then and there. It's about establishing a relationship and keeping that relationship going so that when there is an opportunity, you're the first person they're going to think of. And Scott, that's exactly what I did.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:49

Know this is so wonderful, because I'm not surprised by it anymore. I don't think that's the right word. But I'm always amazed at how when you define what it is that you want and when you know what you want and then when you take action or ask for what you want or go after what it is that you want, very often…

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 11:10

It manifests itself. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:12

Yeah, yeah, it is just a really interesting phenomenon that I observe all the time, in my life, I've observed in a lot of the lives of our students, clearly this has happened for you. And just like you said, the other really interesting part of that is 100% of the time, or I should say, nearly 100% of the time, what we want is outside the realm of what we've done before, which means that by definition, it's outside our normal comfort zones or normal operations zones or anything else, which also by definition, makes it uncomfortable. So it’s, kudos to you for moving through that because that's not an easy thing to do at all.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 11:49

It wasn’t. But you know, Scott, at the end of the day, if you want something and you're determined to make a change in your life and in your career, I could not go another day saying, “oh, I'm not happy or I don't like my job or I wish I didn't have to go to work today” I was over that. I spent way too much time thinking of the negatives. So there was only one thing for me to do, and that was focused on me and the positive and the future. I couldn't dwell on the past anymore. And it wasn't beneficial for me, nor was it beneficial for my job hunt. So I still am flabbergasted that the conversations went very, very well, with wanderlust, but I'm still flabbergasted that they said, “Hey, by the way, the London events are starting up and we'd like for you to lead the charge on it. Are you available to start tomorrow?” So yeah, it was exactly like you had kind of presented it in the sense that the hard work, the dedication, having your career profile or dialing that far down into your wants, your needs, your beliefs, etc, like I mentioned, and coming up with that, you can only find something that is going to speak to you and represent who you are. Because that's what you're focusing on. And that's where your career search is going towards. So at the end of the day, whatever presents itself is going to be a positive outcome for you, no matter what. And that has been the biggest revelation for me, I will never go out for a job just because it's presented itself on some random LinkedIn, you know, job blast and it sounds good. Other than me, focusing on companies that I know that I will be appreciated in, I know that I will be able to grow in, I know that I will be able to work in some sort of collaborative environment, a big piece for me to having a flexible work schedule. I really don't like taking the tube during rush hour. I don't know too many people who do. Having a schedule where I could flex my hours and work from home when I wanted to. And also go into an office if I wanted to, and may are 100% on board with that, which I did a couple of fist pumps in the air when I heard that, but more importantly working with people whose values are really aligned with me in mind. So yeah, I've got all that. I've got everything I wanted. That's the craziest part, everything, not one, not two, not two and a half, like everything.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:20

It feels crazy right now. But I think the cool part is that now that you've done that, you realize that, that is something that you can build for yourself every single time that you want to make a switch or I don't know if something changes in your life in which you need something different and you have to make a change for one reason or another because something no longer aligns. Then you now have the tools and the experience to know that, that's totally possible for yourself, which is super, super cool.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 14:49

Yeah, absolutely. And I have the tools to be able to pivot I mean, it's called a career pivot for a reason, right? And I feel more confident in being able to shift left to right, front or back, whatever, but knowing that I'm going to move forward in a direction that aligns with me. And again, I've never had that before. I've never had that feeling behind me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:10

You're in such an interesting place because you've just moved through it. So I'm always really interested in people's opinions. Like, I'm a research not in this way. But what do you feel like were some of the key either events or things that had to happen in order for you to be ready to make this type of change and look at it in a different way? As you look back, what were some of those for you? I think it's a little bit different for everybody, but I’m curious.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 15:36

Yeah, absolutely. I think 100%, like phase one was figure out what the heck I wanted to get out of my career. What I wanted to get out of this next phase in my life, and I think everybody has to do that before they can be successful in anything period. And you can go through life, you can go through your jobs and be successful. But to truly get every drop out of the experience, and more positive obviously than negative, you got to figure out what makes you tick. And what's gonna keep you going 100%.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:08

Well, let me ask you even a little bit before that, what caused you to get frustrated enough to the point where you wanting to do it differently than you had done it before? I know that you'd mentioned, hey, there was this move to London, and it seems like the opportunity time, and certainly timing had happened. But I know plenty of people that have made a move abroad or move to a different country. I've interacted with those people over email that aren't to the point and level where they're necessarily going to take action on it, if you will.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 16:38

Got it. Absolutely. Well, as I mentioned, I was working in television production and entertainment. And what I didn't mention is I was living in Los Angeles prior to moving to the UK. So being inundated in the entertainment arena, again was great stepping stone. It's gotten me to where I'm at today. But what it really quickly does is it frustrates you by the amount of ego that needs to be managed in throughout if its artists, producers, etc. The one thing that I through my search my profile, I've really understood that I'm very good at being that person that can morph myself into different situations. So I’m the very good at flexing and being supportive of others. And I was doing that more to it an extent where it was more detrimental to me and my career health.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:32

That's interesting.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 17:32

Yeah, I was giving out more to others than I was getting back. So and you know, okay great, this me choosing to do this. But the consistency of doing that year over year and feeling like, well yes, I was progressing in my career in terms of title. I wasn't getting anything back in terms of support, or just even if it was just a little kudos, “hey, by the way, great job” nothing, just nothing in that regard. And it didn't make me feel good, at the end of the day while you have the event, the project, the festival, the concert was success, I was still kind of at a, we can say 1 to 10, I was always at a 5, in terms of what I would get out of it. So I was absolutely frustrated with that. And every job even moved through different arenas, from television production to festival thinking, okay, maybe something new and different will happen here. At the base. I really did like a lot of the work that I was doing, it was just this overarching piece that I thought I could change up and unfortunately, it wasn't working, at least in that entertainment festival TV arena. So with the move, I knew I wanted to put a stop to that cycle and that I wanted to get a lot more out of myself and out of what I was doing for others and I wanted to be more empowering to a community but also something that I could feel proud of and say, “hey, Mom, Dad, take a look at what I just produced” you know, instead of some random show on MTV. So that was the impetus behind me really starting the journey. London was the conduit, and Happen To Your Career was the platform. So, yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:11

I love that, I'm gonna borrow that. Several look, it might change from London, I don’t know.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 19:18

Absolutely, no, but that's exactly, that's my story on the front end into a nutshell. And then other thing, it’s just in terms of what else had to happen to make this happen was very quickly, I've always been into yoga. I've always been into health and wellness, or have it been though ‘whoo’ you know, 24/7 type of person. But it's always been very integral in my life. No matter where I'd been. If I'd been on the road, I would always take out time to go to the gym, maybe take a yoga class, go to the wide, walk around the park or whatever, you know, have a good meal, that's always been a foundation of who I am. So, which was great. But I didn't have the network here in London. So the other part is I really had to establish a network and put my face out there, take those leaps that didn't feel comfortable and maybe present myself at an event where I knew nobody, and with business cards and a handshake, just make people know me like, I'm here yet again. And I did that and did with a couple of key influencers in the health and wellness market. And it just resonated. So I put myself in front of yoga studios and actually said, “hey, by the way, if there's an opportunity, I'd love to volunteer and help out and once a week, or if it's event based, I'm here.” And I actually got signed on with one of the largest yoga studios here in London.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:40

Really?

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 20:40

And funnily enough, this is a little secret, but funnily enough, we're going to try to see if we can get them on board at Wanderlust because it's such a great studio and I have all the contacts and now.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:49

Hold on. That's it. This is something that is really interesting that happens with nearly everybody that goes through this process is, and it's so fascinating to me, you go through, and I'm gonna call it just doing the work, you're putting in the reps, for lack of a better phrase. And inevitably, you start to build relationships.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 21:09

Absolutey.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:09

And then as you build those relationships, you don't know where or when necessarily, but those actually end up becoming useful or mutually beneficial for…

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 21:20

Like one degree separated.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:21

Yeah, exactly. For a variety of different reasons, not necessarily just, you know, transactional, that's gonna get me to my next job, or whatever it happens to be. But this is super, super, super cool. So now, you not only got to know these people, and it sounds like people that you were really interested in knowing anyway, based on the work that you had done and said, hey, this is kind of where my values and interests and everything else fall. But then now it sounds like you're getting to work with them continuously or possibly, right?

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 21:51

Absolutely. And you're right, the people that I have met just by doing that, the world is large until it's not, you know, and the health and wellness industry in the UK is booming. But it's still I mean, compared to the US, it's still fledgling, so the people who shine and actually take an active part and participate, you will see them over and over again or you know, or maybe you recognize another person at the next event. So having the touch points with the yoga studios, having the touch points with the gyms, having the touch points with the great health platform aggregator that just kind of brings in the health, wellness news and not regurgitates that brings it in a nice condensed package to the consumers and they also have events, I would go to their events where you would meet influencers in the health and wellness arena, whether it's clothing lines or food products, etc. So just a bunch of different POV’s in this arena. Then, you know, afterwards you'd get to meet them, cards or exchange and so forth and so on. And that's just what I was doing. And I kept building and building and building so much so that with Wanderlust, you know, a big part of any event is the ties into the community and obviously for the the consumer draw, but also what can we present to the consumer that they're gonna like and appreciate. So having gone to all of these wellness industry events, where they presented the new and upcoming trendy thing or what's resonating, I already know, all of this stuff, the research is done. Now we just have to go out and engage them. So I could not have made this up, even if I tried. But no, really I couldn't. But just staying on top of it even when I know, here in London, the rain, you know, rainy day didn't really feel like doing anything. I didn't really feel like going up to Soho to go to an event but I just, you know what, Tanya, at the end of the day, what do you have to lose and just did it and every single time I've walked away saying, “oh my gosh, I got this person's contact. I had a great time. I learned more about X, Y, and Z out of everything, and nothing has been too small or too big.”

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:01

Let me ask you about a couple of different pieces of the process, for lack of a better phrase, like your journey, we'll call it that. You mentioned earlier, you'd sent an email and connected with one of main people for events. Right? So, I'm curious for people, we touched on that earlier, but I'm curious what you actually did in that particular case and why you feel that particular email, contact, etc. actually worked? What about it?

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 24:30

Ah, this is a great question. So it wasn't as simple as I, you know, wasn't as streamlined as that, what happened was, I came out of, I forget what week it was in the boot camp, and I was like, “Eureka! I know what I want. And I want to work for Wanderlust.” And again, I just started looking at a my network first and foremost to see if I had any ties with the Wanderlust. And on the first level, I didn't think that I did. And I just started mentioning it to everybody again, I'm trying to manifest it. So I'm throwing it out there. And every person that I met, or the person that I had worked with, I said, “hey, by the way, you know, I'm really interested in working with Wanderlust. Do you know anybody? Or have you been to one? Etc.” So I actually landed on a coworker who had, she said, I don't know anybody directly at Wanderlust, but I think I know somebody who's good friends with one of the founders, and I was like, you've got to be kidding me. So based upon my relationship with this woman, which was fantastic, my co workers, she then introduced me to reached out, yes indeed, that this other woman had a relationship with the co founder, and then in turn, based upon their relationship introduced me on the weight, the strength of my work, my ethics and just what I could bring to the party. So then this woman took it upon my friends word that I'm badass and introduce me to the founder. Now that was great. I've now got an email address. I have somebody who's setting this up. That was a big part. But what really sealed the deal, and this is something that Lisa and I had gone through, and you're sending these emails out to people and they're getting a crap ton of them day in day out, you've got to differentiate yourself one, but you also have to say, look, this isn't just about me trying to get something from you. I want to give something back to you as well if possible, and it's an information exchange first and foremost, and I know I'm a little, but you need to know what that means. And I think the person help in this your transition moving overseas. So more succinctly and more deeply than I've just kind of articulated it. I sent a really bad ass, excuse my French, email to Sean outlined all of this. And he said, “Yeah, you do seem like the best person. Let me introduce you over to the EMEA people, people dealing with Europe, Middle East and Asia.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:55

Very cool.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 26:55

And that's how that transpired. It was really cool. But I don't think he would have given me the time of day if “A”, is the intro, weren't as strong as they were on me, from my friends, but be in terms of the written communication from myself. If that had lacked or didn't really show my enthusiasm, then I'm getting one of many, as much as I'd like to think I'm amazing, which I am.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:20

I agree.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 27:21

On paper that can fade and fizzle fast if you're not scintillating, or you don't kind of let them know that you're really willing to be the brand, or you're really into their brand.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:32

Especially recently, a lot of research on how these types of connections are made and why they're so effective at and first of all, it's so interesting that most, not all, but most, might someplace in the range of 70 to 80% of these types of opportunities, these types of it's my dream job type opportunities are found based on interactions through weak ties.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 27:58

Yes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:59

Yeah. Meaning that it is not necessarily somebody you know, in your immediate network, because if it's somebody you interact with all the time, or somebody who you regularly see or regularly talk to or whatever else, then you're probably already aware of any people or opportunities that they know immediately. However, it's usually in the less strong ties and less strong relationships where you begin to find those type of things that aren't known to you when you're seeking it out. In this case, it was a former co-worker who…

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 28:30

Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:31

Yeah, and...

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 28:32

Absolutely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:33

People underestimate. I have, I did for many years underestimated the weight that is carried behind a strong recommendation and some of the psychological reasons that trust and credibility are already there when you have that initial weight behind it for somebody that you know and like already, and it just, it adds like 150 pound weight to whatever force you're already carrying. So you're really awesome written communication that you had sent off was, I don't know, it's like a parachute or something along those lines or sailboat or something like that. And all of a sudden, you get this huge gust of wind behind it in New Year's cruise and is struggling for an analogy, but we'll work on that.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 29:11

No, 100% agree. And again, it was just articulating, it's like, look, I am looking for a job in this company, or with this type of company or with this particular company in general. Do you know anybody or just keep me in mind? And again, that was my mantra.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:26

Yeah. This is so amazing for so many different reasons. I'm really curious, because we've got so many people that listen to the show that are in the place that you were not that long ago, where...

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 29:40

I was that person listening to the show.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:43

Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 29:44

In the same position. Absolutely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:46

Yeah, you're been in the cycle. You're there and you're frustrated, and you're not entirely sure what to do differently. But what advice would you give that person who's in that place?

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 29:58

Don't let the hard days or the days where you don't think you're moving forward or that nothing's happening, stop you or slow you down. I think that for me was the really, really, really tough part when I didn't see the end of the rainbow. You know, there the end in sight. I couldn't necessarily get that particular connection that I wanted, or I already gotten some sort of negative feedback or no feedback. Don't let that stop you. If anything should double down in your efforts. And I know it's harder to do than say, but you know what? Caffeine and chocolate will get you through it. Just do it. You've got to do it. Because I worked so hard that when this happened, it felt so friggin sweet, that much sweeter and I would have been happy no matter what. But knowing that I made this happen. It wasn't somebody coming to me. It wasn't me trying to throw my resume into a random lotto of 100 million other people for the same job. This was me networking. This was me, keeping my ships. This is me, top of me just kind of sticking with it when even when I wasn't getting a response on an email or a phone call, I was just calling back and making sure that they knew who I was. So stay strong, kick ass. And just remember that you are who you are, and you bring a lot to the table.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:20

Absolutely love it. You did such a great job. And I so appreciate you taking the time and coming on and being able to share your story so that everybody else can benefit from it too. And firsthand, congratulations. I hadn't even told you that yet. But… over your email. Yeah, very, very cool.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 31:39

Oh, gosh, I'm staring up at the sky and I'm still kind of flabbergasted. So thank you. Thank you guys. This was an amazing journey. You know, you held my hand along the way, and you've got me to the other side. And for that I will be eternally grateful.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:55

Well, I appreciate you letting us take along for the ride. Tanya, thank you again.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 32:02

Thanks, Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:03

Here's something else that's not obvious from listening to this conversation with Tanya. So I actually recorded this conversation quite a while ago. And since then, Tanya has actually transitioned into another organization. And here's what's really interesting about that. I think this is fascinating, because one of the biggest questions we get, or one of the biggest fears we encounter as it relates to career change is, well, what if I choose the wrong position? What if I choose the wrong position? What if I choose the wrong company? What if I... with all the what if's, right. So Tanya, actually went, got this great opportunity with Wanderlust which you heard about and then was there for about a year. And then it turned into, through a variety of events, turned into a situation that was no longer great for her. So she took literally everything that she learned through this process of career change that we got the opportunity to help her with, and use all of that to relatively quickly, far more quickly, make a transition into something that was even better. Pretty cool, right? So worst case scenario, that's what's so interesting about this process. I wish that we taught this in schools, because what is so interesting is that you can use this the entire rest of your life, these types of skill sets are worth developing, because they make everything else that you want possible, even when life gets thrown at you. So great job to Tanya, first of all, and if you want help, or figuring out how to make things that seem impossible happen in your situation, that's what we're here for. So here's what I would suggest, just open your phone right now and open your email app and I'm going to give you my personal email address, scott@happentoyourcareer.com just email me and put a 'Conversation' in the subject line. And then when you do that, I'll introduce you to the right person on our team. And you can have a conversation with us. We'll try and understand your goals and what you want to accomplish in your career no matter where you're at. And we can figure out the very best way that we can help you and your situation. So open up right now and send me an email with 'Conversation' in the subject line scott@happentoyourcareer.com

Chris Bene 34:29

Basically, I've been doing this for free since I've been in high school.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:33

That's Chris Bene. He lives in Vancouver, Washington, which if you don't know is across the river from Portland, Oregon. But for a long time, he was involved in business development in the corporate travel industry. However, he had this hobby he called "car consulting."

Chris Bene 34:50

And it's just started off that people would say, well, "I'm thinking about this type of car" and I would start to talk to them and do that, but I really always hesitated from going into the car industry because I'm just gonna say outright and very track it's like kind of a sleazy industry that people, they've been through the strategy of spending five to eight hours in a dealership, just being drug through the mud on buying a car, it shouldn't be that hard. And it's actually a strategy of theirs that they're trying to used to wear you down to where you're just buy this car from them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:27

Now, I want you to fast forward here or 10 months after Chris had been working on his career change. Here he is, again.

Chris Bene 35:34

What I'm going to be doing is going to be a consultant for triple A Oregon. And this is their services they call the auto source, and it's a car buying service. And what's great about it, Scott, is that they're able to talk to me and I am not a dealer, they'll be able to talk to me as a consultant, just to talk them through the types of cars that they're looking for, or possibly like I said, selling and just to give them some great insight information on that. This is something I would, it would not be a job. And this is what you've always talked about Scott, "it's really not a job that I'm going to, it's just something that I'd like to help people with." And I feel I'm pretty effective with that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:16

Okay, let's break down. What led up to this change? And how this hobby that he now gets to do for career, actually happened? 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.

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Defining Your Ideal Role Based On What Success Looks Like For You

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Not only do we all want to be successful, we all want to FEEL successful. Often, that means getting a job that other people regard as important or prestigious…even if the job actually makes us miserable. It’s one more way we allow the expectations of others, the unwritten rules, trap us in a role that isn’t a fit. On the podcast today, Jackie Yerby discusses her distinguished career in public policy and how she escaped from the prestige trap.

What you’ll learn

  • Why a role that’s ideal for others may not be ideal for you.
  • How to not let others’ expectations keep you in a role that isn’t right for you.
  • Why it’s important to figure out what is your own concept of success.

Success Stories

I see much better now how my five Clifton strengths tied together and the ones that I had felt were really not that much of a big deal, I can see better how they are innovative to me as a person and to my strengths and where they come from. And that was a kind of a new thing. What I love is new situations and learning, and I actually actively look for opportunities to push myself out of my comfort zone. So, and if I look back at past roles, I would tend to have to go back to go to the land and to run a major program that had been failing. And I didn't know a lot of the nitty gritty, the detail of all the different projects, but I had the organizational skills, I wanted to learn about the different projects. I wasn't fazed by the fact that I didn't know any of that detail. So I had the challenge of learning and the environment initially and also the challenge of language as I learn to. And that satisfied my learning.

Judith Bhreasláin, LIBOR Discontinuation Project Manager, United Kingdom

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I greatly appreciate your help in bringing this along because I wouldn't have had the confidence to negotiate and to be where I am today without the help of a lot of other people. You played a really significant role in it. I'm not going to be that everyday person that hates my job, I'm going to stretch and I'm going to aspire to be better and I'm not going to make that everyday salary. Thank you Scott for putting this out there for all the people that are trying to do a little bit better and trying to go a little bit farther. This is awesome. I love this. This thing that you do, the whole HTYC thing, from the paperwork all the way down to the podcast and just helping people understand that there is success out there and it is attainable but you've got to work for it.

Jerrad Shivers, Market Manager, United States/Canada

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Getting clear on what I wanted helped me to recognize how perfect this opportunity was when it came along and the choice to switch was a no-brainer. Thanks for doing the work you do!

Austin Marlar, Frontend Developer, United States/Canada

I stumbled across HTYC through an article and it gave me hope again. After a Strengths Finder review session with your career coach and the Figure Out What Fits course, I've finally admitted to myself what I really want to do, what I really want out of life, and have made a decision.

Kevin Long, UX Programmer, United States/Canada

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Jackie Yerby 00:02

So I will be the policy director for the Urban League of Portland. And you know, we work on civil rights issues for folks of color with a particular emphasis on the African-American community. My heart is singing at the prospect of doing mission driven work that feels really important especially right now.

Introduction 00:28

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:52

What happens when you have a job that seems prestigious, most people would love to have it, but you can't stand it?

Jackie Yerby 01:00

The work culture was pretty toxic. I didn't feel good about the work. So my first best day was the day that I decided I needed to leave that job.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:10

That's Jackie Yerby. She is what, the kids today would call a boss, she's had a series of various prestigious high impact roles in public policy, although not all of them are fulfilling. And this is a fascinating aspect of career change in itself. We have shared a lot on the podcast about looking past what other people do to change careers or what other people think is fulfilling and trying to identify what you want, what you find fulfilling, even if it makes other people say, "really? are you sure?" Well, it turns out that Jackie's career brought her into some high powered circles of people who had very specific ideas about what it meant to be successful and Jackie felt like she had to meet their standard. Keep your open during this episode for Jackie's explanation of how she escaped other people's expectations and focused on what actually made her feel fulfilled. Here she is, explaining where her career began.

Jackie Yerby 02:13

So I have a Master's in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. And I studied Health Care Policy. To the extent, there are minors by, kind of minor concentration was in international affairs and security. But I knew that I really wanted to focus on domestic policy. And I went to grad school in the 90s. And so that was when Hillary Clinton was working on health care reform. And I've always really been concerned about the lack of access to health care especially for folks who have been marginalized which includes lots of communities of color. So that's been something I've always really cared about and, you know I tried to do other things, but I kept being called back to health care policy. And as you can imagine, I mean even in the 90s going to grad school is expensive. And you know even with scholarships I took out a lot of loans. And so when the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association said, “hey we want to interview you.” And I'll just pause and say like you know they post in our career center. I looked at the job posting. I'm like, "No way. That's not me. I'm not qualified to do that." And they said, “No. We actually want to talk to you.” And so I was flattered. So I went to that on-campus interview and they invited me to Chicago to interview. And several folks within that organization had actually gone to the Kennedy School. And so, I didn't have to play my degree to them. And we hit it off and it was amazing. And then I ended up being in a horrible experience.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:44

In what way?

Jackie Yerby 03:45

The work culture was pretty toxic and it was the kind of thing where I did form friendships within my department. But it was kind of like, in spite of all the energies trying to keep us apart, and I remember I had this one really good friend who, we would have lunch together on a regular basis, we were sneaking out, you know, we're like meet by the elevator or meet down stairs. And we think that we were conducting like a clandestine affair because like we didn't want the boss to know that we were becoming such good friends 'cuz we might be talking about them, you know.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:25

Oh, no.

Jackie Yerby 04:26

And I would say, my first best day... oh, let me just say to you, I didn't feel good about the work. I didn't feel like I could stand behind the work.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:35

What was the work at that time?

Jackie Yerby 04:37

Yeah. And you know it was a consulting type work. And I didn't feel good about what we were selling. I also wasn't forming deep connections in Chicago. And like for the 14 months I lived there, I didn't spend a single three day weekend there. At that point I had the ability to just kind of like hop on a plane at a moment and used to be able to do that. And so I would fly to Washington D.C. where most of my friends were. Or I would fly to New York where my sister and brother in law live. And every time I went to D.C. I also traveled to D.C. once a month on business. I always felt like I was flying back into my life. And so really striking. So my first best day, was the day that I decided I needed to leave that job. And that was about seven months in. And it was like this huge weight was taken off my shoulders. So then I started looking for a job in Washington D.C. And so this is 1995. There's no Internet. There are no cell phones. This is back in the day when a friend of mine, friend of a friend, who has since became my friend had two Rolodexes. And I sat in her office in D.C. and she went through her Rolodexes and she said, "Get in touch with these people. Use my name." And then I read the letters that I have printed on that really nice paper that you used to buy. And I nailed them. And then you know then I called them on my landline to make appointments and then I set up all these appointments and then I took time off of work. I don't forget what I said I was doing, it really detailed clandestine meetings in Chicago because there was the possibility that I actually might see my boss in Washington D.C.. But it was amazing actually how much being able to use my friend's name, opened a lot of doors for me and this is my first experience with doing informational interviewing. And I was really struck by how generous people were with their time even in Washington D.C. Through that experience of networking looking for a job, I actually interviewed for a job as a legislative assistant to then candidate Senator Joseph Lieberman and other finalists. And they hired somebody had so much more experience than me. That's fine. But I asked a colleague at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association if she would be a reference for me and she was. My colleague based in D.C. and I didn't get that job. But then she called me and she said, "I have a job for you. Do you want to come work for me?" And the answer was, "absolutely yes." And so I ended up going to work for her. And it was night and day from my experience of having worked with the folks and she got liked the leadership in Chicago.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:15

The culture in one section was completely different than the other section.

Jackie Yerby 07:20

And also I mean, just I felt like the boss I had with D.C. was warm, comfortable in her own skin. But I remembered, like my office was right next to hers. And had that been the case in Chicago. Like it just... it would have been untenable. And my new boss would say, "hey we haven't talked in a while. Let's go across the street and get coffee." And I'm having this moment of like, “Oh no, no. This is a different boss. It's okay”.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:48

Oh dear, flat boss flashbacks.

Jackie Yerby 07:50

Oh my gosh. Yeah. And I felt like this kind of you know like a wounded puppy for a while. So I was in that job for four years doing legislative policy work focused on what was going on the state legislatures, got to travel around the country, got to meet lots of interesting people. But I got tired of living in Washington D.C. And I also felt like I was plateauing and not that I have this like this huge aspirations to be important and famous and whatever. And I feel like I'm on the East Coast where I spent a lot of time like status counts for a lot and I remember watching TV, so I was 30 and were watching TV on a Sunday, watching the Sunday news programs with the Washington post spread around me. And George Stephanopoulos, he was 37 at the time, was on TV and he was counselor to the president. And here's Jamie Rubin, was an adviser to Madeleine Albright, also 37, and I remember thinking, "in seven years, is that what I'm going to be doing? I don't think so." Not much less my life takes a really different path. And I just, you know, get a turbo charge. But I was also like that's a not, I don't actually want that life. It felt like unless I go down that path I'm not going to be seen as successful in this environment. Also I'm originally from the West Coast, I'm originally from California. I live in Portland Oregon now, and I really missed trees. And it's not like I'm somebody who goes hiking and camping all the time. But like when I worked in downtown, Portland, I could look out my window and I could see three park blocks in downtown that have dove birds, you know. In Washington D.C. there was rock creek park which I would occasionally ride my bike through on my way somewhere or walk with a friend. But as a woman, it didn't feel safe to be in that space by myself. I remember I was also talking with friends like "hey, let’s go camping this summer." And I think I did that for three summers in a row. We never went camping. I wanted to move to a place where like nature felt a lot more present and also where people valued things other than work. And so back in '97, I just was starting to feel really bored in Washington D.C. and also at that time the whole Monica Lewinsky scandal. Actually, I feel bad for calling it the "Monica Lewinsky scandal." 'Cuz she's actually turned into this really amazing and graceful person. But that was going on.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:23

The book “Clinton scandal”.

Jackie Yerby 10:24

Clinton scandal. Thank you, thank you. And so the environment in D.C. just the atmosphere just felt particularly toxic and I just thought, I got to get out of here. So like I said I've been traveling a lot, have met a lot of people around the Blue Cross Blue Shield System and really hit it off with somebody who was the chief legal officer for the Blue Cross Blue Shield company in Oregon. And I was in Portland to do a presentation to the leadership team and he said, "If you're ever interested in working here, let me know." I was like, hey and I really liked Portland from the time that I came to visit. And so I followed up with a Christmas card with the like, "Hey, I'm actually kind of interested." and got, you know, the like, let's talk. And then he called me, I think in January and said, "I have something that you might be interested in." And I perked up and I said, "What is it?" And he said, "Ethics and compliance officer" and I literally said, “are you nuts?” And the field was really new at the time. And my experience of interacting with the ethics and compliane officer at my company who had, was the chief auditor and became that was, I mean he didn't have great social skills and so if I saw him like, I'd walk in the other direction and not that I had anything to hide. I just wasn't a comfortable person to talk to. Mark, the chief legal officer and I kept talking and he explained his vision for the job and that it wasn't to be that cop, sort of busting people, for behaving badly but it was to set a tone. To help create an ethical culture within an organization. And the thing that I loved about it was that there was an opportunity to learn and grow on the job. And I specifically asked that I've never done this. And lots of people have never done this. So I have ideas but you and other people I will be interviewing with can't ask me what I have done because I haven't. And that was kind of funny, I flew to Portland for a day and a half of interviews. I was like, "we need to have breakfast because I need to make sure that people understand again like, who I am and what my background is." And he's like, "absolutely." And I don't know that anybody else interviewed for the job. So you know, I had this like marathon day and a half of interviews and I got off the job. And they totally lived up to their commitment of letting me learn and grow on the job.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:01

That's awesome.

Jackie Yerby 13:02

Yeah. And I got to work with a great team of people, the other ethics and compliane officers in the other states where this company did business at work. And so Idaho Washington side, yeah, Idaho Washington and Utah. And it was the kind of thing where we didn't know each other before but we just really clicked. And it was the kind of thing where the kind of work we were doing it was really important that we trust each other and felt that we had each other's backs and we did. And we never became cynical about people which is how I was able to do that job for 11 years. There's some pretty stressful times and there's some very stressful investigations.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:10

So then, that sounds great in terms of that lines up with so much more than some of the other pieces that we've talked about previously in terms of, hey it's a better location that matches up with what you really want, different people that aligned with what you really want, a cause that in a lot of ways, you could get behind that made sense at the time. So what ended up changing from that, that caused you to move on?

Jackie Yerby 14:11

So I switched jobs within the company. I became the Sustainability Program Manager and part of it was like our leadership changed. And I didn't so much care for that person. Smartest guy in the room consistently mansplain and also I just felt like my team had changed. So I was ready to move on. And the CEO, who was the person that originally recruited me to come work with the company, he had gone from the Chief Legal Officer to CEO, he created this position, the Sustainability Program Manager position, and I really care about sustainability. So this idea of triple bottom line that it's not just about the environment but it's also you know how to make economic sense and have to be good for people. And that just really resonated with me. So actually I was the second person in that role. The first person became a really good friend of mine, he's still a good friend of mine. And it was a growth opportunity for him but not a passion for him the way that it was for me. And he was just appointed to it. And I remember being really disappointed about that, that I didn't get a chance to raise my hand. And so I reached out to him and I said, "Congratulations. Then you have to let me help you." So I did. And so I became part of the unofficial team. And when it came time for him to move into another role, I became the most obvious person to step in. I had to interview for that. I think there was maybe one other person so I got the job.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:56

Let's go back to that what you just said for just a moment because I think that is something that is not the first inclination for many people. But I think it's really important. And I just heard you say that, hey like you saw this sort of situation that wasn't... maybe wasn't necessarily desirable because it sounds like you wanted to be able to raise your hand to be able to have an opportunity at that role at least. And what has a tendency to happen for many people is, they will just write it off as, you know... didn't have an opportunity, so I'm just going to, you know, I'm just not going to worry about it or didn't have an opportunity and I can't believe that guy got the job or any number of other things other than what you did in what you did was say, okay, I'm going to... I'm actually going to continue to be involved in this in a really positive and productive way. And then not so long afterwards, it created an opportunity for you and that is, unfortunately, I think the polar opposite of what many people will do and what I've even done in the past in certain cases too. But what I've found is that when you do exactly what you did where you look at that potentially not great situation and turn it into something that really is really positive and productive and actually really legitimately helpful for everybody, then it almost always comes out so much better in ways that you can't anticipate. So, nicely done, first of all.

Jackie Yerby 17:30

Thanks. So I got that job.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:32

Yeah.

Jackie Yerby 17:34

And then I realized how much harder it was than the job that I had which was actually pretty hard.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:39

Careful what you wish for, I suppose right?

Jackie Yerby 17:41

Yes, totally. And my friend, Dan, who had a job and then became my boss told me that it was like pushing rocks uphill that if he moved the program an inch forward in a day that that felt like success. I think him stepping into that job coincided with the start of the great recession. And so then it became about like waste and kind of productivity and, you know, streamlining processes which can certainly be a part of it but that's not a part of it. And to me, it never felt like there was a heart or a vision behind it. And I tried to articulate one like, hey let's get really involved around like childhood obesity. And here is how it affects the triple bottom line, you know, let's talk about how we're spending so much money on drugs for kids for type 2 diabetes that we wouldn't expect to see until decades later. And kids are really hard to treat because they're noncompliant, right. And then you know let's talk about food deserts and neighborhoods without sidewalks and parks and places for kids to like play in their own neighborhoods. And then there's no movement. And for that, you know, there's the environment he's in. And then the people he's about like, again, how it's impacting people. And I would tell them, I would have shot that around the organization and people would work in the right way. Is this about recycling? And I’m like, I am a master recycler. I actually really care, I’m a geek about this stuff but I just felt like I couldn't get traction. And when I came to realize from talking to other peers in our organization is that organizations that make things, that have a tangible inputs and tangible outputs like get sustainability a lot more because when you can use less material, less inputs you were saving, you were obviously saving money and you can tell a great environmental story about it. But in a service company, it's harder for that to pencil out, kind of hearts and minds to see, hey this really matters to employees and let's talk about employee retention.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:53

It's not as pressing and in front of everybody in the same way. Unless it is already deeply ingrained into all of the other leadership messages and all of the other elements. So I totally get that. So what was the breaking point that caused you to decide to move on?

Jackie Yerby 20:12

Well I was laid off which is actually fantastic.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:17

It worked out perfectly.

Jackie Yerby 20:19

And I mean obviously it's a hard thing but I was so ready to move on. So that was at the end of 2014. And in 2015, I started looking and this is like, I haven't looked for a job in a long time, probably not really since 1995 when I was looking at Washington D.C. and I didn't know how to look for a job, right? So I had like a one page cover letter that you know you can actually say a lot and cover a lot of ground in one page. And I didn’t know that I was supposed to parrot their words back to them in the application or the posting back to them so that their computer flagged it. And I was like, "oh, she's got this because she used our words." So I didn't get interviews for things because I didn't score, because I didn't understand their algorithms. So I'll just say it like, I do a lot of volunteer stuff. And I dove into volunteering to help save the LGBTQ community center which was in danger of closing. And I went there because I had the time, frankly, and also like a came from the board of basic rights in Oregon which is a statewide LGBTQ rights organization. And it was a great because I got my mojo back. It was like I had something unique to offer in this group. And I felt valued in a way that I hadn't for a long time. So I'm super grateful for that experience but also, I mean, I made some really great friends out of it and the Q Center the LGBTQ community center is still here. It's arising. It's the kind of place that when we are going through this which was like a weekly two-hour meetings that turned into four-hour meetings for six months. It's the place that I think, we all hoped it would become. But again a really great experience for restoring my confidence in myself and what I have to offer folks.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:35

I think that's really important though, Jackie. What has a tendency to happen to a lot of people is just what you described where they're in a role that, for all intents and purposes, is kind of sucking the life out of them, right.

Jackie Yerby 22:48

Yes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:49

In one way or another. And it looks a little bit different for everybody but you know I was just having this conversation with my wife last night actually because she's considering a transition from what some of the things that she's doing, she's been involved in a lot of different pieces. And one of those, she actually really loves what she's doing but doesn't really love the situation around it. It's sort of, in the same way, sucking the life out of her. And in order to really make a successful transition you kind of have to find ways in order to bring that mojo back, as you're putting it. And I think that that confidence that has a tendency to come back with that is really really important. And it's one piece of the process that a lot of people I think don't think about or don't realize. And you know we see it all the time as we're working with people where we have to create a situation where they're bringing that back and then do the rest of the steps.

Jackie Yerby 23:46

Well, you know, was my experience of starting to work with you guys, but before we get to that I'll say, so in 2015, I did some consulting. I did some like equity work, like racial equity work within the environmental movement. And I really enjoyed that and felt like this really spoke to... it felt important and valuable. So I did that. And then I also got recruited to work in a climate change campaign called The New Oregon. And I got recruited to be a faith organizer cause I'm a person of faith. But I loved doing that, didn't pay well. I was contracted for a certain number of hours. It felt meaningful and important. That was also the summer that the pope came out with his people on climate change among other things. So you know so I got to talk about the pope a lot you know and obviously it was in the news. But I just... it was like, it just felt great to be working on something that I really cared about. And that drew on a lot of things that I had to offer including my faith. I was like, I just... I don't know that I ever felt that. And so it was great. And I thought I wanted to do nonprofit work and in fact I think it's really important I serve on a lot of nonprofit works. I found I wanted to be an executive director. Actually a friend, somebody I have a ton of respect for said, "hey you know you should think about this one." And I was completely flattered like that this person would think of me in connection to this role at his organization that they were working at at that time. I made it through the interview process and then I was one of two finalists. But there was this long sort of lag between the last interview and when they made the offer which kind of soured me on the experience and I just, I remember joking with them that it sort of felt like junior high like I would totally date you. But you know I want to date this other person. You don't love about that. And I'm not gonna state that organization. But it was an organization for which I volunteered in the early 2000s when I first arrived back in Portland. So even though I hadn't stayed connected to it, it was special and important. What I realized when I got in there was just how all consuming the job is being an executive director is 24/7. I would dream about it, I would wake up in the middle of a night like gasping about like something I was stressed out about. I would think about it when I was gardening, you know, it just... it was hard to turn off. So the other thing is that, I did not love the job and I think I realized pretty early on that I didn't love it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:00

What didn't you love about it?

Jackie Yerby 27:03

I didn't love that being the Executive Director is pretty lonely and isolating. And I am somebody who likes working with the team. I like bouncing ideas off other people.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:17

You're very collaborative. Every conversation I've ever had with you. It feels more like a collaboration than it is, I don't know anything else than a conversation.

Jackie Yerby 27:27

Yeah. Thank you. So yeah, I value collaboration and I value like making decisions that the lowest level that makes sense. And so you know people would ask me for permission for things and I'm like, you can make this decision you know and not like, 'hey don't involve me.' But it was like, well actually you can handle this and I'm happy to be a sounding board. But ultimately, you're the subject matter expert, you get to make a decision. And I felt that that wasn't valued. And in fact there were some folks that I worked with who I felt like, took advantage of that. And were actually kind of manipulative in terms of like, I know more than you, sort of made me or tried to make me feel like small and vulnerable. So it just didn't feel like a safe environment. I like challenges. But this was just a lot more than I wanted to deal with or something that I didn't love. I didn't feel valued and I didn't think that I could thrive in that environment. And that was reinforced by some feedback that I got... that gave me permission to say, "I'm done. I'm out of here." And I still reflect on that idea of needing permission to go as opposed to just deciding, this isn't working and going. I left that job almost a year to the day. And it is interesting. So I had actually interviewed for another Executive Director job at that time, the bicycle advocacy organization and I was a finalist. And I heard that I was the choice of the staff and I heard from a number of board members that they were really excited about me. But they went in a different direction which is probably good for me because I really don't think I want to be an Executive Director again. But I'm really passionate about active transportation and I had a lot of ideas for this organization. But anyway, so I was already like making plans for what would come next and not coming from a place of being anxious. But just as you know there are these opportunities. And I applied for another job doing equity and inclusion work which is a passion of mine at Central City Concern which works of people in recovery from substance abuse and alcohol abuse, great organization. And so you know there were things that were happening. And even though like I got right into that I wasn't feeling anxious about it. And I also knew that I needed some time to decompress after I was laid off in 2014. I realized how much, even in Portland, people identify with their work. And so people like, "What do you do?" You know and I'm like "oh I'm a consultant and I'm doing this training." And this time around people would say, "What do you do?" And I'd say, "I don't." And I would say like with a certain amount of glee. And I think it was in November, a friend of mine said, "you don't work for money." And I'm like, "okay, I don't work for money. I actually have stayed very engaged with different nonprofits that I'm part of." Yeah, I don't sit still well and so it's not been like oh I have breath and relaxed. I've definitely decompress from the last job. But I have been applying for things here and there, a number of government based equity and inclusion jobs. And get an interview because I had learned to play that game, right? Of like, I'm parroting your words back at you. And in some cases, you know I would get a second interview. And in some cases, I wouldn't, which didn't feel great. And then there was a job that had a community engagement equity component to it working for the Bureau of Emergency Management. And I was actually really excited about that. And for folks not listening from Cascadia, the last major earthquake was over 300 years ago and where the schedule is every 300 years and so we're trying to do and it's going to be bad. And so I care a lot about emergency preparedness. And here was an opportunity to work with communities of color around emergency preparedness. I'm really excited about it. They were excited about me, and they chose somebody else. And that's at the time, that's when I first connected with Happen To Your Career, because there was this job that I really wanted. And then you know they were super lovely about, "hey we think you're great, but..."

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:16

You're second place.

Jackie Yerby 32:18

And so in Portland, we have this thing called Mac's list, it comes out on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And Tuesdays when you know the job listings are. And usually I would go straight to the job listings. But on that day, I happened to read, you know what else is going on. And that's when they mentioned the webinar that you did the following day. I was like, "okay I'll sign up for this. I'll check it out." And I was in that headspace of not feeling confident. Like why can't I close the deal. Like, don't you know what I have to offer?

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:52

Don't you understand me?

Jackie Yerby 32:55

I'm starting to feel desperate and lacking confidence and starting to go down the path of the things that you folks talk about not doing which is just like, oh my gosh, I need to not just look on Mac's list but I need to look on idealist and all these other places. You know I need to apply more and I need to... I was starting to feel that scramble and I should say, like I have financed this year of not working. And I'll say like people ask me if I was going to do consulting. And I said "No." I like working with other people. I like working in infrastructure, organization has some infrastructure. I didn't want to be hustling for work. I have borrowed money from myself to make this happen. And so not looking forward to tax time next year. But I was fortunate and that I worked in the private sector for many years, I built up a very healthy retirement fund and I've got an amazing financial planner who has been taking care of me through my retirement resources for the last year.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:00

So let me ask you about that really quick because I think that that is important. And you and I have had conversation already about this, so I know some of the behind the scenes and everything. But why did you feel like, that was the right decision for you? Because it's probably not the right decision for everybody necessarily but why was that the right decision for you?

Jackie Yerby 34:20

So, I guess when I felt like I had the wherewithal to do it that I could afford to do it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:26

Yeah.

Jackie Yerby 34:26

When I was laid off at the end of 2014 and I first started working with this financial planning group who have just taken great care of me. One of the questions I asked was, "Should I be saving for retirement this year that I'm not working?" And they said, "if you didn't save any money for the rest of your working life, you would be fine." I mean that was a huge relief to hear because even when I was working there wasn't a lot in the way of retirement benefits. And so I just I felt like really confident that I was sitting on this comfortable nest egg which I still need to be responsible. So I've been making it work and it's been fine like learning to ride the bus again and like walking around and just noticing and being present. And it also really changed my relationship with time because I have to think about how long it's going to take me to get somewhere. And so I'm actually not, I mean there's still a certain amount of rushing but there's also a certain amount of like waiting and reading and noticing. And I actually really like that and I hope I can hold on to that even after I get back into the car owner.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:40

Not to go too far in that direction. But I thought that was really interesting too because when we went and we lived in Paris for a month and were using, we were riding public transportation all around or when we were in London for a period of time doing the exact same thing. It was really really nice because I mean I live in Moses Lake Washington, and we don't have great public transportation. We don't have like, if I want to go anywhere, then it's about five miles away. And it's a hike. And I kind of actually loved that. I loved not having a car and not driving anyplace along those lines because I'd become used to it. But it really does, to your point, change a relationship a bit with time in that way.

Jackie Yerby 36:26

Well and also for me, also changed my relationship with people, you know because you get all kinds of people on the bus and sometimes I'm on a bus late at night because I like to work at a brewpub, you know less than a mile away from me. And so I'll hop on the 11:02 bus and you get some really interesting people on the bus at 11 o'clock at night. And it's just made me, in some ways, more patient with people you know like people have their own thing going on and I'm just not going to move my seat because of whatever. So the financial peace. I just... I felt like I had the wherewithal to do it. And I'm really really grateful about that. The other thing I'll say, I'm not a penny pincher and, you know probably would be better off if I were in a lot of ways but I didn't like change my standard of living a lot in the last year I'm not working. So again I felt like I could afford to do that. We'll see how I feel like, I said next tax time when I'm paying taxes and penalties on this early withdrawal that I've been taking to fund my life. But yeah and I just... I mean it gave me the headspace to not just take anything and certainly not take something I hate. And I guess the other thing too was coming out of a space of just knowing how soul killing that could be, to be in a space of like, I'm just doing this because I need to, you know, and it's hard to find like what you want to really be doing when all of your energy is being sucked away with just sort of going through the motions.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:13

So that's a really interesting take because essentially what you were doing for all, intents and purposes, was you were financing your headspace and the regrowth of your soul as you were. And I think when you're looking at it like that, that really changes how you're looking, it changes how I look at value. But I think that having talked to you then because I got to have a pretty early on conversation with you after you found us, just as we were I can't remember totally how it happened but you and I, we found ourselves on the phone. You were telling me a little bit about this and it really did sound like it was the right thing for you based on everything else that you just shared with us. Like I don't think you would have gone down the same path and the same way, had you not created that space for yourself.

Jackie Yerby 39:04

Yeah, You and I like the first after I signed up, after I decided I wanted to do it. I was supposed to have a coaching call with somebody else. And then you hopped in and you're like, "is this okay?" I'm like, "yeah. it's totally okay." And I really appreciated that first conversation and it really set a very positive tone for my interactions with all the Happen To Your Career Career Change Bootcamp folks said that, "you're real, you're warm, your human, you listen amazingly well." Like I was talking to Caroline. She got like, "Hey so I heard you say that..." And it was like listening sort of below like behind the message, behind the words in ways that was almost spooky. So when you and Caroline asked me like, "what did I need from you" and what I needed was a confidence boost because at that time my confidence was flagging. And so going through Career Change Bootcamp and you know doing the different exercises like the strength thing which I kind of got bogged down in that. But I loved the piece about asking people like when you have us reach out and ask people to comment on our strengths. And I reached out to a bunch of people. And you know I figure they have good things to say about me but the consistency of those messages was great.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:30

What did that do for you? Just curious.

Jackie Yerby 40:33

Well it's also for me, again, made me feel like, hey I actually have something to offer here. And just like reconnected with that. At that time when I'm like, nobody is wearing me. So that was that piece. And I said the other thing that was really really valuable was what you had is doing module one of creating a support network which you know I had once sort of informally. I mean I have one. But the formality of it, this is what I'm doing, would you be part of that. I almost didn't do that part and I'm glad that I did. And what having that support team made me do was I checked in with them at least every week, two weeks and a half and said, "Here's who I am." And you know some days it was, "I'm excited about this interview." And, "hey I'm really getting a lot out of this Career Change Bootcamp" and some days it was like, "Oh my God. I didn't get a second interview. I'm super stressed." And it was really great to have these folks like offer encouragement and support. So whether you're participating in a Career Change Bootcamp or not to have that and to have more than one person as part of that and doing it in a really, I don't wanna say formulaic way, but a more formal way. I found incredibly helpful today. So another thing that happened was in mid March, I started working with you in January, and in mid March, I think I was working on two job applications and the way that I applied for jobs and there were government jobs, the way I apply for jobs as I do a ton of research and you know go all over like this organization Website. And I had a coaching call with Caroline and she said, "don't apply for it" and I was like, "okay." And I didn't apply and I felt great. I also stopped looking at Mac's list. I focused on the Career Change Bootcamp and other things. And it just felt like this huge weight came off of my shoulders and it was interesting like at first it was hard to not look right? Because we're so programmed to like oh my gosh this email, showed up in my inbox and got all these things, I should be looking for this. And so I made myself not look. And so there was a job that I'd applied for, the Oregon Food Bank that I'm super excited about. Didn't I get a second interview. So again still not in the... I'm not looking stage. We're also still starting to have that, going back to where I was in January of like, "maybe I should be looking, maybe I should be like scanning all these lists because something's not happening." And in Portland and other cities as well there's a group called a civic organization called the City of Portland. I was a member a long time ago, recently re-joined, a friend of mine the Executive Director. Another good friend of mine was the Chair of the Board, she just started off of that. And the programming is really great. And so I was at the City Club and it was the state of the city. So another good friend of mine is Portland's small two degrees of separation was interviewing the mayor as the second part of a two part state of the city. And at that thing, afterwards I went up and was talking to people and saying hello to friends. I talked to the woman who will be my boss, who was the CEO of the Urban League of Portland. And we've known each other for years, where finally we hug each other when we see each other. And she asked me, 'how I was doing at the job I used to hold.' And I'm pretty sure that I told her that I'd left. But I reminded her that I'd left and she asked me, 'what I was doing' and I said, "I'm not", again with that like you know, 'what you do' "I don't." And she said, "why didn't you come work for me? I could use you. You should have come work for me. Come work for me."

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:29

Why aren't you here already?

Jackie Yerby 44:30

Yeah. It was basically like that and I was like "Hey." And she said, "We should talk." And I said, "Well I've applied to this other job" and she's like "Don't go work for them. Come work for me." And so you know really flattered by that. I think she is amazing. Like ever since she's originally an Oregonian. So native Oregonians are a big deal as in, you know most of us are not native. So she's a native Oregonian which was working on the East Coast, working politics, came back to Oregon a few years ago. And so I've followed her career. Her predecessor in the Urban League is a good friend of mine. And every time I've heard her name, Nkenge Harmon Johnson. Every time I heard her speak I thought, "Wow. This woman is amazing. She says what's on her mind. She doesn't dance around, she holds people accountable. She's a strong strong woman, strong voice, and a really great and important voice for the African-American community." So just nothing but admiration for her. So anyway there's the whole 'come work for me' thing. And about just as I was thinking 'oh I should follow up with her.' So this was 10 days after we had talked. And I think I was working on some other stuff. She emailed me to say, "hey you know legislative session is coming up, well, next year. And our state of Oregon report and we could really use you as a policy director. Come work for me." And it was more like elegantly stated than that. That was the gist of it. And I was like "Wow." And felt good and excited about it. Like it was around that time that I also realized that I wasn't moving forward with the food bank. And actually felt okay about that. That job would have been largely an H.R. job which were they were pulling equity people in culture. And I definitely could have done it. But it's not like my sweet spot. And you know the food bank is great. It does amazing and important work. But the thought of being a public policy space working on racial justice issues for, especially the African-American community, just feels really resonant right now. The other thing is Nkenge and I follow each other on Twitter. And on Twitter most of my tweets are pretty political. So you can get a good sense of what I care about and what I think about, and I'll just pause and say, before I started at the non-profit, it was right around the time that a group of people occupied the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, bird refuge in eastern Oregon. I had a lot of feelings about that. And I was vocal about them on Facebook. And one of my friends, an old friend, wrote me a note and said that she was worried about me being able to find a job because I was so political. And we're not friends anymore because that me being true is really important to me. And I'm fortunate in that I don't come from a family where it's awkward to have converse... like we care about the same things. Right? So I don't have to worry about not making mom or dad bad or you know, actually I do have one aunt who's, you know.

Scott Anthony Barlow 48:14

There's always that one aunt.

Jackie Yerby 48:15

Yeah, you know. And so it was just... it was like, you're telling me that I need to check myself in order to be palatable to other people. And I was like, that's bad.

Scott Anthony Barlow 48:29

That's exactly the wakeup call that could be needed but in the opposite way.

Jackie Yerby 48:34

Yeah. And so the fact that like one of the ways that Nkenge knew me was through like how I engage on Twitter like that told her something about me. And also I think through that and other avenues like one of the things that she talked to me about was she's like, "I need somebody who can help me hold people accountable, hold people in the community accountable for their commitments to the people we serve." And I love that. I can be tough, I can be fierce. I mean I want to be collaborative, right? But I'm also just like "yeah, we're not doing that" or you said, you need to do this. I need you to do this. And so I'm really excited to be in a role that values that and where I will get to use that. So yeah it was one of the things where there wasn't a formal interview process. And it's interesting because another good friend of mine, who was actually the board of the food bank, asked me about the Urban League's process. And I started telling her. And her response was, "Well that doesn't feel very equitable." And I was like a guppy and like "um..." And what I said was the equitable process is, I think I told you this Scott, the equitable processes that I participated in, felt almost dehumanizing. Like we're making it so fair. Like we were scoring you. We were not responding to ... like there's no asset in the room.

Scott Anthony Barlow 50:15

It's gonna be so equitable we're going to take all the humanness out of it.

Jackie Yerby 50:21

Yeah. It was horrible. And I'm trying to figure out how to give them that feedback and I think it's based on the false premise that we're going to strip relationship out of this. Right? And I was talking to another friend and I would say, my really good, both of these women are white, which feels important to say. And the second friend I was talking to said, "you know the Urban League's equity journey looks very different than the food bank's equity journey or most organizations equity journey. Like they don't have to work as hard to hire folks of color as an organization that isn't that diverse and doesn't have that history." I was like, I wish I had those words when I was talking to my friend. And the other thing that comes to mind is, I was at a friend's high school graduation a couple weekends ago. And this is a young friend who I've met him when he was four years old when his family arrived from Democratic Republic of Congo as refugees. And my church was part of the group that sponsored them. And so I've, you know I've known this kid for 14 years, and he is amazing. He's going to Georgetown in the fall. So I went to his graduation. And their keynote speaker was a graduate, I think she graduated four or five years ago, and she's giving advice to the graduating class. And I felt like she could have been giving advice to me you know someone a lot older than her. And one of the things she said was, "take advantages of opportunities that present themselves. So if the elevator door opens, get in. Don't feel like you have to go find a ladder and climb that ladder, get in the elevator." And I was like, "ugh! That is what I needed to hear." Because I feel like you know again out of this idea of equity and fairness. Like, oh no no no we need to make this hard. We need to go this way to create these you know perceptions of fairness. Anyway it'll be interesting to see. Like once I'm in that role, how that's perceived internally as well as externally. So I'm still trying to figure out how to navigate that. But most people have shared the story with her, like oh my god that's amazing and you're going to be great, you know?

Scott Anthony Barlow 52:43

I agree, as it turns out. Let me ask you this though, because here's what I know from our team being involved with your journey is that, this wasn't always easy and there was a lot going on behind the scenes. And even though it felt like in the end, if people were just looking at the end result, it felt like this happened very organically, there is a lot that took place in between in order to actually get to hear. So I'm curious from your perspective now that you're looking back, what do you feel like was the hardest part of going through that. Because it had you accepted or had you at anything, you know occurred differently had you not... does it made the decision to not apply for some of these roles and not worry about some of all the minutiae that was out there that probably wasn't a great fit for you. Then potentially you could have ended up accepting something completely different in a different place that might not have been a great fit. So what do you feel like looking back was some of the most difficult parts for you?

Jackie Yerby 53:53

Sorry, like most difficult about like being part of the bootcamp or just in general?

Scott Anthony Barlow 53:57

No, on this process.

Jackie Yerby 54:00

I mean, I think it was the... you know, there were definitely times that felt anxious, right? There were definitely times that again, like I would get excited about something, you know it's like you fall in love with the possibility of a job. And then you know you go into that interview and this is why you want me. Until you talk yourself into something even if there might be reservations about it and then to not have that. So there was, you know questions about my own judgement. And you know, what am I lacking? And I'm talking to friends who are also looking and you know not being hired for things and that feels like a common thread. And so trying to like weather that, you know and it again, my support system helped, Caroline helped. And you know like kind of staying connected to Happen To Your Career help. I was listening to a podcast. And I would just kind of like take a deep breath and be like, "Oh yeah that's right. Okay. Yeah." 'Cuz it can feel overwhelming and kind of lonely you know and then to hear about other people's experiences and be like, "Oh that's right. This is what this feels like." And there's another side, right? Yeah. So I mean... so I think that emotional roller coaster felt very hard. And also and I kept having to remind myself to find something that I really wanted to do and not just something that I could do. And Caroline kept like parroting that back to me like, "Well, you said this. So you know, remember this." Because there were definitely times when like, I could do that. And you know when I think about the different government jobs that I applied for and you know easy to say on this side of it when I didn't get it and I've gotten something else. But I don't know I have an idea of a good bureaucrat. I don't know that I would function well in that system and I, you know, works for a very large bureaucratic organization for a very long time and was successful most of that time, so I can navigate that but I think I'm done.

Scott Anthony Barlow 56:40

You don't want to in the same way.

Jackie Yerby 56:42

Yeah. I think I'm sort of done, like toning it down for somebody else. And you know having to navigate like big systems and silos and stuff. And I'd say every organization has their idiosyncrasies and their dysfunctions and so I'm not you know I'm not expecting everything in Urban League to be like, amazing. But hopefully a lot more nimble. And I feel like I'm going to get a lot of... have a lot of space to be myself, to bring like my best whole self and my connections built up over 18 years of living, 19 years of living in this community and the services I work. And that it's work that I really care about. I feel like it's work that needs to be done and I'm excited that I get to do it. So yeah, so I am... one of the things that I feel like, you guys do really well is to keep us focused on what's right for us and the way that I told that to friends to whom I recommended Happen To Your Career is a lot of times applying for a job is, 'Here's a round hole, you're square peg so let's get out the sandpaper.'

Scott Anthony Barlow 58:13

I feel like your next tweet should be what you said earlier that, "I'm completely done toning myself down for everyone else."

Jackie Yerby 58:25

And yeah. So I feel like you know Happen To Your Career is all about like what fits you, what do you need, what do you want. And I love that piece of it because a lot of times I feel like what we want like that we're being... we're asking for too much. Let's say, "I want this." And you guys are like, "No. that's actually really important. So can you find that thing that you want? Because if you don't, then you might be in a place of like it's a slog again." So it was helpful to have that sort of North Star of what do I want. And I should say this was... I mean, they definitely you know crawled all over the Urban League website. I'd rather see a black Oregon report. Talked to my friend who was the previous CEO but I didn't... I haven't researched it the way that I did the other ones. So how does this feels like a leap of faith? But again, I have a ton of respect for the Urban League CEO. I'm excited that I get to work with her. And I'm excited that she sees things in me based on having known me for years and observe me for years that I can benefit the organization. So again I feel like I get to be who I am, to bring like my best full self to this work in service of an important social justice effort. So yeah, I'm super excited about that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 1:00:16

That is amazing. And congratulations, by the way.

Jackie Yerby 1:00:20

Yeah, thanks.

Scott Anthony Barlow 1:00:21

And you know one of the things that runs through my mind as hearing you say all this and talking through the entire thing here and now is, it almost feels like in some way that you're going to such great lengths to do so much research. And I would never discourage people from preparing or would never discourage people from... just going in with no prep, no research, not understanding whether something is likely to be a fit necessarily. But it almost feels like a lot of those cases the more that you go into it, the more that you'd find ways to justify that this could be a fit for me. And I almost feel like afterwards, you know, having seen the full circle that I think it is less of a leap of faith, regardless of how it feels like outside looking at it it seems like it is actually less of a leap of faith based on all of the really important things are very aligned. And you have to like go find those things on a website someplace that it was said so that you could say them back to them or whatever else right.

Jackie Yerby 1:01:29

Right.

Scott Anthony Barlow 1:01:30

And I think that in itself is real. That is the important thing. So nicely done. Because that's not easy.

Jackie Yerby 1:01:39

Thank you. You know though, I think about... I don't necessarily want to say serendipity, you know but I think about it like having gone to that city club and you know not surprising that both of us would be at a Mayor's like State of the city address. But one of the things that, like the coaching that I've offered to other people is about being present. And you know about, I don't like to... I mean I don't like the word networking because I think it implies, like something that's transactional. And over the years like I have built a lot of relationships across a lot of different sectors and issues. And so I had my 50th birthday party last year, I invited tons of friends over. And one of my friends whom I knew from a project where they used to work and I was on the board, and they are a person of color, they said, "wow this crowd, like is truly intersectional." I had church friends and I had LGBTQ friends and I had friends from the different nonprofit, friends from like my biking circle. And yeah it was just a really interesting fun mix of people. And so I've developed a lot of relationships and friendships over the years. And it's not quite came from a transactional space but it feels like it has served me well in getting to this point. And I say this was someone who was an introvert. But introvert means I'd rather talk to someone one on one or in small groups than you know to be like interacting with larger people. So for example at my birthday party, I didn't actually want to talk to anybody. I wanted them to talk to each other or that I would party to them for like 2 minutes at a time. But I don't know, I just... you know I put myself out there. I talk to people. I got to know people. I think Nkenge also talked to like her predecessor about me and imagined she talked to other people about me. And yeah and I feel like that played an important role here. And so I've tried to encourage people to find the things like the city club that feel comfortable, that aren't just about I'm looking for a job. But, hey we have here shared interests. What did you think about that panel? And not just like I'm looking for a job and you work there. Although you know that works too, but that feels different.

Scott Anthony Barlow 1:04:37

It does feel different and I think the different feeling is a big part of it. I've got one more big question for you. No pressure or anything. But you know you've gone through this entire change, it's been quite a journey over the last year. And there's been so many elements of it that we've just talked through. What advice would you give to people who are kind of on the beginning of that, where they have realized that, hey I'm in the equivalent role where I know that I don't want to do this anymore and I am thinking about making this change and the right on the precipice. What advice would you give them when they're back there?

Jackie Yerby 1:05:17

Yeah. So I, you know I see... I usually reads comments in a Facebook group of Career Change Facebook group and I realize people are in lots of different spaces and have different situations, right. And I would say, "get out of the situation before it crushes you." And that's really strong language. But I think about the situation I was in before I was laid off where I felt like I couldn't hold my head up in terms of like, how I talked about the work that I was doing. And I wasn't excited about the work that I was doing, excited about like the kinds of contributions that I made which doesn't make for a great like, 'hey you want to interview me for this job.' I just I felt low energy or not. And so I'd say it's really hard, I mean certainly for me, it was hard to be in that headspace to think about what I wanted to do next. And I guess it also goes back to confidence and so I'd say, if you can get out of the situation before your confidence is gone and before you feel desperate about finding that next thing, so that's number one. And you know I think about like a bit earlier the climate change campaign that I worked on, and it was like, wow this is what this feels like when you believe in and love what you're doing. And I'll say, I mean, I worked for a large corporation for 16 years. And I believed in what I was doing most of the time that I was there. And you know believed in a lot of what the organization was doing. But body and soul we're kind of integrated. And so when I had that experience of working on the climate change campaign, I was like, "wow that's what feels like." It's hard to go back after that. And I think it was probably in the back of my mind when I was working... when I was running a non-profit. But it was really clear early on that I did not love that job. And so you know, and I get it. Like there's some people who, a job provides them the resources to do the rest of their life and to do things that they love and that's not where they want to put their energy, I get it. My friends are people who are listening to Happen To Your Career podcast and going through the Career Change Bootcamp, are those people that they're looking for meaning in work. And so I think to hold out for a place where that meaning feels like it's there and then the other thing too is that definitely been in situations. And I felt like this about sustainability job is, I'm going to make it meaningful. And it was certainly meaningful to me, but I struggled to make it meaningful for the organization. I wish I had realized that earlier and had decided to move on earlier when I still felt like my head was, I was holding my head high.

Scott Anthony Barlow 1:09:09

Most of our episodes on Happen To Your Career, often showcase stories of people that have identified and found and take the steps to get to work that they are absolutely enamored with, that matches their strengths, and is really what they want in their lives. And if that's something that you're ready to begin taking steps towards, that is awesome. You can actually get on the phone with us and our team, and we can have a conversation to find the very best way that we can help. It's super informal. And we try to understand what your goals are, where you want to go and what specifically you need our help with. And then we figure out the very best type of help for you, whatever that looks like and sometimes even customize that type of help. And then we make happen. The really easy way to schedule a conversation with our team is just go to: scheduleaconversation.com. That's scheduleaconversation.com and find a time that works best for you. We'll ask you a few questions as well. And then we'll get you on the phone to figure out how we can get you going to work that you really want to be doing that fits your strengths, that you love, and you're enamored with. Hey, I can't wait to hear from you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 1:10:33

You probably heard that you need to say 'no' to more things. We've all heard about drawing boundaries. And then if we're too busy, well, guess what, it's just our own fault. All we need to do is say 'yes' to less things. Which sounds easy in theory, and it's nice to write down. And it's great to read about on a blog post. However, it's much harder to do in practice, in reality.

Greg McKeown 1:10:57

All of a sudden, as COVID hit the, you know, like a quarter of the US population, almost literally overnight, had been asked to believe something like involuntary essentialism. Yeah, not unkindly, we were told, go to your room, and don't come out again until you've had a good thing about it. Like, it's a global teenager, we went and have had to think. And I think there's not almost not anybody who hasn't asked whether they said it in exactly these words or not. But the spirit of it is, what's essential now? All the things I could focus on, what should I focus on? All these things I no longer control which things even matter.

Scott Anthony Barlow 1:11:45

That's Greg McKeown. He's a huge advocate for pursuing less. What he refers to as "essentialism". His writing has appeared in places like New York Times, Fast Company, Fortune, Huffington Post, Inc. Magazine, lots of other places. And he's among the most popular bloggers in places like the Harvard Business Review and LinkedIn influencer scripts, averaging over a million views a month. Oh, also, he's the author of "Essentialism" which I read a while back and thought, hey, I have to get Greg on the podcast. So many months later, he's here to discuss the disciplined pursuit of less and where the idea of essentialism actually began. 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.

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How To Figure Out What You Want And Ask For Help With Career Change

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One of the first challenges in a career change is admitting that we need help. Sounds intense, right? But it’s true. We don’t want to admit that our careers are miserable, we don’t want to admit that we need to make a change, and, most of all, we don’t want to admit that we need someone to guide us through the process. Listen as I chat with Louise McNee, a true HTYC success story. Louise bounced around unsatisfying roles for years before HTYC helped her find one that truly fit.

What you’ll learn

  • How to overcome the natural reluctance to ask for help with career change.
  • Why it’s important to understand that knowing what you want is the key to finding your ideal role.
  • Why knowing yourself is a prerequisite to knowing what you actually want in a career.

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Louise McNee 00:01

So I'm a Commercial Manager. I've just started working for a great company. It's actually a radio station here in Australia.

Introduction 00:14

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:38

Since 2013, we've talked with many thousands of people about their career changes, about how they're thinking about work, about what has been great, what has been terrible and everything in between. So consequently, we get a lot of insight into how people struggle with career change, as well as how they're successful in career change. Something I found really fascinating is, when people have been struggling in the wrong career, in the wrong roles that aren't fulfilling for many years, not just like one or two or three years, but many, many years, maybe even changing roles multiple times.

Louise McNee 01:24

Over the last 15 years or so, I've pretty much been in the same career. Just moving from, I don't do any day-to-day transaction stuff now. So I move from having to actually make sure the P&L is okay or looking at balance sheets. I hate that. That's not where my motivation lies.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:46

That's Louise McNee. She went to business school, she worked a series of business operations jobs that as you'll be able to hear her totally satisfying for her. She does a great job explaining how it felt to be unhappy at work and how difficult it was to understand why she was so unhappy or to even explain it to other people like your loved ones. This is incredibly isolating, that sense of loneliness can actually be an obstacle in itself to career change, you know that whole, "I'm the only one who feels this way. What's wrong with me?" And the truth is that it's very common experience. Louise talks about that lonely feeling later on in this episode. So stay with us. It's something that anyone thinking about career change, absolutely needs to hear. Here's Louise explaining where everything started out for her.

Louise McNee 02:41

So I started out, and it's quite a sad story, when somebody asks you, "what want to be?" when you're little. I don't actually know why, but I said, "I wanted to be an accountant."

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:53

Really? That is... Are you the only one in the world that said that when you were little?

Louise McNee 03:00

I believe so and I don't know whether I should admit to it. I think I was about age 6 and my background, I'm the first in my family to go to university and to do professional qualifications. I don't really know where this idea came from, but I used to enjoy counting, my mom and dad used to collect copper coins, and I used to enjoy counting them, so I don't know where that came from.

Louise McNee 03:27

It's quite sad. I didn't want to be... any of those other exciting jobs that people want to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:27

That's amazing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:35

The ones people that I don't know, I want to be an astronaut. I want to be a firefighter. I want to be a doctor. I want to.... whatever else. You know what, I said accounting and jest. I actually know a bunch of people that absolutely love accounting. I don't personally and I don't have the strengths that are very suitable for accounting but I think that's super cool and I love how unique that is that, you know, 8 years old, like, I want to be an accountant.

Louise McNee 04:04

I probably could have told you what one did. Yeah, that's how I started. So I kind of, I did, you know, business studies at university I went through, and I had a very linear career path. And it's probably wasn't a huge amount of thought into my path. And I mean that in terms of, I was just in traditional, you get a job, you work hard, you get a promotion, you do a slightly different job and that's kind of what I've done. So I started off studying Chartered Management Accountant and I just moved through roles, you know, with job descriptions of management accountant, financial accountant and yeah I just did that. Every move was a promotion and a chance to gain new skills. But over the last 15 years or so, I've pretty much been in the same career, just moving from, I don't do any day to day transactions stuff now, so I've moved from having to actually make sure that P&L is okay or looking at balance sheets. I hate that. That's not where my motivation lies, so thankfully that's all moved away, that's been learned, done, help me to be where I am today and now it's moving towards the strategic and the real business conversations.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:29

When did you realize, I'm curious. Like where along the way did you have some of those realizations that, you know, going from, hey, I'm 8 years old and want to be an accountant, moving into it and starting to realize that, I actually don't really like the balance sheet stuff. Do you remember any specific moments where you had that realization?

Louise McNee 05:49

No... I just think looking back at those... I just knew that there was part of my job that really frustrated me. And there is probably no specific moment and it's probably maybe only over the last three to four years that I've really thought about, "why do I get frustrated" or "what's not motivating me." And then it's kind of, I just don't like that day to day. Because the situation may change, the industry may change, but what you're actually doing doesn't change. So for me, I just got really bored.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:26

So after you recognized that you were getting bored then, what happened from there? Because you says, you sounded like, you know, that was three or four years ago at this point, and what ended up happening from there in your career as you acknowledged, hey look, this kinda sucks and I don't want to do this forever, it might be somebody's gig but it's probably not where I want to spend the vast majority of my time. What happened at that point?

Louise McNee 06:55

The first time I started thinking about this it probably, or definitely wasn't the way I think about it now. So it was like, okay, this isn't for me. It's not happening to me. Let's just go and do it somewhere else. Oh it's going to be completely different in a new business. So I had an opportunity to work for a company which the role never existed before. So it was a startup element of a huge corporate global company and they never needed somebody locally to look at the stuff that I look at. So I kind of thought that that would be a nice avenue to move away, try something different and see if I could you know crack that wall myself and make it do what I want to do. And I was promised that it would be a mix of the transactional and strategic. So I was like, this is great. You know it's the perfect opportunity for me to get that experience and really opt what I can say to people that this is what I do and really proves that I do more than the typical accountant. It didn't actually work out that way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:13

I was gonna ask you how that happened in reality. It sounds like there's another shoe dropping here someplace.

Louise McNee 08:20

Yeah. I think, you know, and this is a huge line for me, as well, and it has really made me since when I've had interviews with other company. It really made me go to that for jobs, you interview the company as well, they don't just interview you. And the lesson for me that really helped, in fact that I really needed to draw down into bit more detail, because while the intention was there, they just went up the stage, right to have that person who was ready to do what I wanted to do and which had kind of done throughout my career, you know, it's always been a part of my role to do the challenging, the asking the questions, the looking at things a slightly different way. The day to day dragged me down more than I thought it would and more than they thought it would as well. And that, it also wasn't a very good environment. And it's the first time I think I've been in an environment I've really struggled with. A lot of people have been working together for a long time. I've been in similar industries for a long time. And so their thought patterns with, kind of automatically convened. And so you know, I come in, I've worked for multiple different industries, I've changed jobs quite regularly. And so I come in with a whole new different set of thoughts and ideas and ways of seeing things and I don't think they were quite ready for some of my questions.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:56

So you'd infiltrated the club and you've got all of these new different experience. And everything else that goes along with it. And at that point in time, it sounds like they were less than what you'd hoped for receptive. Is that fair to say?

Louise McNee 10:13

That's fair to say, yes. So that was the first time that I let... career is very important to me. It's probably... and I realized this after working with this over the last year or so, I put so much weight on my career, it kind of defined me in a way. And I think some of that might be because of my upbringing. In fact I'm the only one to have done this thing so... and nobody else is going to feel this way but I've put it on me that I had to be great at this, I had to know what I was doing. Now I have to constantly, you know, progress. And that I would just be this one that had it all sorted. This was the first time I went, "oh. I don't actually like this. And I don't know if I want to be doing this anymore."

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:04

That is so interesting. If I might ask you about that for just a second because I think it's fascinating that when we, and I very much, I've done this a lot of different times of my life too where, I will define who I am in some ways by what it is that I'm doing at that particular time. Often it is also with my career. And it's interesting how that can cause you to, in some cases, like stay in a place longer than you probably should have. I'm curious, was that what happened there as well? Because it sounds like at some point you recognize that. But, how did you think about that once you started to realize that, hey this is... this definition of myself is causing some less desirable pieces?

Louise McNee 11:56

Yeah there's probably two things to it. One is, you know, you just tell yourself suck it up.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:03

Yeah, absolutely.

Louise McNee 12:05

You're in a really good position compared to other people, you know, you're salary is great., you working for big name companies, you've had a progression. When you go and speak to people, it's taken me a long time to kind of be able to... be proud of my achievements and be able to sell them to people rather than to play in them. And so it kind of, "oh, just what are you complaining about?" This is just, you've got it all. Don't just get over it, it just must be a phase. Go in three. And then the other side of that is, I just really did not know what the option was or what I wanted. So that was one of the hardest things. And so even from this role I moved again to another company and did almost exactly the same role. I still went through that. It must be the company. It's the company that's making me feel this way. Not the actual role. I just did not know what else to do, I did not know if there was another career out there for me. I did not know... I didn't know how to get out of it. So I just stayed in it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:18

What was that like? Because that's, you know, still semi recent for you. What was that like being in that particular place where you didn't know but realized that something's wrong?

Louise McNee 13:35

Yeah, really hard because I happened to get in the role afterwards. So this was two roles in a row that I was having these feelings and I was so trapped. And it really impacted, you know I'm normally a happy bubbly person. My friends say that I'm always up for a laugh, I'm the one that can have, you know, will try and look on the positive side. I went a complete opposite. I was a nightmare. I wasn't married at the time but my poor husband, I've never cried so much because I just felt completely trapped in not knowing what to do. And as well as, I know my pride myself on being the tough one. For me to just... I just... and I couldn't even tell him what point why I was crying. Because when you're trying to articulate to people why you're feeling, how you are feeling and if they're trying to give examples, I find a lot... they sound really minor when you're trying to give examples because it's hard to explain to people why you feeling the way you are. It's just, when you add it all together in a big bootcamp, it's obviously making you feel so bad. But I found it really hard to not only understand myself but also try to explain to other people. So I felt like I was in a cycle of, I didn't have anybody or I felt like I wasn't explaining to people well enough so they could help me. If that makes sense.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:17

Well, it's hard to understand. I mean, let's be honest, even when you're in it and you're experiencing it, it's hard to understand for yourself to really truly get what's going on, let alone be able to help other people understand as well, because in some ways too especially if you have done well and you have been continuously moving up the ranks, you've done a lot of things that most people would look at from the outside and say, "Wow. She got an amazing life and career" and everything else along those lines. And it is difficult to be able to articulate that in a way that really helps people understand what's going on from the inside looking out.

Louise McNee 16:08

Yeah. Especially because people, everybody gets days right, they hate their jobs, or things are not going well, or they might be lower than they normally are. It's just hard to kind of tell people that that's how you feel almost every minute of every day. And I felt like my energy is just taken all of my energy just to get through the day. Never mind thinking about what I wanted to be doing and how to get out of it. That was way past of me. It was such hard work to get up in the morning, get in the car, drive to work, do a full day at work, get home and feel like I had managed to get through the day.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:47

We see this really interesting phenomenon as we've worked with people over the years and we see that for that exact reason, it really starts to compound and actually it turns an already complex and frustrating problem into an even much larger and more complex one too, because not only are you doing exactly what you described, like you're in a role where it's totally zapping your energy. And at the same time, it's difficult to be able to explain it to other people, understand what is going on, but then even trying to think about what to do about it after you've already spent day after day after day where your energy is zapped and it's taking all of those pieces of you then it turns into this bit of a cycle where... and we call this "The Stuck Cycle" again and again. But I'm curious, what happened where you decided, look I've got to do something differently and how did you begin to get out of this?

Louise McNee 17:46

Yeah. I think I've always been a pretty, my personality, I've always been really big into self development, doing other things, challenging myself, so I do naturally have that mindset of, I don't like to sit and complain about stuff and not do something about it. That's just me. I think one of the and it's quite this being completely open and it's quite comfortable for me to be open. I was out for dinner with my husband let say, we weren't married then but we were planning a wedding. I was crying in the restaurant. And he's like, "This is not what life is. This is not, you know, we were trying to plan the wedding. Got so many exciting things to be looking forward to. Why you're crying in a public restaurant? Embarrassing me" and, you know, my poor husband didn't know what to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:45

It sounds like, that is the ultimate test, by the way. Clearly you've got a good guy.

Louise McNee 18:54

Yeah. He's been very good. And I think it's very hard for him as far. Because when we met, and I have always portrayed that I've got things sorted. Career is really important and he saw a change from the person he met to somebody who was really the strong, knew where she was going, had everything in her sights, enjoyed life to this person's, "why are you crying again?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:23

Oh my goodness. Yeah.

Louise McNee 19:24

He still married me. So thankfully, he's definitely a good one.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:31

That's funny. There's a test might be hard to duplicate that exact test but if you find yourself in that place and they react this way, you know, you've got a good one.

Louise McNee 19:43

And then, talking him, you know, he really tried to understand. He does a similar role to me now and he came through in a different way. He did the audit background. I've never done audit. So I think, in one way, it was harder for him to understand because he just thought, while he was having the same experience as me, but it wasn't impacting him in the way that it was impacting me. And I just got to that point, and I thought, this is not me. This is... I've been crying on friends, I've been crying on Mark, down the line. But I can remember Lisa and I had to walk in a few sessions booked in. And I just derailed it completely because the minute she said, "hello" I burst out crying.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:31

So to give a little bit of context. At some point along the way as you recognize that you wanted to make changes, we got the pleasure of working with you. And Lisa, who's one of the coaches on our team, and you hear Lisa's story actually back in Episode 147. You got to work with Lisa and through our Career Change Bootcamp program, right?

Louise McNee 20:55

Yes, I did. And it took me a while to get to the point of asking for help.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:04

What did you perceive as the hardest part to get to that point of asking for help? Like you're talking about.

Louise McNee 21:12

So I think for me, it's just... I thought I had to figure it all out myself, you know, it's that kind of, thought verbatim, saying to somebody, I don't actually know and being open and so for me, I listened to the podcast on my way to and from work. I listen, you know, and re-thinking, yeah this song's great. This is something I definitely need. But actually you know, writing the email or making that step to actually say, I need this, was somehow really hard for me. So I remember having a, as I said, I've also got that fundamental part of me that doesn't just like to let things carry on. Once I know something needs to be changed, I will kind of know I need to change it. And there was one of my younger brother, he's just a few years younger than me, but he said something to me once, which I always resonated with me. He said, "things might not work out the way you want them to work out but you've never not done what you wanted to do. You've always found a way. You've just got to be remember that it might be a different way to what you wanted it to be." And that ,you know, I don't know if my brother knows how much that resonated with me and stick with me. And so for me, that was... that right. Okay, I know I need to change. I know I need help. I can't do this on my own, you know what, I have to let my, pride maybe it's not the right word, but I have to let that go a little bit and say to somebody, "I need help." So I actually took, I think I had a few conversations where I got in touch and discussed working on career change bootcamp and then I got a little bit of a cold feet and I backed off. And I went on holiday and then just the thought of actually going back to work after that holiday, so I can't do it. I've been away for two weeks, now I'm really need to be serious about this now and do something about it. And that's when I finally thought right, I'm committed, I'm going to get some help and that's when I signed up for a career change bootcamp.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:30

That is so interesting. And I think that that is so real world and I appreciate you sharing that because a lot of times that's how it happens for most of us. It happens in stages. It's not like this epiphany at the top of a mountain, I don't know, after whatever and all of a sudden like we know what we're going to do and we know how we're going to get help and we know how we're going to make it all happen and everything else along those lines that really happens in those smaller realizations and then that event leads to another event and another event and then all of a sudden we're at the point where it's like, okay, I've got to do something. But it's all of the other pieces that got you to that point as well. I so appreciate you sharing that. What do you feel like, as you went through and as you started after you made that commitment of, hey I have to do something and I've got to double down on this, what was that like for you? As you made the commitment to making the change and putting even more time and effort into that. What happened from there?

Louise McNee 24:37

Yes. So I think for me and kind of makes sense that after Strengthsfinder, write down my strengths. Once I've actually made the commitment and the ball was rolling, I felt like a weight to be lifted off purely because I was doing something. So rather than sitting in my head, you know, praying going over time, constantly thinking but not know which way to go. Even just a simple act to say, "not okay. this... I have a path. There is a structure to this and I have somebody there to help me through this. It really made me feel like there was a way out of this." So even just the beginning was like, okay, I can do this. It kind of, I was still feeling a bit nervous about opening up then, you know, sometimes you feel like you have to have all the answers. I mean you have to have the right answer. And I didn't. And I still don't have all of the answers.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:34

I wish I had all the answers, that would be fantastic.

Louise McNee 25:39

It's kind of, you know, I had to open, you know, get used to open myself up to that. You know being asked a question and not knowing how to answer and having that awkward, “I actually don't know this is going to taking me a long time to think about it.” Knowing that there was a structure in the path, there was actually activities to take and also knowing that I really felt like I had someone in my corner. You know it was somebody completely understood what I was going through. So when you're talking to somebody like Lisa and the rest of your team, you don't have to go through the preamble of "why you're feeling the way you're feeling" they just get it, you know, you've worked with so many different people, you've had the same thought yourself. So it kind of cuts out a lot of the initial, you know, introduction of why are you doing this. And you can start off on the whys and you know the reasons why, or all the actual real details that are making you feel the way you feel to get you... become and get into it straight away which I think was great because once I thought I was actually doing something, you know, one is... like execution is one of my actually moving forward and getting things done and focus and finishing the task at the end of the day. That's what I figured out, what makes it work and it doesn't matter what task it is. It could be anything.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:08

You're gonna make it happen.

Louise McNee 27:09

Yes. I feel like I've been productive in the day and then that's me going to bed feeling like I've had a good day. And so the program helped me to know, okay, there's stuff to do, you know, there's a... you know, the StrengthsFinder test, the exercises, planning your day, what your ideal day would be, you know, what part of your job do you like, what parts you don't like. And then even taken it further than that. And, you know, outside of your career as well. What do you enjoy doing? I went through a couple of different notebooks. I just wrote everything down. And it took me a while to get used to it but looking back now, I liked the fact that Lisa would ask me a question and I wouldn't be able to answer it and I'd have to go away and really think about it rather than...

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:07

What's an example of that? I'm super curious. Do you remember any examples of that? What's one time where that happened where Lisa had asked you a question and you had, you're like, "I don't know, let me think about that."?

Louise McNee 28:20

Just the... first one is, "what would you do if you weren't doing what you were doing now?" Complete blank for me, complete and utter blank. And that meant I really had to go down into the detail of what it is. I didn't dislike the entire of my role in what I was doing day to day. I had to get down into, it wasn't specifically task related, the task related part is the easy part. I think you can always say, quite easily, I don't like doing that particular task in a day whether it be standard reporting or admin type work or whatever it may be. It more the interactions with people and what is fundamentally are not working and to be honest, one of the things I only just clicked with me recently and Lisa probably told me at the time that, you know, when your brains working overtime it's taken a while to click in, because I'm so... my strengths are so, you know, I'm in the learner side. I feel like I have to learn constantly. Doing the same role but for different companies wasn't enough for me because even though I was learning about different industries there was no real different thought process.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:52

That's so interesting.

Louise McNee 29:54

It's the same discussions.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:57

So for you, then was it that, it was not the right continuous scope or not the right level of challenge in terms of learning or not the right... what was it about that type of learning as opposed to the type of learning that is really good for you?

Louise McNee 30:20

Because it was... there was... I felt like there was no real development in the learning. So it was... I was learning about a different situation that when you are doing the role that I do, your brain works in a certain way and my brain was always working in that way. It was, find the problem, find the root cause, see who it's impacting, see which people you need to talk to to get it changed, what are your options. And so while the situations may have been very different it was the same process of going through. So you might get a few curve balls from a technical point of view or something different but it doesn't change the thought process for you. Did I explain that very well?

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:15

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And I think that I wanted you to dive into that, one, because I'm always curious about other people's perspectives but I think that's something that's a bit of a commonality with many of the people that listen to Happen To Your Career. A lot of us are very very interested in learning and need that measure of learning in different ways and actually in different ways and a lot of cases compared to the average person. So I appreciate you taking the time to detail that out. So here's a different question though and I'm super curious, you know, you ended up working with Lisa and had a lot of these realizations along the way. What caused you or what do you feel like allowed you to make the most headway on this? Aside from some of the realizations that you had, because now you're in this new role and it didn't happen by magic. It was a bunch of hard work, even before we hit the record button, you said, when you are in the moment it really just feels like a lot of hard work in some ways, right?

Louise McNee 32:29

Yes. I think the real realization and this was where Lisa was worth her weight in gold. It was the realization that I don't have to go from a bad situation to the perfect situation straight away. I just wasn't in that place, you know, going back to my mental and emotional state trying to do. So, I did go and I spoke to 10 or 20 people in the areas I thought I wanted to do in their companies, I wanted to work with. I was doing all of that. And that is actually, I'll probably come back to that later, that was really really beneficial to me but it wasn't getting me into a good place. And so a conversation with Lisa was like, "how do we get you into a place where you can then start thinking about that? Because going from that to that is not working." My brain could not cope with the thought process. I needed to get out of my mental state where I was at the moment, I needed to get out of a company and a role that wasn't making me fall short or was perpetuating this negative vibe. And so that was where the planning of, okay, so what's really important to you, really came into play. So for me, there was a couple of key buckets. So when you look at the culture of the company, location of the company, whether there is a different type of industry, whether you know flexibility plays a part. And also for me, I have such a huge social conscience. So I do quite a fair bit of mentoring through charities for either younger females who might find it tough and also I got one charity that works here in Australia. It's the opposite. It's the overachievers. And these are...

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:46

Amazing. What's the name of that one? I'm so curious now.

Louise McNee 34:51

It's called Aim for the Stars and they give grants or sponsorships to females who are doing really amazing things in the field and it could be any field. It could be musicians, scientists. They did have one lady will be the first commercial female pilot in Australia. There was a particular thing that she wanted to hit the sport. Because these people are so good at what they do, I think they realize that they still need help. They still need someone to talk through with, things with and you know they have those, they maybe have doubts more than other people because they are aware of what they need to do. So I... that for me, that social conscience and in a company where is a big through. The work with Lisa really help me narrow down and so we kind of, we decided that the best route for me, at the time, was to get myself into a really good company that ticked off those items and then we can potentially think about longer term, see how I feel about the role in a new company that does tick off those items. It can have everything flow through. I went to speak to lots of different people and I spoke to people in charities and foundations and worked up really quickly that wasn't the avenue for me because they have a lot of transactional day to day, frustrations that would just leave me from having that scenario of somewhere to somewhere else. Plus the pay and salary isn't exactly where I needed it to be. I had conversations with people who, we were started talking about where I might want to go and there's one lady who asked me to create a page deck and she really worked with me, and Lisa worked on with me as well to kind of create this five or six page deck that would explain who I am, what I want, very succinctly. But also in the most effective strong way. All these things really help get towards, you know, I was applying for jobs and I was going into some interviews and it all helped me sell myself better in the interview but also help me to recognize, "I don't think I want to work here." I'm going to be moving again to a company where it may not be the right fit for me. And so at the end of last year, I've been in my current role for three months now, at the end of last year this opportunity came up and it kind of excited me from a complete perspective, ends up being a radio station. It's got that different vibe and so. I've got something into a situation now where I probably ticked off five of my main things and boxes of what I need; company, location, the culture, needs to be for me. So the culture at the radio station is amazing and everybody's really friendly. This sounds so small but I was in the kitchen making myself a cup of tea and people were coming up introducing themselves to me saying, "Welcome. We haven't seen you before." Whereas in past companies, I've been in a situation where people are just walking past each other without smiling.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:33

Straight on by. That is... So here's what I think people might gloss over as they're listening to this or might not realize is that to be able to get to that level of specificity in terms of what you are looking for in a role to be able to recognize that in advance, "hey this organization and this opportunity really does tick off a huge amount of these boxes especially some of the most important ones to me." It is no small effort to get there and I think it's, I wanted to call that out. Just one, to say kudos to you because it is the hard work that most people on the face of the planet will not do because it is difficult. And it is challenging and it is thought work and it is hard to do alone too, let alone even with somebody, working with somebody like Lisa makes it possible. But it's still a challenge right. So I don't want to let that to be lost on people. But at the same time, you know really really nice work recognizing that and I love what you pointed out earlier that, you know what, it's about each individual step and it can't be about going from going from the place where you're at to the absolute perfect thing. One because there is no absolute perfect thing out there. Perfection is the enemy of a lot of different things. And in fact, we just, on a recent episode with Caroline, another coach on our team, episode 226, we dug into that bit on perfectionism. But here's what I'm curious about, you know after going through all of that, what advice would you offer, people that are in that same place that you've been where maybe they've changed roles a couple of times and and found themselves close to back in the same place or maybe they're realizing for the first time that I really do want something more and it is ok for me to want something different than where I'm at. What advice would you give those people?

Louise McNee 40:43

I would say, you have to take the pressure off yourself. And it's easier said than done sometimes. We all put the pressure on ourselves. I think in a lot of situations is not the people putting the pressure on us, it's us putting the pressure on ourselves. Take the pressure off but really think about, I found... because you have to think about not just the wrong but the people, you've got to think about everything because I remember when I did, you know, what is your ideal day look like. I felt like I was being a bit spoiled by saying certain things. Now, I want to be able to wake up what's the time I wanna wake up. And I want to be able to have a cup of tea in bed before I go to work and really get down into those details because it's not those... for me, I found that, it's not those details of search that will make me you, you know, have a cup of tea before you go to work. It is not going to make you figure out what's going on. You find a pattern, in what you actually will need in your day to get, you know, through the day in the most positive, fulfilled way. For me, I needed to know what kind of people I wanted to be around. And so, yeah, take the pressure off, really get down to the detail. And one of the things for me was kind of realizing that, potentially, which is so different from where I was, one of me, I can find making career, everything.

Scott Anthony Barlow 42:37

Yes.

Louise McNee 42:39

I've now realized that for me, career can't be everything.

Scott Anthony Barlow 42:43

Interesting. I would love to wrap up on that. Why is that? What is it? What does it need to be in your particular life?

Louise McNee 42:58

Career for me, my role is, it's the fundamentals of the way it's what's going to pay me to make me be able to move. It's going to have a bit of structure in my day. Someone will give me a bit stracture of my day. It will get me around people. I do need to be around people. I need to have these conversations. I'm not one who could, I love working from home every now and again on my own. But I really need that connection. But it's, for me, knowing especially because I'm in the same role that I've been doing over the past couple of years, it gives me that comfort of, I know what I'm doing. I guess, I'm going to get new challenges. It's probably more challenges of how to influence people or how to make people go a certain way or think about things differently. And it gives me stability to then experience and explore other parts of my life that are really important to me. As I said, you worked on that social conscience. I'm going to pick up another mentee, if I've got the time, if I've got a role that, you know, at the moment, thankfully I can do, you know, not quite but I can do 9 to 5. So that gives me so much time then to spend trying to help other people. At one point, I thought would be good to go down as a career that I don't think it's the right career for me. But I can still get it in my life now because I've got the time and I've got the energy. From the learning perspective, I've always had it on my list, I used to be so fluent in French but haven't spoke French for about 15 years. We are going on holiday to France in September. So I now have a goal. I want to be fluent by September. So I know have the time to speak and know directions.

Scott Anthony Barlow 45:01

That is... valuable.

Louise McNee 45:02

I feel like I've got myself into a situation where I'm in a healthy state and I've realized that I can get fulfillment through other areas and not just through work. I've got the time to spend with my husband and with my friends who are in Austalia. My family is in the UK, so I have to make a lot of effort to keep in touch with family and friends. But I'm in a position now where I can do that and I can feel good about what I'm doing and I'm getting what I need, mentally, you know, I'm learning, I've got the comfort of working in a role I feel comfortable doing. It's a new company, so I'm still in that stage of everything is sort and kind of settling in. I actually feel like there is three or four different streams of my life now that I can work in and my company is setting up a foundation, social foundation. So you never know where that might go. I can hopefully spend a lot of time towards that as well that links my desire to do good in the world, in the workplace.

Scott Anthony Barlow 46:15

Hey, many of the stories that you've heard on the podcast are from listeners that have decided they wanted to take action, and taking the first step of having a conversation with our team to try and figure out how we can help. And if you want to implement what you have heard, and you want to completely change your life and your career, then let's figure out how we can help. So here's what I would suggest. Just open your phone right now and open your email app. And I'm going to give you my personal email address, scott@happentoyourcareer.com just email me and put 'Conversation' in the subject line. And then when you do that, I'll introduce you to the right person on our team, and you can have a conversation with us, we'll try and understand your goals and what you want to accomplish in your career no matter where you're at. And we can figure out the very best way that we can help you and your situation. So open it up right now. And send me an email with 'Conversation' in the subject line. scott@happentoyourcareer.com

Scott Anthony Barlow 47:25

What happens when you have a job that seems prestigious, most people would love to have it, but you can't stand it?

Jackie Yerby 47:33

The work culture was pretty toxic. I didn't feel good about the work. So my first best day was the day that I decided I needed to leave that job.

Scott Anthony Barlow 47:42

That's Jackie Yerby. She is what, the kids today would call a boss, she's had a series of various prestigious high impact roles in public policy, although not all of them are fulfilling. And this is a fascinating aspect of career change in itself. We have shared a lot on the podcast about looking past what other people do to change careers or what other people think is fulfilling and trying to identify what you want, what you find fulfilling, even if it makes other people say, "really? are you sure?" Well, it turns out that Jackie's career brought her into some high powered circles of people who had very specific ideas about what it meant to be successful and Jackie felt like she had to meet their standard. Keep your open during this episode for Jackie's explanation of how she escaped other people's expectations and focused on what actually made her feel fulfilled. 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.

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What To Do When Your (Brand New) Ideal Role Isn’t Really Ideal

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Our hope in going through a career change is to find a dream job and live happily ever after. But… life is often not that simple. Career change is an iterative process of working to move steadily closer to our ideal role and our ideal life. On the podcast this week, Laura Parker shares her story of what happened when she worked very hard to change careers, only to discover that her new role wasn’t the exact fit she had hoped for.

What you’ll learn

  • Why it’s important to gain insight into identifying exactly what you want, so that you know exactly what to ask for, which makes you more likely to get it.
  • How to pivot when you accomplish a career change only to immediately realize that you’re ready for another career change (spoiler: it’s ok, it’s all part of the process!).
  • Why you should discuss your job dissatisfaction with your manager in a way that allows the two of you to cooperate to make your role better.

Success Stories

I see much better now how my five Clifton strengths tied together and the ones that I had felt were really not that much of a big deal, I can see better how they are innovative to me as a person and to my strengths and where they come from. And that was a kind of a new thing. What I love is new situations and learning, and I actually actively look for opportunities to push myself out of my comfort zone. So, and if I look back at past roles, I would tend to have to go back to go to the land and to run a major program that had been failing. And I didn't know a lot of the nitty gritty, the detail of all the different projects, but I had the organizational skills, I wanted to learn about the different projects. I wasn't fazed by the fact that I didn't know any of that detail. So I had the challenge of learning and the environment initially and also the challenge of language as I learn to. And that satisfied my learning.

Judith Bhreasláin, LIBOR Discontinuation Project Manager, United Kingdom

Get the Full Backstory

My favorite part of the career change boot camp was actually having some of those conversations and getting feedback and positive feedback about strengths. And to me that was key, because in that moment, I realized that my network not only is a great for finding the next role, it also is helpful to… they help you remind you who you are and who you will be in your next role, even if the current circumstances are not ideal.

Elizabeth , Digital Marketing Analytics Strategist, United States/Canada

Get the Full Backstory

I just remember from that visioning exercise, being able to say no to something, even if it's a great opportunity or a great experience. It shows that as we moved through these journeys, whether it's life or even business that we… we have to stay true to what we're really searching for and wanting to create.

Matthew Toy, Yoga Instructor, United States/Canada

Get the Full Backstory
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Laura Parker 00:02

I work for a technology, SAS company, my role is around retaining our customers in Europe, so outside of the UK, and also growing them. And the interesting thing for me about why I was in this position is because I did a big career change about two years ago to get this job. It was my two year anniversary yesterday, actually. So that in itself was a big shift. I've had a big learning curve over the last two years, but I was a little bit sad to find myself in a position and having to think about a new career change.

Introduction 00:36

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:00

Look, everyone loves a happy ending. And a lot of time on the podcast, we talk to people, they share their stories, and they come off as pretty straightforward. They were unhappy, they felt stuck. Then they decided to change careers. It was challenging, but eventually they succeeded. And now they're incredibly happy. Hooray. But we've been having conversation behind the scenes for about two or three years now, that there's a danger in that. And we want you to understand how it really looks from the inside when you decide to make a career change. So today, we wanted to highlight a different kind of career change story, when that wasn't as simple.

Laura Parker 01:43

It's just that the job, it wasn't, you know, there were plenty of people out there that will love that sort of moving fast paced, moving from customers-to-customer, but it just didn't sit well with me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:54

That's Laura Parker. She made a big career change to get out of a role where she was unhappy, but just two years into her new role, realize she was not thriving and needed another change. The truth is, the career change is a journey, you don't necessarily achieve your dream job, achieve your dream career in just one step. And even if you do, it turns out, you're human, your life goes on, you continue to change, and develop new interests. And you may find that you need to make another change. And not only is that okay, it's actually great, because it means you're listening to yourself and keeping track of what you need to feel happy in your role. Laura does a great job of describing how she made a career change, and then made another one. I want you to listen just for that and in our conversation. Later in the episode, Laura will talk about the experience of knowing when it was time to change careers after she had just changed careers. Here she is talking about what led up to her career change.

Laura Parker 02:59

So before joining this technology company, I had spent about 12 years working predominantly for one global law firm. And I had a variety of roles. I had the opportunity to go to Hong Kong with them for a couple of years. But I knew after I got back from Hong Kong, which was probably about four years ago now, that I was going to need a new environment, a new working, a new role. I knew I wanted to leave professional services. Anyone who works in professional services will probably understand where I'm coming from but partnerships are their very own special working environments. And for me, they had some frustrations after being in that sector for 12 years. For example, it's quite hard to get partners to make decisions. They will call it a collaborative environment, but it can be... it's quite difficult because typically no one person has leadership so you can end up sort of analysis paralysis by an analysis type situation. I know after being in that type of environment trying to create change for that period of time, I knew that I had to move on to really stretch myself and work in a different environment, it was more empowering. There were lots of specifics as to what I thought I wanted to do in a new job, I wanted to move to a smaller, more nimble company, more agile, I was interested in trying to move into technology just because I thought for no particular scientific reason, I just thought it would be a good thing to move to in today's world. I wanted to get a bit more back on the frontline of sales, which I haven't been in working in partnerships, you don't really sell in the way that you do when you're selling a product. So I wanted to get back on the front line and sales. So I had quite a lot of criteria that I was looking for when I made the move, but essentially, I just knew I needed to be in a different more empowering environment but it took me a long time. I was probably looking for another job for probably about two years actually before I found this one, it was very hard to move industries. I didn't know any other recruiters beyond the legal and professional services environment. It was quite a hard piece of work.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:08

So you worked for around two years to make that change.

Laura Parker 05:13

Exactly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:13

Which was, incidentally, I've also about two years ago, and then we did all this work and all this effort, made the change, and then somewhere along the way, found that you wanted to make another shift. Is that right?

Laura Parker 05:28

Yes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:28

Tell me about that

Laura Parker 05:29

My experience in the law firms have been looking after or managing the largest clients of, most recently, it was investment bank clients. Most of them were worth about between one and $10 million to the law firm. And when I was offered the role here, I was offered the opportunity to manage and up-sell to the largest customers in at the time in the Amir region. What happened was, though that by the time I'd done my notice periods, which in the UK is, you know, for senior people, it's typically around three months. By the time I'd work my three months notice period at the law firm, when I joined here, the team that I was meant to join looking after the largest customers no longer existed, they've made a decision to disband it. So my role ended up being looking after hundreds of customers, you know, I've had nearly 150 at one point and trying to sell to those customers, and that after probably about 12 months, I just noticed it really wasn't playing to my strengths. It was taking up a lot of mental energy because I was having to re-adjust actually some of my baseline values to a certain extent, and it was exhausting. And I just thought this is not what I want to be doing. As I say, I was a bit frustrated and found myself in that position so soon after making a big career shift. But that was why that I really wanted to own it and do something to improve my situation. But then, I earned...

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:57

I think that's a place where a lot of people find themselves. And I'm a little biased because we run a company where people find us when they want to make career changes. But often, when we get to interact with a variety of people around the world, they are in a similar position to what you experienced, where you decided, okay, this is not working, and that working with global law firm, and in that industry, that area wasn't working for many different reasons, wasn't the right type of collaboration, etc, etc. And then you did all of this work, all those effort, which was pretty awesome to make a change, knowing that you needed a few different pieces, and then you got to the new role, which you know, again, kudos to you for doing something about it and owning it, as you said. And then you realize that there were some other pieces that you maybe haven’t necessarily considered like I heard you say something about, some of my baseline values were adding up in the way that I wanted them to. So what would be an example of that?

Laura Parker 08:01

The main example that comes to mind is when you've got targets, and you've got a large customer base to try and sell to reach those targets, it feels very transactional in nature. And that is not what I had spent 12 years doing beforehand, my strengths, and I guess my values aligned to really building relationships for the long term, bringing value to people, understanding what they value, and then figuring out how I can bring that to their table. And I just didn't have the opportunity to do that when I had to try and keep in touch with 150 different customers and try and sell to them. It was just very transactional and that it meant I was turning up on phone calls without I was used to knowing everything that went on in the customers I had before, probably more than the partners and that wasn't the case here. I was sort of having to be dropped in without having done research, without having half the time to sit down and talk to people, without really potentially ever having met people before. On the customer side, that was probably the prime example of why I thought this just isn't sitting well with how I want to operate. It's just that the job it wasn't, you know, there were plenty of people out there that will love that sort of moving fast paced, moving from customers-to-customer, but it just didn't sit well with me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:15

Well, it sounds like for you to get the most out of your role work, you need to have a continuous relationship, for lack of a better phrase, and that continuous collaboration and that know what's going on and that is much more fulfilling for you. I'm guessing shot in the dark then the parachuting in and making the sale.

Laura Parker 09:37

Yes, absolutely. I love the wind of the sale. I do love getting signatures on the dotted line and but I want to do it because we found a solution that really works for that customer because we can help that customers business and we're gonna help our stakeholders look good, feel good, do their job better. And for me, that just means I prefer to spend more time understanding what that looks like for as many people as I can.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:01

Very cool. That's amazing that you know that about yourself. So my question then becomes, at what point did you decide, I did all this work, I now recognize that I need to make a different shift in one way or another, what transpired to have you say that, okay, now’s the time?

Laura Parker 10:19

I mean, I knew it probably after about nine months were very orderly target driven business. So I'm thinking in courses. How the courses, I miss my target and why I was missing my target. So after about three quarters, I was thinking, this a… it had been a really steep learning curve, and I had completely underestimated that but I done learning curves in the past, I have moved industries, most jobs I've had have moved me from industry to industry, but this was a really steep learning curve. So I found that quite difficult, but be then the fact that I wasn't playing to my strengths. So I was probably about nine months in and I was having... I did have conversations with my manager, I mean, I think the manager does play a role in these conversations. And if you've got a great one then, you know, you really need to leverage them. So I was being open that the response back from the business was, well, you need to tell us what you want to do if it's not this. And my issue was, I know about all the jobs that exist. I don't know what future jobs people might be thinking about creating. So I was struggling, I didn't think I wanted to do any of the jobs that I sort of saw existed, the people I interacted with regularly were struggling to think “well, what's the new job that I might do?” And I started talking to people, but actually then I got put onto your podcast by a colleague, and that sort of set me on a fantastic path.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:41

Well, I'm so glad that your colleagues set you on the direction of our podcasts, because it turns out very well in the end. But I'm curious, when you started down that direction after you found the podcast, what happened next that sent you the direction that turns out?

Laura Parker 11:58

So I listened to a few episodes of the podcast. And then I think it was literally at the end of one of the podcasts, I think you say, “you know, you can email me if you have any questions.” And I just thought, how or I argued this email thing ago, let's see what really happens, and you reply, and I thought, wow, this really exists. And then it all happened quite quickly. I had an initial call. I can't remember who he is, sorry. But he was asking some great questions about my situation and what I thought I wanted to do, and then that sort of got me onto the career change bootcamp program. And I just thought, you know, it was a quite a lot of money up front, but I thought I had been in, for me damaging career situations in my 20s. And I thought it happened to me twice before and I've managed to get out of them. And I promised myself I'd never let that happen again, because I knew… I know how damaging is it takes a long time to build up your confidence when being shaken. You know, you can lose your confidence very quickly and then it takes a lot longer to build that back up. And I really didn't, I really wanted to try and nip this in the bud this time, my confidence was struggling after that sort of nine month period I mentioned. So I couldn't believe that I was in this situation, but I thought, you know, I just need to really do something quite, drastic’s the wrong word, but what I wanted to do was have some things that were... do something and earn something that had longevity. And that's what I've loved about the program is that I know I've got access to these resources forever. And you know, the coaching skills I've had from Jennifer, the coaching sessions have been amazing. And it really helped me understand things about myself that I hadn't been able to piece together before but even so, notwithstanding that just having access to the resources and the worksheets has really helped me create an environment that is feels sustainable. They all happen quite quickly. Once I had that initial conversation, I thought, “no, I am going to put my money where my mouth is. I'm going to do this program and I'm going to make it work.” Say that I don't keep finding myself in this it you know, I'm in my early 40s now so that's why I kind of couldn't believe that 20 years on I'm back in indecision I remember being in many years ago.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:07

Share with us what has, I already know, but what at this point has happened because as you said, for you it has moved rather quickly. But what are you getting to do right now? Because you're in a state of transition, right?

Laura Parker 14:22

Yes. So do you want to know what… how I'm self-managing my current goals at the moment or what I did to get to this point?

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:32

Both. So you are transitioning internally. You found yourself, just a backup here a second, I heard you say earlier that, you know, I had a great manager. They were very open to, so what do you want to do? And that's fantastic. That's not necessarily in every single situation, but it does happen more commonly than what I think most people feel like. That said, you, I think did a great job of taking advantage of that opportunity and trying to figure out what could this look like. So, how did that transpire?

Laura Parker 15:07

I can't tell if the career change bootcamp and was quite religious about that, I took off I did all the… I've joined the Facebook group, set up a coaching sessions, did all the pre work and you know, had some great coaching sessions with Jennifer, connected with someone else in London who was going through the program so we met up a few times. I blocked the time out, you know, made the time to do it all. So that was all sort of following the process. What at the same time, what I had decided to own as well was start talking to other people around the business here to find out I'm quite a few people here have changed roles, like significantly change from department to department and I started a couple of people in the London office had done that. So I started talking to them about how they done that and the common theme was, being clear with your manager that you want to move, but also going out to the business and finding out what's going on in bits that you don't know about, parts of business you don't know about so that you can actually come up with some options. So that's what I did. I started getting in touch with senior people, not so senior people, people in departments that I thought I might want to work in. We're not very big in London here, you know, there's only about 40 of us now. So I was contacting people in our San Francisco, Melbourne, New York offices. And just, they were people who had either shifted roles quite significant. And I wanted to find out how they done that, or they were people, as I say, who were in departments that I thought maybe I'd be interested in, working in. Or all they were just quite senior people that have a broad scope of what's going on. They see more the what's going on than I was, so I could get their take as to what they thought the challenges in the business where, what some extra effort would be valued. And I had all these conversations, I sat down with Jennifer, I work through what my questions were going to be that I was asking them. So I kept the same questions for everybody. So that allowed me to have some things coming out from all those conversations. So I could spot patterns and actually come up with a plan and not just have lots of random bits of information that didn't connect. So I got some really great intelligence from that. And it was through those conversations, plus all the career change bootcamp stuff to help me really understand what my strengths were, that allowed me to design essentially, I've designed a job for myself here. I took that to… my manager was great. He supported me in getting that up to the leadership. And where I'm at now is leadership bought into it. They didn't want it to be a sort of all in right now. So that's the transition point also, because I do carry a target and we have investors who care about revenues. So I can appreciate that there are some, there's a bit of a business imperative for me to keep... trying to keep bringing in some of the revenue that I'm targeted for, but they have dropped my revenue target by 20% to allow me to spend 20% of my time on the new roles, on scoping it out. And then I know they've created a backfill for... their starting the process for having a backfill for me in the summer.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:14

Okay, so in that 20% and the role that you're shifting to, what do you get to do?

Laura Parker 18:19

So right now, a couple of key things have happened. I was an off site in our San Francisco office for a group of people that are quite instrumental, so the goal I get to have does involve supporting our largest customers, you won't be surprised to hear, we have about...

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:36

Not surprised.

Laura Parker 18:37

We have about 80 of those across the whole business. And we have a group of four people that are responsible for kind of delivering our product to that customer. Those four people had an off site last week in San Francisco. So I went to that off site and have been able to contribute to that and part of my role will be to start to understand, at the moment, all four of them as kind of treating that role a little bit differently. They're delivering different things in different ways to the customers. So we're trying to bring some standardization to then allow people to flex where they need to, but where we're kind of starting from a bit more of a more standard approach. So that was one thing that I've kicked off. And then other than that, the main thing I'm doing for the rest of this quarter and again, with Jennifer's help, I've really been very clear as to how many days this quarter, the 20% means I can contribute, you know, that helps set expectations and help people don't expect too much for me or me expect too much for myself. So with the time taken in San Francisco, I mapped out how many other days I have left, and I'm using those days to start connecting to other people with this new hat on to see what they think the value that I could bring in this new role and what challenges they've got that they'd like some extra resources supposed around and someone a bit of a fact finding mission until the end of March, for sure, initially.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:59

How would you describe some of your strengths and how they fit into this new role? Which I understand this role doesn't have a name yet. And honestly, I think that it might be easier if a lot of different roles have the name and we just focused on what they actually do and what your function is and what results you deliver. But for you, you have done a great job identifying some of your strengths and what you want. But if you can share just a little bit about how you describe your strengths and where they fit into this role.

Laura Parker 20:29

So actually, of all my coaching sessions with Jennifer and all the work that we did through StrengthsFinder, the phrase that really resonated with me, that she, of course came up with, because she's fabulous. With the idea of being a conductor in an orchestra. That sort of was the best way that I could visualize it. And when I look back at where I've been most successful, it is getting people focused on an outcome, bringing the moving parts together, trying to streamline things, but enabling people at the same time. And that was the crux of what I thought I could bring. We're a fast growing business, will probably double in size again this year, it's a really real opportunity to get people aligned in a direction, as I say, help enable people to focus on aspects they might not currently be able to say, everyone's too busy rushing around. So that idea of being a conductor, just bringing people together like defining what we're trying to achieve, bringing people together, getting people focused on delivering that and empowering them to do that is the kind of pretty much where I the main crux of the skills I wanted to put to use.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:40

You know, what is, I think just crazy. I see it all the time. I'm still blown away by it. The simple fact that when you, and I think you've done such a great job of this, when you go through and get clear about what you want, all of a sudden that puts you in a much better position to be able to ask for exactly what you want. And the crazy part is that when you ask for what you want, people are so much more likely to get what it is that they actually want. And I think you've done such a phenomenal job of that here. So kudos to you, first of all. And then second of all, I'm really curious about something that you said earlier, you had mentioned the idea of confidence and you promising yourself that you're never going to let yourself go down the track where your confidence is depleted or diminished so much because you know, just how long it takes to bounce back from that. And I would absolutely agree with that, you know, thinking about my own experiences and the experiences that we see all the time, you know, we see sometimes people that have overstayed in their job for three or four years and it just takes a significant period of time to be able to bounce back from that from a confidence standpoint. So I'm curious a little bit about, what you meant by that? And how did you recognize before it got to that undoable point that this is something that needed to change now? Not later.

Laura Parker 23:09

Yeah, I mean, I recognized it quite quickly because of having been in the situation before, albeit it was a long time ago. But I recognized it quite quickly. It was a while before I figured out what to do about it. And I had, as I said, I had had the conversation with my manager that I wasn't enjoying where I was, I knew I wasn't delivering what they needed the goal to deliver but I was struggling with that, as I mentioned, for some of the sort of values way I operate. So I had had that conversation. What actually worked really well that kind of also really helped move me down this path apart from my colleague here, tell me about your podcast, was it struck me, my managers in San Francisco, he's American, and I think and I'm British, and it really opens a doorway. When I was much more, well, for me quite blunt about where I was at, you know, British people, skirt around things, and we certainly read the tones. And I think I hadn't been blunt enough with him. So he hadn't appreciated where I was at. And I got to a point where I just had a really open conversation. So I don't want to be in this role. That helped a lot. Because then and but at that point, I was able to say, but I'm doing something about it. By that point, I'd signed up to the boot camp. So he really valued the fact that I was doing something about it, that I... and he understood finally, what I was really saying, rather than me being British and not saying it clearly enough for him. And from that point on, he was able to sort of connect me and open a few doors. So I've forgotten your question, my confidence, but I knew my confidence. I recognize it quickly. It's just a few things came into line that meant I was able to do something about it, which was finding out about Happen To Your Career, having that open and frank conversation with my manager and really getting to understand my strength and then doing something about it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:58

What did you feel like was the hardest part of making this most recent change? And I know it's still not complete. However, it's well on its way and it's going to happen in entirety, it sounds like on some kind of timeframe here, but what did you feel like was most difficult for you?

Laura Parker 25:19

I think the most difficult bit is probably still to come if I'm honest. And I have one more coaching session less so I shall be making a list to Jennifer. In that time, I've done brand new roles before and I know that what makes him successful, one of the things that makes them successful is sort of being given the authority to do the role. And this role is even more interesting. I've never designed a role, I've done... I've been the first person to do a role, but I've not actually created the role before. What will be interesting now is I don't have a job title. I have an idea about what team I'll be in but that is still to be fully decided, so therefore, I don't know yet who my manager is going to be. I know my current manager feels very strongly in what I'm doing, he believes in his heart, I think that we do need someone doing what I propose. So he's backing me up at the moment, but I will have to move out of his team in the not too distant future. So what teams do I go too. So I think the challenging bit is going to be getting that authority and being able to sort of start working, assuming that I have some of the authority to do what I think I want to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:30

Have you been in a similar situation before too, when you're creating something new, there has a tendency to be ambiguity around it? And working through the ambiguity to still make sure that you are getting whatever results are, either necessary or that you want to and a lot of times even defining those things can be a challenge in the first place. So I totally can appreciate what you're saying in terms of some of the challenges are yet to come.

Laura Parker 26:59

Absolutely, I think so, you know, something I've learned about myself not necessarily through the bootcamp, but I know I'm not, you know, one of my strengths is not planning to the nth degree, I am someone who tends to just get on with stuff and then I'll course correct as I need to. That's been okay, so far. I've put some high level goals in my proposal. I put some success criteria, or what I think success will look like. But I haven't got a completely defined roadmap as to how I'm going to get there. I'm fine with that. Because I know that the more I talked to people, the more I'll get that defined. But I'm also conscious that just for the business, like do you need to show that there is some direction and I'm not just sort of off chatting to people without really putting anything together. So I'm alive to that as well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:42

One of the things you said to me before we started here, and before we really got going was I didn't expect to have so many concrete results so quickly. And I've got to ask you about that because here's the the general response we usually have when we get the opportunity to work with people, usually people say something along the lines of, "Hey, it was way different than I expected. It was far more amazing than I expected. It also took longer than what I thought it was going to." And that's the general response. So I've got to ask you about this, because it's different than what I hear on the normal side, and you've done such a great job, helping to speed up the process for yourself and really grabbing and taking control of that. And quite honestly, that's usually where I see more results more quickly, is usually those people that take more action more quickly, quite frankly. But what do you feel, first of all, when you say that, what did you mean when you said, "I got more concrete results more quickly than I expected?"

Laura Parker 28:41

I was very surprised at how quickly, I mean, I mentioned to you I think before we started recording that my target, I have a call to target and my target was dropped by 20% fairly easily. Like just within a couple of weeks me putting this proposal out there. And that was a shock to me. Like I think, as I say, this business runs on targets. That's how we show our investors that we're progressing. And my boss is very targets focused. So once that happened, I was like, Okay, this is really happening now. And that was a signal for me more than having a job title or knowing which bit the business I was going to sit in. Because we've had to really address what we're delivering as a business because of that, that happened really quickly. I said to you before we started that I wanted to show people that I'm just an ordinary person. And this is just sort of happened to me and it's not an extraordinary, I didn't want to feel this was an extraordinary thing. So I've been trying to think what was in my control that facilitated that because some things you can't control, like you can't control who the manager is, you can't control whether they have the right outlook to support you or whether they care, but like when I think about what actually progress this definitely doing the bootcamp helped and you know, obviously I would recommend people do your bootcamp but I think what it showed the company here was that I was serious and I actually came with some pretty decent value adding information when I had that proposal, like I've been through some good thought processes about myself as to how I got to where I got to. So that was valuable, I think can, you know, people can own that. And the other thing that really shifted with me having a very frank conversation with my manager, which I highlighted already, for me, I was at the point where I just thought I would just rather get this out in the open. If it causes massive issues, then I'll have to deal with that. But I just couldn't, I had to let him know where I was really at. So I would encourage people, as far as they feel possible, just be really open with where you're at, but try and do that with a plan or some thinking as to what it could look like if it was different.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:47

So that's really interesting. It sounds like a big portion of what moved to this along for you so quickly was being able to come to the table at a different level of preparedness and having thought through a lot of these things than what might otherwise have happened. And it sounds like there's a lot of contributors to that, part of it was, you can take taking control of the process. Part of it was, you know, getting to work with our team and Jennifer. Part of it was, some of the other steps that you took throughout the process, too. But I just want to say, first of all, congratulations, because I know, you know, going and doing that, and taking that level of control can absolutely be difficult and doing that in such a short time period, I think it shows that, you know, almost anybody really can do this, if you're focused on the pieces that you can influence and you can control which I think was another factor that you alluded to as well. So it really, really nice job.

Laura Parker 31:47

Yeah, absolutely. Though, as I say, there are things that within my control, there are things are, you know, having a great manager, having a fast growth company where, you know, I'm in a fast growth company where movement is quite common. That's not in everyone's control, either. But I do when I think about being open and being honest and being frank and then taking a bit of ownership over the process of what the future could look like, that is within our control, I think.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:13

Everybody has the ability to influence that. I love it. Well, I so appreciate the opportunity for us to sit front row and see some of these changes, and you putting trust in us to be able to assist with that. That's amazing. And I really appreciate you taking the time, not just... before we hit record, we were actually looking it up trying to figure out, you know, how many months has actually been? Well, it turns out that was just back in September, where you started to really double down on making making this type of change. So it's really only been four or five months?

Laura Parker 32:49

Yeah, probably. I mean, yeah, probably less, probably more four months because it just took a while to get their schedules with time differences. But yeah, definitely by Christmas, I sort of knew, I knew that things will know on the cards to change.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:02

Well, great job going from listener of the podcast into getting the results that you were looking for. I think that that's absolutely amazing. And thank you for taking the time and making the time and I only have one more question for you, for people that find themselves in that situation where you were, you know, maybe they had made a change or two before and recognizing that, you know, something is amiss values or otherwise, what advice would you give them when they're at that point, trying to decide, you know, should I make a change, and should I make another change? And if so, what does that look like? What advice would you give them?

Laura Parker 33:38

My advice, when I have given this before is, do not stay in that negative environment for any longer than you absolutely need to. It's so harmful and it takes such a long time to get back up to being the best version of yourself. And when I say don't stay in it, I mean, look at what you can control and start working on those pieces. A lot of it you can't control but there are bits you can and that's where you need to focus your efforts.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:07

That is fantastic. Thank you again for coming on and sharing your story.

Laura Parker 34:12

Thank you. I'm so pleased I could do this. Thank you very much.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:15

Hey, many of the stories that you've heard on the podcast are from listeners that have decided they wanted to take action, and taking the first step of having a conversation with our team to try and figure out how we can help. And if you want to implement what you have heard, and you want to completely change your life and your career, then let's figure out how we can help. So here's what I would suggest. Just open your phone right now and open your email app. And I'm going to give you my personal email address, scott@happentoyourcareer.com just email me and put 'Conversation' in the subject line. And then when you do that, I'll introduce you to the right person on our team, and you can have a conversation with us, we'll try and understand your goals and what you want to accomplish in your career no matter where you're at. And we can figure out the very best way that we can help you and your situation. So open it up right now. And send me an email with 'Conversation' in the subject line: scott@happentoyourcareer.com

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:24

Since 2013, we've talked with many thousands of people about their career changes, about how they're thinking about work, about what has been great, what has been terrible and everything in between. So consequently, we get a lot of insight into how people struggle with career change, as well as how they're successful in career change. Something I found really fascinating is, when people have been struggling in the wrong career, in the wrong roles that aren't fulfilling for many years, not just like one or two or three years, but many, many years, maybe even changing roles multiple times.

Louise 36:10

Over the last 15 years or so, I've pretty much been in the same career. Just moving from, I don't do any day-to-day transaction stuff now. So I move from having to actually make sure the P&L is okay or looking at balance sheets. I hate that. That's not where my motivation lies.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:32

That's Louise McNee. She went to business school, she worked a series of business operations jobs that as you'll be able to hear her totally satisfying for her. She does a great job explaining how it felt to be unhappy at work and how difficult it was to understand why she was so unhappy or to even explain it to other people like your loved ones. This is incredibly isolating, that sense of loneliness can actually be an obstacle in itself to career change, you know that whole, "I'm the only one who feels this way. What's wrong with me?" And the truth is that it's very common experience. Louise talks about that lonely feeling later on in this episode. So stay with us. It's something that anyone thinking about career change, absolutely needs to hear. 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.

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Reimagining Your Weaknesses As Strengths To Find Your Ideal Career

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We all have strengths and weaknesses, and as we advance through our careers, we learn to cater to our strengths and compensate for our weaknesses. But sometimes, the aspects of our personalities that we think of as weaknesses may actually be our greatest strengths. Growing up, Ross Loufbourrow thought of ADHD as his greatest weakness. It was only once he graduated college and began his career that he discovered ADHD wasn’t a weakness – it was a super power. Ross shares his story on this week’s podcast.

What you’ll learn

  • The benefits of reimagining your weaknesses as strengths.
  • Why you should use career change as an opportunity to throw out old assumptions about yourself and reassess your strengths and weaknesses.
  • How to leverage all aspects of your personality, even those that you may consider weaknesses, in order to find your ideal role.

Success Stories

I’ve been offered the job! It was great having the opportunity to speak with you prior to my interview. It enabled me to highlight my strengths as part of the conversation and I was able to be clear about my enthusiasm for opportunities to be proactive versus reactive. I also highlighted my desire to provide positive individual experiences. Our discussion not only assisted me in the interview but it also helped to increase my confidence!

Bree Hunter, Project Officer, Australia

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All the stars aligned and I ended up finding the right thing at the right place at the right time, and it was you guys! Everything that you said was speaking to me and the things that you had done in the job that you had transitioned out of and into. Also how finding work that you love is your passion for people! Honestly, it was you Scott, I mean, the way that you talked about it, how passionate you were, I was like, there's no way he's gonna put out a faulty product. So I'm gonna try it, you know… I recommend you to all my friends, you know, even if they don't realize that they're looking for a new job, I'm like this is the first step, let's do this! Even if you maybe don't move out of this career. This is going to help!

Maggie Romanovich, Director of Learning and Development, United States/Canada

After working many years in aerospace as a Manufacturing Engineer, I wanted to move into a Program Manager role without ever holding a PM title or certification. Scott and HTYC helped me to showcase my relevant strengths and made me feel confident and prepared for the interview stage. I landed the Project Manager job I was seeking even though there were qualified internal candidates available. I was able to avoid a disruptive family move and am loving my new position.

Andrew Gagnon, Project Manager, United States/Canada

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Ross Loofbourrow 00:01

I want to be a speaker that motivates others that empowers them that brings them hope and helps them take those first steps to becoming more than they ever thought they could be.

Introduction 00:17

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:41

Strengths. Signature strengths. Particularly, we spent a lot of time on the podcast discussing this idea of strengths, finding them, appreciating them, talking about them in job interviews, using your strengths to find your ideal role. What we don't talk about as much, our weaknesses, we know that people are generally more fulfilled at work when they spend more time focusing on their strengths and less on weaknesses. That's what makes the story of Ross Loofbourrow so fascinating. You're gonna meet Ross in just a second. Ross didn't avoid his weakness. Instead, he turned his greatest weakness into his greatest strength.

Ross Loofbourrow 01:27

Energy like dude, you're the energy guy and that's the word. And it's by far the thing that people have said the most about me in such a positive way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:43

Ross has ADHD. And throughout his life, he's always thought of it as weakness until he realized he was thinking about it completely backwards. This is a pretty unique story from the HTYC library. I want you to listen to how Ross completely reversed the way he saw himself and the world saw him instead of focusing on weaknesses, focus on something else that we haven't spent a lot of time on, which we call "anti-strengths" or the shadow side of your strengths. Listen for it, as Ross tells a story, later on in the episode, but first, here's Ross sharing a little bit about where his career started. And what led up to what he's doing now.

Ross Loofbourrow 02:25

I started my career at Apple. How that happened? Well, my parents basically said, “you better get a job” and all the goals and the things I thought was gonna happen when I graduated college didn't... ended up moving in with my grandparents. Just very uncool in my mind and started saving money, started trying to buy ring and get married and I fell into a job at the Apple Store. A friend of mine worked there and someone I really respected had amazing thing to say about it and five interviews later for a part-time retail specialist role. And I was in. That was over nine years ago today.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:05

Yeah. I'm curious what you said. Some of the things that you thought would happen didn't as you came out of school and then that led to moving in with your grandma, which you thought was uncool maybe some people do. My grandma was pretty cool. But I don't know that I would have wanted to live with her necessarily so kudos to you. But, what were some of those things that you thought would happen that didn't in that way?

Ross Loofbourrow 03:28

Yeah, so when I graduated, I mean everyone talks about in their Senior Year, what are you doing when you graduate? And you know, if you really are having things and you got your life in order, you know exactly the job you're gonna have when you step out of that school. And so, I lined up what I thought was a great opportunity as an admissions counselor at my school and I've been, had been a tour guide all four years, love doing that, I just felt pretty confident that it was gonna happen because I knew everybody in the office and I was ultimately told “Hey, Ross. After the extensive interview process. Hey, Ross if we had one more spot, it would go to you. I'm so sorry.” So that blew up my world and I thought I was gonna be a live my friends in Santa Barbara after I graduated. And I had to move home and moved in with my grandparents who are awesome, but I never dreamed I would live with them .

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:25

Yes. Totally.

Ross Loofbourrow 04:27

So, yeah, that's the plan I had that completely crumbled in front of me and it was an ultimate low at that moment where I was like, what am I doing?

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:37

What happened from there then? You’ve got, you ended up working at the Apple Store five interviews into it. And boom. You got your part-time a role and...

Ross Loofbourrow 04:47

That’s right

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:47

What happened at that point?

Ross Loofbourrow 04:49

Yes, I started at store. It ended up being the last Mini Apple Store in the entire world, is the store that I started at.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:57

Really?

Ross Loofbourrow 04:58

This store people can't even conceptualize how small it was. It was the size of a shoebox. Honestly. It was a little crazy like a submarine at times. So, I stated there and I thought man I'm here for maybe three or six months get a little work experience. Slap it on my resume and I'm out of here. I'm gonna go get a big boy job for, and have a college degree. I loved it and I started getting so much affirmation really quickly. "Hey man, how are you so good at this like, where did you learn how to do that? Like how you talk to people like that? Man, the way you just described the iPad was like so cool and fresh. Like I never thought of describing it that way." And I can’t remember a time in my life where I was receiving so much affirmation for just being me. I thought that's just kind of fun. So, I stuck with it and I basically went from part-time role into a full-time role. Then I became one of the first experts when Apple rolled up that role to their stores and then within about two years, I became a manager. Which was really rare at the time. People really realize that in 2009, you know what the percentage chance was that you got a job at Apple any role: part-time, retail specialist, you name it. Guess what’s the percentage chance was 80%, 40% and this is for iPad or before watch.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:26

Oh, my goodness. I would say like 20%, 30%.

Ross Loofbourrow 06:33

2%.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:33

2%? Oh my goodness, I highballed it.

Ross Loofbourrow 06:36

About getting a job at Apple or so. And so, I got in and... I was loving it. So, became a manager which was really rare at the time to be promoted from within to that role and then ultimately have worked now at five different Apple stores in the bay area, have worked alongside hundreds of different people, have had a plethora of different coworkers. And now, I’m a manager at the Monterey location. So yeah, it's been a ride for sure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:05

So, here's what I'm curious about then. You got into Apple, realized very quickly that hey there are some of these things that people are appreciating about me. Obviously latch onto those and doubled, it sounds like double down in some of those areas. Started realizing that, "hey this is... I’m enjoying getting this feedback. I'm enjoying getting this affirmation. I'm enjoying actually doing these things that are getting there and then dive further into it." Clearly that was rewarded as well, which I think is super cool by the way leaning into some of those areas that you are already loving and already adding value to the world. I mean, that's obviously something we spend a lot of time talking about here. So, you were able to do that there. But also, somewhere along the way I know that you became interested in doing additional things too and...

Ross Loofbourrow 07:58

Absolutely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:58

You know, I alluded to this at the very beginning. I know that you’ve experienced ADHD and I know that somewhere along the way you decided you were interested in integrating the speaking component into your career, too. So how did that come to be? What was, what caused you to begin even thinking about that way back when and then later to start doing it?

Ross Loofbourrow 08:21

Yeah. It all started a few years ago. I was at this point in my journey at Apple, had been a manager for quite a while at that time, had held a bunch of different roles. As a manager, managers will oversee different areas of the store. So, I done that for quite some time and, I was kind of getting this age like, “Man, I’m a millennial. And I don't feel like one because I've been at the same company for so long. I haven't resisted moving but so many people my age are jumping from company to company.” So, I was getting a little restless kind of wondering like, am I doing right thing? Am I becoming stagnant? I don't wanna be stagnant.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:01

Am I really a millennial?

Ross Loofbourrow 09:03

Yeah. Exactly. I've always been called an old soul.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:07

I get that too, totally understand. Also, a millennial just barely.

Ross Loofbourrow 09:13

So, I hit this point, you can call a career made a moment, a career staller and in the biggest way. The first time in my career, I had coworkers and I had people that I reported to sharing with me, "you know it, Ross, I don't know if you really have what it takes to continue being a successful leader here at Apple any longer." And dumping like a lot of negative feedback on me. And more than that I never seen, this was caught me totally by surprise I thought I got hit by a truck, and I started spiraling which we can do with ADHD. I thought, what’s Plan B? I don't have plan C. All I've done is Apple, like what in the world am I gonna do if I'm not here? Well, that is when I decided, “you know what, Ross? You can't keep ignoring your ADHD” because I graduated college I said, “Forget this. I've never thinking about my ADHD again.” It has been a nightmare for me worrying about school and ADHD made it worse. I'm gonna go live my life, so I do. What workout up to that point pretending it wasn't their, didn't talk about it, never let other people know. And then this moment occurred where, "holy smokes, I absolutely felt like, I could lose my job if I don't pivot quickly in a different direction." So, I got the help I needed. I started looking for a clinic. A place where I could really start to harness and understand my ADHD brain because really at that time I didn’t and that’s where I found my first ADHD coach. Working with ADHD coach week over week for a year and no it was not cheap it’s significant that myself and that was the start of unlocking the new ways that I view ADHD and then ultimately that's what led me to Happen To Your Career. And that's what led me to working with you guys, is that I continued to ask this questions of, where can I add more value to the world? Apple has blessed me with understanding here is where I can, here are my gifts, here are my strength, but what else I can do with those things?

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:26

So, there's so much there and just a little bit of backstory. I am very high on the ADD spectrum kind of middle as far as when you're looking at it, if you’re looking at it on the Spectrum, kinda middle to high on the... what many people consider the ADHD spectrum and I have three children that all fall into various different ranges of that too. So, this is very much my world in a lot of different ways. So that's part of the reason why it's near and dear to my heart. What I'm curious about first, ‘cause I am really interested in some of the things that you have since done with that, but I'm curious where did you recognize was this when you were a kid? Where did you recognize that it created some of these differences for you in one way or another?

Ross Loofbourrow 12:13

Yeah, it was when I was in second grade. Second grade was kind of a culmination moment. I had noticed for quite a while there. People were laughing at me and ridiculing me when I would raise my hand and ask a question in class. I would be paying attention, I would be focusing as hard as I could. But ask these questions and everyone would giggle and laugh and as a second grader you feel horrible. Like, you know they’re not laughing with you, they’re laughing at you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:40

And the world is over after that, too.

Ross Loofbourrow 12:41

The world is over and your life is ending. And my mom, who is an angel, I don't know if I would be here today without her to be honest. She helped me identify and figure out that I had an auditory processing deficit and what that means is that I can be listening as hard as I want but things that come in to my brain, certain things sometimes just don't compute they get left out so I can be comprehending everything you're saying but then I don't even realize that 30 seconds or 2 minutes or a big chunk of what you are sharing, I do not remember. I can't recall and so that's why I would ask these questions, that’s was a big unlock moment andwas like, okay this is happening. And then we also found out that I had ADHD it was a double whammy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:35

Wow.

Ross Loofbourrow 13:36

Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:36

So, recognized it way back in second grade. Fortunately, you had your mom there to help you begin to make sense of this in some way and start moving down that path and eventually started having the show back up all the way later, fast forward, what eight, ten years fully into your career. Actually, after you got out of school. And then now for the first time you're having to reconcile with it again, and... It’s sounded like that caused you to get some help and get some guidance on how to look at this thing and utilize it differently and we got the pleasure of working with you through as you were seeking out that out too. What point did you start realizing that I can take this thing and really help other people understand and begin to understand through speaking and engaging other people in different ways, to help them look at it as more of a gift than anything else. Where did that enter for you? Where did you first start thinking about that?

Ross Loofbourrow 14:40

Well, I think really go back to Happen To Your Career’s, career change bootcamp. The webcast and call that you guys offer I had stumbled on your podcast around this time. I found it and I never found anything quite like it. I'm like this exactly I would be listening to. Like where canI pivot, how can I find something that fits me more...

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:01

Now you’re on it, just a year later.

Ross Loofbourrow 15:04

Yeah and ultimately, I've seen that bootcamp, and I'd like, “Oh got on time, I have time” and it finally came up again on my radar and I thought I'm gonna do this. I did that and that was when I met for the first time, in that environment, Lisa got to hear more from you and ultimately started working with Lisa after my ADHD coach and what was really interesting is my ADHD coach said he started to prime, my thinking of, he’s said, “have you ever thought of doing like, video stuff, like you're so animated like that. That could be something that you really enjoy doing and can resonate with people” and he started to plant seeds but working with Lisa. She was the first person ever to validate my crazy dream and that was she said, “Ross, what do you really wanna do?” I said, “I wanna be speaker. Like I want to be a speaker that motivates others that empowers them that brings them hope and helps them take those first steps to becoming more than they ever thought they could be. And she immediately said “yes.” And we really talk on the phone about 30 minutes, but I already trusted her enough. And for her to say, Ross you can totally do that. That was a massive unlock and then it was figuring out. Okay? I wanna do this. But who am I to speak on anything. Like what am I gonna speak about? I'm not an expert on anything and that was when I ultimately started to dig down deep through those sessions with Lisa. Uncovering what are my biggest differentiators, is the fact that I do have ADHD and that I have, you know, seen both sides of it. I've seen the ugly and I've also seen the good. And what can I do with this. And that led to getting in to relieve that focus around mental health and specifically, an ADHD brain.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:13

That's amazing and the thing I love about your story and what Lisa's shared with me and I told you she shared some tidbits along the way too. You didn't know about the, she was like, “Ross, there’s this awesome guy, you got like some point along the way you gotta meet him.” And one of the things that I was really impressed with that she had shared is, it was relatively short period of time that you started acting on this dream too. It wasn't like hey, okay, let's talk about this and then five years later, maybe someday kind of will start doing this but to the point where even as you and I got on this call got to be able to record this interview this morning. You had just come off of a speaking engagement. Was yesterday is that we said?

Ross Loofbourrow 18:02

Yeah yesterday.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:03

Yeah, and I would love if you would share a little bit about that and what you got to go speak and how that turned out because I think it’s, you use the word humbling, but I really think that that's good. So, set the stage for us. How did how did this happen in the first place? What led up to this speaking engagement? And who were the kids and what did you get to talk about to them about? What came out of it?

Ross Loofbourrow 18:26

Yeah, it was to a couple schools over in Palo Alto.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:30

Yeah.

Ross Loofbourrow 18:31

A private school that you know really focus on supporting kids with learning and attention challenges and differences. The schools are right over the hill and ultimately is a connection that I made at a conference I spoke at last spring.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:46

Yeah.

Ross Loofbourrow 18:47

So, last spring was my breaking out moment. It was the first time I ever talked about ADHD being a superpower, and the advantages and the gifts and so this a continued connection from that and ultimately yeah, I walked in there. I didn't know any of the kids. The first group was 7th to 10th graders and then about 30 of them are so and then the second group pretty much immediately afterwards about fifth to eighth graders about another 30 or so kids. And yeah, I mean, there are kids and some of them are, they're dealing with their own challenges and so, you're there sharing, my message and I'm questioning myself the whole-time thinking, "is this even resonating with this guy over here. I mean this little girl over here it seems like she's really feeling what I'm sharing but I don't know" and I was just filled with all kinds of doubt and thinking and this is a train wreck. This is all horrible. And I came to discover afterwards that it actually went really well. All of the teachers had shared with me that the kids loved you and they want you to come back. Like you're welcome back anytime. You should come back and ride bikes. We’re going morning bike rides, and I had kids coming up to me afterwards and tears. Just sharing. I mean, fifth grade kids, seventh grade kids sharing. "Hey, like I wanna tell you my story" They don't say that there's dive into it telling you about how hard there go at life has been and how now they're at the school that really understands them. Things are so much better.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:24

That's amazing.

Ross Loofbourrow 20:24

And then those are the moments that fill my bucket and it makes me feel this monumental sense of purpose and like wow, this is partly what have designed to do. I want to do more of that helping people in that way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:40

That is amazing on so many different levels and I love talking about those moments where you or anybody for that matter where you get a taste of that and you realized I have to do this more like in one way or another in...

Ross Loofbourrow 21:01

Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:02

I've had many of those over the course of the last 10 years and know exactly what I'm talking about for the first time I went and spoke on careers. Actually, just this last week and I did a keynote and I totally understand by the way what you're talking about when you're looking at the crowd and you like things seems to be resonates with this person, this person’s like taking a picture with her phone and that person looks so bored and not even connecting, so I totally understand what goes through in that like the speaker brain in that way. So, can absolutely it looks like

Ross Loofbourrow 21:29

And the kids it’s like amplify.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:30

Oh, my goodness! Yeah, like times a hundred at least. Yeah on steroids for sure. So, absolutely understand and appreciate that. Here's what I'm curious about then. Obviously a little biased for a number of reasons in terms of how I think about ADD, ADHD and other types of things that the world has a tendency to look at as disabilities in one way or another. But I'm really curious for you, why do you believe that this is such a super power for you? Why do you believe that this can be such a super power for other people as well?

Ross Loofbourrow 22:13

Yeah, so one of the biggest reasons is my energy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:17

Yeah.

Ross Loofbourrow 22:18

And I always put this to disclaimer out there if you are listening to this and you're thinking “Why I have ADHD, but I don't have that energy factor.” It doesn't mean you don't have ADHD and you don't have a brain like that. It just means, it's a spectrum. Like you were just mentioning and some of us fall on the spectrum with the energy component and I certainly do. I don't drink coffee. This is all natural.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:43

This is all… yeah awesome.

Ross Loofbourrow 22:48

As a kid that's never looked as a positive thing. It’s like, hey sit still, be quiet, pay attention. Like stop it, like they wanna control you and that's the exact opposite of that's a nightmare for this energy component of mine. When I got to Apple, that's one of the key ways people describe me. I mean all see people now have been there so long that. I run into people I haven't seen in years and I'll say, hey, you don't remember my name? Energy, like dude, you're the energy guy and that's the word. And it's by far the thing that people have said the most about me in such a positive way. And like I really appreciate the energy that you bring like, the way that you light up our room, I feel like when you're here, like it just rubs off on me and like I'm more excited about the day just by default because of you and so like that was definitely a specific and I will call it a super power of ADHD and I sort of recognize, whoa, like most of the people don't innately have this and someone told me recently I told them, yeah, I'm ADHD and these are some of the things that I have believed and they looked at me and said well, we're all jealous, because of my energy. So, that’s absolutely one of the key moments I started just to think, there's gotta be something more to this. What other things could there be, you know, at Apple, I spent a lot of time as a manager, working with my team and connecting with them on, I mean, it’s one of the reason I still love Apple so much is ‘cause we are such a human focused organization and we connect with our team around personal stuff. That's going on the highs, the lows and we help them understand, like, their blind spots. And we remind them other gifts and things are amazing at it. The ability that I have this intuitive nature relationally to know the right thing to say. And know at the right moment to say it and almost to describe things in a way about people that have others around me go, “oh, no one’s ever describe that person that way but you just nailed it. Like how is your gut so often right?” I feel like it's most of the time spot on. So again, like that intuitiveness, that gut instinct my energy like those are some of the ways I might, there's something different about this, that I wanna share.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:45

That’s fantastic and I find it so fascinating and well, obviously, I'm very interested in this sort of thing, but the way that ADD, ADHD brains are wired for lack of a better explanation, allows different, I mean, it completely allows different types of connections when compared to the average person. It’s been so interesting for me to see myself and then my three kid who have all completely different elements of it. Like I didn't understand just I didn't understand till he's really start my wife and I really started diving into this and she's been a teacher and actually did a number of projects on ADD and ADHD and a couple other things to throughout college way back when and then as part of her some continuing course work and so at the time she didn't know she’s gonna have three children that we're going to test this knowledge later on for her.

Ross Loofbourrow 25:46

Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:46

But it's been really interesting to see all of the different ends of the spectrum. So, for example, like you mentioned that incredible energy and how you show up differently and my son, my middle son Camden. We see a manifest in similar ways, but also like to the point where people as a whole are terrible multitaskers, right? This, like as a whole. So, this kid...

Ross Loofbourrow 26:49

Don’t get me start on multitasking.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:49

Oh, my goodness. Yes.

Ross Loofbourrow 27:17

It doesn't exist.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:19

So, it doesn't exist and not in any ways that are really helpful, but I am amazed at the capacity with this kid and his brain. He can be like out playing sports or doing something that occupies like 100% of his physical energy and still be able to like have perfect dictation and recall of exactly what somebody was saying over off to the side in another conversation with all of those with several other conversations around the side and just it blows my minds in the ways that those types of things will show up which does not necessarily mean that, that’s how it shows up in everybody to your point earlier.

Ross Loofbourrow 27:55

Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:56

But it's fascinating how it can turn into such a gift in a variety of different ways. So, I appreciate you sharing it.

Ross Loofbourrow 28:05

Yeah, oh absolutely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:11

What's next from here because you have, I feel that in some way like you are unlocking a really cool piece of your own journey, and I so appreciate that you have allowed us to participate in a portion of a ride. And I'm just very thankful for that. And I know my team is as well and Lisa too and what is next and what is upcoming for you? Where do you see yourself going from here?

Ross Loofbourrow 28:36

Yeah. So, I'm just getting started and I have to constantly remind myself that it is a journey and it's just one step at a time ‘cause one of those things that in ADHD brain is proud to do is we have this gross misunderstanding of how much time it takes to accomplish things and so, I will have 25 different large things on my to-do list on any given day. And so, treating this journey the same way, it's really important to remind myself. Okay, like it's one step at a time, and I'm just figuring things out. Right now, I know that I want to continue speaking. I know that, that's an area where I can add so much value and really help others. I've already seen that. And, I wanna continue to share resources and you know these differing thoughts and opinions and even ground-breaking researches out there that people are just not even aware of the things that we're finding on ADHD. Like there's so much to still unknown, but it is fascinating and it blows people's minds. For example, I have to share one of those things. So, what some of the latest like brain research were fighting with ADHD is that, you could actually rename the condition a diagnosis of boredom. Wait, what do you mean? Well, ultimately what they found is that a brain with ADHD when compared to a brain without ADHD. All of our brains have the dopamine receptors that exist in this reward region of the brain that is deep beneath the cortex and in ADHD brain we have vastly fewer of these dopamine receptors. So, in layman's terms like so what well essentially anyone beneath areas in your brain is likely walking around just generally disinterested in the world. Like in most of things around them there just not most things don’t light their fire like a normal brain would, so that's why it's so critical for an ADHD here to find the final thing that passion about. Find the thing you love doing. And the thing that's right in your wheelhouse, right in your strengths because that is the area where you're gonna be able to hyper-focus in the best way, not the worst way. That's the way that you're gonna be able to discover, kind of like I'm last couple years like it's the unlock moment. Oh, my goodness. This is something I can do. This is the place I wanna stay. Yeah, so that's one piece that I've just found fascinating learning about and it helps you look at yourself seriously and not look at your ADHD as a joke or this thing doesn't exist, but you really start to understand. Whoa. This is how I work. Okay, like let me take some steps in your directions but to answer your question. Yeah, I wanna speak more actually set a goal this last year of I was gonna write my first book. And you know that goal is probably not coming to fruition by the end of 2018.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:08

There are still a short period of time in 2018 left, go ADHD brain go.

Ross Loofbourrow 32:17

Exactly. It's one of the spinning plates that is dropping and you can't beat yourself up if you say, hey that’s not gonna get done, but you try to do too much and that's all right, you know, let's keep it going. So, I'm definitely gonna do that in the future. I also wanna get into coaching. That’s the component I think it massively helped me with at Happen To Your Career. And then with my ADHD coach at the clinic that I worked with that it changes my life, massive. So, I really wanna get into that and see how I can, yeah help others, learn more about themselves, self-reflect and really pivot and moving those directions that they really feel called to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:02

Very cool. Well...

Ross Loofbourrow 33:04

Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:04

I so appreciate you taking the time and coming and sharing a portion of your story and I said thank you again, but I really meant it for allowing us to sit a front row seat along for part of the ride and it's just been amazing to hear a little update from Lisa and to finally get to meet you and people aren’t going to see you on here, but we're chatting via video and it just been fantastic. So, I very much appreciate that. Thank you.

Ross Loofbourrow 33:38

Yeah. No. Thank you Scott. It was surreal when I started actually listening to the Happen To Your Career podcast and your voice I recognize obviously and then to have us connecting and talking today. It was a moment like, “is this happening?”

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:57

This is happening Ross. This is happening right now. Hey, this really has been very cool. And I've had a ton of fun and so that we can support what you're doing. And obviously I am a huge fan of that for many different reasons. But if you are interested in having Ross come and speak and want to get in touch with them. What is the best way that they can do that Ross?

Ross Loofbourrow 34:21

Yeah, so my website is the best place to get in contact with me. That's gonna be my full name: RossLoofbourrow.com. It’s kind of a doozy two OO’s. Well several OO’s and a couple more ‘r’s’ so definitely check the show notes on that, but you can also just type in https://heroicADHD.com and that will redirect you to my website as well https://heroicADHD.com

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:47

We've found that one of the six keys to having an incredibly fulfilling career and much more meaningful career is doing more work in your signature strengths. And in fact, we've also learned that you can even use your signature strengths as you're making a career change or as you're making a career transition. And we put together this pretty amazing guide to help you, not only begin to get very clear on your strengths and discover your strengths, but also to use them as you're getting hired for the right job. Find out what most people miss about, why strengths are so important and how strengths operate differently than what you think they do and why they are one of the six keys to doing work you love. And four ways to get started immediately identifying your signature strengths. And you can do that by going to hiredforstrengths.com that's hiredforstrengths.com to get started right away. Or you can text MY STRENGTHS, that's mystrengths, plural, to 44222. That's mystrengths to 44222.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:02

Everyone loves a happy ending. And a lot of time on the podcast, we talk to people, they share their stories, and they come off as pretty straightforward. They were unhappy, they felt stuck. Then they decided to change careers. It was challenging, but eventually they succeeded. And now they're incredibly happy. Hooray. But we've been having conversation behind the scenes for about two or three years now that there's a danger in that. And we want you to understand how it really looks from the inside when you decide to make a career change. So today, we wanted to highlight a different kind of career change story when that wasn't as simple.

Laura Parker 36:45

It's just that's the job. It wasn't, you know, there are plenty of people out there that will love that sort of moving fast paced, moving from customer to customer, but it just didn't sit well with me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:56

That's Laura Parker. She made a big career change to get out of her role, where she was unhappy, but just two years into her new role, realize she was not thriving and needed another change. The truth is, the career change is a journey. You don't necessarily achieve your dream job, achieve your dream career in just one step. And even if you do, it turns out you're human. Your life goes on. You continue to change and develop new interests. And you may find that, you need to make another change. And not only is that okay, it's actually great because it means you're listening to yourself and keeping track of what you need to feel happy in your role. Laura does a great job of describing how she made a career change, and then made another one. I want you to listen just for that and in our conversation. Later in the episode, Laura will talk about the experience of knowing when it was time to change careers after she had just changed careers. 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.

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How To Turn A Career Struggle Into Successful Career Change

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Melissa Shapiro found herself in a really tough position when she was unexpectedly laid off from her job.  She talks about how she was already contemplating a career change, but then was then laid off before she could position herself for the next move, and how she overcame the challenge and used this opportunity to redefine her career.

What you’ll learn

  • Why evolving and adapting aren’t only important for success, but absolutely necessary to move up in the professional world
  • How to stay focused when faced with difficult career change decisions
  • Why a professional setback may lead to better opportunities

Success Stories

I know that you and HTYC are owed credit for teaching me to confidently articulate my strengths and passions – Thank you so much! These are skills that will grow with me and I will continue to refer people to your site so they can benefit as I have!

Cindy Morton, Chief Operating Officer, United States/Canada

I would definitely say that I could not have put all the pieces together. The tools and techniques were important, but maybe more so than that, the mindset and the confidence. So I really, really needed that extra input and confidence boost and reassurance that I had a lot of strength and a lot to offer in the future. And I was feeling so rough because I was in a bad fit, stuck situation. Even though we all also recognized that situation wasn't inherently terrible. I would recommend, if you're starting to have that feeling like, either I'm crazy, or the situation, you know, is not that this bad, then I think that's a cue to reach out and get some, some guidance and a community of people that are struggling with the same things. And then suddenly, you'll feel that you're not crazy, after all, and it's just a tough life, situation and challenge, but you'll be able to get through it with that support, and accountability and confidence boost.

Jenny -, Research Scientist/Assistant Dean, United States/Canada

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My favorite part of the career change boot camp was actually having some of those conversations and getting feedback and positive feedback about strengths. And to me that was key, because in that moment, I realized that my network not only is a great for finding the next role, it also is helpful to… they help you remind you who you are and who you will be in your next role, even if the current circumstances are not ideal.

Elizabeth , Digital Marketing Analytics Strategist, United States/Canada

Get the Full Backstory

I really was able to get clear on what I what it is that I really wanted. In my future career, I was able to change my mindset and my perception of what I thought was possible, which was a really big one for me, because prior to this, I really, I think I limited my myself and my potential, simply because of where I was at currently. And so I was able to think bigger, and really hone in on, you know, where my skills are, where I want to take them and how I'm going to get there. And it really just empowered me to take change, and it gave me the confidence and conviction, I needed to take those steps. So yeah, it was it was really a great a great one.

Nicole Mathessen, Manager Marketing & Creative Services, United States/Canada

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Melissa Shapiro 00:04

I had that mindset of, okay, like this next thing like this is gonna be it like, this is my career. Like, I have to pick the one thing that I'm going to do for the rest of my life forever and ever and ever. And I think that is such a scary thought.

Introduction 00:25

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:49

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

Melissa Shapiro 01:50

So, I basically have a background in terms of education, in terms of performance, I have a very eclectic background. And, I'm an artist and I love to sing and perform. And I was actually working as a senior admissions producer at General Assembly, when we last spoke. And I was there for about two years, speaking with students who were really interested in making a career change into the tech world. And I would sort of talk about our programs that we offered such as: a digital marketing program, UX UI, software development data, and talk about these 12-week, life changing boot camps that students could take and really make a career change. And that's sort of where all of this fun stuff happened, where I got super interested in helping people with their career changes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:50

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

Melissa Shapiro 03:01

Sure. So, I was in the same role for probably about two years. And the part that I loved was kind of the part that I just described in terms of forming relationships with people and really kind of getting to know their backgrounds and helping them make that career change. But the other part of the role that was the part that I didn't want to pursue any more was that it was a very sales oriented role in terms of quotas. And, having that pressure in terms of filling up our classes and everything like that. So, it was just the sales aspect of things that I wanted to get away from and I wanted a more genuine type of relationship building role.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:44

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

Melissa Shapiro 03:49

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:15

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

Melissa Shapiro 04:29

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:23

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

Melissa Shapiro 06:01

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:58

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

Melissa Shapiro 07:49

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:36

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

Melissa Shapiro 10:29

It's such a great skill set to have to. I have a portfolio piece.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:34

Do you, really?

Melissa Shapiro 10:35

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:44

I made this.

Melissa Shapiro 10:46

I did that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:47

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

Melissa Shapiro 11:18

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:13

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

Melissa Shapiro 13:13

That's it's fair. I had been interested in career change bootcamp for a while, but it still just was that, it was what I needed. It was that positive light in that time of sort of complete shock.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:26

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

Melissa Shapiro 13:49

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:54

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

Melissa Shapiro 15:00

Yeah, I think just some actually raw human emotion and feelings, I think I was really nervous to get back out there just because of being laid off. I was so scared that it would happen to me again. And I think, our brains do that to us, like, once we go through something, that's our experience. And that's what we know. So, are told that that's just gonna repeat itself. So, I think, A, having that fear. B, it was very funny, because I had originally wanted to work with you. And I thought that I would be working with you. But I was nervous about working with someone that I really didn't know and didn't talk to, it didn't feel like that warm, fuzzy feeling about. So, I think I was worried about that. And if we were gonna be a good match and everything like that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:51

And you're talking about through the career change bootcamp program, getting matched with your career coach, and you got the pleasure of working with Kelly.

Melissa Shapiro 15:59

Yes, who was unbelievable. I still keep in touch with her. She's phenomenal. But I was worried because you can hear someone say, “Oh, I think you'd work well with this person.” But, I vibe so well with you. And we had such great conversations. And I was like, “Oh, man, like, luckily to work with Scott.” So, I was nervous. But obviously, it worked out extremely well. So that was something else I was nervous about. And I think what was hard was still continuing to have that frustration, and sending out those messages and applying for jobs and tailoring all my materials, and just having that frustration of, why isn't it happening now? Why is it happening faster? And I think we all experience that. But I think just to focus on to keep doing what you're doing, and not that necessarily what you're doing is wrong. It's just, not everyone is going to get back to you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:59

What did you do or what did you experience that worked well for you to help speed up the process? Or what are the things that you saw as you were going through it that like, “yeah, this is working for me.” And gave you those little glimmer of hope, even though it didn't feel like it was going as fast as you want it.

Melissa Shapiro 17:17

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:49

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

Melissa Shapiro 19:42

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:31

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

Melissa Shapiro 20:42

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:49

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

Melissa Shapiro 23:17

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:40

Forever.

Melissa Shapiro 23:42

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:02

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

Melissa Shapiro 25:18

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:41

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

Melissa Shapiro 28:03

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:09

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

Melissa Shapiro 29:12

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:50

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

Melissa Shapiro 31:26

Yeah, I think really understanding where the blocks come up. Like, you don't have to necessarily speak to your coach about every single thing in every single module. Just because it's coming up, if you're getting through something, and you can easily do that on your own. And it's you understand it and you don't need to question it, then you don't have to bring that up with your coach. The great thing about the program is that the coaching sessions, you get a certain allotment of them, but you don't have to talk about a specific module or a specific topic, you sort of craft them for yourself. So, while there is this pathway to the program, your career coaching session, are plan by you. So, if you wanna focus more time on your five signature strengths module, and you wanna understand how that works in real world situations, and maybe like the anti-strengths and how that can hinder you, you can focus on that, if you wanna focus on your ideal career profile, and why that's important and strategizing how to get there in the future, you can focus on that if you don't, you're not like trapped into focusing on one module per coaching session. I would say to make notes while you're going through the material of things that are coming up for you may be like blockages, or just questions you may have or things you don't understand or more clarity on and mark that down, and to really focus on that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:55

That's cool, I appreciate you sharing what worked for you and what other people can do too. Especially when we haven't dove into that in the past. There's something else that I wonder, before we wrap up, though, and I heard you say that you transitioned away, I thought you're gonna be singing, thought you're gonna be on opera. What was that like when you had that realization? What was that you realize, “You know what? This thing that I thought I was going to do, maybe isn't right, for me, for one set of reasons or another.” What was that like?

Melissa Shapiro 33:30

It was soul crushing. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. It was probably the toughest point in my life, to be honest. It was the end of college, I had gotten this degree. I really thought that this was right, for me. I had done it through high school, growing up, have gotten so much praise for it and recognition. And just to sort of realize that it's just not gonna work. I mean, that's hard. That's almost kind of traumatized. I mean, it was an identity crisis, it really was. I was in a really tough position for a while, I had to do a lot of soul searching.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:09

What helped you through that time period?

Melissa Shapiro 34:11

I think support of friends, of family. And not knowing that I was actually trying to figure out my signature strengths at the time, because I didn't know that it was called that, but that whole process, like I really was trying to figure out, okay, besides this one thing, what are the strengths that I have that I can take and apply to a completely new type of profession? And what would that even look like? So, I was sort of going through that process, but not in any type of like, neat-wrapped in a box sort of way. Just doing a lot of soul searching and a lot of self-work.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:56

Melissa, thank you so much for taking the time and making the time and coming on the Happen To Your Career podcast and sharing your story. And thank you so much for letting us sit front row as you made this most recent transition. And it's been fun getting to know you. Oh, my goodness over the last year, actually, your transition didn't take anywhere near that long, but we first got to speak, Skype says about a year ago, right? So, it has been a ton of fun. And I really appreciate it.

Melissa Shapiro 35:23

I really appreciate it too. Thank you to your whole team. You guys are just you're so great. And I really appreciate everything you do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:32

Whether you're facing a layoff, or you're just thinking about making a mid career change, consider how you can help yourself start by asking yourself questions like, what can I be doing? What are my opportunities? What do I really want my next step to be? Not what do I think it has to be but what do I want it to be? What will push me forward towards something that I want, and setting yourself up for that. Because we need all those things. Next week, we'll continue our where are they now series by bringing on another past guest two years later. We've done this several times in the past few months so that you can see, small amount of foundational work pays off and long term in dividends and spades.

Jason Bollman 36:19

And I kind of had gotten to a point where I had spent too much time kind of in my own head and then working through a coach from Happen To Your Career, identified things I needed to change. So I was able to move into a new position within the same company.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:35

That's Jason Bollman. And next week, he'll be back on the Happen To Your Career podcast so you can see here what's happened in his life over the course of the the two years since he made his really transformational change. If you haven't already, hit the subscribe button so that you get every episode of hHappen To Your Career and you don't even have to think about it. They just download to your phone right there in your sleep. Also, guess what? If you want help with your career change now is the time because the doors to career change bootcamp are closing this week. We open it publicly a few different times throughout the year. So if you'd like help and want to find out if career changes, boot camp is right for you, then, best way to do that is just drop me an email scott@happentoyourcareer.com put 'Conversation' in the subject line. And we'll take it from there. And that way, we can help connect you up with my team and figure out what's the very, very best way and right type of support for you in your situation. You've heard so many other people on the podcast, like Melissa, who you heard today, in fact that went through career change bootcamp, and we'd love to be able to chat with you and figure out how we can best help you reach your career goals will be right here next week on Happen To Your Career back with another episode. We'll see you then. Until then, I am out. Adios.

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How To Excel At Networking By Pursuing Meaningful Relationships

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In an age of email and LinkedIn, networking has never been easier. But networking has also become a dirty word. It means bothering people for favors or having them bother you, and knowing all the time that neither of you has any interest in actually getting to know the other person. Not surprisingly, this kind of transactional networking doesn’t really work. On the podcast this week, I chat with Darrah Brustein about her approach to networking by pursuing meaningful professional relationships.

What you’ll learn

  • Why you should look at networking as friendship building
  • How Darrah learned that networking could be more about relationships
  • How to approach networking in a positive way
  • Things to avoid doing when networking

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Darrah Brustein 00:00

A platform that I've really taken a hold of because I think it's so important and also pertinent to our conversation is helping people create the life they want through intentional relationship building.

Introduction 00:33

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:51

I want you to meet Darrah Brustein. She does, well, a lot of things.

Darrah Brustein 01:03

I am multi passionate, and I do a lot of different things. And it's tough to get out in a "elevator pitch". So what I told Scott was that, I'm half entrepreneur and half writer, and he scoffed and then said, "Oh, there's so much more than that." So, frankly, it depends on the circumstances and the environment.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:24

Darrah is a writer, an entrepreneur, the owner of a credit card processing company, the founder of a live events company called Network Under 40. But overall, she's someone who has devoted a lot of her time, her life, her talent, to helping people form meaningful professional relationships. And that's exactly what I wanted to talk to her about on this episode. Take a listen later on, as she gives very specific examples of how you can reach out to busy people who might be hard to contact. This is a great episode. If you want to understand from their perspective, how to be able to reach, get attention and make a real, actual connection.

Darrah Brustein 02:09

It actually took about a decade of building my own life and career to look back more recently and notice what had happened. Notice that I had been utilizing intentional relationship building and community building skills. Other people call it 'networking' but that's, again, one of those words that has a lot of different meanings.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:31

Do you cringe like all these different words, I know that I do quite a bit. But networking is one of those as well as along with the, "Hey, what do you do? Tell me your job title."

Darrah Brustein 02:42

Right? Well, I cringe at the latter part, the "tell me your job title", because that's typically what people associate with "networking".

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:49

Yes.

Darrah Brustein 02:50

I don't think networking in its inherent true creation and what it's supposed to be or what it really is, is bad. I think it's wonderful. What I cringe at, are the people who have taken on the nomenclature of networking and have, for lack of a better term, bastardized it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:08

Yes.

Darrah Brustein 03:08

So that's where I start to position myself and say, "Oh, I don't really want to be associated with that." If that's your expectation of it, because I don't conduct myself that way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:19

So what would your definition of networking be? I'm super curious.

Darrah Brustein 03:24

To me, it's synonymous with relationship building. Plain and simple.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:28

I totally, completely agree, in fact, to the point where often in many of the things we do, we will jokingly refer to it or like strike out networking and put relationship building next to it.

Darrah Brustein 03:41

Right.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:42

Why do you think then, that it's so much about relationship building, as opposed to this bastardize thought that many of us have of what is networking, tell me the differences in your mind.

Darrah Brustein 03:55

In my mind, the way people view networking, when it's the word that we cringe at is a transaction based interaction. It is the antithesis of a relationship. A relationship in my mind, quantifies the idea of going deep, of getting to know someone for who they are not what they do, hence the cringe around the "Hey, what do you do?" Right out-of-the gate question. It's the idea of pouring in and investing. It's the idea of, this is a long term relationship. So it's not about taking something, it's about being curious and discovering, perhaps giving, although I think that's a wonderful framework. It's also been a bit marred as well with, oh, just be a martyr and give and give and give, which is also not, I think, appropriate. But it's really about finding people that you truly connect with and resonate with, that you'd want to be friends with. And from there, a lot can flourish. So if you want to look at it another way, networking is friendship building.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:02

I like that too. So for me, honestly, and I'm not even sure I haven't arm chaired psychology myself enough to the point where I understand where it came from. But if I go back, you know, 10, 15 years ago, I very much thought about... and acted as if building relationships or building friends or anything else, as though it was very transactional. And that's how I behaved in a lot of different ways. And although I don't entirely know where that come from, I had to like, pick it up and learn that it could be different along the way. So I'm curious, you've been acting and behaving this way for a long time, where did you first start to recognize that it could be different? or How did you learn this?

Darrah Brustein 05:45

There's a few things. One is my dad. My dad is the consummate networker in the good way. And the way of, he's always been the person out in the world, helping other people advance their goals, their ideas, their whatever the thing might be, because he sees the world how I see the world, which is as a puzzle to put together for the advancement of the rest. And you see the big picture, even when the pieces seem like they don't fit. Or you don't even know that they're on the same board. So he's that guy. And I just saw it my whole life and didn't know any other way. And then upon going out into the world of the workforce, I started my career in sales, and just continued to treat people that way. Feeling like, you know, the golden rule exists, why wouldn't we continue to do that in life in this arena, and through a lot of experience of selling, whether it was expensive jeans for the fashion company I started working in when I got out of college to other products and services I sold after that to starting my first company at age 25 of credit card processing. And going off and building that and learning that at the end of the day, even though it might take longer, the rewards were bigger. And I vividly remember telling my twin brother Garrett, who is my business partner in that company, nine plus years ago, when we began, I said, "Listen, Garrett. Everyone in this business is doing the cold call thing. They're literally dialing for dollars and saying we've got a rep in your area, blah, blah, blah, jargon script. And we're not going to do that." I said, "I'm going to go out and develop referral relationships with people who get our mission. They like me, I like them. And it's going to take a while. But once it clicks, it will be a snowball rolling down a hill." And that's exactly what it was. But that took patience. It took perseverance. It took belief and hope. It took a lot of things that a lot of people maybe don't allow themselves the time and the space to cultivate. And secondly, I think a natural reaction or objection to this would be to say, "Well, I don't have the luxury of waiting." When actually neither did I. I was eating through my savings. I was terrified. I had bought a house three months before I started my business, not because I felt financially ready, but because I had a landlord with a restraining order I had filed against him. So I was in a position of feeling the desperation that a lot of people feel when they say, "Well, I need to get something now. I can worry about the long term later." But I still knew that I needed to come at it that way, because it was going to pay off in the long run. So no matter your circumstances, it doesn't mean you can never ask for anything. It doesn't mean that you can't get along the way. But it does mean that you need to treat people as people and not people as an outlet to what you want.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:46

At that particular time, what caused you to be sure enough? Because I don't think there's any ultimate assurance for anything anyplace. But, what caused you to be sure enough to where you committed to that type of strategy as opposed to what so many people will do with that short term transactional type approach? So the snowball versus the transaction. Right?

Darrah Brustein 09:11

Right. It wasn't that I necessarily was comparing the two. But what I was doing was feeling out what's authentic to me. And that was authentic to me. And I was lucky because of my grooming growing up and just my own natural wiring, I suppose, that that came more organically. And then in going into the real world and being a young adult in the business community, I remember going to Chamber of Commerce meetings in Atlanta where I'm based, and meeting people who were my parents age predominantly and have been in their careers for decades upon decades and feeling quite intimidated. And watching some of them do it what I consider to be well and modeling that and others doing it what I consider to be not well which is the transactional business card shove, not interested in you at all, looking at your name tag not in your eyes like that whole kind of jam, and feeling so gross and feeling like you don't think of me as a person. I am just a company, a title, a transaction, a sale, an introduction. And I didn't want to do that to other people either. So that only continued to submit and solidify for me why that was, what I was going to continue to live out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:29

I think at least describing the less desirable of those two routes that we just talked about, gross is the right word for that. Gross is absolutely. I haven't called it gross before. And I love that, or love the... whatever we want to call that. Yes. That's fantastic. So you have, I think, done a very good is I started to understand a little bit about your past and your story and everything like that. I think you've done a really amazing job, not just building relationships, and not just looking at the long term game and not just trying to be authentic to yourself. I also think that there's something else that I would say that you're pretty good at that I'd love to talk about here too. One of those things in particular, that I think is a huge question for many of our listeners, when they're interested in building relationships, when they're interested in reaching out to other people, when they're interested in getting in touch with other people that they want to get to know, but don't want to feel gross about it. And they don't want to create that type of impression. And at the same time, they know that it's important for one reason or another. And they really do want to build that relationship. I would love to spend a few minutes and really talk about, what can that look like? How you think about that?And some of the ways that people listening to this, can do that too.

Darrah Brustein 11:57

Absolutely, I'm going to start sort of on the high end, meaning, when you have someone who really seems to hold the key for you, and that can be, they are the hiring manager of the job you're looking for, maybe they're the decision maker of the company your trying to create as your client, maybe they're the celebrity that you just idolize and feel like this person needs to give me the advice to change everything. Because I've been in all of those positions. And I know exactly how each of those fields. And just start by saying like these people, as like we would say, are just like us. They are people and they want to be treated like people first. And you want to think about, if I were in their position, how would I want to be talked to, interacted with, approached and so on. I'll start by sharing some of the mistakes that I see happen like even I'll give you this example. My friend, Sarah called me from Denver two weeks ago, and she has recently graduated from a data science program after being a math teacher for about a decade. And she said, I'm making this big career change. This is really overwhelming. It's always been sort of a layup getting jobs and teaching because it was a clear trajectory. But here I am in a new space. And there's this person who is the hiring manager at this one company that I'm looking to get into. And here's the general email that I sent him and it goes something like this, "Dear so and so. My name is Sarah. Someone told me to reach out to you. I'm applying for this job. Can I get coffee with you next week? How's this time? I look forward to it. xo Sarah." Something like that. And she said, "How is that?" And immediately I said, "Sarah, how could you have done that?" And she said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Sarah, you are so smart. You are so personable. You are so capable. But what made you feel like it was okay to be that presumptuous?" And she said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Sarah, this person doesn't know you. They don't owe you anything. And you are asking of their intellectual property and their time, which are two of the most valuable things they have to offer. And you did it without any amount of bashfulness, or any amount of saying, I understand that you're busy, or is there any way I can come up with this or even giving them a real substantive idea of what you wanted from them to show them that you put in the work and you did your research, and you were respecting their time." So those really are some of the baseline critical things that I think are important. Another example of this is years ago, when I wrote my kids book on financial literacy, my primary goal was to become the Baby Einstein of financial literacy. So to do that, I thought, well, the creator of Baby Einstein is obviously the person who I need to know. So I spent hours researching everything that Julie Agnar Clark had ever done or said and was public online. I sent her an email and I said something along the lines of "Dear Julie, I'm so admiring of your work. And here's why. And here's where I am in my career. And I have this one specific question for you and share the question. If you'd be so kind as to take a moment to answer that question over email, I'd be sincerely grateful. And if you'd feel so inclined, it would mean the world's me to hop on a 20 minute phone call and expand upon it." The next day, I got a response from her, which I was shocked by. And she said, "I'd be happy to get on a call with you." And we spent close to an hour. And then we talked many times after that. And I know deep down that the reason she answered me it was because, one, I was kind to her. Two, I flattered her, which always has to be sincere, but it goes a long way. And three, I put in the work. I spent so much time doing the work to make sure that the question I wasn't asking her wasn't easily google-able. Which, frankly, as I'm sure you know, Scott, as well, is one of the most frustrating situations. That if you could find that answer with a quick Google search, then it's pretty rude, frankly, to reach out to someone and ask them to reiterate something that you could have found out more quickly on a basic search, or it's listed on their website, or their LinkedIn or an interview they recently conducted or something like that. And so the fact that I did those things, and came to her sincerely, didn't presume that she should help me, didn't leave it so open ended that she had to fish to figure out what I wanted, or how long this might take. It made it an easy yes for her. So make it an easy yes for someone and put yourself in their shoes and think, what does this person value? Might they see themselves in me. Might they want to help. Because people want to help. You just has to make it easy for them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:48

At this point, you know, I'll get literally hundreds of emails in my inbox every single day. And I have had so many different emails that are the opposite of that, they are not kind, they have not put in the work, you know, we've spent now five years putting content out there where they could literally Google it, and it would pop up. And as much as I love helping people in the way that we do and that's why we're in this business. I also literally cannot, there's not enough time in the day, even if I were answering every single email that people sent out, to be able to get them that information. And when they're not making it easy, it doesn't even matter if I want to, I can't. So I love what you have pointed out and just reiterating that really quick in terms of being kind and being complimentary, or that flattering piece and then putting in the work, and then making sure that it is easy for them. And I think that's part of putting in the work too. So I'm curious, you probably, since you have actually a couple of different platforms, you probably get emails like this at this point too. And or not just on the one side of it as well, right?

Darrah Brustein 18:00

I get them all the time. So when I write for Forbes, and when you write for Forbes, you get a lot of unsolicited people, either pitching you their thing and their press release, or saying hey, "Can you mentor me on this? Or can we have coffee or hop on a call to teach me about this" or any number of other things, or same thing with having a company called Network Under 40, where, you know, we have 30,000 people in a number of mid tier US cities, who are a part of our organization. And because of the natural framework of a brand around networking and connection and relationship building, there is a misguided perception or assumption that you can spend one on one time with every one of those 30,000 people, which is not the goal, the goal is to help you find local connections that you really click with. And I much like you do through this platform since so much free content to answer many of the questions that they have or might have in the future, so that I can allow them to have that access more easily. And I'd say for anyone who gets those types of inquiries, there's a few ways that can be really useful to handle them. Because saying no can be really awkward. However, I don't love to ignore people. The only times I really ignore emails is if I feel like it wasn't personal to me whatsoever, like you sent out a bulk press release and wanted to just send it to every person whose email you could extract off of a list somewhere. But beyond that, I think it's again, in that human relationship piece that even if I'm unwilling to do the thing that you asked, I'm still going to try my best to be gracious to you and tell you now, but from there, my hope is that, you as the recipient will respect that. Because I've had many times and I say this from a me perspective, but hoping that this will resonate with some people who struggle with this as well. That there's many times where you say no and the other person does not take that well. And they look at you like "what a jerk" or "how dare you" or I was entitled to that when none of us are entitled to other people's time and resources, it's generous of them to offer them. So in those moments, choosing to respond and say, whatever it is you choose to say, for me, it's typically something like I'm at capacity, but really appreciate you reaching out or, you know, and these are templated emails, in some cases, you can create and put, I use a tool called mixmax, which has a ton of robust stuff in there free option, where you can do everything from calendaring and email sequences and a number of other things. But in this case, I have a drop down menu within your inbox of templates of emails, so I have one called No. And it's something along lines of, you know, "My focus right now is on XYZ. And this doesn't fit within that. And I really wish you all the best. Thank you for reaching out and hope our paths crossed again in the future" or something along those lines, where it's gracious, it's honest, but I didn't ignore them and make them feel like they didn't matter at all. And in maybe you don't, maybe not everyone has capacity for that. And that's okay. But all I can then do is know that I did my best to keep true to my values and my integrity and handle that situation, how I think is in alignment with those things. And then it's up to that person. And this is where I struggle, to not take it personally to know that it's up to them, however they translate that and how it lands with them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:27

That is a challenge for me as well, because one of the reasons why I got into this business as I want people to be helped and it almost feels like in some ways, and I know this isn't true logically and silently as we're talking about it now. I don't get to control their reaction. And what comes back, but in some ways, if I am not careful, I will feel pain if they're not having a great reaction. And I have to remind myself of exactly what you were talking about. Here's what I'm super curious. Let's flip this around on the other side, and look at the okay, here's what happens, here's the situation for a lot of people that might be harder to get hold of. And I think it's really important to understand what's going on, on the opposite side. Like, if there's somebody like you who you've got a few different organizations, and you get a lot of email. And there's lots of people that have different perceptions around you know, around your time and what you're doing and everything else that's going on. But let's say that we want to contact somebody like you in that situation, or we want to contact the hiring manager, or anything else, aside from that couple of elements that you just laid out, being kind, being complimentary, you know, making sure that you put in the work and make an easy yes. What else can we do? Or how else can we make it an easy yes, so that we don't get the no email? Because I've got several variations of those two.

Darrah Brustein 22:56

It may seem obvious, but the best way always is to be introduced.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:59

Yes.

Darrah Brustein 23:00

Having the ability to ride on someone else's reputational equity, will always benefit you. And doing so, comes with a lot of trust and expectation that you are going to treat it well and not be damaging to it, hopefully continue to elevate it. That is always the best way. And now more than ever, we live in a time where it is so much easier to figure out who knows whom, through all of the social media tools that we have at our free disposal and access that everyone's constantly updating. Like, for example, I always say that LinkedIn is like my CRM that other people update. And for those who don't know what a CRM is, its Customer Relationship Management. But in this case, it's basically just a living breathing Rolodex that other people are constantly updating with, where they are in the world, what they're up to, and who their connections are. So if you're talking to a hiring manager, and you're looking for someone, or you're wanting to talk to a hiring manager, you're looking for someone to make that introduction, go to LinkedIn, go to Facebook, see where the mutual connections are, there 1 2 3 degrees away, and start to get introduced through the change that person, because then you open the door. There's a study, I maybe bastardizing this as well, but it's, I believe it came from Stanford. And it's called the idea or something along "the idea of the power of loose ties" and it talks about how most things happen...

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:26

The power of weak ties.

Darrah Brustein 24:27

Thank you, weak ties. Thank you. Yeah, and it's how everything really happens statistically through weak ties. So it's not always or often the first degree connection but it's the second third or fourth, where someone introduce you to someone who introduced you to someone who then makes that introduction that you're looking for, or someone who you don't actually know super well, but they feel good enough about you that they're willing to make the introduction because it can actually work against you sometimes when you know someone too well, where they think well I actually know too much about you and I know you're good, and you're bad. And maybe I'm less inclined to make that introduction for you, because they know so much about you. Whereas the person that you met at a conference, or a cocktail party or a dinner party, or on an aeroplane, might feel like that interaction they had with you for five minutes or 20 minutes, was positive enough that they're willing to open the door for you. So there's so much power in those, and we should never underestimate them, which is why it's really important to follow up when you meet someone to make sure that when you meet someone in the first place, that you're doing so thoughtfully, and you're making a great impression that you're continuing to nurture that relationship over time, because they're likely will come a time where you're going to want to turn around and ask for something. And it's never a good time to ask for something when you've let the ball drop, and you've not been in touch. And suddenly you want something from someone who barely remembers you or your name.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:55

So let me ask you this, then, you know, if we know that one of the best ways to be able to make this happen and reach people that we want to reach is through introductions, let's say that we're in the situation where we have somebody we want to get introduced to you, we know somebody who knows them. What can I do to make it even easier or more successful? How can I, let's break this down even a little bit more, what can I do from there?

Darrah Brustein 26:25

Similarly, you're going to want to make it easy for someone to say yes. In this case, I think you can craft emails like a one paragraph email that they just can tweak, if they feel like it doesn't match their tone, or their writing style, and say, "Hey, here's a little example of something you're free to use." So it makes it super simple. And just spell it out, do it directly and easily. So that they say no problem, or they can just forward it on, send them the email knowing that, whatever you're saying, that you'd be more than happy for that other person you're looking to get connected with might read. So again, just creating this templated situation where that person can say no problem, copy paste, send it over or forward, send it along, took them 10 seconds or less, but they feel really great about it. You got the outcome that you wanted and needed and then hopefully you can get the yes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:24

What if you don't get the yes?

Darrah Brustein 27:25

That's okay, too.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:27

I'm curious, where have you had a situation in the past where you didn't get the yes. And what ended up happening from there, that you were able to either overcome it or something else good came from it?

Darrah Brustein 27:40

So the first thing that comes to mind is something that happened very recently, which is, I'm in the moment of planning a virtual summit called "Life By Design, Not By Default." And in doing so, I'm booking talent. And I've got about 60 speakers even a Deepak Chopra involved. And I really wanted Scooter Braun to do it. And Scooter Braun is someone with whom I went to college, but we only casually knew each other. So I reached out to a friend of mine who is very close with him. And I said, "Tom, I know that Scooter is someone whose relationship you probably protect quite dearly, because he's in high demand. And I wouldn't ask you if I didn't feel like this was something that you're going to look good for doing. It's not going to put you in a weird spot. But more so, if this conversation goes no further than my asking of this, I completely understand, if you don't want to ask him at all." And he got back to me and said, "I'm actually going to see him this weekend at the March in DC." So this was a couple weeks ago. And he said, "I'll ask him." But here's the thing. I never heard from Tom about it again. And I'm completely okay with that. Because to me, that means, he didn't say yes, he's not interested. And that's okay. Because Tom did me and maybe Tom didn't even ask, I have no idea. But I didn't want to push Tom. Because there's a place to be persistent. And there's a place where you're annoying. And I didn't want to push Tom because my friendship with him comes first. And the outcome of, if he can get me an introduction to Scooter or reintroduction to Scooter was not more important to me than the quality and the consistency of my friendship with Tom. So even his silence while it may be a yes one day or maybe it'll remain silent, I took it as a no and are at least a no for now. And I'm okay with that. And I have other angles that I can massage to get to Scooter if I so choose. But I'm not valuing my own goals and outcomes over my relationships ever, no matter how big the goal.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:42

Here's why I love that, we started out talking about the difference between networking and building relationships and ultimately the difference between valuing relationships and being transactional. And I love that this is such an illustration of putting that into practice. So kudos to you for walking the walk, way to go.

Darrah Brustein 30:06

Thank you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:06

Absolutely. And here's what I'm curious. And I'd love to ask you one more question about, for people that are in this place, and they are not considering themselves necessarily amazing relationship builders, but they want to really get started, and they're interested in doing this. And it's kind of more on the beginning stages for them at least thinking about it in this way. What advice would you give them?

Darrah Brustein 30:32

For starters, you already have a network no matter where you're beginning. And people often underestimate that, for example, I sit on my University's board, and I talk to college students all the time where they say, "I don't have a network, how am I going to get a job? Everyone talks about value adding before extracting and taking, but I have nothing to add, I'm just a college kid who's had an internship maybe, what am I going to add to the world?" But no matter where you are, you've had classmates, you have family, you have friends, you have your friends family. And this is your network. And they don't have to be the biggest names. They don't have to have impressive shiny titles. But they can often be valuable to you and valuable to the people that you're going to interact with for a number of reasons. So start there, start where you are. And then don't be afraid to ask because the people who are the perfect testing grounds or the perfect resourceful to go to are the people with whom you already have depth of relationship where you already have trust, where they already like you. And they're going to be interested in helping you if you ask them in a gracious way, instead of just going out into the world thinking well, crap, I've got to build an entire network, and work towards my goal at the same time. So instead, you can go where you've already been sowing your seeds, which sounds weird, but like planting seeds and growing a garden of the relationships you already have. And you've been watering those just through the friendships and family you've been building over the years. And start, truthfully, and honestly approaching them and saying, here's my challenge, or here's my goal, this is what I need, do you have any ideas? And that's a really low pressure way to get someone's buy and to assist. So sometimes it can feel daunting when people feel targeted. So instead of maybe saying, "Hey, I know you know this person, or you're in this industry, can you open a door for me?" To just allow someone to do something most of us naturally enjoy, which is to share advice and counsel and be helpful. So if you open it up more open entity to someone who already knows likes and trusts you to say, "What do you think about this? Do you have any advice or any ideas for me?" And then generally, they will draw the dots together. And say, "Oh, well, let me introduce you to so and so or have you considered this?" And in some cases, if they're not getting to that conclusion, you can walk down that path and then say, "Would you be willing to make that introduction?" In which case, they'd generally say yes. Or they'll say, "No, it's not a good time, or here's why that person's not a good idea." But that's all great knowledge and data points for you to keep taking into other interactions. And it's also great practice, to be unafraid to ask, to be unafraid to be authentic and vulnerable in those moments about what it is that you need. Because what you're also doing there is deepening the relationship. And if this all comes back to true networking is relationship building, then make sure that no matter, even when you're let's say there's a bank account and why I don't look at it this way, really, if for every two times you give, you extract one time to make sure your balance is always positive, then you're still generally not only keeping the balance positive in the two to one nature that I just mentioned. But you're also keeping the relationship equity positive, because you're valuing this person, you're investing time and energy into the relationship. And you're just demonstrating it through your actions that you care. And this is an important relationship to you in the first place, otherwise, you wouldn't be approaching them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:09

That is amazing. I, firstly, am refraining from making a joke about sowing seeds. And then...

Darrah Brustein 34:16

I know it sounds so wrong.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:19

Secondly, thank you so very much for taking the time and making the time because this is something that I think is really one of the most useful skills in the world, in my opinion, is building relationships authentically, and doing so in a way where you feel comfortable and very practiced at it and can even do so in a way that's helpful to other people. So I really appreciate you taking the time and coming and sharing your experience with us. And the other thing I wanted to ask you about too, is take a moment, you mentioned the life by design summit coming up here, but take a moment and tell people what that is and where that is partially because I get the opportunity to participate in it, but two, I think that, that is something that can be useful to a lot of folks as well.

Darrah Brustein 35:09

Thank you. It's all virtual, which is cool. You can be anywhere watching it from your bed or vacation or your office or wherever you choose. And it'll be two to three days in late May we haven't officially announced. In order to find out about it, I'd say the easiest way because it's not public yet, is to follow me on Instagram, which is just @darrahb, like boy, and I will be sharing about it and it's gonna be amazing because, one, it's free. Two, we've got some powerful speakers like Deepak Chopra, Ronny Turiaf, from the Lakers and Miami Heat and two time Olympian, got Adam Grant, the author of "Give and Take" and the "Originals" and "Option B", we've got Kat Cole, who's one of the biggest badass is in business, she's number two at Focus Brands. She's a humanitarian, she's fortunes 40, under 40. And we've got about 50 other speakers as well. And there's just so much value in it for the cost of $0. So I hope that everyone will stay tuned by following me on Instagram. And I will be letting y'all be the first to know via Instagram when it is live and how you can register.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:19

If this is not your first episode of the Happen to Your Career podcast, you've probably heard somebody on here that their first step to work that they absolutely love that fits their strengths, and they're excited about, was going through our free eight day mini course, to figure out what fits you. And we've had now well over 30,000 people have that as their beginning step to identifying what they want in their lives. And you can do the exact same thing. And if you're interested in that, it has some really amazing questions to get you started in becoming clear on what you want and what you need in your career. And it's a great way to kick it off and determine what is most important for you, moving forward, You can learn what you're great at so you can stop wasting time in your job and start working in your career. Even identify some of the internal blockages that are keeping you from fulfilling work, and wealth and career success. And begin narrowing down what you should be doing for work that's fulfilling to you, all you have to do is go to figureitout.co that's figureitout.co and get started today, enter your email and wallah, will send you the very first lesson, head on over there, figureitout.co or you can text happen to 44222. That's happen to 44222.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:54

Strengths, signature strengths. Particularly we spent a lot of time on the podcast discussing this idea of strengths, finding them, appreciating them, talking about them in job interviews, using your strengths to find your ideal role. What we don't talk about as much our weaknesses, we know that people are generally more fulfilled at work when they spend more time focusing on their strengths, and less on weaknesses. That's what makes the story of Ross Loofbourrow so fascinating. You're going to meet Ross in just a second. Ross didn't avoid his weakness. Instead, he turned his greatest weakness into his greatest strength.

Ross Loofbourrow 38:41

Energy like dude, you're the energy guy. And that's the word. And it's by far the thing that people have said the most about me, in such a positive way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:57

Ross has ADHD and throughout his life, he's always thought of it as weakness, until he realized he was thinking about it completely backwards. This is a pretty unique story from the HTYC library. I want you to listen to how Ross completely reversed the way he saw himself and the world saw him instead of focusing on weaknesses. Focus on something else that we haven't spent a lot of time on, which we call anti strengths or the shadow side of your strengths. 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.

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