Kelly Poulson 00:04
If for you, that priority matters more than the other things and for whatever reason, you've tried a bunch of different ways and feel like this is the right choice for you, and then I'll say, go for it.

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 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
What happens when you are ready to go and make a career change and you recognize that you'd much rather be doing work that's so much more meaningful to you? Maybe that means changing industries or maybe that means moving from the private sector to nonprofit. Maybe it means more mission driven work. Maybe it means helping people in a completely different way. Here's the thing, one of the biggest questions and one of the biggest fears and concerns that we have out there is that, if you're going to do these things, how on earth are you going to be able to do them in a way that pays you the same or even more than what you make right now? It seems kind of impossible. There's a lot of things that pop into people's heads and also many questions too, like, "What if I find it an interesting role and a great organization?", "You know, it lines up really well. Is that worth taking a step back.", "Maybe I should take less salary.", or "Should I do something to get my foot in the door or break into that industry or use it as a stepping stone?" So all of these questions have a tendency to pop up and as you might imagine, I think that there are some completely different ways to do this. It turns out we have somebody who I'm really excited to to bring onto the podcast today that also feels the exact same way .

Kelly Poulson 02:12
And I think sometimes people assume that that's what's necessary. It has to be this really drastic change, but the fact of the matter is you have skills and they are transferable. It's just a question of how you're positioning and talking about it, right? So I've also had folks who made that transition, made less money but are thrilled about it because the entire nature of their life and work is different based on that change.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:35
That's Kelly Paulson. She's spent her entire career helping organizations, helping people basically just kick a whole bunch of ass and become much better versions of themselves and she's done this in a variety of different ways. She, like me, has worked in HR over the years, but she's also done quite a few other things too. She made career changes, industry changes, you name it. The work's been there. Got multiple t shirts. And she'd been coaching people since 2009. So it's been a year or two as it turns out and most recently she's joined the Happen To Your Career team as one of our career coaches and we're thrilled to pieces to have her on board, but she's gonna help us answer a few of these questions along the way about what should you do, how should you think about salary and how does all this stuff work when you're trying to balance what I need, what I want and meaningful work at the exact same time.

Kelly Poulson 03:37
In college, you know, every 18 year old knows exactly what they want to do and pick something from the start. Obviously. So I was a Psych and English major because I happen to like both of those things and they were the classes that I enjoyed the most. And from there I did an internship with United Cerebral Palsy working with individuals with developmental disabilities. So my original plan was to go back to school, become a psychologist and I had the benefit of having a sister who had done so. She has her PhD and I am very skilled at watching those ahead of me and navigating that and seeing what they went through and didn't go through. So when I graduated, I had an offer to work at a place with individuals with developmental disabilities hands on and I realized it wasn't for me, but what was for me and where I ended up landing was hiring people to work with people with developmental disabilities because I understood the space and I was good with people. It's not uncommon that psych majors end up in human resources, which I will tell you from the start. I loathed and I did the eye roll and all the things that can come along with it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:48
The HR... We call that the HRI role.

Kelly Poulson 04:50
Yeah, yeah. The official. So I did that for probably about my first year and it was high volume recruiting with anyone and everyone, you know, days where I might have had 16 interviews a day. But it was great being thrown into the fire and really learning the ins and outs of how to have those conversation successfully and how to learn from people and you know, what's true for them. So that was my start and I went from there to another similar social services agencies where I was hiring more psychologists, social workers, that type of employee thinking that ultimately at some point I'd go back to school and become one of their psychologists or social workers. There, I started to do with recruiting. I did some training and every now and again I backup the benefits person and you know, a little more generalist work and from there, you know, still a little lost and I didn't really dig. People were nice, it was fine, but it's not like I was enthusiastically running into work every day. And then there was a job at the Philadelphia Zoo, which for me, like who doesn't wanna work at the zoo. I find this interesting because for those of us who go through this process, right? I applied and I thought I was perfect and I didn't hear from them. And probably about two months later it was still up and I applied again because I thought, "You know what? This is it." And reached out to them and ended up on the phone within an hour of that second outreach. And obviously, lo and behold landed the gig. Started there doing again, high volume recruiting as you can imagine, a zoo in a city where it's very seasonal. They do a ton of firing in the spring and summer. And so I was brought on to do that. Inevitably, ended up taking over full time recruiting as well. And it was there that I worked for a boss who got me to see things differently. And for me it was seeing someone who wasn't viewing it from the policy side of things that didn't enjoy that people were afraid of human resources, you know, that didn't like the power trip piece of it that can sometimes come along with it for some individuals. He was about the people and knowing that the people could change the business. And so when I saw it from his perspective, I thought, "Alright, you know, maybe this is something I could do in the long run." Still wasn't sure. During my time there, the benefits person left and I raised my hand and said, "Hey, I know nothing about this, but I know it will make me a more well rounded practitioner. Will you give me shot" and he did. I won't lie. I did not care for that year plus in that role because I am not a benefits person like benefits and comp is not my favorite space to spend my time.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:25
What's not your favorite about? Just curious.

Kelly Poulson 07:28
I spent so many hours in spreadsheets and excel and you know, the less human interaction, I think, it was a lot of that and much less the very rarely would I have an employee who had a worker's comp issue or lead issue who would come to see me and I'd help them solve for challenges, but other than that, it was so much more in spreadsheets than I care to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:49
That's super interesting. I loved that part of the introvert in me loved that part of benefits and compense or to designing that aspect, but I can also on the other token, understand how that sounds terrible the most people, quite frankly.

Kelly Poulson 08:05
Yes. Yeah. Well, for me it was interesting, right? So this guy promotes me. And then leaves within six months and I've never done benefits, so I thankfully, those of you who've worked with benefits brokers or the people that broker between you and the carriers and help you guide your strategy. I have great brokers who taught me the ropes as best as I could. So I think that was also part of it. It was I'm stuck in these spreadsheets, not sure I know what I'm doing and oh my goodness, payroll's involved. It's like the last thing in the world you want to mess up. Like, oh my goodness. So, I did the whole, I was kind of acting lead while we looked for a replacement for him and then saw an opportunity... I knew at that point you knew watch you acting lead, sometimes it can be difficult to bring in the new boss and adjust to that once you've done a little bit of everything on the team at that point I had, right? I did training, I did benefits, I did recruiting and employee relations. So I wanted something different and I saw I think a posting for an HR director at a small advertising agency and you know, you always hear about advertising and it's like, oh well that seemed pretty intriguing and I'm curious about what motivates people and so are they and maybe that would be a good fit and it was building their team. So I had the ability to go in and set the tone and really create the foundation and then take it whatever direction I wanted. So for me that was when I walked into an agency, that was where I felt at home, it was like one of those moments where you feel the click and I thought, oh I should have been with this type of industry the entire time because they just let you be creative, right? I mean the people are really driven and brilliant and goofballs and just a lot of fun to work with. But from an HR perspective, you don't get a ton of ability. You don't get a lot of organizations looking for creativity in HR. So I had the ability there to really push the envelope and a variety of different ways and it was at that point that I read a book from the sherm top 10 books of the month, email that comes out, right? They had an interesting title and it prompted my love of coaching really. So I, it was called "Dream Manager" and it was a book about a fictional janitorial services company that had really bad turnover and one of the things that they did to remedy was to hire a life coach for people's personal dreams and goals that was sponsored by the employer with the theory that there's a strong connection between the dreams we chase personally and then how we show up at work. So for me, we talk about inspiration, I became... I was just talking about this this week, you know, I'm pretty woman where there's the guy at the beginning that says like, "What's your dream? This is Hollywood. Everyone has a dream." I became that man. It felt like for the city of Philadelphia and beyond, anyone ever talked to me about it. So I talked to the leadership team, the CEO into letting me launch and that was when I just fell in love with coaching so I did everything I could to devour any piece of content on it. Now I was a generalist so I still did all of the other work, but in my mind if it enabled me to do the work that I love the most, it was okay with me and I could do that. And again, I loved the environment and the people. So I was there for about five years and then another organization reached out to me, a recruiter about another agency looking to do something similar. And at first I'm like, Nah, I don't want to do the agency thing again. Similar size. When you meet with someone and you know you need to work with them. It was one of those moments I met with the COO, she heard about some of the work that I had done and actually they had posted for a business manager role and when I looked at the job description I said to the recruiter, "That's not me." So I'm more than happy to speak to them. I've heard great things about them on the street, however, this isn't me. So when I went and met with them, we had that conversation as well and they rewrote the job description.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:50
I love that. We need a name for that whole when you know, right at work love at first sight or #worklove. I don't know. I'm making this up.

Kelly Poulson 12:02
No, I get you. Something like that. This people are stalling my life. So I joined that agency, similar thing, building, but they were larger and they are in multiple cities. There was an acquisition while I was there and as you can imagine, there's a ton of work that goes into that. But that was all new experiences for me and I also continued with the dream program there and it was during my time there they really doubled down on growth and that's so important to me. So not only did I have the opportunity to do some of what I love, but I had the ability to push. So it was, while I was there that I had a boss who when I started it with someone who specialized in HR and then he moved on, but I had a woman who had been in client services who was moved into that role, so she had never worked in HR and I had worked in agencies but not directly with clients and it was just this lovely partnership because we both knew that we knew our specialties and didn't have any of that weirdness that sometimes can come along with, "you don't know this person, can you ask questions?" And she would pick up the phone and say, "Hey, I'm thinking about doing this, does that seem insane?" And I would do the same. So, during my time there I had the ability to do a lot of different things both internally and externally. And for me, the externals probably what prompted the most change in terms of my coaching world. So a few things happened. I took a few coaching courses. I didn't take the jump into a certification right away because I didn't think that that was right for me off the bat. And I took a few courses; one, it was through these called, Jenny and Karen, I think it's like coaching with an edge or kickstart your coaching, something like that. And it was a few sessions and I loved it and I thought, "All right, I, where did they go for their certification?" So I looked that up and inevitably enrolled myself in IPEC, the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching. At the same time, I also brought a disrupt HR, which is a movement on, basically shaking things up in the HR space, Ted style talk event type thing where it just brings HR disruptors into a room together. So I founded it and then brought a team together in Philadelphia, all well in the coaching certification program and also started at that time seeing more external clients than I had previously, up until that point, I was internal coaching. So hectic year I learned a lot about myself and about coaching and about, you know, creating an event, a successful event. And throughout all of those I thought, "Wow," you know, sometimes when you surprise yourself, "if I can do all of these things," you know what, sky's the limit basically. And so when I finished my coaching program, I had started probably a few months prior to the end, hinting with my organization saying, "Hey, I absolutely adore it here, however, I don't want to do the HR generalist work anymore even though I was leading a team and it was interesting. I want to double down on learning in development and coaching work and if that is something that can happen here, wonderful. If it isn't, that's okay too, but you probably won't keep me much beyond x date." And this again was several months out. So we build a job description and worked through it myself, my boss at the time who was an AVP of human resources and the CEO and we got to a point where it did come to fruition and I did that for gosh, about a little over a year. So I ran the coaching program. I did coaching for leaders, I did the dream coaching as well. But then I built all of their learning and development, whether internal or external, so it was, I owned the conference budget, but I would also create here's how to have a successful one on one with your team. I did all of the management and leadership training and anything above and beyond that for the organization. It was a great experience. And then during that time I was getting more and more... I also started working with places like The Muse and career contested doing career coaching and I was getting more and more clients there and realizing that I loved that work so much and it got to the point where I, because of just so many responsibilities, I needed to turn those down because they weren't my full time job. And for me that was a sign of, okay, if that's really what you want to do, then go for it. And so we're talking about last year around this time, a little bit earlier, I have noticed I think in June and I gave them three months. So September first was my last full time day at Element Garretson where I was at the time and I've been building my coaching practice since, and you know, this, I, it's not that I just do career coaching. I do though, that's my favorite, I do some leadership coaching and I still do some management training for organizations and there's a lot of variety and I've always dug that. And I think that's something when I spoke earlier to the agency world being right for me, there's a lot of variety and a smaller agency like the pace is crazy, but you also do a lot of different things and wear a lot of different hats. And I think if that was part of why it really spoke to me and stuck with me in the long run. So now here we are a year into entrepreneurship. What a ride it has been. I talk about learning, right? You just so many things during the course of this year and worked with so many phenomenal people. More career coaching work than anything else. And just to see and experience not only to have these conversations, but you know, getting to the end of a call and someone saying, "Oh my gosh, I feel completely differently about all of this." You know, it's just, that's why I'm here. So, you know, we just spend way too much time at work when I say we spend too much time there to feel crappy about it and too many of us do and from not only my HR days, but now it's out there and it doesn't need to be. So I do anything and everything I can to help shift that for people.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:12
I think that's one of the really interesting things about seeing multiple sides of the table because you do career coaching now, obviously I do a few other things too, but you know, you do career coaching now for the majority of what you do. But having that experience where you have to talk to a, have to or get to, whichever way you want to look at it if you're in HR, I loved that part of it, but not everybody does. But having the employee that sitting right in front of you that really dislikes their job and some of the aspects of it and it's things that in some ways you have an impact on or influence or control and you know, having seen that side of it, plus, you know, having hired people, plus having the other side of it too where, you know, people are coming to you and they're like, "Hey, how do I, how do I make this happen?" or "How do I look at this differently? I don't want to continue going down the road where I don't like my career and I'm spending 10 hours a day there. Like, that doesn't sound like a good plan to me." But, that was one of the reasons, you know, when we started talking before we brought you onto the team way back when, that I was really interested too just because, I mean partially because I'm a little biased. I have some of that experience myself. But then partially because, you know, you've been there and done that and some of the things that you've done really stood out to me too in terms of, you know, not just accepting what came your way, but leveraging some of those things that came your way and turning those into your own opportunities like you mentioned, hey, they rewrote the role and not just accepting the situation that I'm going to leave and I'm going to go and do my own thing and it's going to be this way or the highway, but then opening up a conversation and turning it into a collaboration to be able to ultimately get what you want over a longer period of time and get a variety of opportunities and experiences that really are much more on your terms, quite frankly. And I love that. So, nicely done, first of all. Yeah, absolutely. And I, what isn't always obvious when we have these types of conversations is just the sheer amount of thought and work and effort and both mental effort and sometimes physical effort too that goes into creating those types of situations for yourself. So I just really appreciate that on that level too. But now that you have all of this knowledge and background and all kinds of other things that have a tendency to come with... been there and got the tshirt, enough tshirts to make a quilt sort of thing. I think we should tackle a few questions because we actually had a several listener questions that came in from, well, I think it's one listener in particular, but we've had some really similar questions come in from other people too. So let me set up the story here. This email and we've received a number of very similar emails really recently in the last month or two here by two months. And you know, this particular listener was really finding that she was falling into a lot of the worries and anxieties and questions that have a tendency to come along with salary about what is possible, what is impossible, you know, what circumstances are more likely and all the things that we have a tendency to do in our heads. So I'm just going to read part of this for you. And she asked several questions in here and I'd love to just break it down sort of piece by piece here. This comes from Lauren by the way. She says that, "Hey, I am worried about, you know, some of the worries, anxieties, questions that career changes have about salary." And she said, it goes on to say money comes up tangentially in many of the episodes, she's talking about the podcast. She's a listener of the podcast. You know, often around how to build a runway before you leave your current role but I can't recall a dedicated in depth discussion about salary. So she goes onto then to say, "It'd be great to hear some specific examples of people who successfully shifted to work that fits them and increase their compensation or if it pairs out in your experience, people who accepted less salary in a new industry and don't regret it because they're happier either because the work is so gratifying or it allows the lifestyle that suits them better." Okay. Now I want to do that and I want to provide some of these stories along the way here too. But then she goes on down some really specific questions and she says "In general, should career changers be prepared to accept us to the lower salary?" So what do you think? Tell me a little bit about what you've seen and what you believe about that.

Kelly Poulson 18:31
Sure. Well, so I feel like I've seen it all in terms of, have I had people who have transitioned into roles that spoke more to who they are and they aren't more? Yes. Have I seen people make lateral moves? Yes, I have. And I also have seen people, you know, take a step back slightly financially. I'm not known, I know, as chopped their salary in half and I think sometimes people assume that that's what's necessary, like it has to be this really drastic change, but the fact of the matter is you have skills and they are transferable. It's just a question of how you're positioning and talking about it, right? So, I've also had folks who made that transition made me less money but are thrilled about it because the entire nature of their life and work is different based on that change. And I think a lot of it comes down to values as well. You know, like what matters most to you. And if though, if some folks that I talked to, money doesn't even come up at first, which I think is unrealistic because I mean we all have bills to pay and life's to lead, but I think that's an assumption that a lot of people make is in order to make this change, I have to start from scratch and go to entry level salary. And then of course, if that's how you're thinking about it, it makes it a much more overwhelming and scary change when change is scary enough to begin with.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:25
That's super interesting. To build on that, I find people have a tendency to go where they set their target, like where they're pointing their arrow, if you will, and if they assume that they are going to make a lower salary than very often I've seen those people that go into it thinking they have to end up making lower salary or vice versa. One of the things that we've seen here, you know, working through people with career change bootcamp or in our signature coaching program or in any capacity that we've worked with people over the years, it's been really interesting because we've observed that the vast majority of those people have either stayed the same when they're accepting new jobs, new roles. They have either stayed the same or increased their salary. And you know, we have countless examples of that. But part of that, and you and I were talking a little bit about this before we hit the record button, part of that is them coming to us and then a lot of times we're doing some of the harder indepth mental work with them initially to define what they want and sometimes that is around money too. And then we're telling them, "Hey, guess what? Usually what happens is we see peoples stay the same or above and that's where they point their arrow and then unsurprisingly that's where they end up too." So there's a little bit of that built into it as well. But I can also think of other situations like, you know, we had, we worked with a woman named Erica and she was in digital marketing and she had made the move to a totally different state and everything like that. Didn't have a lot of contacts there, whatever. But ended up actually deciding that she needed to accept less. Like that's one of the things I was in her mind. And that was kind of where she was going at first it ended up encountering her, started to work with her and realize that, "Hey, you don't actually have to do this, this is the direction that you have to go." And the reason she was thinking about that initially is because he really wanted more flexibility. Like that's something she felt like she was missing for a long period of time and it would make the role right for her in a lot of different ways. And ended up after everything was done fast forward, I ended up accepting a role that offered essentially the same amount of money but less hours, which was fantastic, right?

Kelly Poulson 24:53
Right. Wins all around.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:54
Yeah, wins all around. But I don't think that that would have happened until she had adjusted her where she was aiming, quite frankly. So I think that there's a lot of those. But what about a different, you know, she asked Lauren in this case, who sent in the question asks another question too. Well, what about different sectors? And she gives the example of, you know, what if you're moving from private sector to government or you're moving to a nonprofit or you want to go and do mission driven work to helping people, like what should you expect there?

Kelly Poulson 27:26
I mean, like similar to what you said, I mean you likely will get what you expect, right? But I think that, sure, people make assumptions sometimes that nonprofits. Obviously, there's a scale in terms of some of them probably have more than others, but some of them are businesses like anywhere else and they realize that they need to pay more to get the talent that they want in order to continue to evolve and grow and forward their mission. So I think often people assume that they're going to make meeting you in order what for a mission driven organization and they need to do that. But I've had people transition from government roles go into nonprofits and it was either a lateral or just higher than what they were making. I don't think, like in your example earlier, I don't know that they worked less hours. However, the happiness that the meaningful work that they were doing more than made up for the experiences that they had previously.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:24
Yeah. And sort of the way that I've thought about this over the years too, to kind of build on what you're saying is that take like nonprofit for example. Nonprofit as a whole on average pays less than some other industries, but to your point like kinda where you kind of intend on going has a tendency to influence that and where you went up and I think, you know, good evidence of this too, is, jeez, not that long ago we had Jackie on the podcast, she ended up working for a organization that is very meaning driven, falls into that nonprofit sector as well and she basically went to them and said, "Here's what I need." And you know, they were very open to that conversation and she got exactly what she needed and wanted out of the deal. And without sharing exactly what she made, you know, it was an amazing deal for her. And it was well above what the averages are. And I think when you're in this type of situation, it is helpful to remember you don't need all the jobs, you don't need the industry average, you don't need all the things that are making up that average. You just only need one.

Kelly Poulson 29:40
Yeah. It only takes one. That's funny. You're right. Sometimes people do, I mean not sometimes, often people get in their own way in terms of they decide, "Okay, well there's no way I'll get this," and then that thought process continues and then they're feeling not great in their day to day and then it's just all swarming around in here. But sometimes it's the competence and willingness to say, "Oh, you know what? On paper, this looks really great. If this is your range and this is my range and you have no ability to be flexible with me, then it's probably not okay for me." Right? Like I'm going to walk and feeling comfortable and confident that knowing when you close one door, another role open, that's a part of it, as being willing to say, you know, "This isn't the right fit for me." And trusting that the thing that is right for you will appear, but if you spend all your time worried about those other opportunities that for whatever reason might not have been the one you could miss out on them because you're just too focused on what didn't turn out as opposed to what could.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:45
That's super interesting. I think you're totally right. It seems like it's a, first of all, when you're in that situation, there is all the, what'd you call it, the swarming or the, like the whirling around or whatever you said. I think that that's a great way to describe what happens because you've got all these emotions, like you worked hard to be able to get this offer in the first place. And then it's like, well, what if they don't want to accept what I really want? Should I ask him? Am i going to lose it? And like all the other things that have a tendency to float around our heads. But then the other side of it too is like having the confidence to recognize that as you said, when something closes, another door opens and it is difficult, like calling a spade a spade, it is difficult to do that when you're in that situation. It's much easier for me as a coach, you know, sitting on the other side of seeing that literally thousands of times where we know that to be true. And but I think that's part of the reason why, going back to, you know, some of the folks that we've worked with, I suppose that's part of the reason why they might have a higher than average success rate around, you know, obtaining higher salaries and things along those lines too. Because if it's just you go in through that, then you're stuck with all the lean and everything versus if you have somebody there that's telling, you know, "Look, I've seen this thousands of times. Here's how it works. It's going to be okay. Like on the other side of us." So yeah, I can totally see both sides. Here's a different question though, along the same lines that Lauren had asked, she says, "What about if I find an interesting role with a great organization that suits my value, suits my interests, is it worth actually taking a step back in responsibility or salary to," and she uses quotes "to break into that industry or use something as a stepping stone?" This is an interesting question, but I'm curious about your thoughts on this.

Kelly Poulson 32:41
Well, I think a lot of things are worth it, if you can get to that place, whatever that place is for you. Again, don't assume that you have to in order to get to that place. I think a lot of people just automatically make that assumption, so knowing that you know, maybe in some instances you will have to or need to, but it's not a have to or need to, it's a choice. Right? And if for you that priority matters more than the other things and for whatever reason you've tried a bunch of different ways and feel like this is the right choice for you, then I'd say go for it. I mean, you don't need to, right? But I think that very few people that I have worked with that need big transitions when they really did the work on the upfront right to get crystal clear on what matters to them and really try and make change and think it all through because it's a process and it's scary and it's scary for you know, any single, any person, no matter what level they are in their career, senior, junior or whatever. But if at the end of the line is this dream gig and you know, in your heart of hearts it is, then I don't see anything wrong with taking a step back. But what I do, disagree with assuming that you have to.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:55
I love that. It almost seems like that should be sort of a red flag for, like alarm bells should be going off. Anytime you find yourself saying the statement like, well I feel like I have to because it's gonna allow me to get my foot in the door or I feel like I have to because I don't know, insert your reason or justification here. That in itself and actually know that I think about that as I've kind of started using this probably about 10 years ago for myself in some ways where like anytime I find that I should be doing something where I find that should or have to, is coming out of my mouth then it's probably time to reassess. Is that a real thing? Is that or is that just my perception of what must be done? Because to your point, like it's, it really is a choice and it can be a choice, but only if you recognize that it's a choice.

Kelly Poulson 34:49
Yeah. I'm with you on the should front and that's one of those words and anytime I hear it I go, "Oh, what's that about? Like okay, clearly something's going on here. Let's take a step back." And I haven't said that clients too. And like whenever you hear, you've probably heard Scott, that people say like shooting all over yourself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:07
Yeah.

Kelly Poulson 35:08
So, whenever you hear that word, that's a clue that something's going on. Perhaps you're thinking that you need to do something that you don't want to do when you may not need to.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:18
That is a yes, please do not should. But what about this idea of foot in the door? How about or breaking into an industry or things along those lines because that is one of the most common pieces I think that I've heard again and again, like people come to me all the time saying, "Hey, here's my idea. Okay. So here's my plan." Like I'll ask them, "Okay, what's your plan if we're not helping you? Like what are you going to go do it?", "Well, I'm going to, I'm talking to these people over here and seeing if I can get this," you know, insert lower level role here "because I think it's going to allow me to break into the industry or get my foot in the door and everything along those lines." And I'm curious, I've got my own set of perceptions, but have you seen that be an effective approach? And if so, under what circumstances you kind of, seen that be an effective approach?

Kelly Poulson 36:19
Yeah, I mean I've seen it occur a few times. Most of my background in advertising. So I work with a lot of advertising clients. I've seen people come from like senior roles and insurance companies to be, you know, an associate level and an ad agency. And again, when you're doing something like that, I think you do have the financial impact and you can rise the ranks pretty quickly. But I don't know that it's a necessity. And I've also had career changers from all walks of life. Say I'll do anything and everything to get in there. And I think that's part of it too. When I was the recruiter, someone saying "I'll do anything and everything" for a variety of reasons, why, I'm happy that they're hungry and want it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:03
Does make you cringe a little bit though?

Kelly Poulson 37:06
Right. But like value yourself, you're bringing something to the table. So what I often say to people is you, what is it about not having experience in this industry that's going to be amazing for this organization if they bring you in? Because guess what, how many, like we know all day, everyday we hear about diversity and diversity can be defined in a variety of different ways and diversity of thought is a big part of that and I used to, any industry probably trades employees left and right all the time because then you get it's easier to train or whatever it is. They already understand what the business is about then they're not necessarily asking the questions that will change the course of your business because they had been immersed in it for so long that they can't see the forest for the trees. So how do you lean into, "Yes, I've worked in this industry and here's how I think it will benefit your organization that I'm going to bring this different perspective." That's been a really interesting way I think for, you know, when I was recruiting, when I heard that, I'd be like, "Yeah, okay, I get it. Let's talk a little bit more" and I think that was where a hiring manager would be more intrigued and then just saying, "I'll do anything and everything. You know, you guys have a cool website"

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:25
So behind the scenes that's... those are things that get uttered in interviews constantly for a hiring professionals that do that all the time, those can be red flags and sometimes not as good ways depending on the circumstances and everything, certainly. But yeah, I'm laughing because I can't tell you the amount of times where I've heard both those things.

Kelly Poulson 38:49
Well, it's funny you say foot in the door when I was a recruiter or someone actually sent me a plastic foot once with a resume.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:53
Oh yeah? This is my foot in the door.

Kelly Poulson 38:56
Hey, I found it disturbing. I couldn't tell you the person's name, right? Like, I wouldn't, I, first of all I couldn't, but I also don't remember it, but I remember the uncomfortable feelings I had when that plastic foot showed up.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:09
We have an article on our site and you can search standing out and we give three different rules to be able to stand out in a positive way and they're really great rules of thumb might almost be a good, I don't know, the laws of standing out because like this, like that person stood out, but it was creepy and it wasn't effective and you don't remember their name till to this day. I had a similar experience where we had somebody applying for a management position that, for all intents and purposes, didn't have the things that she sent us didn't indicate any way that she had any kind of leadership experience whatsoever. But she did send us an 8 by 10 glossy photo of... and it was autographed. So, there was that. And again, I don't remember her name to be quite honest and we didn't bring her in for an interview, but similar. She stood out in the fact that you would, like you'd remember that.

Kelly Poulson 40:08
Autograph too?

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:09
Autographed. Yes. Your experience was as a diesel mechanic too, which is nothing wrong with that. It just, it didn't really fit together in a way that allowed us to be able to say yes to the next step. Okay. So here's, I think some of the biggest reasons why people have a tendency. Why we as a tendency as human beings have, we gravitate toward these types of questions like, you know, should I accept last or should they take a step back? Where am I going to have to take a step back? And we have all the worries around it. I think it really is more about those fears that happen. And you know, Lauren, another part of the email that she sent, and I'm just gonna share just a little bit of this. I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but she goes on to say, you know, "there's kind of the fear and thought gremlins that creep in for me." And she just describes a little bit about her situation. "Although my current work is unfulfilling, I've worked really hard for a decade to establish myself in this particular profession. So what if I let go of this in order to your stability I've achieved in order to pursue more meaningful work, but the industry I really want to contribute pays less than I've earned previously." It seems like a bitter pill to swallow and yeah, there's a lot of assumptions made in that, some of which we've already talked about, but you know what advice would you give to Lauren or anybody who has similar thoughts to Lauren overall that's facing that type of thing?

Kelly Poulson 41:41
Yeah, I guess in those instances I have a bunch of questions, but you can ask yourself like what if that happens? What is the worst that could happen in that situation if you're not happy in what you're doing now, continuing to do what you're doing now is not going to suddenly change overnight. So fast forward 10 years. Is it going to matter that you have the salary that you have and the title that you have and the level that you have? Or are you going to regret the fact that you didn't try to make a change? So you know, obviously I know that you're experiencing a lot of fears and stress in there already. I don't want to add to that, but I also think that people need to think those things through, right? Because the, "what if" you're never going to know until you take action and I think the what ifs will keep you paralyzed and inaction for as long as you'll let them and some of it is back to like what you really, what matters most to you because if it is the prestige or some people, and this is not in any way judgment, there are some people that it's like, "Yep, my job is my job," right? "I go, I make money, I come home and then I live my life." And they're completely different things where in theory they think they're completely different things. Right? And that's okay too, but make that an intended choice on your part, not just I put my head down and 10 years went by and here I am and now I'm stuck with it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 43:16
Totally agreed. And I think a couple of the things that you said earlier too is there's some situations in which it could be right to make that type of change, however you'd have to decide for yourself, and more importantly to build on what you had said at some point you have to move forward to even find out. Now, what's really interesting is the studies that are out there that evaluate this sort of thing and evaluate what ends up in regret versus what doesn't end up in regret nearly every single time the answer is, should I stay or should I go? It is the stain and wondering the ends up in regret. And a very, very rarely the going that has a... the going rarely has a as a likely chance of ending up in regret. So almost always statistically the answer to should I stay or should I go is go. Which is crazy. It feels that feels very counterintuitive from how we feel in the moment.

Kelly Poulson 44:35
Yeah. I also find sometimes it can be valuable to ask the people around you, and I don't mean for their opinion so to speak, but if you don't pay attention to what you're saying, like sometimes you can say to your significant other, your best friend or whatever, I would do anything. I would earn half of what I'm earning now to not have to deal with this anymore, but you don't know that you're saying it, right? Like sometimes people in your life can say you've said, and that's partially why the coach is valuable, right? Because that's what we're there to do. Notice and mirror it back and ask the questions. But sometimes even those people in your world can say, you know, if you're considering this or that and say, "I heard you say I've worked with people." I can remember them saying they hated the industry that they are in multiple times and like a 10 minute timeframe to me. And it's like, well, "What do you think is going to change about this whole industry for you? Because you say this all the time, whether or not you realize it, sometimes that can be helpful to prompt us to make change when perhaps we're not noticing it. We're just in the feeling part of it."

Scott Anthony Barlow 45:38
Yeah, completely agree. We also had something else that pops up in my mind about this particular question is the whole, I've worked really hard for this and I'm afraid of giving it up. We've had, I think we've had a lot of people actually that have felt that same way and if you go back and listen to past episodes of the podcast, one of them in particular is a woman named Jenny and she felt very like she had a PhD. She had worked a ton for to be able to get to where she wanted. And even though like the job was in the industry was completely draining her on a daily basis, she still could not get rid of this from her head, like it would continually pop up in there. It's like, "Am I giving up everything that I've worked for?" And I find that a lot of the times when you get to that type of situation, it really helps to reframe it, first of all, when people make these changes, even if they're moving to another industry or another type of role or whatever it is, rarely do they feel like on the other side that they're actually giving up something. So recognizing that first of all, but then the second piece is reframing it to, how can I leverage what I had my experiences, which doesn't necessarily mean you have to go and do exact same thing, but how can I leverage it, my experiences that I have and the insight that I have from doing these things in the past into what is going to create a really rewarding and fulfilling opportunity moving forward. And of course, part of that is to your point earlier, like there's some sometimes difficult reflective and thought work deciding what really creates an amazing career opportunity for you moving forward. But then the other side of it is, is just completely looking at it in different... it's the same situation either way. Like, but one situation, you feel like you've lost something and the other situation, you feel like you've gained something just totally depending on how you look at it.

Kelly Poulson 47:46
Right. I mean, every step you've taken has gotten you to where you are.

Scott Anthony Barlow 47:50
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, I so very much appreciate you taking the time and making the time coming on the show here. By the way, if you want to know more about Kelly as she's joined our team, there's a couple places that you can certainly learn more. One is you can go to happentoyourcareer.com/245 and you'll find everything that we talked about within this episode and also links to Kelly's profile on our site, a Kelly's coaching profile on our site. And then, you can actually go and go to happentoyourcareer.com and search Kelly and that'll pop right up to. Kelly, any... thank you, first of all. And this has been amazing and really appreciate it and I have also really appreciated the opportunity getting to know you for the last, jeez, I guess we first emailed probably like eight months ago or something, right? Nine months ago, maybe closer to a year. I can't even remember at this point. It's gone quick.

Kelly Poulson 48:55
Yeah, it has, but it's been fun the whole time, so that's a good sign.

Scott Anthony Barlow 49:01
Okay. That is a great sign. All right. Thanks so much.

Kelly Poulson 49:06
Thank you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 49:07
Hey, I hope you love that conversation with Kelly as much as I did and we've been so excited to have her on the Happen To Your Career team as a career coach and we have even more coming up for you next week, right here on the Happen To Your Career Podcast. What happens when you want to enter a completely new stage of life and you want to step away or need to step away in order to really get some perspective? Well, we have somebody on here who's done some pretty audacious things and had a lot of courage to be completely changed her life and the life of her family.

Robbie Kaplan 49:45
It was kind of that pivot situation as the company was changing, my personal life was also changing and at first we got to take a couple trips and I would work remotely still, you know, be in touch with everything that was going on and also have vacation time, but after doing that for a year or two, a couple of extended trips, I was like, this isn't working quite right. There's too much going on in the business and there's too much that I want to be doing personally.

Scott Anthony Barlow 50:12
Tune in next week to find out how Robbie went from a pretty amazing job that actually was pretty great but still completely changing their life and ended up in a three and a half month long road trip which ended passing through Moses Lake and our studio. All right, we'll see ya next week, right here on Happen To Your Career. Until then, I am out. Adios.

Darrah Brustein 00:01

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.

Introduction 00:16

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:40

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. One of the most common questions that we get sounds like this, goes, "Scott, how do I reach out to people that are managers or directors or CEOs, or other people that are really hard to get in touch with? And are they gonna think I'm a pest if I reach out in the first place? Why would they talk to me in the first place?" Now, we've actually been teaching how to do this for years in many of our programs, like, career change boot camp, but it's still one of the most common questions that we get overall. So we wanted to try and answer that today.

Darrah Brustein 01:23

One part, how much I think my conversation partner actually is interested, as well as the context. So in some places, I might just say, I wrote a kid's book on financial literacy, and others, I might say exactly what I said to you, and others I might say, I own a credit card processing company, and others I might say, I help people connect in real life through events for young professionals, through a company that I started called "Network Under 40". It could be any number of things, but in general now, 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.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:06

Right on Darrah Brustein to teach exactly how you can do this in your career. Now, Darrah teaches people how to craft a life by design and not by default. So obviously, we've got a lot in common, but also she's founded a credit card processing company, another organization called "Network Under 40", she's written a children's book and a whole bunch more. And she's done much of this by connecting with difficult to reach people along the way. And here's where it started for.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 02:38

It was stopping me from making that career change. I was paralysed into my situation.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:44

Meet Cesar. He was getting frustrated trying to figure out the right career on his own.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 02:49

The fact that I was applying to a whole bunch of job boards and getting no responses was very frustrating to me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:56

Take a listen for Cesar story later on in the episode to learn how he finally figured out what fits him.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 03:03

I transition into another career completely different to what I did in an industry that I'm passionate about.

Darrah Brustein 03:15

I've always been doing it, I just didn't put words to it. I didn't characterize it. So 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 03:44

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 03:55

Right? Well, I cringe at the latter part, the "tell me your job title", because that's typically what people associate with "networking". 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. 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 04:32

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

Darrah Brustein 04:37

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:41

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 04:54

Right.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:55

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

Darrah Brustein 05:07

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 06:16

I like that too. So for me, honestly, and I'm not even sure I haven't armchaired 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 06:58

There's a few things. One is my dad. My dad is the consummate networker in the GoodWay. 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 09:59

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 10:24

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 11:41

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, as 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 13:11

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 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 have to make it easy for them.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 18:02

I was burned out, you know, I realized that I was actually following the wrong things, the wrong intentions. I wanted out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:10

Cesar was transitioning from the law industry to a completely different field.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 18:16

That I wanted to change, and I try to do the process myself. You know, the fact that I was applying to a whole bunch of job boards and getting no responses was very frustrating to me. To get that one interview, I blew it because I wasn't prepared.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:31

He turned to HTYC's Career Change Bootcamp to get over the frustration and take the right first step.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 18:36

He helped me first and foremost, to get over my mental barriers. He helped me confirm the strengths that I may have known before, but it was come to that assurance that these are my strengths. And I need to continue a path where I can utilize my strengths to the full potential.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:56

Cesar took the things he learned out of the bootcamp to take action and be noticed what he was great at.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 19:04

We're thinking of ideas that I can do, to be able to establish and headstone those relationships and stand out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:12

Congratulations to Cesar on finding work that he loves. If you also want to find that fulfilling career that lights you up and gives you purpose, find out how Career Change Bootcamp can help you do this step by step to not just understand what it is, but also actually make the transition. Go to happentoyourcareer.com and click on Career Change Bootcamp to apply or learn more.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 19:36

There's a process. And Scott has a career change experience. He's gonna give you a lot of great insights on how that works.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:45

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 20:55

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 the 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 cross 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 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 24:23

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 though, 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 complementary, 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 25:52

It may seem obvious, but the best way always is to be introduced. 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, it's 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 27:23

The power of weak ties.

Darrah Brustein 27:24

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 airplane, 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 28:52

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 29:22

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 30:21

What if you don't get the yes?

Darrah Brustein 30:22

That's okay, too.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:23

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 30:36

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 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 32:38

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 33:02

Thank you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:03

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 33:28

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 37:05

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

Darrah Brustein 37:13

I know it sounds so wrong.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:15

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 38:05

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 fortune's 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 39:16

And we will link it up as well at happentoyourcareer.com/231. So you can find that there too. But head on over, follow them on Instagram. And where else can people find you if they're interested in having more Darrah?

Darrah Brustein 39:32

Well, that would be lovely. Darrah.co is my website. Again, Darrah.co. Where you can learn more, get free resources, all my articles are there. There's a 27 video series on a guide to better networking, which is absolutely free. You can email me through there. So I try to do my best to be a person in the world who gives more value than I extract. So that's a really good place to find it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:56

Okay, we've broken down exactly what Darrah and I talked about into scripts and steps over at happentoyourcareer.com/231. You can go over there, head on over, check it out, even download the transcript if you want. And next week, we get to do something that we haven't ever done before on Happen To Your Career. We dig into the differences of career change at different ages. I mean, how is recruiting different at 27 versus 35? Or 40? How was 40 different from your 50s? What's that like?

Speaker 1 40:29

In that place of transition when you're the most uncomfortable, that you're actually making the most progress.

Speaker 2 40:36

There's nothing that you can't do if you don't want to.

Speaker 3 40:40

Whether you know it or not, you probably do have a lot of networking contacts.

Speaker 4 40:45

I was raised to be an employee. I wasn't raised to follow my passion.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:50

Next week, we bring on four different experts, not one, but four different experts that career change at every single age, so that we can debunk the myths and help you understand the real differences at career changing in 20s, 30s, 40s and even 50s. We'll see you next week right here on Happen To Your Career. Until then, I will see you later. I am out. Adios.

Louise McNee 00:01

And 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.

Introduction 00:22

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:46

Welcome to the Happen To Your Career podcast. I'm Scott Anthony Barlow. And this is the show where we share stories of how high achievers find career happiness and meaning. How do you know when you've made the right decision for your career? Because honestly, sometimes it's pretty difficult, right? What if you think you know what you want, only then you go ahead and make a change, you get a new job, and then it doesn't work out. Now I got to talk to someone today who's been down that road.

Louise McNee 01:15

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 01:28

Louise is a Brit who relocated to Australia, and now she has a job she loves. But before, honestly, it wasn't that great for even a few years, in fact, and I mean, sure she's had a ton of success in her career. Now, the only problem with that was, it wasn't necessarily the success that she wanted. So she changed jobs. And then she did it again. And it turns out, it didn't have the impact that she wanted to. And we'll tell you all about that. But let's go way back for just a minute.

Louise McNee 01:58

So I started out, and it's quite a sad story, when somebody asks you, "what do 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 02:10

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

Louise McNee 02:18

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 02:44

That's amazing.

Louise McNee 02:46

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:52

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 03:20

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, helped me to be where I am today and now it's moving towards the strategic and the real business conversations.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:47

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 05:06

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 05:42

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 06:11

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 07:30

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

Louise McNee 07:36

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 09:13

So you'd infiltrated the club and you've got all of these new different experiences. 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 09:31

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 10:22

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 11:13

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:19

Yeah, absolutely.

Louise McNee 11:22

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 to play in them. And so it's 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 12:36

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 12:52

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 complete opposite. I was a nightmare. I wasn't quite 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 at 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 are 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 14:34

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 15:25

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 was just taking 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 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 16:05

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 17:04

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's 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 are you crying in a public restaurant? Embarrassing me" and, you know, my poor husband didn't know what to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:03

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

Louise McNee 18:09

Yeah. He's been very good. And I think it's very hard for him as far. Because when we met, and I say 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 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 18:41

Oh my goodness. Yeah.

Louise McNee 18:42

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:49

That's funny. There's a test, it 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 18:59

And then, talking to 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 an 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 19:49

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 20:12

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:22

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

Louise McNee 20:29

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 brothers, he's just a few years younger than me, but he said something to me once, which 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 stuck 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 22:48

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 23:55

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, my brain going over time, constantly thinking but not knowing 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 24:52

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

Louise McNee 24:57

It's kind of, you know, I had to open, you know, get used to opening 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 take 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 who 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 26:25

You're gonna make it happen.

Louise McNee 26:27

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 took 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. 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 27:24

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 27:38

Just the... first one is, "what would you do if you weren't doing what you are doing now?" Complete blank for me, complete and utter blank. And that meant I really had to go down into the details 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… and 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 was more the interactions with people and what is fundamentally 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 work overtime it's taken a while to click in, because I'm so... my strengths are so, you know, I'm on 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 29:09

That's very interesting.

Louise McNee 29:12

It's the same discussions.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:15

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 29:38

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 30:33

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 31:46

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 34:04

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

Louise McNee 34:09

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 who wanted to 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 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 helped me 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 helped 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, and so 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 37:50

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 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, 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 40:00

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 it 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 details. 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 come from making career everything. I've now realized that for me, career can't be everything.

Scott Anthony Barlow 42:00

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 42:15

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 structure 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 44:17

That is very cool.

Louise McNee 44:20

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 Australia. 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 45:32

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 is being the thing, but having to 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 46:15

Thank you. As I said, it's only when you step back and realize how much work you've done that you can then go, "I've done this. This was good."

Scott Anthony Barlow 46:27

We've captured everything Louise and I talked about over at happentoyourcareer.com/230 where you can download all the transcripts, and even learn more about Louise's story. Next week on HTYC, we answer one of the most common questions that we get: how do you actually connect and build relationships with people who are difficult to reach?

Darrah Brustein 46:49

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.

Scott Anthony Barlow 47:05

That's Darrah. Next week, we break down step by step on how to reach people that you didn't think you could reach and even build relationships with them. Until then, I am gonna hang out right here until I see you next Monday. Okay, I'm not gonna hang out right here but I will see you next Monday right here on Happen To Your Career. Until then, I am out. Adios.

Dan Pink 00:01
Passion and contribution are focused in very different directions. Passion is all about me and contribution is all about other people. I really don't think that professionals care about passion.

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
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. What if you could get more done simply by knowing when to do it? Or what if you could dramatically increase your odds of success in every single aspect of your life just by choosing the right time? Or what if more than anything, you just want to make the things that you're already doing so much more effective than they are right now? Well, it turns out, I'm not the only one that wondered how to make these things happen.

Dan Pink 01:14
But I never, sort of, when I was growing up, or when I was in college, "oh, I'm going to grow up and become a writer" there are plenty of people who are like that, there plenty of people who know from a very early age that they're going to be writers. And I think I discovered that a little bit later in life, not at an ancient age. But at a later age than most people, I think, you know, early 30s. I realized this is what I do. Like, here I am killing myself at midnight working on an article that I'm not going to get paid for. This might actually be something that I liked doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:45
Dan dug into these exact questions for his latest book. And in our conversation, he actually breaks down exactly how you can use timing and ways that you can never imagine to be more productive at life and work. But I've admired Dan's work for years now. In fact, I remember way back when I was working in HR leadership, I bought a bunch of cases of his books, and I was running around the office, putting them into the hands of really anybody who I could get to read them. But he's written several more books since then, including his latest, which is called "When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing". But that's not the only reason that we have him here on the show and why I wanted to talk to him. He's also got a really interesting, varied career, including being a speechwriter for Al Gore, and many other policy and politics types positions. And I would actually love to go back before the books, pre-dating the books. And in fact, I'd love to go all the way back to law school, because you're not a lawyer at this point, as it turns out, so take us back there a bit. And I'm super curious, why on earth did you even decide to go to law school in the first place?

Dan Pink 02:54
Okay, fair question. I don't want to torture your listeners too much. But in order to answer that question, I think you have to go back into my upbringing. I grew up in the American Midwest, middle class kid, son of parents who were very deeply concerned about economic security. And throughout my childhood, this message was understandably beat into me about you got to do something you can fall back on, you got to make sure that you take care of your economic security. And what that meant in the time that I was growing up was things like, becoming a doctor, becoming an engineer, becoming an accountant, becoming a lawyer, like, having that kind of skilled profession. And because the nature of, I don't know, my parents said, basically, I just assumed my whole... I mean, that's weird, my whole childhood that that's what I would do. It's really weird. I recognize that in retrospect. And so I did. And in, kind of, a mindless way. And I got there and I really didn't like it. And I left for a little while, I ended up going back partly through risk aversion more than anything else. And it's not only am I not a lawyer now, I've never been a lawyer. I graduated from law school and never practiced law, never clerked for a judge, never done anything like that. Instead, started working in politics, because at the time, that's what I was interested in.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:13
So what prompted you to go through the rest of law school and then not become a lawyer? There was probably a bit that happened in between there, I suppose.

Dan Pink 04:23
Well, yes and no. I mean, there are two parts of that question. I mean, part of it was, I mean, so what prompted you to go through and what prompted you not to be a lawyer? To me at some level, those are two different questions. One of them is, what prompted me to go through is probably just a sense of just bad reasoning, saying, "Oh my god! I've already sunk this much time into it. I might as well finish." Or probably at another level, "Wow! I really looked like an idiot if I started and didn't finish." That's it. And then in terms of not practicing, that was actually an easier decision. Because here's the problem, Scott, that I made and if there's a lesson that other people can learn on this, it's that... I think a lot of times we make assumptions about how the world works or how careers go or what professionals are like. And a lot of times your assumptions are wrong. I mean, truly, I mean, I feel like an idiot in retrospect. I had no idea what lawyers actually did. And like, I never spent any time in a law office, I never actually spent a day with a lawyer, I never talked to a lawyer about what she did for a living. I actually never even went to a law school class to check it out before going to law school. And that's a huge mistake. I just assumed what it was going to be like. And once I realized that what lawyers actually did, my view of it was, "Okay, great. This is, you know, skilled profession, but I don't want it this bore. I don't want to do this for the rest of my life." And so that was actually an easy decision not to practice law, because in the same way that I wouldn't want to spend the next 30 years of my life, you know, cleaning gutters. That's not interesting. But that's how I felt about the practice of law.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:55
So what happened post law school then? It was an easy decision, but then something happened post law school.

Dan Pink 06:02
I graduated unemployed, and I was one of the very, very, very few people who graduated from law school unemployed. And again, the way that, sort of, the anthropology of law schools is it's a haven for people who are deeply risk averse. And as a consequence, a lot of people have jobs, their post graduation plans lined up, like literally over a year in advance, everybody had a job, either clicking for a judge or working for a law firm or working in government or working for public interest group or whatever. And I did not. I graduated unemployed. And at the time, I was deeply interested in politics. So I started looking for political jobs. And I ended up working on some campaigns, some political campaigns where I was getting paid, like a ridiculously small amount, I had massive student loans, massive student loans. I was fortunate that my law school actually had a loan forgiveness policy for people who made very little money. So I was well beneath the threshold of that. And so that took a little bit of the sting out of it. And so that's what I did. I started working in politics, working on campaigns.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:07
Why politics? Why was that interesting to you at the time, or what?

Dan Pink 07:10
I'm not sure why, but it was. I was really deeply interested in it. I was interested in it as on two different levels. One was that it was a way to make an impact to do something that affected the world. But equally, I have to say, it was also really exciting and interesting. And it was like a sport. It was like a game. It was like fighting, it's contest. It's... you're strategizing, you are trying to win. And so the sporting aspect of, I liked a lot too.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:41
As you got into it, how is it different than what you anticipated?

Dan Pink 07:47
That's a great question. And I think that's one of the things that had me leave eventually. As I got into it, what I realized is that the... I looked at those things, but there's two parts. The sporting aspect, the game aspect to it. And then there is the impact aspect to it. And what I found is that it was mostly about the sporting aspect. And that actually, for me, at least lost its thrill after a while. And you wonder, like, what's the point of this exercise that the tactics... and it was all tactical, there's very little strategy. It's basically all, let's just do things for some short term tactical advantage. After a while that loses its appeal if you're not doing something in the service of something bigger and found that the service is something bigger ended up getting crowded out, not because of the people I worked with, the politicians I work for necessarily, but because of the system is just... its isn't designed to prize short term tactical, rather than long term strategic and designed to prize the quick, small, fleeting victory rather than the harder more enduring victory.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:56
So I'm super curious about that. For those folks that haven't worked in politics or been around politics before, what's an example that you experienced of that?

Dan Pink 09:04
You know, I worked back in the days when people read newspapers. So...

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:08
Oh, that's way back.

Dan Pink 09:10
So, you know, somebody would write an article about something that somebody I was working for said or did. And then the seventh paragraph was a sentence that was ambiguous about whether it was positive or negative. And we'd have to have an hour long conversation about whether it was positive or negative, and then another hour long conversation about how to respond to it. When in fact, it's like, "Okay, this is really meaningless. It's really short term. No one's going to care about this in three hours, let alone three days or three years. Why are we wasting our time on this?" Or even things like, it used to drive me nuts. Unfortunately, in some of my jobs, I didn't have to do this. But for, you know, I became a speechwriter. The principled politician is going to go up before a group of people in some, kind of, speech. So who has to be acknowledged? All right. Well, should we acknowledge so and so. Meaning that, you know, "Hello, it's great to be here at the National Association of Rutabagas. I'd like to thank National Rutabaga Association president, you know, Jean Fernandez" like, who do you have to thank and acknowledge from the podium? I mean, that just struck me as like the most absurd, like the amount of time spent on that, kind of, nonsense was just... it was just absolutely absurd. Those are two small examples from that part of my life.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:21
And I'm guessing elements of that caused you to leave but I'm super curious then, you know, as you became a speechwriter, what were some of the elements that you really, truly enjoyed out of that experience?

Dan Pink 10:32
Oh, what I liked about it was that something actually happened a femoral though it was. So you would write something, and then you would see something that you came up with, and it was quoted on newspaper or seen on TV, and people responded to it. That's super cool. A lot of times, like in the policy making process, the policy was delayed and delayed and delayed and sort of not being finalized. And what ended up finalizing it was the fact that somebody had to give a speech announcing it. And so there was a tiny insight into policymaking and a tiny impact on policymaking. And also, it's just very, very fast paced environment. It can be exciting at times, turn on the TV, and they're talking about stuff that you're involved in, which is cool.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:20
I'm super curious, because in some ways, at least on the exterior, it seems like the fast pace of that is drastically different in some ways than life as a writer and author, maybe not for book tours, or anything else like that. But...

Dan Pink 11:37
Oh god, yeah. Totally. For speech writing at a certain level, once you get to the cabinet level, and the presidential, vice presidential level, it's like being a doctor. But it's like working in an inner city emergency room.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:53
You're always on call?

Dan Pink 11:55
You're always on call. And what you find to do is just the body so they don't die on your watch. That's what it's like, it's that kind of atmosphere, it can be exhilarating. It can be exhausting. But it can also be exhilarating.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:05
What caused you to leave that then? Because you're having some of that exhilaration, certainly there was elements that you didn't like, but what actually took place that caused you to move down the road or to take those actions to leave?

Dan Pink 12:17
There were several things. So number one was that, I mean not even, I don't even want to rank them because it's not like they're linear. It's like they all work together. So one thing was, at the time, I was in my early 30s, for the end, I was in my early 30s. And I looked down the road, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. And the people who were doing what I was doing, like, what were their lives like in 10 years, 20 years, and I didn't like that at all. I didn't like what I saw potential of my becoming, which is basically a person who's, you know, career political professional, deeply, deeply cynical, and entirely tactical, I didn't like that at all. That's one thing. The second thing is that it's a very demanding job. And again, this is such a long time ago, it was really pre widespread use of mobile phones. So I used to have a pager, that pager was like being tethered to the job. And I think that the people who you're working for need that kind of commitment, they need the kind of commitment that you're always going to be ready to help. You're always going to be on call, I actually think that's the kind of people you should hire. And because my wife and I had had a baby, I was thinking "god, you know, I don't know if I want to be on call all the time." So that was a factor. Another factor was that, again, this has nothing to do with politics. But another factor was what we're talking about before the balance was so much on short term political tactical advantage, and nothing on anything more enduring. You know, and then even more important, I sort of, you know, as you learn about yourself, I was very fortunate and that I had some good bosses, but I realized that I didn't really like having a boss period. There was not very much autonomy in that kind of work. And then another factor was that, and this is where it sort of makes a little bit more sense in retrospect, like so many things, from a very early age, for example, I was in college, I was always quote unquote, "writing on the side", I was writing magazine articles, newspaper, pop eds, that kind of thing. I did it in college. You know, in college, I was a pretty hardcore social science person, pretty dedicated hardcore student. But on the side, I wrote, believe it or not, I won a short story prize in college, completely antithetical to the hardcore mathematical social science that I was doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:39
Yeah, absolutely.

Dan Pink 14:41
Law schools. I was writing articles for newspapers and magazines on the side, probably spending more time on that than on my actual law school work. When I got into the workforce, I was also... I was writing book reviews for magazines and even when I got into other kinds of jobs where I wasn't allowed to get paid because understandably because of Ethics concerns, I was still writing for magazines and newspapers on the side. And that's when... ever so slowly thanks to my wife in part, I began to realize that what I was doing, quote unquote, "on the side" is what I should be doing for real. I became a speechwriter in a pretty random half assed way and that I just, somebody asked me to do it once and it did an okay job. And then they asked me again, and it did an okay job. And and suddenly, that was what I was doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:29
As happens. Yes.

Dan Pink 15:30
Yeah, exactly. I think that's common in a lot of enterprise. It's not as if I set out to do that. And but I never, sort of, when I was growing up, or when I was in college, "oh, I'm going to grow up and become a writer" there are plenty of people who are like that. there are plenty of people who know from a very early age that they're going to be writers. And I think I discovered that a little bit later in life, not at an ancient age, but at a later age than most people, I think, you know, early 30s. I realized, this is what I do. Like, here I am killing myself at midnight working on an article that I'm not going to get paid for. This might actually be something that I like doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:06
So here's my question about that then, Dan, because I think it's always obvious in retrospect, but I love digging into people's stories, because there's always seems to be some element that is there. It's never like, I had this epiphany and I was going to be a beekeeper. And, you know, that was it. I'm a beekeeper now and boom, everything was great. There's always some element there. So at what point, I heard you say that your life was critical to that. But was there a particular point in time where you had that realization? Or the switch flipped? Or was it that really...?

Dan Pink 16:42
I'm with you, Scott, I don't have epiphanies. I mean, I just don't think life generally doesn't work that way. I think it's a slow hunch. It's a gradual realization, it is taking three steps back and looking at your pattern of behavior and say, "Holy smokes, this is what I do?" I think that's what happened with me, but goes to something I've mentioned before in, you know, other... I think I mentioned this in some other interviews, or in some speeches or whatever, which is that this question about that people tend to ask younger people like, "What's your passion?" And I really dislike that question. Because I think when you face that question, there's sort of this obligation to give a really profound answer. And I think it's a hard question to answer. And I think it's the wrong question, though. I think the real question is, "What do you do?" You know, look over your own behavior, what do you do? So go back to your beekeeper example. I don't think people wake up one morning and say, "Oh, I'm going to be a beekeeper." I think what they do is they say, "Why do I spend so much time, like, following these bees around them? And like when a bee is in my backyard, I take a picture of it, I look at it. Why am I reading this article about bees? Why do I linger in the grocery store and look to see where the honeycombs? If it's a switch, it's more like a dimmer switch. It's not like an off-on, it's not fine there at one zero. It's more gradual. And I think that at a certain point, when that... if you take a step back and watch what you do, I think that reveals clues. So even now, after spending a long time as a writer, if you were to say to me, you know, "Is writing your passion?" I would say, "I don't think so. Because writing is really frickin hard."

Dan Pink 16:44
Yes, it is.

Dan Pink 18:21
There's some days that I hate it. But it's what I do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:26
So let me ask you about that for just a second, then. Two questions here. And maybe they'll take us to different... completely different places. But I'm curious when you say that, and I completely understand that. But I'm not sure that is always obvious what is beneath the layers of that, like, my impression of everything that you've said so far, is that overall, you enjoy writing and being an author and the byproducts of that, and what goes into that, and it's something that you've done for a very long time, even when you weren't getting paid. Break down some of those layers for me a little bit in terms of what do you mean, when you say, "Hey, no, it's absolutely not my passion, it's really freakin hard." Help us understand a little bit more of that. Because I do think that there is this misconception out there that when you find the thing, or you are the beekeeper, whatever it might be, then you're just going to enjoy absolutely every element of it. And I know you actually talked about this in one of your books too 'Drive'. But break that down for me a little bit in terms of what you mean by that.

Dan Pink 19:28
It really depends on what we mean by enjoyment and what we mean by passion. I think passion is just the wrong word. I really do. I think that is... passion is a sort of emotion and sort of state that is very, very hot and not enduring, not something that's sustainable. I think that what gives people satisfaction in their work is a sense of challenge. And remember, challenge can be frustrating, because sometimes you're not up to the challenge. So I think it's a sense of challenge. And I also think that it's a sense of contribution as well. So if I get an email from a reader or see a reader at an event or something like that, and they say, I had an experience last week, I was in Nashville, at a bookstore. And these two people came up to me, man and a woman, you know, maybe in their late 50s, early 60s, and they said, "We read a book of yours called 'A Whole New Mind' and it really changed the way the conversation we had in our house with our son, we realized that the fact that he wasn't this hardcore, left brain quantitative person was okay. And that he had these other skills. And then because of this book, he decided to go to the Rhode Island School of Design. And he went to the Rhode Island School of Design, and now he's in his late 20s, and has this flourishing career as a designer, and everything. And it's all you know, and I don't know if that would have happened without your book." Okay, so that basically kept me in the writing business for two additional weeks. And so I think that's a better way to look at it. What is challenging? What do you do because it's part of who you are? And what do you do that makes a contribution?

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:07
So now that you've been doing this for a while, we know that you don't enjoy every single element. So...

Dan Pink 21:13
No way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:14
Yeah, no way. And I don't think that's true for any...

Dan Pink 21:17
I think it's too far. You know, what, like, I like baseball. Okay. Yeah, I bet it's super cool to be a professional baseball player. But you know what, there's a lot of being a professional, a major league baseball player, that's a total pain, right? You have 162 games every season, you finish a game at 12 o'clock at night, and go take a shower and then got to take a plane to the west coast and play another game, your body takes a beating, you have to concentrate every single night, you have to stand up there every single night as if you're a hitter, and face somebody throwing a projectile at you 95 miles an hour. And some days, like you're just not in the mood to do that. But what do you do? You get up and do your job. And so if you look at, like, a major league, a baseball player or major... or an NBA basketball player, now, is baseball your passion? Well, I don't know. But it's my job. It's what I do. It's my challenge. It's what I do. It's what I care about. So again, I don't want to split hairs here. But I think it's a very, I think professionals care about challenge. And they care about contribution. And they care less about passion. At some level, passion and contribution are focused in very different directions. Passion is all about me. And contribution is all about other people. And so I just don't think that... I really don't think that professionals care about passion.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:26
Love that perspective, I don't think I've heard it put quite that way before.

Dan Pink 22:30
There are going to be plenty of people. And believe me, there are gonna be plenty of people who are going to be emailing you saying, "This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm a professional, I'm passionate about bird watching or whatever." And, you know, "I'm a professional surf boarder, and I'm passionate about surfing." But my guess is that professional surfers there many many days when surfing, even though they like surfing, it's who they are, it's a total pain.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:54
I don't think that that is dissimilar from a lot of what we teach on this podcast at all. However, I still find that as people listen to the show, I do continuously get those emails. So I appreciate very, very much you breaking it down in that particular way. And I love, especially, the piece about contribution versus passion. That is super interesting to me. And I think that's probably true for many things in life, when you're focused on other people, as opposed to just yourself, those are the kinds of the things that carry you forward. And those are the kinds of things that make you feel connected to it. Those are the kinds of things that give you meaning. Those are the kinds of things that ultimately get you where many people want to go in a lot of different ways, too. So that absolutely resonates with me. Here's another question for you that I'm curious about. Let me put it this way. I get emailed all the time about 'Johnny Bunko'.

Dan Pink 23:53
Really? Okay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:55
I do actually. And it makes sense, considering the context of our, you know, what we do, our company and our podcast and everything else along with it. But I've heard you say in a couple of different places and read a couple of different interviews where you've said things like, Hey, this is... I think I came out before it's time in some way, or I really didn't consider this book to be a very large success. But I find that the emails that I'm getting about it, the people that are like, "Hey, have you read this?" They list it as, you know, their top 10 books, many times. So one, I'm curious how you think about this book now? And I wanted to ask you about that.

Dan Pink 24:31
I'm very proud of that book. Because I think it's incredibly original. I think it's an original book. And I think it's a book that's been helpful to people. If you look at the raw numbers, it hasn't sold as many as my other books. I don't consider it a failure. I consider it a really inspired experiment that I was proud of and that I enjoyed doing. But they didn't put the same numbers on the board as another book, which suggests that maybe it's the format of that book is somehow has less of a wide appeal than other kinds of formats.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:00
It does seem the way that people put it to me in email format or talk about it to me in conversation. I would almost equate it to, like, cult following, a little bit. Almost like a movie that had...

Dan Pink 25:13
I like to hear that. Yeah. So it's like office space or Arrested Development. And those are... I'm happy to be in that Troika there, Office Space, Arrested Development and The Adventures of Johnny Bunko.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:25
Perfect. Let's put it into that category. That is very much seems where it probably should be. I like it quite a bit. I would like to spend a few minutes talking about 'When' though, because I've read the whole book about...

Dan Pink 25:37
Thanks.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:38
One... Yeah, absolutely. I thought it was amazing. It was interesting to me. It had a different feel than some of your other books in a few different ways. And I'm curious, you know, as you were writing, how did you approach this book differently than some of your past?

Dan Pink 25:53
Well, this book is about the science of timing. And the idea behind it is that we tend to think the timing is an art. We make our timing or when decisions based on intuition and guesswork, but what we should be doing is making them based on evidence and science. And so the way I approached this was by doing a very deep dive into the science. And it turns out that across dozens and dozens of fields from the social sciences, like social psychology and anthropology and economics to the biological sciences, molecular biology, medical sciences, anesthesiology, chronobiology, endocrinology, that you have all these scholars in different fields are asking very, very similar questions unbeknownst to each other. So they're asking, you know, what's the effect of time of day on what we do and how we do it? How do beginnings affect us? How do midpoints affect us? How do endings affect us? And what I found is that if you go wide enough and deep enough into this research, you can begin to piece together the evidence based ways to make better smarter shooter decisions about when to do things. So the way I approached this book was very much through the lens of science and or even more broadly, Scott, I guess, on this book, I really began this book with a question, I didn't really have a theory of the case. So in other books, I've had an argument in mind that before I went out and went whole hog on the book, I basically... I validated the argument and said, "Well, wait a second, I'm going to write a book that's going to make this argument." Whereas in this case, I came in with a question, because I was just frustrated with myself. It's like, basically, I wrote this book, because I wanted to read it. Because I wanted to make better 'when' decisions in my own life. So I went in with a question. And the science led me to the answer.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:33
That's very interesting, because as I read through it, it felt very much like back to back to back to back answers stacked up of questions that I had...

Dan Pink 27:44
Oh, good.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:44
About this, or questions that I didn't even know that I had, but was immediately curious about. So I really appreciated that, in reading through it. And it felt very... I think stacked is the right word. It felt like every single chapter that I got to I had 10 other things, maybe not literally 10, but a number of other things that I could use immediately. And that was fantastic.

Dan Pink 28:06
Well, thanks, I appreciate that. And also, you know what, the other thing I'm trying to do here is I'm trying to just broadly, I'm trying to say, the other books as well, or some of the other books is... give people some insight into the science, but also try to use those insights to give them some tools to do something different in their own lives. And for me, one of the frustrating things about some books is that you read a book about big ideas or science or whatever. And it's interesting, and it's worth reading. But then you say, "Okay, well, so what can I do with this?" And the author doesn't stoop to tell you what to do. Because he or she will say, "Oh, no, I'm not going to sell you myself by giving you advice." And on the other hand, you have a lot of these really, really, really empty calorie books that are all about advice and exhortation. And they're thin and you say, "Okay, well, how do you actually know this? Like, what's this based on?" And so, for me, the ideal is, can you give people some insights into the science, into the human condition? But can those insights yield things to actually live your life a little differently? And so that's what I tried to do in a lot of my previous and a lot of my recent books.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:14
I think that, especially, and when you very much succeeded in that. I've always appreciated how you translated the science into something that's usable. Yeah, absolutely. One of the things I want to have you share a bit with our listeners, because I found it so incredibly useful. And I've always been fascinated by this. And some of the studies I've read in the past too, but I think it's in the very first chapter, if I remember correctly, where you're talking about when you're essentially most effective, for lack of a better phrase, but how to find your daily win. And one, can you get a little bit of context around that? And then two, you go into what you call "The Time Hacker's Handbook" at the end of each chapter, and can you share a little bit about what you prescribe to find your daily win?

Dan Pink 29:56
Oh, sure. So what we know about the day is... and it's very obviously a very important unit of time. It's something that is natural, that it's physical, we were on a planet that is turning. So unlike a second, which is something that human beings have made up or a week which is something that human beings have made up, a day is actually a real thing. And each day has a rich body of science tells us the day has a hidden pattern. In general, we move through the day in three stages: a peak, a trough, a recovery. Most of us move through it in that order, peak in the morning, trough in the mid to late, early to mid afternoon, recovery late afternoon and early evening. Now people who are strong night owls, that's about 20% of the population, it's more complicated, they tend to move in the reverse order: recovery, trough, peak. But what we know from a whole range of study is that that's pretty much the pattern, peak-trough-recovery, and then you go one layer into the science. And what you find is that our cognitive abilities don't stay the same throughout the day, they change throughout the day, that's a big deal. And the best time to do something depends on what we're actually doing. So let me unpack that, because that goes to the "Time Hacker's Handbook", which is the section of the book that has all the tools, tips and takeaways. So during our peak, which for most of us is the morning, that's when we should be doing our analytic work. And what I mean by that, that is work that requires heads down, focus, and attention. Writing a report, analyzing data, the work that requires that locked down focus, during the peak we're most vigilant. And that means that we can knock away distractions. So for me as a writer, and as someone who's not an owl, I should be doing my writing in the morning, getting rid of the distractions, doing my writing in the morning. During the trough, which for most of us is the early to mid afternoon. That's not good for very much. And actually, there's a lot of data showing it's a very dangerous, like the early to mid afternoon, a lot of bad stuff happens, you have an increase in traffic accidents, you have a massive increase in errors and problems in medicine, you have kids scoring far lower on standardized tests at that time of day than in the morning. But it's really a massive drop off in performance in the early to mid afternoon. So instead of trying to do our analytic work then, we should be doing our administrative work, you know, answering our routine emails, or you know, that kind of thing. And then finally, the recovery is actually a pretty interesting period. During recovery, again, which for most of us is the late afternoon and early evening, our mood is higher than in the trough. However, we're less vigilant than during the peak. And that actually is an interesting and powerful mix. When we're have an elevated mood and less vigilance, that makes us better at what social psychologists call insight tasks. Those are tasks that require more conceptual thinking, less mathematical thinking, a little bit more kind of wider scope, kind of thinking, think about something like brainstorming. And so what we find is that if you move your analytic work to the peak, your administrative work to the trough, your insight work to the recovery, you're going to do a little bit better. And in fact, there's research showing the time of day, just time of day alone explains about 20% of the variance in how people perform on workplace tasks. So that's a pretty big deal. The science is pretty clear on this, that science gives us very clear guidelines but it doesn't say, "Hey, Scott. You should start working at 8:30 in the morning and work for 43 consecutive minute" you know, it doesn't say that, right? But it gives us these broader design principles. And we don't do anything with that. And so in our own work, so you have people like me, who do their best analytic work in the morning, and then spend the morning answering routine emails and watching ESPN highlights and then get to the trough and try to do their harder work. And it's really hard for them, or you have organizations that schedule meetings, and without any thought about, "What kind of meeting is this? Is this an insight meeting? Is this an analytic meeting?" "Who's going to be there? Morning people, afternoon people." And so the big, big problem here is that the science is very clear that when matters, it matters significantly. And yet, in our decision making as individuals and inside of organizations were completely unintentional and neglectful about issues of 'when'.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:11
That is amazing. And it's been helpful to me in particular too. As I've been experimenting with schedule, and different tasks, different times, I've so appreciated that. And I wanted to thank you for taking the time, speaking of time, and since we've been talking about contribution, your contribution in the books that you have put out to the world. So even though you were trying to answer a question for yourself, I still found it very, very beneficial.

Dan Pink 34:38
I appreciate your saying that. And let me just add one more thing about that. I'm, like, book writing here, too. Because I really appreciate your saying that. And the reason I jumped in is that and I think it's a lesson for entrepreneurs. I think it's a lesson for managers, I think it's a lesson for writers and I think it's something else you said at the very end of it, Scott, was also really important and ties into this. You mentioned this idea that you've been experimenting with schedules, you're on schedule, alright. And that's really... that's like, in some ways, the meta takeaway of this book, which is that what we should be doing is we should be much better observers of our own behavior. William James, who was the center, the father of modern psychology. He has this line, it's always haunted me in one of his books where he says, "most of us go through life." And here's this phrase, "only half awake." Only half awake. And that's always haunted me. And I think that the solution to being more awake is to be, just as he's doing, like, observe our behavior better and try stuff, like, experiment with stuff. That in some ways, we need to take a more scientific approach to our own lives. And so what we can do in terms of the day to day rhythms is, like, pay more attention. How am I feeling at this time of day? How good am I getting this kind of work at this time of day? And then as you're suggesting, Scott, do some experiments with that, well, what if I move this over here? And this over there? How do I feel now? And that is actually a way to be more fully awake. Because you're observing your behavior more, and you're trying experiments. And I think what's tied to that and forgive this rant here for a moment is that, the way that I think about the books that I write is very much the way you're suggesting, which is that, if I'm wondering about this question of 'when', then other people must be too, because I'm not that special. And I think we have this tendency to think of ourselves as like, so wildly different from everybody else. And there's a lot of research on this. So a lot of research that when we ask ourselves, it's like, oh, you have somebody, are you extrinsically motivated or intrinsically motivated? And give me some examples of that. And so I'm very intrinsically motivated. And here's examples of how I've navigated my life on that. Well, what about other people? Oh, no, no, no, they're totally extrinsically. You know, did you peep to that research? Other kinds of things, you know, if you found a wallet on the ground, would you, you know, try to return it to its rightful owner? Oh, of course. What other people? No way. Everybody else is so dishonest. And my view is that, you know, I pick topics that I'm curious about, partly because I know what's going to be a better book. But also I just figure, if I'm curious about it, that means other people are going to be curious about it. And so... and I think that that's true for managers. So if you think about a manager saying, "Well, I don't like being treated this particular way. Maybe I shouldn't treat my people that way." All right, or an entrepreneur saying, "Wow, I'm really frustrated by this particular industry, or this particular service, I will share, like, something better, probably other people are thinking that same thing." And so I do think that it's important sometimes to extrapolate from our own experience. And while we'd like to tell ourselves and our children, oh, everyone is so unique, and everyone is so special. And they are at some level, I don't want to diss that entirely. But I also think that it's important to recognize that all of us have a lot in common. So if you're experiencing a frustration, if you have a question, the odds are very, very, very, very good that lots of other people are having that frustration, or harboring that question.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:20
Thank you for the rant, first of all. And second of all, thank you so much for, jeez, I was thinking about this a little bit as we were talking here, but you have... through your books and through your work, I've taken away so much over the last couple of years. So I so appreciate you taking the time and coming on and sharing that with our listeners too. That way they get a bit and a taste of what I've been able to benefit from over the years. And that is super cool, super fun for me to be able to share your knowledge with everybody else. And 'When' by the way, I haven't seen any place that sells books of any kind that you can't get it from, and was in a few bookstores when I was in Austin, Texas. And it was very prominently displayed so you can't miss it almost. But I would say since you can't miss it, pick up a copy. I absolutely enjoyed it immensely. But the full title is "When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing" Thank you so much, Dan. I really appreciate it.

Dan Pink 39:22
Scott, it's been a pleasure talking with you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:24
Even though I absolutely love learning more about timing, and this... it has been so fun for me, it turns out, no amount of studying timing can help you figure out exactly what you want to do for your career. And Dan mentioned that earlier, that sometimes it's hard to see in the moment where you should be spending your time and what your career can look like. And guess what? We've got plenty more coming up next week right here on Happen To Your Career. So take a listen to what we've got in store for you next week on the Happen To Your Career podcast.

Allison Curbow 39:56
What I struggled with for a long time was I had so many different skills and interests. And I jumped around so much that one job, sometimes it didn't look anything like the next job. That's why looking back at my resume, it's like a dot two dot picture where you just go back and forth between all the little dots and it's kind of a mess at first.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:18
That's right, all that and plenty more next week. It's here on Happen To Your Career. I will see you next week when the episode releases on Monday. Alright. I am out. Adios.