Christie Mims 00:00

Passion is like a North Star, and your job is fueled by your passion.

Introduction 00:09

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 00:33

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. One of the funny things that I've observed working with people is that many of us want to feel passionate about our work, but most of us don't understand what passion is. Or even if we do, even if we have our own succinct definition of what passion is, turns out, it's drastically different than the next person's.

Christie Mims 01:00

Passion is bigger. It's who you are coupled with what you have to offer the world. And your job is how you can express that in so many different ways. So your passion is like a North Star, and your job is fueled by your passion.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:13

That's Christie Mims. She's a world renowned career coach. She's the founder and CEO of the Revolutionary Club. She also helps people become coaches. And she's done career advice for Forbes, LearnVest, Brazen Careerist, Yahoo and honestly a whole bunch more. But she's also become a good friend over the last few years. And she and I connected up years ago because, honestly, there are so few people that are making a really great living, running a coaching business and helping people in the way that both Christie and I get to do, and the few that do, kind of stand out like a sore thumb. So we got to meet each other a number of years ago. And Christie has a really interesting story, quite frankly. And honestly though, like every success story, there's quite a bit that happened before she got there.

Speaker 1 02:08

I was unsure about how to define myself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:10

This is Tender. He found himself stuck in needing help figuring it all out.

Speaker 1 02:14

I've amassed a variety of skills over the years, I was confused about my professional identity. And I felt lost and unsure about which route to move forward. And I wanted to clarify my skills and interests with a view to identifying my next career move.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:29

Listen first to Tender's story later on in the episode to learn how he used coaching to help him finally figure out what fits him.

Speaker 1 02:36

I wasn't aware of just how strong my skill set is. So I feel really good about the possibilities that are open to me now.

Christie Mims 02:44

What I do is I am a career coach and I have a business called The Revolutionary Club which is all about creating the community, the education, the support and the information and motivate you to work you love. And I've been on a mission for four and a half years now to help people figure it out because I think the world is truly a different place if more people love what they do. So that is my mission because we spend way too much time at work to hate it. And so that's what I do. I help people figure out what they love to do and then make it happen.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:25

I like making that happen.

Christie Mims 03:27

Yes. I'm nothing if not action oriented.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:33

Okay, so as you already know, I'm a huge fan of that. And that's part of the reason why I wanted to have you on the show. But you haven't always been doing that, right? Is that fair to say?

Christie Mims 03:44

That is fair to say. That is an accurate statement.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:51

Where does your career begin? I'm super curious about that because we've done a little bit of research and you and I have talked a little bit from time to time about it. But I'm curious where does all of this begins for you? How does this story start?

Christie Mims 04:06

Let's go back to the University of Virginia. Yes, no. So I was an undergrad with no clue. And so I majored in history because I really have a really good memory, and I enjoy the Civil War. Anyway...

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:24

Do you really? It is awesome.

Christie Mims 04:26

Yes. I basically almost double majored in military history. Anyway...

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:32

Oh my goodness, I did not know that at all. I'm learning now.

Christie Mims 04:35

I know. So, my fourth year in College, and I'm thinking, "what am I going to do with my life?" So I roll into the Alumni Center and I look up what do people with history degrees do. 95% become lawyers, 3% become Foreign Service officers and the rest are housewives, and I'm like, "Oh my God." Like, what I quickly found out is that if you have a degree in history, and you're, you know, good in your room, and you do not want to become a lawyer, like on pain of death, you know, the avenue really open to you is consulting. So I ended up getting recruited, well, I ended up getting a graduate degree in international relations. And then I got recruited, I worked at NATO, and I got recruited back to Washington to be a consultant and the sort of Defender. I was like, okay, going back, one year in DC, that's where I'm from, I hate it, forget it, I'm just gonna do it for a year because I enjoy getting a paycheck. And I'd been a poor graduate student, and then I'd been like a poor person working in Brussels, which is terrible, because I have a chocolate addiction. Yes, so swayed by the money. And eight years later, I was still there. And I fell into that trap that I think is really common. I, you know, got into consultant, I enjoy making money, I wouldn't mind making more, that promotion looks really good. And I ended up getting promoted really quickly. And I went from, you know, a lowly associate sort of consultant who mostly takes notes in the back of the room, to the director of my business unit, and the youngest principal in my area. And so I was responsible for a team of 30, I was, you know, running these huge multimillion dollar, big defense contracts, you know, managing my team, doing all that. Every day that went by, with every new promotion, I kept thinking, "you know, more money will just make me happier", or "this awesome, like, principal job title, like, that'll be the end. Then, I'll just be done, I'll be happy." And of course, like, it was soul destroying, and soul sucking. And every day, I was more and more miserable. And I felt like the most ungrateful person in the world because I had a great paying job, I had great colleagues, and I actually had great clients. So you know, since I wanted and lead this sort of, like, great life in Washington, but I was just so miserable. And I kept thinking, "why can't I just be grateful for what I have?" But eventually, I'm like, my boss offered me another promotion. And when she was talking to me and inside, I don't know if this has ever happened to you Scott, but on the inside, I was screaming the word "no." And I was trying to, like, my mind was like, you're starting to have creepy eye contact and you smile a little. It's not like she's staring out. I was just trying so hard not to say it out loud. You know, when someone's like, "Hey, here's this amazing position that I think you're going to do, you know, great at, and here's all this money", and you're like, "Oh no!". And that was the point when I'm like, "Okay, I have to do something different. I cannot live this way anymore." So I stumbled around a little bit. And I basically just started to pursue anything that seemed interesting to me. And one of the things that was interesting I knew were coaches, as well as consultants, they'd gotten certified to sort of bring that back to the consulting. But I thought, you know, let me explore this, because I really want to own my own business, I really want to do something more than build PowerPoints that no one looks at, you know, I want to have more of an impact, let me just... this is one thing I want to check out. And so that was... I had a couple of different ideas for what I really wanted to do, and I kept coming back to the fact that I love to help people in their careers. I really do. And when I went to the coach, it changed my life. Seeing how I could use coaching to help people in their careers just opened up a new world for me. And I got certified. Then I panicked, because I was like, "oh my god, now I have to quit my job and go out on my own. What happens now?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:43

That means just like automatically, it's like, "well, now I'm certified. Okay, I gotta run. Oh, you know, I'll see you later. Time to panic."

Christie Mims 08:50

I mean, yeah, I totally panicked. I'm like, "what next? Like, am I really gonna do this?" Who do you want to be in your life? Because I, you know, living in... for anyone who lives in D.C., if you ever, you know, you're riding around on the metro, like, half the people on the metro in the morning look like they died like 20 years ago.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:09

Okay, so you are the... I've talked to probably six or seven people in D.C. area in the last maybe five days. And you are the third person to say that– almost verbatim. So apparently it's true.

Christie Mims 09:21

Yeah, D.C. is unhappy. So I just looked at these people and then I'm like, "I don't want to wake up at 20 in the Metro", so I thought, "Who do I want to be in this moment? I want to be someone who at least explores what I love, who, you know, worst case scenario, I can continue to be a consultant, like, we're like cockroaches, you can never get rid of us." So, you know, I'm like, alright, so I had that conversation with myself. And I just thought this is what the best version of myself would do. Here's some, you know, here's me facing fear in the face. I'm gonna do it. And you know, it just... one thing led to another and, you know, Forbes gave me a bunch of other awards. I've gotten to reach over a million people with what I do. And it's kind of amazing. And so that's how it all went down.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:09

Okay, super cool. I have so many questions. Let's bow to it for just a second. Okay, so first of all, I'm really curious, you know, you went through, you're getting promoted really quickly, you're getting all of those opportunities, and it seemed that, at least the way that you described it, it was very much just what they're sort of putting in front of you, as far as opportunities. And I'm really curious if that's how it actually felt in the moment or whether it felt different. But I'm curious, most of all, why you think we always seem to go after what somebody else wants versus ask that question that you asked, which was, "who do I want to be"?

Christie Mims 10:55

Yeah, that's a great least resistance. And because it's really, really hard to fight conventional wisdom. If everyone around you is saying, "Oh, you should stay on the safe path", or "Oh, you should go after that promotion." And your company is saying that, your friends are saying that, your family, saying that, your spouse is saying that, it's really hard to fight that. It takes so much energy and momentum, it takes overcoming so much fear. And I think so it's the path of least resistance, many ways to rationalize it, and I think that's when most of us just keep staying on it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:36

I think you're right. And I'm thinking about this for myself, too. For some reason, I've noticed that I have, like, a tendency to not do what everybody else is doing. And I found myself listening to Rage Against the Machine the other day, which is probably the first time I've heard Rage Against the Machine for a number of years. But I used to listen to it all the time in high school. And one of the songs, like, "F you, I won't do what you tell me." And I just like, keep repeating that over and over and over again. It's like, was it because I was listening to Rage Against the Machine that all of a sudden I wanted to do what everybody else is doing? Or what's going on here? But I am curious what really prompted you to break away from that eventually? I mean, aside from, you know, you're getting crazy eye going on, and children in the corn type thing, as if you're trying not to tell your boss "No", but was there anything before that? Or was the gradual workup? Or like, what was sort of the defining piece that took place?

Christie Mims 12:38

A couple of things. One was just the overwhelming misery, like, I literally could not continue to live like that and that built up over time. The other thing that I think happened was, well, a couple of things, I started to... a lot of times we complain about things, and we sort of half ass, if you will.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:04

Like what do you mean?

Christie Mims 13:05

"Oh, I hate my job. I should get a new one." "I hate my boss, you know, maybe I should...I don't want to do this anymore." And we complain about it, but we don't actually take action. And I think for me, what happened was I finally started to stop complaining and started to take real action. And before that, I was just hiding behind my complaints. And so those two things helped me kind of overcome my biology because I think our biology wants us to stay safe. Our biology wants us to stay on the beaten path because we, you know, that's how you pay your rent, that's how you put food on the table, you know, your biggest needs, right, as a human. And so, that really, that's a strong pull to not rock the misery and just taking action so I could see that other people are making a living doing interesting things, you know, helped spur me to overcome sort of that stasis that I think a lot of us fall into. And one other thing happened, and this happened, it was after I knew I was going to become a coach. I'd already taken all the steps I needed to start, I was just like, waiting for the right moment, if you will, which I kept putting off. A friend of mine, not a friend of mine, my colleague, he was my age, and I just thought to myself, "What am I waiting for?" So that was what helped push me to finally put in my resignation. And really take that step. I was just waiting, I'd done the work. I just hadn't quite, like, signed the papers if you will. So yeah, that put it in perspective, that helped me put it in perspective.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:51

That is morbid or, whatever you want to call it as it sounds, like, every time somebody close around me passes away, I don't know, that's a huge amount of motivation. I don't feel bad from drawing motivation from that, because I think that, to some degree, that's what they would want. But it feels weird that... it sounds weird as I say it that, I get a whole bunch of motivation to move forward, you know, from other people dying.

Christie Mims 15:24

No, but exactly though. I guess you're right because it just opens how you always can have an excuse, but that's not going to change anything. So why not take a risk?

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:35

Exactly. Very, very much so. And, okay, so we covered off that, you know, that led you down the path of saying, "hey, well, maybe I should explore coaching. Okay, well, now I've got my coaching certification. You know, I should probably do this, but I'm ignoring it for a while. Okay, now I need to do this." And you got on that train. So what did that look like from there? I'm super curious.

Christie Mims 16:04

When I first started to explore coaching, or when I started my business and really got going?

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:09

When you started your business and really got going, what did the first year or so look like? And I'm super curious, because we've got so many HTYCers, that are making a career change right now. But then a lot of them want to make a secondary step of starting something on the side or starting a business. So I'm curious what your journey looked like.

Christie Mims 16:29

Wacky pants.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:32

Of course, I would expect nothing else from you, Christie.

Christie Mims 16:34

Yes. I mean, I quit without any clients. So I had no income from my business when I day one. So that was terrifying. And then I was sitting there in my apartment in DC,, like looking over a really ugly concrete parking lot, this was not the life I wanted to lead. I don't think I want to be in Washington anymore, because I no longer have to be. So where would I go? And so I made the decision very quickly to move to San Francisco. So the first six months of my business were a conglomeration of getting rid of my apartment, selling all of my stuff, moving with a friend for a couple of months while I got ready to move to San Francisco, and then driving across the country, and setting up. And so that was both awesome, because I felt like I was walking my walk as a person, but it slowed my business growth a little bit, because I had a lot going on. But once I got to San Francisco, things really started to take off for me. So I finally got, really, it allowed me sort of that physical freedom of being where I wanted to be, allowed me to embrace who I was a little bit more in my business through a little bit. And so doing that, helped me start to close. In the beginning, I did one-on-one private coaching, which my business was way too big for me to do that anymore. But it was, you know, allowed me to close this first VIP client, which, you know, started to bring in a really, really good income. So by the time I'd been in business for a year, I was actually really, really in a much more stable place, and that I had been.

Speaker 1 16:35

I was unsure about how to define myself because I've amassed a variety of skills over the years, I was confused about my professional identity, and I felt lost and unsure about which route to move forward.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:44

Okay, here's the thing. So Tender's array of skills and his experiences made it really difficult for him to nail down what he actually wanted.

Speaker 1 18:53

I wanted to clarify my skills and interests with a view to identifying my next career move.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:59

When he came to us for coaching, he gained a much needed clarity.

Speaker 1 19:03

Career coaching has been enormously helpful in refining and defining my skill set, my strengths, my interests, and most importantly, the areas of opportunity that are now available to me. I am clear about my identity, what I can offer future employers and also what services others can buy from me if I choose to go self employed.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:26

Now, Tender, really put in the work to make things happen for his career. Congratulations to Tender on identifying what work fits you. Also if you want to figure out what work fits you and find that fulfilling career that lights you up, gives you purpose and what helps make it happen, coaching can help you step by step. Want to find out how? Go to happentoyourcareer.com and click on career coaching to apply or simply pause this and text MYCOACH. That's MYCOACH to 44222. Pause right now and we'll send over the application.

20:01

I would say, do not hesitate to give it a go. It's absolutely an investment in yourself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:10

Within that first year, and even beyond, it sounds like there was some point in there where you said, "Hey, I need to embrace more of who I am." And you said, "I started to allow my personality to shine through." And I'm curious what that looked like for you. Because I think that that is key for people in any career journey, regardless of whether you own a business or whether you are working with somebody else. But, people are generally happier when they go through that transgression is whatever I've observed. It also is not easy. So I'm curious what that looked like for you. Because I know that during that time, there's so much growth.

Christie Mims 20:52

Yes, no, that's a great question. I so wish we had visuals because I could show you my different web. When I very first started, I was like, "I'm a career coach, let me help you with all aspects of your career in a very boring black and white way." And I'm going to have like, yeah, and I sort of was afraid, I didn't have my face on any of my materials. I was super, I wasn't say super corporate, but I was super bland in terms of how I talked about myself, how I marketed myself, the materials that I presented. And I also felt like, "I'm a career coach, I can help you with anything with the word career and everything, right? I've been a hiring manager, I've, you know, hired and fired people. I've mentored people, like, I've interviewed people, I've, you know, all this other stuff", I can't do everything. And that wasn't my interest. And so what I realized was, what my interest is helping people find work that they love– the passion piece, that more than anything. And then I stopped, I said, "Okay, so let me forget the rest of it to some degree and focus in on that first piece of the puzzle." And then, you know, I said, "Who am I? You know, I'm not corporate. I write a little differently. Like, I want to have fun helping people with their careers, even though I take it very seriously. It doesn't have to be this terrible, painful process, why not make fun of, not make fun of it, but like, have some fun with it while I do it." So I started to get, you know, I started to blog a lot more honestly. And with a lot more humor. You know, I started to occasionally like, you know, use a four letter word here and there. And, like, any corporate website you've ever seen, because it's so bright. And that's part of who I am, I'm, you know, I want people to feel a sense of forward momentum and brightness and movement when they think about their career. And a lot, you know, some people hate it, that's fine. I'd rather you either love it or hate it. Because that means, if you hate it, you can go find someone that you love and get the help that you need. That's awesome. And if you love it, I can help you, and that's great, too. So, to write more, in my real voice, I started to be less worried about what other people think or what corporate or what professional is. And I really focused on who I wanted to help and why. And doing that allowed me to be even more of myself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:13

How do you advise people to, and I'm always looking for different ways to do this, because it's something that comes up again and again and again. How do you advise people to think about that if they're not in total control? Like you had your business, and although that first year may not have felt like you're in total control, ultimately, I mean, you get to make the decisions that either you know, sink or swim, or whatever, insert your cliched analogy here, right? But how do you think about that in terms of what would you recommend for other people that are really trying to find themselves to be able to express themselves, especially if they're within that corporate environment? Or whatever else it might be?

Christie Mims 23:57

That's the real question. Yeah, if you're working for someone else, it's a little bit different. But one of the things that has always helped me, and this is true of whether you are an employee, or you're a business owner, or whatever, is to think about some of like, your biggest personality traits that are positive, and how you want to harness them and how you want to communicate them to others. Right? Because you can be known for being a strategic thinker, you can be known for being the person who is calm in a crisis, you can be known for being the person who has a great sense of humor, who is able to connect with people. And so just kind of thinking to yourself, "What about me, as you know, what about me do I really like and that is valuable in this corporate environment?" Ask yourself those two questions, and then start to really socialize that with yourself, like if I want to be known for these things, so let me really think about what do we want to be known for these things. So let me start talking about a little bit, and say things like, "yeah, you know, I'm happy to talk to that difficult client because you know, I'm really calm in a crisis", you know, and just putting it out there in the world. And I think that's the way to start to take control and to own the best part of you in a way that's going to facilitate your career.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:18

I love that, I absolutely love that. I think when you do that, too, then you begin to get feedback. And almost the same way that you described your website, like, some people are gonna love it, and some people are gonna hate it. And for the people that are going to hate it, then you can, you know, slowly remove less of those in your life.

Christie Mims 25:39

Yeah, and those people can find help from a person that's going to... they're going to listen to. And that's great for them. Good. Like, you know, awesome. If I can't help you, I want to find someone who can, you know? So yeah. And so I did the same thing for me. I said, "you know, who am I? I'm someone with a sense of humor. I'm someone who's a little offbeat. I'm someone, how can I express that?" And so if you look at my website, you'll see how I express it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:04

You'll see. We'll drop the links into the show notes and everything like that. But I would encourage you to go over there, check it out, you will see. Oh, trust me, you will see. Okay, so behind the scenes here, and I don't know if I've told you this or not, I can't remember, I can't remember how all this came about or exactly how we met or anything, I should remember. Now, I feel bad that I'm saying this. And it's going out to like 1000s of people and stuff. But I remember seeing your website for the first time. It's like, "Oh, I have to know this person." Because it was apparent that you had already gone through that, I don't know, transformation, transgression, whatever you want to call the thing where you get comfortable enough with yourself, that you're willing to express it to the world. And I think, also, that's the reason for some of my other questions to you that we're just talking about, I think that's part of why that's so important. Once you get comfortable enough with yourself, you have a tendency to attract more people to you, because people want to be around others that are confident enough in themselves that they're willing to express themselves. So first of all, that, in action. But then I don't know, I must have dropped an email or something, maybe two or three people mentioned you, we've got some mutual friends. So that must have been how it went down.

Christie Mims 27:25

Someone else.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:29

That's right. Yeah. Like three people in a row told me, "Hey, have you met Christie? You have to meet Christie." And then nobody introduced me, so I'm like, "I'm just gonna email her. All right. Make me an introduction. All right, fine."

Christie Mims 27:42

Here we are.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:43

Here we are, like a year or so later. Okay, so let me ask you, you mentioned, you went through all this, you went through the whole career coach thing, you said, "hey, I can help you with anything. Let me help everybody. Awesome new business."

Christie Mims 27:58

Yeah, totally.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:01

Yeah. And then eventually, you said, "Okay, I love this passion piece." So I would love to have a conversation with you about passion. I know, you and I had earmarked to have this discussion, because we haven't had a chance to go too deep into it. But I'm super curious, one, because passion is a question I get a lot of questions about.

Christie Mims 28:23

Yeah, it's the number one most asked question.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:25

Yeah. And there's so much confusion around it, too. So I'm hoping we can talk a little bit about this. But first of all, like before we get into any of it, and I'm just curious, your thoughts around passion. Why passion as opposed to anything else? How do you even define passion? Like what are we actually talking about here, Christie?

Christie Mims 28:46

Oh, my gosh. That was like three questions.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:48

I know. I do that. I'm sorry.

Christie Mims 28:50

Like, why was I so interested in passion? Or why do I want people to be more interested in passion?

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:56

Let's just start with, what do you define as passion? And by the way, so, I said, I'm sorry, but I'm really not sorry. Because that's me. I asked 17 questions at a time. That's how I roll.

Christie Mims 29:06

Yeah, I know. Question stacking. Good.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:09

If you don't like it, let's do another podcast.

Christie Mims 29:13

So two ways. So the first way that I define it is passion is who you are. Your job is how you express it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:24

I like that.

Christie Mims 29:26

Great. What do you mean? When people are like, "Okay, let's get down and dirty on how you start to figure out your passion." And this is...as you know, Scott, this is a much bigger conversation than we can have on this podcast. However, so what I tell people to start with just to start, because there's so much around the topic of passion. Passion is interest and engagement. Interest and engagement. So that means you are not just reading and time involved in it in some way. And so those two things together are how I talk about passion.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:08

Okay, so that is... part of the reason I love that is because that is drastically different than how I've heard passion defined or applied before.

Christie Mims 30:23

Awesome. Let's get it off the beaten path.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:26

That's probably why I like it. That makes sense to me now. This is all starting to become clear, fnally.

Just one one podcast conversation. I knew there's a reason I like you Christie, maybe 17 of them, but along those notes, then, how do we actually do, really do something with that? Because we started out this conversation where you like civil war. Yeah, that's where it's at. You were passionate about that to some degree, right? But then decided that wasn't the right way to express it. Because you said, "Hey, a job is one of the ways that you express it", right? So how do you even think about that? And how do you decide what is the right way to express it? Because that's one question that I get constantly is like, "Hey, I love golf. I eat and breathe golf. I am not going to be a pro. What do I do Scott?" Like here, dump it on your doorstep.

Christie Mims 31:30

Yeah. No, no, that's a great question. How do you decide? So the first thing is like, when I tell people to separate passion from the job, because on the bigger, like, the grander scale of things, because let's say you decide your passion is to be a neurosurgeon, right? Or your passion is to be Beyonce, like, true story, I'm not Beyonce. So like, does that mean I have no passion in life? Right? You know, if I'm a neurosurgeon, and I lose the use of my hands, is my life over? No. Passion is bigger. It's who you are coupled with what you have to offer the world. And your job is that you can express that in so many different ways. So your passion is like a North Star, and your job is fueled by your passion. So that's the first thing. So this is why it gets confusing, because I'm using passion a little. I'm fast and loose with the word passion right now. I'm using it to talk a little bit about jobs as well as like a bigger meta purpose for why we're here. But someone who loves golf, I'd say, golf is not your passion. Your passion is actually greater than that. There's something about physicality, about the game, something that's driving you, and golf is one way to express that. But there's other ways to express it. So let's step back and think about your passion first, that the world.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:00

I like that. So step one, realize that what you're probably seeing is a manifestation of your passion to some degree, rather than the passion itself. Is that what you're saying?

Christie Mims 33:10

Yes. So because passion is rooted in who you are, and what you have to offer the world, it's something that sort of grows with you, but it's really intrinsic to you. But over the course of your life, you're going to have different interests, you're going to be in different life stages. And so how you choose to express that passion would change is the fact that you might have some, you know, have kids, not have kids, you know. And so there's, over time, the way you choose to express your passion is going to evolve and change. That's just a fact of life. So sorry, let me pause there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:47

Pause. No, that's perfect. I absolutely love that. And I was just thinking about this too, this is really, really interesting, because we talk about something we call "signature strengths" on our show all the time and refer to it constantly. And what I'm realizing is there's a little bit of overlap with how you think about passion compared to what we often call Signature Strengths. And I really particularly love the... look, it's who you are, it's greater than that. And I think that's important, regardless of what it's called, and whether it happens to be passionate or anything else, I think that you're 100% right. You've got to figure out these other things, the "who you are" portion of it before you can progress and really have any sustainable level of happiness.

Christie Mims 34:37

Right, and this is the mistake that basically everyone makes. They just think about, "if I can just get any other job or another job, I'll be happy." And it's like throwing spaghetti against the wall with no clue. And this is why people often end up in a new job that's unhappy or another job that's unhappy and they can't quite break the pattern, and the reason is they haven't figured in the world, you know, "what is driving me?" Until they do that, many people are kind of doomed to make that mistake again and again and again. The other thing that I want to offer and I talked about this in my community, too, is passion versus hobby. So when you talk about a job that's really being fueled by your passion versus a hobby, because a lot of us, like, I love chocolate. Right? Chocolate is like a little hobby of mine. I spent time in Brussels. Yes, I spent that another time. But, I've flown through the Brussels airport out of my way just to, like, sprint around and get like, no, it doesn't matter. The point is passion fuel job is something you do even when it gets hard. And hobby is something you do because it's easy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:48

Oh, hold on. Say that again. Let me make sure that I understand. Passion fuel job, something you do when it gets hard. And even when it gets...

Christie Mims 35:58

A hobby is something you do because it is easy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:02

Oh, that is quite possibly the best way I've heard it. But...

Christie Mims 36:07

Yeah, well, you know, there we go. Bam. Mic drop.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:12

And this is all folks. Yeah, that's perfect. I love that definition. That's like tweetable

Christie Mims 36:21

Awesome. Feel free to tag me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:22

Yeah. Sweet deal. Okay, let me ask two other notes on that, first of all, so before we go too much further, I gotta ask you about cheeky Christie. What's the story?

Christie Mims 36:42

So twice in my young Christie Mims spent a lot of time in Europe after college. So I studied abroad in England, but I also taught for a year in England and I bartered there. I found it difficult to connect with English people, which I was really surprised about. Because I thought you know, we share our same language blah, blah, blah. You know, I'm tall with fair skin like, I don't tan, we should all get along.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:14

How can they not love you?

Christie Mims 37:16

I know. But what I realized is, then I just realized, I should just forget it. Like everyone there is a stereotype to some degree and a little bit more reserved than I am. I'm like, I'm going to smile at you in a very weird way and just come up and talk to you. And I found that they would forgive me because I was a cheeky American.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:39

You can play stereotype too.

Christie Mims 37:40

Yes, I was, totally. I'm like I'm here to tip well, and smile a lot, and make eye contact. But yeah, it was so weird because as soon as I was like, overly friendly, I found it much easier to connect. And people would be like, "Ah, you're being the cheeky American." So that's where my Skype handle comes from.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:03

Okay, so I'm taking notes because I will... I think the day this airs, I'll be in London for the first time.

Christie Mims 38:11

Oh, London. That's where I was bartending. Oh, yeah, I've had a really checkered career.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:17

Yeah. So I'm getting it. We didn't even get into those stories. Now I'm disappointed. We'll have to do, like, round two sometime. Okay, so what's one place I should absolutely hit up?

Christie Mims 38:27

Oh my gosh, I think you should have high tea at The Savoy, and you should go see the mousetrap. The longest running play in history. Agatha Christie, it's in the West End. It's not far from The Savoy. You can have Theater tea, high theater tea, and then go, it's a little bit... high theater tea is a little bit more deanery. Awesome. And I love, I mean, personally like total tourists. I love the Tower of London. I am such a fan.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:53

Sweet. That's the real reason I invited you on, by the way.

Christie Mims 38:57

Travel tip.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:57

We got to spend time and like...

Christie Mims 38:58

Oh, yeah, it's awesome. So I love London. Oh, and have a street pasty. Get, like a steak or chicken pasty off the street. Awesome. It's just awesome. It's cheese and flakiness and meat, and it's hot. It's good.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:16

Sounds delighted. I'm sold. That is...

Christie Mims 39:19

I think transitions are where I used to. Transition foods.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:24

I will find out. I will let you know. Well, me and my family, we will hunt down street pasties. Okay, awesome. This has been a ton of fun. I am super curious for a couple of different things. One, I know that you've got, geez, you've got a whole bunch coming up, even in the next few weeks here. So two questions, one, if people want more on passion, what would you recommend for them? And then the second question is more questions stacking you get in this year, where can people connect with you and get more info?

Christie Mims 40:00

If you want more passion, today is a great day because today's the beginning of our five day totally free career happiness revolution passion challenge, and I'm gonna give you the structure, the accountability, the knowledge that you need to start to jumpstart, figuring out what it is that you love to do. So for everyone, you're welcome to sign up for it and join us at careerhappinessrevolution.com/htyc. And it's gonna be awesome. And I think it's really hard to find your passion by yourself, but we've got a couple thousand people who have signed up, who are doing this and who are going to go through it with you. And so, five days of awesomeness to help you figure out your passion. So I hope everyone signs up. Who's listening, get yourself there now, it starts today. And for everyone else, you can reach me at revolutionaryclub.com and learn more about me and what I do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:05

Everything Christie and I talked about will be over at happentoyourcareer.com/228 including where you can download the transcript for this episode, and you get a whole bunch of other tools that we've put into a bit of a step by step approach here. And next week, this is going to be such a fun episode. We will talk about the science behind perfect timing with one of my favorite authors on the planet.

Dan Pink 41:04

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.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:36

That's Dan Pink. And back when I was working in HR, I first heard of him and I read his book "Drive" which honestly changed the way that, not just me, but many people looked at what motivates us. Join us next week right here on Happen To Your Career, where Dan breaks down exactly how you can use timing and the science behind it in ways that you never imagined to become more productive at life and work. Until then. I'll see you later. Adios. I'm out.

Caroline Adams 00:02
The prospect of trying something new that, understandably, you might not be that good at, because you're a beginner. It's, at best, really uncomfortable for us, and at worst, the fear of failure prevents us from even taking those steps.

Introduction 00:23
This is the Happen To Your Career podcast, with Scott Anthony Barlow. We help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what does and make it happen. We help you define the work that's unapologetically you, and then go get it. If you're ready to make a change, keep listening. Here's Scott. Here's Scott. Here's Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:46
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. Today, we're after answering the question. But not just any question. How can you avoid perfectionism? Especially if you don't even realize that you're acting perfectionistic plus what even is perfectionism?

Caroline Adams 01:14
Striving for an unattainable ideal, and then beating yourself up for not reaching said unattainable ideal. It's an impossible situation that we set ourselves up for and then punish ourselves for not achieving.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:32
That's Caroline Adams. She works with us as a coach on team Happen To Your Career, and she's done more than a few things. By the way, you can go back and listen to her entire story and her entire other career changes she's made back in happentoyourcareer.com/223. That's Episode 223. And find out all kinds of stuff about Caroline. She's awesome.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 02:02
It was stopping me from making that career change. I was paralysed into my situation.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:08
Meet Cesar. He was getting frustrated trying to figure out the right career on his own.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 02:12
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 02:19
Take a listen for Cesar's story later on in the episode to learn how he finally figured out what fits him.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 02:26
I transition into another career completely different to what I did in an industry that I'm passionate about.

Caroline Adams 02:39
And what's interesting, and we'll get into some examples today, but I think what is sometimes so insidious about it is that people don't recognize it as such, a lot of people don't identify, self identify as perfectionist. So we'll talk today, not only about how to recognize some of the ways that it shows up, or even share some examples about where we think we've beaten this perfectionism thing, and it shows up again. So we'll talk through some tools, but I think it's a really interesting phenomenon. And just a tidbit from my own personal experience, probably in the last six months, the two times I've felt the most anxious are: number one, when I was writing a blog post about perfectionism. And number two, when I was preparing for this podcast on perfectionism. So I share that because even just, you know, thinking about the things that lead to perfectionism in my own experiences with it, it's just such a powerful force. And that's what we want to do today is just really shed some light on it, and help people work through it in their career change.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:44
Yeah, absolutely. And part of the reason that we got onto this topic for this purpose, as well, was because we had a listener that had sent in an email saying, "Hey, I haven't heard anything about this on the podcast. Can you talk about it on the podcast? I need some answers. I must have some answers." What's really interesting, just what you said about, we don't always recognize where perfectionism is coming into play. Then this person said the exact same thing. Well, and tell you what, let me just read part of her question here. She said, "Over the last several months I've been trying to move..." And this, by the way, is Lauren. Lauren sent us a note that said, "Over the last several months, I've been trying to move from the analysis paralysis and planning mode into Action Jackson" as she calls it "using some of the techniques HTYC recommends about connecting with people or people who can help you or hire you." So she goes on to say that she's developed top 10 lists of companies, organizations, people she admires in different areas, and she has sent out a bunch of different emails and in some cases, had some initially very positive results. But then she goes on to say, "Hey, I had a shameful confession." And I don't think it's shameful, but we'll get to that in just a minute. "I tend to drop the ball after the initial outreach. It's like the anxiety overtakes me. And I want to craft the perfect reply, or create some really amazing project to be able to share with them, and I end up actually doing nothing. And it's happened as many as three, four times in recent months." And I think this is a problem that everybody struggles with to different degrees. So we said, we looked at that and said, "Okay, let's figure out how do we get some answers to that question for people that are in that exact same place." That's what we hope to do. That is our entire plan. So tell me your initial thoughts on perfectionism.

Caroline Adams 05:44
Let's start with my definition, which is striving for an unattainable ideal, and then beating yourself up for not reaching said unattainable ideal. It's an impossible situation that we set ourselves up for and then punish ourselves for not achieving. And this has really been top of mind for me recently, because not too long ago, there was a paper published in psychological bulletin that was focused on millennials, and it was talking about the fact that millennials are more prone to perfectionism than previous generations. And then it linked that rise in perfectionism, to a rise in serious mental health consequences. And so we're not talking about mental health today, we're talking about career change. But the reason I mentioned it is to point out that this is really pervasive and it is taking over and not to get too far in the weeds of the paper. But one of the things they talk about is not just the perfectionism that we place on ourselves, personally, internally focused perfectionism, with the rise of social media and other ways that we're very visible, and other people are actually holding us to the same ideals, whether real or perceived. So it's a really important topic to talk about.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:06
I think it's fascinating. Just some of the changes in our environment today have impacted something like perfectionism and all of the things that can happen when we are not cognizant of it and fall into that trap on an ongoing basis. So this is intended to be a proactive approach to that. Okay, bad things will happen if you don't do something about it, not to scare people or anything else along those lines. But we want to say, "Okay, if we know that, how do we do something about it now?" So here's what I'm curious about, though, we work a lot with high performers and height achievers, and other people that have a track record of success in one area of their life or another, might not always be their career, sometimes it's other areas too, health, financial, etc. But those people often are some of the same people that have the highest degrees of perfectionism going on. Sometimes they recognize it, many other times they don't. So where does this actually show up? And why do you think high achievers, in particular, high performers, in particular, are so susceptible to this?

Caroline Adams 08:15
I'm so glad you asked the question. It's such a fascinating space for me to think about. So the reason I think that high achievers can be so susceptible is that oftentimes we think we're just being conscientious. And we've probably been rewarded for that conscientiousness, as you said, maybe not just in our career, but probably way back from the time we were children. And we're used to quote unquote, winning, or quote, unquote, succeeding. And so when you're in this environment, the prospect of trying something new that, understandably, you might not be that good at, because you're a beginner. It's, at best, really uncomfortable for us, and at worst, the fear of failure prevents us from even taking those steps. And really, that's what we want to prevent is that people stay stuck because they don't want to get out of that bubble. And where I think conscientiousness differs from perfection is that we're perfection, we're tying our self worth to outcome. So it's not just about winning or losing, it's about I am a winner, or I am a loser. And further, because we self-identify as high achievers, we need to keep this cycle of achievement going so that we can stay a winner. And so it just becomes this vicious cycle of, "wow, I really hope I perform and there's only one right answer and what is this going to say about me if I don't get it right." So it's a lot of pressure that we put on ourselves to do this. We see this come up a lot of different ways, but one area that we see this coming up with people that we first interact with them, whether they're listeners or people new to CCB, is they come to us and they say, "I have the ideal already. I have the quote unquote, perfect job, you know, I got have a good paycheck, I'm getting promoted, I'm recognized for my talents. But I don't want it. I'm not happy. And no one understands why I'm not happy." And so they start to question what they really want and start to think that they're crazy. And so a lot of times our initial engagements are when they're figuring out their signature strengths, or their ideal career profile, we'll go through it, they'll realize that, no, they are the best positioned people to know what they want. And they just need that validation that they're not crazy, because, you know, especially when it's something that deviates from the status quo. So I think that's a very salient example for people of where they get caught up, it's, kind of, a meta version of perfectionism, not only thinking that there's one right way to do things, but especially when they're being told that they already have the perfect thing. Well, why would you rock the boat? Why would you want something different?

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:05
Well, this compounds too, so... you become used to being able to achieve and you become used to winning or succeeding, which then makes it more difficult in some ways, too, if you can't see what the pathway is, want to go down that pathway and embark on that particular journey, that particular side journey, if I don't know where it's going to end up, because I'm used to winning, I'm used to that type of feedback, I'm used to being in that position. So I don't need... and it feels good, right? So I don't want to go down that other pathway. And then on top of it, they're being told that they're crazy, or at least they perceive that they're being told they're crazy from, you know, family, or friends or other people looking in. And they're trying to intentionally or unintentionally maintain some of those perceptions, too. But that's in conflict with what they really want. So that starts to stack on one another, in some ways. So how else does this show up in career change? Is there any other ways that we see this happen?

Caroline Adams 12:05
Yeah, so I think a lot of times, it's focused on a particular outcome. So this ideal outcome, I describe it as there's a single correct path surrounded by an ocean of hot lava. So everywhere around me, there is danger in destruction, and everyone's on the sidelines, you know, on the volcano, I guess, watching you and judging you, and you fear that, you know, just the wrong mid step, you're in the hot lava. And so when you're in that scenario, it's impossible to take action. But here's the problem with that, when you don't take action in that metaphor, you're still in an ocean of hot lava. And now you're not taking steps to get yourself out of it. You're not learning, you're not growing, you're not being vulnerable. And we all know that it's in those circumstances where we're most uncomfortable, and we're most challenged, that we learn about what it is that's important to us and what it is that we want in life. And so it's really important to not only lean in, which we'll talk about, too, some of those uncomfortable experiences, but look for the multiple paths. So there's not just one path, there's not just one ideal outcome.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:21
What about the helicopter airlift in from the hot lava? So it sounds like a really bad trip to, I don't know, Maui gone very, very wrong, along those lines. That's really interesting, though, because that creates a very compelling visual for what does really happen in reality, and maybe we're not thinking it's hot lava all the time, but it is... those people that are like, "Hey, you've already got a good situation, why would you do anything different?" Or, you know, it's those people that are in your job that you're looking at going, "I actually really don't want my boss's job. And I don't know what it is that I do want. So I kind of feel stuck in all other kinds of situations where it manifests itself." I know you and I started talking about this earlier. But I am curious, how you see this show up differently in terms of, we started... before we hit the record button, having a conversation about, how this looks differently, and how the sounds differently, and even men versus women, and realize that hey, there's actually some distinctions here, too, and how that shows up. So I'm curious your opinion on that since we didn't even get to have the full conversation earlier.

Caroline Adams 14:27
Yeah, so what I will start with is by saying that I have this conversation about perfectionism, and it's variations with women all the time, a lot of times directly, but I often see the pattern show up and so we get on to it indirectly. We talk about things like people pleasing, that comes up a lot with women. I rarely discuss it and call it perfectionism with men. And so one of the things I'd actually like to hear from you, because I feel like you're uniquely positioned to talk about men and their experience with perfectionism, you know, a different perspective than I do. I'm interested how it shows up with them. But I think with women, a lot of times they will either talk about it as conscientiousness, right? And so they'll frame it that way, they'll talk about it in terms of people pleasing, they will talk about in terms of permission seeking. And I think a lot of times, that's where doing the right thing, or what family wants them to do. So those sorts of things start to come up a lot in my conversations. Tell me about with your conversations, and particularly your conversations with men, I'm fascinated.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:38
Yeah, I absolutely hear a lot of the same vocalizations, as what you just said, when I'm speaking with women, and we're going to overgeneralize her a little bit. Because this doesn't hold true 100% of the time, but in general, I find that women are more aware of it than what I see men to be, and I'll speak as a man, a lot of times we are less aware of it. And I would say even identify less with the word perfectionism as a whole. I would also say to that, the other thing that I observe is, as men where it shows up, and we don't even realize sometimes where it shows up. And I feel like I need to always have the answer. I feel like I need to have the solution. I feel like I need to be able to provide that. And if I don't, in some ways, it feels wrong or inept, or another word is escaping me right now. But that's a way in which perfection shows up. But I don't know that if we weren't talking about it. I don't know that I would call that perfectionism even though it is, even though it is.

Caroline Adams 16:42
And I'm so glad that we have this conversation because I think there are a lot of people, men and women, regardless how they identify, that think they've actually conquered it or, you know, I'm done with that whole perfectionism thing that's beyond me, or they don't recognize it as perfectionism as such. So hopefully, when we start talking about these examples, people will start to identify and Jackie was just weighing in on some of the ways when I was mentioning permission seeking and people pleasing. Certainly, those sorts of things come up. And so maybe some of those terms are more familiar to people. And that's a form of perfectionism. Because you're, again, it's about there's this one ideal that is the right way, and that's the only way to do these things. So thank you, Jackie, for sharing that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:30
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you mentioned these examples, and you mentioned that there's actually ways to do something about this. So I'd love to talk about those specifically. And in fact, we've identified six different ways that you can begin applying, like now, like not yesterday, but pretty close to yesterday, as soon as possible. Because really, just like you talked about with the hot lava, the enemy of perfectionism, or the way to move through it, is to be able to gain motion, gain momentum, which means you have to miraculously or unmiraculously move through all of the head games that really is causing that set of perfectionism. So let's talk about some examples of where this comes up. And then how we can handle those particular places where we do get caught up. What is example number one, and what is way number one that you can handle it here?

Caroline Adams 18:23
Yeah, so example number one we like to call, “bring awareness to your ideals” so you can punch them in the face. And that sounds very violent. Maybe we're a little too punchy, as we were coming up with these. But the idea behind it is that, again, a lot of times with perfectionism, there's an ideal that you've created behind it. And the surest way to start unpacking is to start asking yourself questions about, "Why are the stakes so high? And why do I think that there's only one way to do it?" And with ideals, a lot of times, it's because there's a particularly salient example of what we think something should look like, what, you know, someone who's out there, who's successful, how they're doing it, or how we think we need to act. One of the ways we see this commonly show up, which you alluded to a little bit before, is people will come to me and say, "Well, my boss is grooming me to take over her role. And I would love to do this role, but she has X years of experience, or she has this expertise, and I don't have that." And so that's an example of you've created this ideal of, well, this is the only way to do this rule. And if you can't live up to that, then you can't do that. And so the idea that I want people to start embracing as well, what would you bring to it and especially if you bring something different, because everything you do is unique and special, that might actually be the thing that turns the organization on its head in a good way. So to think about it through that lens and really start asking yourself questions about, why you think that there's only one way to do it or, like I said, the stakes are so high.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:11
First of all, I was... haven't thought about it this way before. But I was thinking about our title and what we call this. And as I think about perfectionism in the areas that stopped me, it really almost is like this big bad bully in some way that is really stopping me from getting to where I want to go. I'm on the playground, I want to go down the slide, and this person is telling me, who's much, much bigger than me, by the way, that I can't go down the slide. And there's nothing that is going to move this person out of the way, this bully out of the way. Unless you do something that is drastic, otherwise, you don't get to go down the slide. And I really think that it does require doing something drastic in some way to be able to take it and look at it for what it really is. Otherwise, we hold it so high, like, "Oh my goodness, this person is not going to let me" and all of these excuses pop up and everything like that. And we don't recognize when we're in that moment that they are excuses. So too brutal to bring that awareness. You do, kind of, have to punch it in the face of that. And I love your concept of taking the ideal and bringing it down to size, that fits for me. And if you don't recognize it for what it is, there's really nothing that you can do about it too.

Caroline Adams 20:19
Yeah, knock it off that pedestal smash, whatever metaphor works for you, whether it's the bully, not letting you go down the slide, or probably not punching it in the face. But smashing that ideal and really holding yourself to your own standard rather than a made up standard that someone else has set for you just by the nature that they were there first.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:53
Yeah, absolutely. What's the next one here? This is one of my favorites.

Caroline Adams 21:58
This is my... I have to say this is my favorite. So I call this Career Wabi Sabi. So Wabi Sabi is a Japanese philosophy, it values imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness, and it will not be able to do it justice in the short time we have today. So I encourage you to read more about it, because it is really a beautiful philosophy that has all sorts of applications beyond your career. I actually first came to it through design world. But the idea here applied to your career is to celebrate those goofy, quirky, unique things about yourself, and your experience, and to make them cornerstones of your career. Oftentimes, we want to sweep those things under the rug, we want to downplay them, really, what we should be doing is not should be doing. But I think there's an opportunity there to use those things to our advantage, because they really set us apart in a beautiful way. So the idea is that your career experiences, good and bad, make you more interesting, and thus more valuable. So whether it's quirks, whether it's, you know, that path that you took that now you're, kind of, pivoting and taking in a different direction, it's using those to your advantage, and to bring it home... there's someone I'm working with now, she wants, speaking of pursuing, a career as a COO. And we were talking about how to position that. And she started talking about her degree in accounting in her early years that she was in that space. And she was saying, "Oh, how do I downplay this? You know, I would never mention this. Because I don't want people to take me out of the running." And what we arrived at is, "No, absolutely. Use that experience, and use those strengths and the things that you like about accounting and the things that make you good at accounting, apply those to how you would run that COO role, because those are unique and special, and they will set you apart and will be able to bring those things to a COO role. And the fact that you have that background actually brings a unique lens to that experience." And so I think a lot of times people will look at seemingly disparate things in their career as disconnected and so they'll want to sweep them under the rug or downplay them, and, really, I encourage people to bring them forward. And not just with experiences, but also with those quirks, like I said, even those quote unquote, bad experiences, because that's where we learn and grow. And so just to give another metaphor, because we seem to be coming up with a lot of ones, a lot of metaphors today.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:31
A lot of metaphors. Keep 'em coming.

Caroline Adams 24:33
There's an art form called Kintsugi, and that's oftentimes closely related to Wabi Sabi. And the idea is that you repair pottery, and you fill the cracks with gold, and other precious metals. So the idea is that not only are you bringing this broken thing back to hold, but now the cracks are the most beautiful thing about the pot. And actually, when I was doing some research on Wikipedia, when this first came out, people were so intrigued by the idea, they were purposely smashing pottery so they could come and... So I'm not saying go out and purposely break your career, I'm not advocating that. But the idea is, if you think about this as applied to your career, it really shifts how you think about it and looking at those experiences that were maybe, kind of, painful, definitely, probably learning experiences and the things that your initial instinct would be to downplay. Well, how can you flip them in a way that they become the goal, they become the thing that showcases you to make you different and set you apart? And embrace those imperfections rather than trying to, you know, pass over them very quickly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:41
That's super interesting. I haven't heard... What did you call that again? Say it one more time.

Caroline Adams 25:46
Kintsugi. I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly, Kintsugi.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:49
It sounds good to me, I have no idea. We can talk about that here in just a second, too. But that is really interesting. And as I think about my own experiences, too, that's actually how I got to starting this company in the first place. The whole reason, all of the set of events that led to me, you know, getting a bunch of promotions, and even setting on the quest to figure out like, "How do I find work that I love, that pays well for myself? And how do I do all these things was because I got fired?" Which was incredibly painful at the time. It really was. But now I found that had that not happened, it would not have set all these other things in motions, but, really, now more so than anything else, it's an asset, rather than something to be ashamed of. And, yeah, you don't have one without the other. And one makes the other much more attractive. And honestly, just more interesting, too. Nobody really likes... we all think we have to have perfection, but nobody really actually likes perfection.

Caroline Adams 26:48
It's boring. What makes the better story to tell your friends when you're out. It's not like I rose to prominence, and it was easy, the end. It was really horribly stupid thing. And that's my whole, kind of, writing repertoire is sharing stories about firmly, cringe-worthy and, you know, dumb things that I've done along the way, because it's interesting, and you grow from it. Right?

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:14
Absolutely. And we all have them too. Yes. The surest way to make your friends despise you is be out with them and talk about how everything is perfect.

Caroline Adams 27:24
No problems.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:26
Okay, so what's the next one here?

Caroline Adams 27:29
Yeah, so we call this one “Stair Steps, Not Trampolines”. And we see this one all the time with high achievers. High achievers tend to want to find that trampoline, and bounce straight off that trampoline to the end, perfect results. So while with that technique, you might fall into something, literally fall, into something more quickly, it's not necessarily going to be the best fit for you. And so what we try to encourage is this idea of stair steps and thinking about those steps, not as right or wrong, good or bad, but an opportunity to get closer to what you want. And we really make a mistake when we try to jump straight to the end without doing some of the work and taking those interim steps. All you need to worry about is the next step. I think that's another way that people kind of shut themselves down is because they can't see that ultimate outcome, they just stopped taking steps. And anyone who's been through this process, or maybe even those that are in the middle, understand the value of those steps, even if you don't know where they're leading. And one example where we see this come up is, so let's say, someone has decided as they define their ideal career profile that they want to work in a particular industry or work for a particular organization, and then somehow throughout the process, they realize, "Hmm, maybe this isn't the best fit. It's not what I wanted, after all." So sometimes people say, "Ugh, back to square one. Guess I'm right back where I started from. Guess I have to start over from scratch." Not at all, exactly, thank goodness, you've now gotten this valuable information. Whereas had you not gotten that information and gotten into that job or industry, you probably won't be that happy. And so look at it from the perspective of, well, now I've taken another step closer to the job that's going to be a better fit to me and it might take a little bit longer, but I'm going to be much happier, and when you think about it in terms of time, actually, so let's say, you catapult yourself or bounced yourself, I guess, from the trampoline sooner into a job you hate, well, you haven't really cut down the time because now you have to start the process over again. Whereas if you would have just kept, you know, kept taking steps and incrementally moved closer towards your goal, we actually find that that shortens the time to the career that's right for people, so you're not starting over, you just need to keep moving and just pivot every now.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:09
Yeah, it makes me think of Eric Murphy's story, which if you go back and listen to Episode 128, which is way back into the archives, you know, he came to us and very much wanting, one of the things he told me back then was, "Scott, I'm pretty sure that solar technology is where I want to be. I'm like 80% sure that that is where I should be going." So this, you know, wasn't our first rodeo, and realized, like, "Okay, that's fantastic. Let's do this upfront work. And if that still indicates that that's where a direction you should be heading, awesome. But let's also test it out at the same time." And he went through and that he experienced that exact same thing that you just described, he went through and realize, "Oh, crap! This isn't where I want to be. Like, this is actually the opposite of where I want to be. And it's pretty unlikely that in this particular industry, I'm really going to find what I want and what I need to have more happiness more often in my career." And after that, he really, kind of, had two options at that point, he could have looked at that as "Oh, mother, I guess I'm back at square one." But instead, really what that did, is it allowed him that doing that work allowed him to be able to move to the next step, and created the path forward. Because had he not done that, he'd still be looking for that trampoline as to how to get there. And if he got there, he probably would have... he's a pretty loyal guy, he probably would have spent two years in that company or that role, and then started over again and been extra frustrated. Yeah, no good, right?

Caroline Adams 31:36
Yeah, that's what happens. People have that "Oh, crap!" realization, but usually after they're already in the job, and now have to feel compelled to, this is a whole other podcast topic, but feel compelled to stay there for a significant period of time, for various reasons. So yeah, I was actually thinking of Eric as I was speaking about that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:01
What's our next one, then?

Caroline Adams 32:03
So the next one we call "Reframe, Not Retreat". So the idea here, as we've laid out is that a lot of times, we just make the stakes so darn high, whether it's because of these ideals, or because it's something really, really wants, but we don't even get started. And so we start retreating, before we've even taken those steps that we were talking about. So the idea is to reframe your next action, and use what works best for you. But some ways are look at it as an experiment, look at it as an opportunity to get some feedback for yourself, look at it as an opportunity to do research and find out more about the thing you're interested in, find out about the person sitting across from you and what their big pain points are. And where this tends to show up for people, and shows up a lot of places, but one common place is that as people start to reach out to build relationships, usually one of two things happens: either because a lot of times when they're reaching out for these relationships with someone they don't know. So they're so unsure of where the conversation is going to go, again, focused on that outcome, like, "where am I going with this?" that they stop, and so they hesitate even having the conversation or they fast forward to the end result they think is going to happen, which is, "This person is going to offer me a job which I know I don't want and it's not going to make me happy" and goes on and on and on. So the idea is to lower the stakes. So whatever the step is, whether it's having a conversation, whether it's, you know, working to figure out what your ideal career profile is, or your strengths, you know, find a way in that lowers the stakes, and dare I say make it fun. You know...

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:53
Dare you, how dare you.

Caroline Adams 33:54
I know! We make this stuff so unfun and so unpleasant for ourselves. And so the idea is, you know, just making it, finding a way in that works for you, that just makes it about the thing and not where this is going to go and really lowering your expectations even about where it's going to go, so you can just get started and not retreat.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:16
That's an interesting one. I actually struggle with that one a lot of times, as well, to the point where Alyssa, my wife, knows this and I will get so focused on a particular goal or particular deadline or accomplishment or something else along those lines, and I actually enjoy the vast majority of what I get to do. But sometimes I'll get very achievement focused and forget to make it fun along the way. So she very consistently has been my reminder, like, she'll, kind of, stopped me out the door before I walk into the office or whatever and be like, "Hey, have fun." But we literally have to, like, build that way if we are not intentional, if she's not there actively reminding that and if that is not a continuous reminder in my life, then I forget. And then I go back to some of those forms of perfectionism that we talked about.

Caroline Adams 35:10
Yeah, I think that's so important, actually, to spend a minute there is that we forget that this is something that we want. We forget that taking those steps to get to that dream career, we want that. We are choosing to do this. And so how can we reconnect wit that idea whether it's fun, or learning or growth, again, however you want to frame it, I think it's important to remember, like, this is taking us to somewhere good that we want to go.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 35:42
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 35:50
Cesar was transitioning from the law industry to a completely different field.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 35:56
That I wanted to change, and I tried 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 36:11
He turned to HTYC's Career Change Bootcamp to get over the frustration and take the right first step.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 36:16
You helped me first and foremost, to get over my mental barriers. You helped me confirm my 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 36:37
These are the things he learned out of the bootcamp to take action, and be noticed what he was great at.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 36:43
We're thinking of ideas that I can do, to be able to establish, and hence, build relationships, and stand out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:52
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 37:16
It's a process and Scott has the career change experience. And he's going to give you a lot of great insights on how that works.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:25
I can't remember who said it, but geez, it's totally escaping me. And I'm gonna butcher it a little bit. But it resonated so much with me that I feel like it's worthwhile to tell it here. But somewhere along the way, over the last couple of years, I read something about the author was making it a point to acknowledge that, "Look, life is a series of moments all strung together." So if you're after a particular thing, like when you get to that thing, it's like one moment, it is one moment, and then there's everything else in between. So if you're going after, and everything you're doing is just for that one moment, that means like 99.9% of your life is not going to be particularly fun or not particularly enjoyable or not particularly valuable to you, because you're entirely focused on those itsy bitsy pieces. So yeah, I don't know, we enjoyed the journey all the time, and things like that, but it's difficult. And I think that the perspective that you mentioned earlier, is a much better approach than just telling people, "hey, enjoy the journey." That's like showing people the water while they're drowning a little bit.

Caroline Adams 38:33
I think that's true. Yeah, it's easy to say when you've already reached the destination, right to back and say to someone else, enjoy the journey. But when you're in it, I had a former boss that used to say that all the time, and at that time in my career, I would hear the words, but I just could not... "What are you talking about? Enjoy the journey? This journey is otter and sheer torture." So...

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:57
You don't know what my journey is like.

Caroline Adams 38:59
Exactly. But I think the point you made is a great one, which is, again, we just said we didn't want to talk about enjoying the journey. But in that idea, once you get to that dream job, or that hope, that outcome, whatever it is, it doesn't mean that you're done. The idea, especially, if you make yourself miserable on the way to get there, but there's just going to be another destination after that and another destination after that. So the idea of just building towards something and improving with each step as you... or each move as you go forward, I think is a much more manageable way to think about it or enhancing each move that you make as you...

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:44
Or more enjoyable.

Caroline Adams 39:47
Yes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:48
Okay, so I absolutely love that. What is our next example and next opportunity to work with perfectionism rather than against it here?

Caroline Adams 39:58
Yes. So the next one is "Not All About You".

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:02
Whoa, whoa, whoa... Hold on. Are you sure?

Caroline Adams 40:06
It is not you, Scott. But no, it's not all about you. And the idea behind this one is, we all have struggles, right? So maybe you're having an interview where you had an interview that didn't go as you had totally planned it in your head. Or maybe you're struggling to really figure out what it is that you want. Those things say nothing about who you are. It's just the thing. And I think oftentimes we get confused with those steps that we're taking on the journey, or what happens along the journey. We confuse them and make them mean something about who we are. And mostly it's not good. Mostly, it's like, I'm not good enough, or I'm too old, or I'm too young, or I'm not smart enough, you know, it's not like that. Exactly. And so where I think this starts to really go wrong, is when people start to second guess what they want, right? And so it's really important to separate the things that happen on the journey from the person that's taking the journey. I know, we just said we weren't going to talk about the journey, and now...

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:15
Journey is working its way in here a lot. How did we do that? Manifestation. Brought it up. Now, I opened the cap, and...

Caroline Adams 41:24
Right now, I'm gonna say is in every example it's in the end of the podcast, thank you for planting that. But really, the idea is that, you know, it really, those bad things are separate from yourself. And so stop short of second guessing whether you are cut out for this, or whether this is the right thing. If this is what you want, it's absolutely the right thing. And you have all the tools and skills that you need to get there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:53
This is an interesting one. As you and I were talking about this concept earlier, we were sharing stories actually back and forth. And it seems like this one is partially about your, like, how you want to be perceived. And that idea of that type of perfectionism and making sure that you are perceived well influencing how you feel about something which ends up, in many cases, stopping you from ever pursuing something in the first place. Or you might start and then have that difference in how I want to be perceived versus how you thought you were perceived. And then that stops you from continuing and actually great, really recent example of this for me, and I feel... since we run a self development company, helping people with their careers in their lives, I feel very, very obligated, this is my built in steaks to some degree to keep me going, but I feel very obligated and I want to continue to practice this. And we'll talk a little bit about that part, too. But it seems like this pieces is relevant to I thought that on our recent podcast that just came out not that long ago, number 224. Where we recorded live from South by Southwest, that's the first time I've ever recorded a podcast live at an event or a festival or anything else like that. It was horrifically uncomfortable for me, even though I've spoken many times publicly and all that other stuff, it was a different experience. And when I look back, I actually thought it was... I thought it was really, really bad. The interview. I thought it was really, really bad. That's how I felt on stage. Because I wanted it to be at a certain level. And I was holding that level of perfectionism and then when I went listen backwards, it's like, oh, actually, it was pretty good. It was not bad at all, by any means. And in fact, the areas where I thought I did well, I probably could have improved much more. So it creates that disparity, too, which causes you to not move forward.

Caroline Adams 43:54
Yeah, I think that's a great example. And that comes up with people a lot with creativity to other parallel I see there. And in my own experience, when I'm putting something out there, when I'm writing a blog post and something that I'm really, really excited about, I think it's the most clever idea ever crickets, I hear nothing that converse well. I'll put something out there that I just feel like it's so dry and boring. And that's where I get the most feedback, like, "Oh my goodness, you're in my head. I, you know, how did you channel my thinking?" So I think both of those examples in your podcast experience and, you know, with my creative writing experience, you can just see how our minds work against us and put us in that spot, especially when I think your example illustrated, really, I was gonna say perfectly, it's really this idea that when we're comfortable and we're in that bubble of we've achieved a certain amount of success and, you know, this is what we do and I'm known for my podcast and, you know, I've gotten a lot of accolades and positive feedback on my podcast. And then... and I want to uphold that ideal, I want to do really well in the same space. And you work through it beautifully, because you went out there and did that, and we're happily surprised. And I think the other important piece of that is being uncomfortable, and your willingness to be in that uncomfortable spot, you could have totally stayed in that safe place of, I'm going to be in the studio, I'm going to make sure that I know exactly what happens and...

Scott Anthony Barlow 45:35
Very controlled.

Caroline Adams 45:36
Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 45:37
I get to control exactly what's going on, when I'm in my own studio, and with my own equipment, and everything else like that.

Caroline Adams 45:44
Exactly. And you put yourself into this environment where anything could have happened, right, because it was not only live, but it was in this totally new environment with new people and, you know, much different scenario. And I think that's a great lesson for people because oftentimes, we're trying to avoid pain. And even given a lot of examples about how to make things less painful, right? Sometimes it's about leaning into that pain, and finding a way to say, "Alright, I'm just going to accept this because I know something beautiful and wonderful is going to come out of it" which doesn't mean you're going to enjoy it, you know, it doesn't mean that it's going to be a comfortable experience. But the end result is something that's totally gonna propel you forward.

Scott Anthony Barlow 46:33
And now, I mean, with a couple of those examples, with the podcast example here now, now I've done it, and it's truly not as big of a deal as I probably made it out to be in my mind. Oh, here's a funny story before we roll right into the next piece, too. So when I got the invite for that, from the company who was putting on the event express, well, I thought for half a second, like it went through my mind for half a second about like, "Oh, my goodness, that's gonna be really comfortable." And I started, like, working on excuses for why I couldn't do it, unintentionally, didn't actually recognize this for a few minutes until I walked into the other room, and I was talking to my son, and I was telling him, "Hey, I just got this email, kind of a cool opportunity." And he's like, "Dad, so are you gonna do it?" And I'm like, "Well, yeah, thinking about it." And he's like, "Well, why wouldn't you do it? It sounds like a great opport..." and my son's nine. Like, he just turn nine and everything like that. And that's actually what snapped me back to reality on this, and kind of, you know, punched it in the face for me. It was my nine year old saying, "Well, dad, obviously you have to do it. Like it's super cool. You've got to do that." And I was like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yes, yes."

Caroline Adams 47:45
Yeah, I love that. You just came up with the seventh, we haven't talked about a seventh. But another tool is, or your actual child, because it's from the mouth of babes, man, you know? Just say, "Well, why wouldn't you do this?" And I think because we've been through life for a certain number of years, or we talk ourselves out of things, whereas our nine year old, "Why wouldn't you do that? That's such a cool opportunity."

Scott Anthony Barlow 48:12
I love that. Adding it to the list, "why wouldn't you do this?" as the reminder question. So we started talking about one of these here, which was number six. And our conversations set us right up to roll into number six.

Caroline Adams 48:27
So you've probably detected a theme here with all of these, which is, it's about showing up and doing the work. And the real momentum that you gain with the creation of a habit. So standing on the sidelines, because you fear imperfection will net you nothing. So this is about going out and doing the thing because doing the thing is going to make you better. That's where we get practice makes possible, there's no way you're going to get your dream job if you don't try. And I'd like to say better to go for imperfect action, rather than perfect stagnation. And to illustrate this, I was actually talking to a CCB student the other day, and we're talking about establishing one of the things we do in CCB, which I think is really great, is really help people get on a schedule to go through the coursework and to have that way. And so he was comparing it to his recent experience with going back to the gym, and he's actually lost a ton of weight and gotten in great shape. And so he was talking about that snowball of good decisions, just made that up.

Scott Anthony Barlow 49:36
Love it. Like, that is a quote that is getting tweeted later.

Caroline Adams 49:39
The decision snowball that builds when you set your intention to do something like just going to the gym every day or just working on your career every day. So to use the gym analogy, like you start going to bed earlier because you have to get up in the gym, to go to the gym in the morning or you forego that extra slice of pizza because, you know, you're just gonna have have to work that much harder to burn off all those calories.

Scott Anthony Barlow 50:03
That's painful at the gym, too, like...

Caroline Adams 50:05
It's painful, yes. Why would you make it harder on yourself? So it just all of these decisions start to snowball, if you will. And it just kicks off this whole cascade of decisions that set you up for success even beyond going to the gym or doing the thing that you originally set out to do. Practice makes possible. So that's the key there. And if I can share a little bit, a little story, actually, since we're sharing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 50:31
We've been sharing already, so please do.

Caroline Adams 50:34
Yeah, so let me share a story that, actually, it wasn't that comfortable. So I think it's a pretty good fit here to share with folks the idea that we're trying to illustrate. So last summer, in researching topics for my own podcast that I will do at some point, I promise, I set out to interview 15 women. And it ended up interviewing, I ended up interviewing more than 40 women, but it didn't start there. So in those first, you know, it started with one conversation, and then two, and then three. And in those first few conversations, I was so uncomfortable. I had a lot of anxiety before the conversations in the conversations, like, you know, I had my script of questions, and I was just really trying to get through those interviews, I probably wasn't listening as well as I could have listened to what they were actually saying. If they didn't answer my questions, I didn't, you know, circle back and, you know, follow up on those questions. I think at deep, I was just getting through it. But as the conversations went on, as I talked to more and more people, I practiced, I got better, I got out of my own head, I started listening better and tailoring the conversations to actually what they were saying. And so some really cool things ended up coming out of that. So first of all, I got a lot better at interviewing. And so that might be a helpful skill if you want to do a podcast. Another thing that came out of it, which was totally unexpected was now I know 40 amazing women. And some of those women have become clients, actually. One woman I'm about to connect with a current student in CCB for them to talk about their various career paths. It's super cool, right? And it's just the gift that keeps on giving. But these 40 women, I did not know most of them. And even the ones that I was kind of connected to, it was a very weak tie. So which is very similar to what a lot of CCB students have to do in the beginning as they start to experiment and test out their theories of, you know, where they think they want to work. And so it's just this amazing experience. And I think it speaks to the value of all these amazing opportunities that appear just by simple, the simple fact that I got out there, I got started, and I did the work. And it was definitely not smooth, it was definitely not comfortable, all the conversations didn't go exactly the way I wanted to go or even close, but it totally exceeded my expectations. And actually part of it, I should say is, anyone who's accomplished something that they really don't want to do, right, there's a real rush that you get from just doing the thing, like, if you think of running a marathon, right, you know, maybe some people are going for a certain time... for me, I would just want to finish. I would just want to get across the finish line, by any means necessary even if I had to crawl. And so I think with whatever it is that you're going for in your career, whatever that thing is that feels uncomfortable or is going to make you stretch, just by simple, the simple process of actually doing the work, it's gonna feel amazing, because you've overcome that hurdle in your own life, regardless of how it turns out. So I think that's another added benefit. And so just to tie it all up, a lot of stories we hear from CCB, this happens all the time. So people will reach out to someone that they don't know, just to gather information, just to do their research. And either on the first contact or somewhere along the line, the person will say, "Hey, we actually have this job posting, it's not even up on the board yet. I immediately thought of you knowing what I know of your background". And this sort of thing happens all the time. And the point is that you can't be open to that opportunity and you can't be in front of that opportunity when it comes if you don't start, if you don't put in yourself in the situation to reach out to that person in the first place. So practice makes possible.

Scott Anthony Barlow 54:56
It's really interesting in terms of listening to those couple of stories here. Because it really is about changing your threshold. And like every one of those hard decisions or hard actions, allows you to get to a different place and practicing putting yourself in those hard situations, or uncomfortable situations, like, you making those phone calls and talk, having those conversations and everything that went along with it. Now, next time you think about that, it is less difficult. And there is less of a challenge, because you went through and you intentionally practice that. Geez, my wife and I just had a conversation this morning. One of... this last year, actually, we didn't... we always set goals, we sit down on, typically it's on the... we'll do a little bit of goal planning in November, the previous year, and then we'll set down to like finalize goals on January 1. And that's something we've done the last few years. And we didn't hit one of our financial goals this year. And as we were talking about it, we realized, you know, really, if we trace it back, like a few things underneath the surface, it really had to do with us not continuously getting outside of our comfort zone in that particular area. And we realize that, "hey, guess what, we're probably not going to hit it this year, if we don't intentionally practice getting outside our comfort zone in that area." Because generally, our goals and the things that we want to accomplish, have something to do with something that we've never done before, which means that we're going to have to go through a period of discomfort. And if we're not doing that intentionally and make it easier to go through that period of discomfort, whatever that is, because it's a skill set in itself to practice just that thing. Right? Then it probably isn't going to be possible. Yeah. Okay, so let's really, all of these have a couple of things in common. Everything that we've talked about so far, have a couple of things in common here. So let's pull it together here, because it really seems like every single one of these is about enabling you to take those actions, enabling you to get motion. I remember way back when we had Richie Norton on, who's the author of "The Power of Starting Something Stupid". And it's been a while ago, but he... this always stuck out in my mind. He said, you know, "Magic happens with motion." And it really does. Nothing happens without motion, nothing happens without taking fairly big steps, even if those big steps are broken up into really teeny tiny ones along the way, like we talked about. So I definitely see that running through the metal. What else would you say is the main theme for all of these here? What would you add?

Caroline Adams 58:07
Yeah, I think taking steps. And I'm so glad you worked magic in there, because I feel like we should mention magic in every single podcast if at all possible. But yes, certainly taking steps. I think, as you were sharing that story about you and your wife, you mentioned the word intention, and so I think intention is really important, because you have to decide, at some point, you have to decide whether it's taking a step, whether it is agreeing that it's uncomfortable, but you're going to go through it anyway. I think that's another important component. I think those are the two, I'm just looking back through them. Oh, and then I think it's... what are you making it mean? And so not making the thing more than just the thing. I think that the biggest thing and we shared some examples before about how our brains just really work against us, not our friends. I don't know about your brain, but my brain sure sometimes it feels like it's working against me, but...

Scott Anthony Barlow 59:14
Oh, mine's worse, Caroline. Like, I think my brain does not do that. So I don't even see when it happens at all, like, and I'm convinced that "Oh, I've beaten it. I have absolutely beaten it." But whatever it is, at the time, it doesn't even matter. A lot of times I totally don't even see it, the perfectionism at all.

Caroline Adams 59:41
Yeah, sometimes when I'm working with folks who have done a lot on their personal development journey, right? So they read all the books, they meditate, whatever, they sing Kumbaya, they've really done a lot of work already on understanding themselves. You know, when we'll come across topics like this, they'll say,"Yeah. I know that already." And I think we, as coaches, and anyone who's in that space where they've done a lot of the work, I think we can fall into that trap of, you know, I don't need to work on this anymore. And as we know, that's a huge pitfall, because of course, we all need to work on ourselves all the time. So I think that's interesting what you just said there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 1:00:32
It's not like riding a bike, as it turns out, and as soon as you stop practicing this stuff, or stop working on it, then it goes away, too, or it becomes more difficult. And so yeah, I really appreciate that synopsis and thank you for making the time again, this is number two, again, you know, I said earlier, but go back if you haven't already, listen to Caroline's story and her career change story in Episode 120, or excuse me, 223, we've done 200 plus episodes now over five years. So happentoyourcareer.com/223. And you'll be able to hear all about the changes that she made along the way and even some of the elements of perfectionism and everything there, too, that she's had to overcome. And I continue to work with, to our point, that we just made a little bit earlier. So thank you so much for making the time and taking the time. Appreciate it.

Caroline Adams 1:01:28
Thanks for having me, Scott. It was an absolute pleasure. I look forward to the next episode.

Scott Anthony Barlow 1:01:33
Hey, thanks so much for listening to the Happen To Your Career podcast. I really, really appreciate it. And I appreciate you. 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.

Katie 1:01:54
And the thing is, though, is that I've told the owner, that idiot boss and one of the managers saying, "I'm bored. How can I help? Give me something to do." and nothing's happened. So I verbalize with them. Essentially, like I'm not happy. I'm bored. I'm not challenged and I've gotten nothing to work.

Scott Anthony Barlow 1:02:12
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. All right. I am out! Adios.

Benjamin Hardy 00:02
It's not confidence that create success, but it's success that creates confidence. You know, that breakthrough probably could have been, should have happened six months ago, and where could he be, but also, had I not been there, that breakthrough still wouldn't have happened.

Introduction 00:19
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 00:43
When you're doing something hard, like training for a half marathon or trying to lose 50 pounds, or get rid of a bunch of debt or change careers, it turns out willpower isn't enough. We know it's not, a lot of us know it's not, but most of us still don't know what helps instead when you're making a really big life change, or you're chasing down a goal.

Benjamin Hardy 01:05
Whether you're pursuing your dreams or whether you're pursuing mediocrity, it's actually just as challenging.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:12
That's Benjamin Hardy.

Benjamin Hardy 01:13
I am a writer, PhD student, and I run an online course. I'm a foster parent, just adopted our kids actually. So parent, and just love learning and writing and sharing and teaching.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:28
He's been studying why some people reach their version of success and why others never ever make it even though they want to. In fact, he just wrote a book on the subject called "Willpower Doesn't Work". I was super curious about his experiences and his learnings with high performers intentionally putting themselves into difficult situations to experience growth. In fact, Ben experienced this himself when he and his wife had adopted three kids. How long of a process was that for you?

Benjamin Hardy 01:55
For us it was heinous. It was over three years. Yeah, it's painful and expensive. So...

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:02
Yes, that is what I've heard from other people that have adopted in any capacity.

Benjamin Hardy 02:06
Yeah, it was rough. But, you know, we're good. I mean, we did it through the foster system, you know, so that's kind of it. It was intense.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:15
Intense sounds right. But I guess most things that are worth doing are intense to some degree.

Benjamin Hardy 02:21
Yeah. But I definitely recommend it, man. I definitely recommend it. Oh, yeah. I have no regrets about it. Without question.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:27
So everybody that I've talked to, that has adopted, says that, but I'm curious, why that is for you?

Benjamin Hardy 02:32
I mean, you don't regret the things that are the most meaningful in your life. You know what I mean? When you take a kid in your life, and you start to invest huge in them, and you start to see yourself as their parent, and you start to see them change, and you start to watch yourself become more caring, and loving, and you just become a better person, you start to kind of realize that a lot of the other stuff that you're pursuing doesn't matter that much. So I mean, it's the most fundamental thing. I mean, all this stuff is fun. I love being on the podcast, I love writing, I think I get a lot of meaning, and I think a lot of people get a lot of use from my writing. But being a foster parent of these kids was a lot of what inspired me to do what I've done. So you know, I don't think I'd be where I'm at had I not done it, you know, and I would give up everything I've got to be these kids' parents at this point. So to me, there's no regrets at all. It's more in line with my value system. So, you know, I'm not thinking about all the things I could have done and the time spent. I forget who said it, I think it was Peter Diamandis, he didn't say "either or", but "both", you know, and so I think you can have a successful career and you can have a great family. And that's kind of the life I've chosen. I would choose the family over the career if I had to.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:36
What would you say is the hardest thing about adopting?

Benjamin Hardy 03:39
Yeah, no. I mean, it really wasn't the adoption component that was the hard part. I mean, we wanted to adopt for a long time. For me, it was just becoming a foster parent in the first place. It was early in 2015, it was actually January of 2015, that we got the first two children. So there was a three year old and a five year old, they were siblings, and they were rough. They came from a horrible environment. Their parents had totally neglected them. They didn't go to school, they just had horrible manners, a long laundry list of psychological diagnoses. A young girl who had anger issues, she throw and break stuff, and we just couldn't control these kids. We found out that they had a seven year old fully blood brother who was in a group home. We found out about him a couple months later, and we decided felt inspired that we wanted to get him as well. And so for the first several months of being a foster parent, I was in my first year of a Ph. D. program, so I was avoiding being home. Honestly, it was just not fun. And the kids didn't love me, I didn't really love them. There was no mutual respect or connection. And, you know, the challenge with kids who come from this level of trauma because not only did they not have any foundation because of their home environment, but then they got ripped out of their home environment, no matter where you come from, there's an enormous amount of confusion and loss. Oh, yeah. And so we had to overcome ourselves, you know, you can't just get angry and upset, you know, with these kids. I'm a huge fan of Dr. Gabor Maté's work. And he talks a lot about how you can't change a person through judgment and through criticism only through compassion. And he talks a lot about addiction specifically, and he says, "You can't help someone through judging them, you have to have compassion for them." And Joe Polish, who's a mentor and a friend of mine, he owns Genius Network, which is mastermind of a part of, he talks a lot about how you can't punish the pain out of people. He's specifically talking about addicts. But I think that's true of all people, you know, especially anyone with suppressed pain and trauma, you can't punish the pain out of them. And a person is as sick as their secrets. So what happens is, when a person goes through a traumatic experience, they usually isolate themselves, and they seek to withdraw whether or not anyone in pain. Yeah, I mean, if you think about all of us. So in the book, "The Body Keeps the Score", which is one of the best books on trauma, he talks a lot about how we all have multiple personalities, most people in Western psychology think that we have one fixed and permanent personality, the truth is, we have multiple, there's certain areas of your life that are well developed, and there's certain sides of you that are completely underdeveloped, and that have been halted or frozen, based on some pain or trauma. And when that side of you is triggered, then you start to cope in unhealthy ways, whether that's eating, technology, some way to distract yourself from the pain, or the thoughts or the emotions, the feelings. And so basically, you know, with being these kids foster parents for a while, you have to get to a point where you let go of your own frustrations with their horrible behavior. And you've got to figure out how to love them and be patient with them and sit with them through their terribleness. And that took a lot of time.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:42
I'm sure that was an understatement.

Benjamin Hardy 06:44
Yeah, it was rough. You know what I mean? It was, I mean, this is an example– these kids didn't know how to put themselves to bed because their parents gave them cough syrup to go to bed every night. You know what I mean, just put them in front of a TV and they would just doze themselves off, whenever they were fried. They didn't actually know how to just put themselves to bed in a healthy way. And so we had to spend at least six months with each child, laying with them, helping them through the process of literally putting themselves to bed. And that was not easy. And the kids naturally are a lot more inclined to my wife, Lauren, than they were to me, probably just because she's a lot more nurturing, caring, loving, as a person, you know, I think they could sense that I didn't love them. And I didn't for a long time. And so they were very resistant toward me for a while. And so that made even trying to help them even more difficult. But yeah, I mean, over time, you just get to the point where, you know, you start to love them more and more. And we started to fight in court for the kids and try to adopt them. And the court case was really complicated. But in the end, we ended up having to fight in court for a long time. And ultimately, laws had to be changed in the state of South Carolina for us to be able to adopt them. We have an amazing attorney, his name's Dale Dove. And he's represented foster parents trying to adopt for years. And he's taken a lot of cases to the Supreme Court. And one of his cases finally kind of finalized in January of this year, and it changed the laws in the state, allowing foster parents the right to proactively seek adoption, if the parents rights have been terminated. And so after that happened, the legal system saw us as having more rights than they saw us having before. And so almost immediately after that happened, we were granted adoption, which happened actually, very suddenly, just the laws changed, we went to court, and they just said, "Alright, you can have the three kids and..."

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:27
Here you go.

Benjamin Hardy 08:28
Yeah, it was really interesting. So at this point, we're still kind of getting used to it, the kids had to have their final visit with their parents, which obviously was traumatic saying goodbye. And then even though we've had them for three years, we have to, like, readjust to what it means to have this be a permanent family. So there's a lot. What I've told other people is that, having kids especially like this– and it's one of the concepts I talked about big and willpower doesn't work– is that it's so much better to learn on the spot in a really demanding environment, in a tough situation where you're forced to figure things out, forced to adapt, forced to learn. And that's so much better than kind of a non consequential situation where you can kind of learn in an apathetic or in a passive way, like we had to learn in a very active way and there was huge consequences for ourselves, for these kids. And just as kind of one story, even just like two weeks ago, these kids still have problems and they're probably gonna have challenges their whole life as a result of this, but the 10 year old boy and he was 7 when we got him, his name's Caleb, he still has a lot of learned helplessness when it comes to learning. When we got him, he was probably two years behind, he was like in the fifth percentile but he's a smart kid, he just never was given attention and help. He's actually advanced insanely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:43
Smart but not developed.

Benjamin Hardy 09:44
Yeah, as a product of a bad environment.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:46
Yeah, absolutely.

Benjamin Hardy 09:47
And so anyways, he's still sometimes hits these walls where I think he's got this like fixed mindset where as soon as an obstacle comes, he just zones into his learned helplessness but we're trying to get him to write in his journal more because his teachers, we have him at Montessori school, we've got all three of them in Montessori, which is awesome for them. But they're saying that his writing is still way behind. That's one thing he avoids. So we're trying to get him to start writing in his journal, and we give him a topic. And a few nights, it was probably a week or two ago, at this point, probably two weeks, he was sitting there trying to write in his journal, and we gave him the topic of just writing about the seven months he was in the group home. And he had only written about two or three sentences. And then he just said, "I can't remember anything else." And I was kind of just sitting there, and I was kind of in proximity to him, I was sitting next to him, but I was kind of just zoned out whether on my phone or something, just while he was writing. And he kept just complaining, saying, "I can't think of anything else." And I'm just like, "Alright, Caleb. Like, you were there for seven months, like, what kind of food did you eat? Like, who are the kids there?" He's like, "I don't remember anyone that was there." I'm like, "What kind of stuff did you do? Like, what did you like about it? What did you not like? What were some of the activities you did?" He just, like, "I can't remember any of it." And he's just start crying and just coming up with any excuse to not do it. One of the challenges, I think, with kind of like, a willpower approach to growth is, like, when a parent just says, like, "You just need to do this." And for me, the opposite of willpower is connection, just like the opposite of addiction is connection. So like, rather than trying to force this kid to do something, and staying aside and staying withdrawn, it's like I needed to connect to him, I needed to sit, help him have a break through. So I put my phone down, we walked over the table, I pulled out my journal, and I just sat with him for like 30 minutes and really, like tried to help him and he needed a little help getting through those first few sentences. I had to help him more than I wanted to get through a couple sentences, but eventually he started to kind of just get a little confidence. You know, there's a lot of research that says, "It's not confidence that create success, but it's success that creates confidence." Little wins move you forward. And so, like, I helped him get a few little wins, helped him get a few sentences, and I was sitting there with him fully engaged. And eventually he started writing. And he just started writing, and 30 minutes later, he had a full page done. And he was so excited. And he did something he didn't think he could do, he did something hard, and I was there to help him have that breakthrough. And ever since then he's been able to write easily a page a day. And that's kind of what he needs to do to get better at writing. But that experience showed me a lot of things. One, it showed me that I've spent a lot of time away lately, trying to do this book launch, trying to build my career, and I realized how many opportunities I've probably missed. And like the fact that, you know, that breakthrough probably could have been, should have happened six months ago, and where could he be, but also, had I not been there, that breakthrough still wouldn't have happened, you know, and he would still be blocked in. So it just shows the power of environment and connection and people. And it made me really, ultimately grateful that I have this situation around me that it forces me, it's like, what I call it as a personal development hub. Being a parent of these kids, like every day, my home environment challenges me to be more present, figure out how to help these people. So that was a really long way of kind of sharing what I've gotten out of this experience.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:47
Well, let me ask you a couple questions about that. First of all, everything about it, in some way, is traumatic. So I'm curious, as you're very much into personal development, very much into psychology, so I'm curious, what you feel the opportunities are here for yourself, and for the kids to experience post traumatic growth? And, as you said, that built in hub, to some degree, where you've got the force discomfort, force development and a lot of other, what can seem on the surface undesirable situations, but I also think are continually forcing you and them to grow as human beings too. But I'm curious, from your perspective, what do you really see as the overall opportunities to take these traumatic situations, potentially traumatic situations, very traumatic situations, in some cases, and experience that growth from it?

Benjamin Hardy 13:39
Yeah, I mean, one of my favorite quotes, and it's actually a poem. The poem is by Douglas Malloch. And I actually have kind of like engraving of this on the wall in my house, but it's, "Good timber does not grow with ease, the stronger wind, the stronger trees, the further sky, the greater length, the more the storm, the more the strength, by sun and cold by rain and snow and trees and men good timbers grow." And so it's kind of the idea that, if you look at trees, the ones that are really strong are strong because of the environment around them. Whether it's rough terrain and stuff, they've got to shoot for deep roots, they've got to like, you know, evolved to have intense park, whatever it is, like trees that are in easy conditions can easily be blown over. And so for me, it's very desirable. And there's a high level of meaning, you know, from a philosophical perspective, it's the difference between what people would call "hedonistic perspective" versus "eudaimonic". The hedonistic perspective is to avoid pain and to seek pleasure which is really what sadly most of psychology, even positive psychology is rooted in. I talked about that a little bit in the book, it’s just, most people think that only positive emotions are what create positive outcomes. And from a eudaimonic perspective, which is a lot more in line with things like, you know, religion or things like stoicism, things like that. Usually, it's the most challenging things that lead to the greatest growth, which, when you say it, it seems so obvious, but most people, you know, are buying into this hedonistic perspective, which is to avoid pain. And in my opinion, that's what suppresses it. That's what keeps you stuck and frozen. And so for me, it's not like, well, one of the things I've recently had a big epiphany on, I recently reread "The Alchemist" and at the beginning of the book, the boy in the book– I don't know if you've read it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:18
I haven't read "The Alchemist", I've had recommended to me a number of times, and I haven't moved it up far enough on my priority list to read it yet. So...

Benjamin Hardy 15:27
It's such a short book. Oh, yeah. It's like probably a two hour read if you listen to it on an audio book.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:32
Oh, perfect.

Benjamin Hardy 15:32
But in the beginning of the book, there's this boy who wants to be a shepherd, and he wants to go out and travel the world. And his father's trying to convince him not to do it. And ultimately, kind of the point that his father actually had always wanted to travel the world as well, but he ended up living his life struggling day to day just to kind of stay where he was. And kind of the big concept is, whether you're pursuing your dreams, or whether you're pursuing mediocrity, it's actually just as challenging. It's not easy to not pursue your dreams. It's not easy to just live day to day, like you still have to get up, go to work, you still have to make a living, you still have to grind through the day. It's never easy. It's always a struggle, whichever path you choose. But one path actually makes, it's a difference between paying rent versus investing big. Either way, you've got to like, pay rent, or you either way you got to pay for where you live. But the difference between one is that you're continually advancing forward versus the other one where you're just kind of staying stuck.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:28
So let me ask you about that really quick, because I fully believe that to be true, and that's what I have experienced, but I'm not sure that everybody really understands the difference between that, in terms of, they are different, both are hard. But what is the difference between hardness if you will? I'm making up words here.

Benjamin Hardy 16:49
Yeah, I mean, I think obviously, the hardness of not doing what you believe you should is primarily internal conflict and regret. You know, I mean, you've got this conflict, this belief of what could have been, what should have been, whereas when you're advancing forward, obviously, there's lots of highs and lows– you go through big wins, you go through big failures. I mean, even myself, yesterday, I wrote an article about failure. And it's doing extremely well on medium right now, actually. But I invested almost everything, like literally, I over invested myself in the book launch that just occurred for "Willpower Doesn't Work." And it didn't end up hitting the New York Times list, it hit none of the lists, even though it had the numbers because of a few of the mistakes I made. But I don't really regret having almost invested, like, literally, I made a bunch of money and invested all of it into this launch, freaked my wife out, and I look back, and I learned a lot, I'm not going to make the same mistakes again, but I don't regret it. And I've learned a ton and advanced and a lot of ways as the process of going through this huge failure. And a lot of people would not consider it a failure. To me, it was a huge failure. And I think one of the beauties of failure is that it kind of wakes you up, especially like, if you fail in such a way that, I'm kind of thinking about the movie, The Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith. I don't know if you've seen that one.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:02
I have.

Benjamin Hardy 18:03
You know, where he's sitting in the bathroom, like with his kid laying on the ground, and he's crying. Anyway, and he's just, like, hit rock bottom. I think that feeling where you have to like figure things out, or else, like there's big consequences for you and your loved ones. And it's not, like, people talk about failure, I published 20 blogs, and no one saw them. And I think the failure that I'm talking about is where you really put everything into it, and if you don't figure something out, like you might be on the streets. Obviously, that most people they've got family and stuff to support, but I think feeling that pain, and that you never want to feel what you feel again, and then just obviously the big wins and learning from other people. So I think that the difference of pain is different when you're growing. But in my opinion, you're happiest when you're growing. And even when you're losing along the way, you're being congruent with yourself, and you're figuring things out and you're living in alignment. So I think that that's kind of the big difference– it's either you're in alignment, even if you don't necessarily know where you're going. It's kind of like when the "why" is strong enough, you'll figure out "how" but the opposite is just the pain of never really being in your power because you're never fully aligned with yourself. And so all of your relationships are kind of weak, and you're, kind of, you're unhealthy mentally, physically, spiritually relationally like everything in your life is kind of not really that real, even if life seems okay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:21
You know what, I have done it both ways. And that's how we ended up with this show. And that's how we ended up with this company and everything else, experiencing it on both sides. I think actually, in some ways, even though it's harder, at least for me as a person, it's much harder, it's more intense work, it's harder in some ways, I feel much more at peace, probably is the best way to put it. I'm struggling for words a bit in order to describe it. But when you're putting everything into something, and even if you're going through the roller coaster of it being the success and less success or book launch failures or whatever it might be in anybody's world, it still feels easier in some ways. It still feels more, and I think it is that alignment that you're talking about.

Benjamin Hardy 20:08
Yeah, no. I'm with you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:09
Yeah. Well, let me ask you another question. Let's go back to the Will Smith situation for just a second here. So not everybody necessarily is forced to figure things out. Not everybody is in that situation where they absolutely have to, or else, essentially. And I've become fascinated over the last few years with the idea of creating those stakes or creating those situations to essentially force you without having to hit rock bottom or without having to have that and reproduce that potential situation. So one of the things that you mentioned in the book is talking about how to proactively shape your environment for success. And you talk about the concept of creating layers of accountability. So one, curious if you can define that a little bit and how you think about that. And also explain a little bit about how people can get started doing that.

Benjamin Hardy 21:02
Yeah, absolutely. So there's a quote, I put in the beginning of the book, and it's from William Durant, the historian, and he basically says that, "Genius is basically a product of rising up to a demanding situation, and that the ability of the average person could be doubled if their situation demanded it." And so there's an idea in psychology called the Pygmalion effect, where basically, a person rises up or falls to the expectations of those around them. And then it just dovetails into the quote from Jim Rohn, that "you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with." So basically, this whole idea of creating situations that demand you to rise up. In the book, I call them, "enriched environments", you know, either you have an enriched environment of high stress, and then you've got one of high recovery. And in order to be in an enriched environment, you must be fully engaged, fully absorbed in what you're doing, non distracted. And in order for that to happen in a high stress environment, or high stakes environment, there's got to be some form of accountability for what you do. I actually quoted the book, "The Millionaire Next Door", where the two researchers, they did all this huge scale study. And they found that the people who are most affluent and successful are the ones with the most courage. And those with courage are the ones that get paid based on performance, it's incentive based. If they don't show up and don't produce results, they don't get paid, whether you're a CEO, or an entrepreneur, or just someone who gets paid based on the work you do. So in the book, I also talked about commitment about what commitment is, and in order to actually have true commitment, you're not relying on willpower, you're not just relying on your own internal strength, but you're actually true commitment involves creating external defense systems around your goal or around your commitment, you have to create conditions that make your goal happen. So if you're really committed to something, you're willing to do whatever it takes to make that thing happen. Part one would be removing everything in your environment that actually conflicts with that commitment. Part two would be, I think, embedding several layers of accountability around it to ensure that you're there. You want other people invested in you, and in your results as well, you know, whether that's hiring a personal trainer, or whether that's being in competition with someone, or whether that's investing in mentorships, or other types of relationships. If you don't have someone that's accounting, that is also counting on you to produce results, and who is continually following up with you and checking in with you and who's calling you out when you're not showing up, if you don't have those types of people or situations in your environment, then you're probably not moving forward as much as you can, you know, it's just an example. Like, my book didn't do what I wanted it to do. And I was on the phone with my agent today talking about it, you know, and talking about what we need to do next, like, I'm very accountable to her, she's accountable to me, I'm accountable to my publisher, like, that's kind of just the situation I've put myself in, I'm also accountable to my wife and kids, you know, and like, I have 750 clients who are in a course of mine, that if I don't show up and create stuff every week, like, literally lose everything. And so I think that it's just one of the things that they talked about that's a flow trigger, is that you get feedback immediately based on your performance. And in the book, I talked about context based learning, which is more real world style learning, where you get immediate feedback on your performance, then you get coaching, and you'll get help to kind of show you where you went wrong and how you can quickly course correct.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:18
So hold on. Let me ask you about that for just a second. Because I mean, I get that and the example that you provided in terms of, we've created a lot of courses and a lot of programs over the years and things like that. In those situations, it's relatively easy to be able to force to show up and get feedback and get contacts and everything else. But what's a different example of that for somebody who is in a different situation that is not necessarily an entrepreneur or author or something else? What can somebody do in their everyday lives?

Benjamin Hardy 24:48
Yeah, I'm just thinking about like any person, you know, whose job is not highly demanding, and whose life isn't forcing them to kind of show up, which I would say, is most people actually. Most people don't have an enriched environment. Their work isn't requiring them to show up every single day and show up. They still have to come and they've got to do their job, but it's okay if they spend half their time distracted either on their phone or on the internet, like, and then at home, you know, they're pre distracted as well, they never actually fully rest and recover, they don't prioritize, like weeks off or focus days or just being home. But I think that the first thing that I talked about in the book to kind of creating these things is to start investing in something. You know, like, you have to proactively seek the changes you want, and one of the best ways to get increased commitment is to start investing actual money into whatever it is you're trying to develop. So you could still stay in your job, but if on the side, you know, you're investing in advancing your education or skills, or even if you're seeking greater responsibility, or even if you have projects assigned to you, and you're telling your manager, whoever it is, that you'll have them to them at a sooner date, you know, you're setting shorter timelines to kind of create a little bit of external pressure. Or if you're asking how you can get paid in an incentive based way. And one of the things that Greg McKeown talks about in `Essentialism` is actually having conversations with your superiors about the types of projects you think you should be working on. And telling them, actually, like, trying to set up the conditions in your workspace where you're working in the way you want to, where you're working on what you want to, and setting up the expectation that they're not just going to throw stuff at you, but they're going to actually give you stuff that's meaningful, because you're expected to show up. And so I think some situations literally will never allow for it, you know, like some jobs are just, you just have to show up. I mean, you can try to, like, rise your way up the ladder, but the world is becoming more freelancer based and entrepreneurial. And so the sooner that more people kind of recognize that fact, and I think a lot of the people who are listening to this show probably already kind of have inclinations that they want to do more and be more, it doesn't mean they can't work for someone else. But the best thing you can do is put yourself in a situation where you're trying things you've never done before, where you're forced to adapt and learn things. And the truth is just a lot of jobs can't allow for that. Some jobs will, if you start showing up more proactive, if you ask for more opportunities, if you start actually producing a result faster, and showing up and then asking for more responsibility. I don't really have a clear cut answer, sadly, I'm just thinking about your environment. That's what mindfulness actually is, it's just being aware of the context and being aware of how you're showing up in that environment. And if your job's not demanding a lot of you right now, you know, or if your life isn't, "how can you make that?" So, I mean, what can you remove that's kind of keeping you stuck? And how can you take on greater responsibility with what you've currently got? Go have a conversation with your boss and tell them that you're not being challenged. Tell them you either want different or harder or more different, whatever it is, work, or start pursuing something on the side, you know, if you've got some side project that you want to do, start investing in those skills and abilities, start investing in whatever it is you "really want to be doing" once you get invested, you become committed, it's this idea of sunk cost bias where, once you have ownership over something, you start to wrap your identity around it, and that can often be a negative thing. But I also think it's a very positive thing if you're intentional about it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:14
The sunk cost bias. I want to go back to that for just a second. Because I think that is so fascinating by itself. Because in reality, logically, if you're talking to an economist, or somebody who is not looking at the emotional side of it at all, then sunk costs really don't matter that much. But it doesn't feel that way, in any way whatsoever. So I love some of the things that you have talked about, and I've leveraged this heavily over the last 10 years. When you have sunk cost, you feel some kind of obligation. I don't know if that's the right word for it, necessarily, but you definitely feel something and you can leverage that to your advantage. And I'm super curious, what you recommend for people that are... most of the people that are listening right now are in the place where they want to make a change. And a lot of times what is stopping them is the perception of time, the perception of what it's actually going to take to be able to make the type of change that they desire, change from one career to a completely different career, one career to start in the side hustle, lots of different things along those lines. But what would you recommend? How can they leverage that sunk cost bias?

Benjamin Hardy 29:27
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's precisely what I've been studying throughout my doctoral dissertation, or really my whole doctoral degree. I've studied the difference between wannabe entrepreneurs versus actual entrepreneurs, but really, I just defined it as dreamers versus doers– doesn't have to be in the entrepreneurial spirit, could be with anything. It's living a dream. What it's really, just doing what you want to do versus always kind of wondering if you're going to do it never actually acting and it really does go back to this concept of, once a person starts investing money into whatever it is they want to do– whether it's their health or whether it's mentorship or whether it's a relationship– once you start investing money in it, then you start to get more invested and it goes back to sunk cost idea. Another kind of way of describing it is escalation of commitment. But what's interesting is again, in my reading of "The Alchemists", the young boy in the story, he's trying to decide if he wants to go and kind of like, live out his life purpose, and he meets this African king. And so the boy already was told, and he already had this impression that he needs to go to the pyramids in Egypt, because that's where his "treasure" is, he needs to go there. And he meets this African king, and the African king says, "I will tell you where your treasure is, but it's going to cost you 1/10 of your flock", because this boy was a shepherd. And he had 60 sheep. And so the boy decided he would do it. So he gave the king six of his sheep, which was 1/10. And the king said, "Alright, so you've paid me 1/10 of your sheep. Now, I'll tell you where your treasure is, it's actually at the pyramids in Egypt. You already knew that, however, I had you pay me 1/10 of your sheep, so that you would make the decision." And it's just this idea of, there's something like really powerful in starting to invest, and there's different angles, whether it's donating to charity, or whether it's just investing money in your own skills and abilities or relationship, but once you start putting money towards causes that you believe in or towards skills or towards goals, you start to have this shift in identity, you start to be less, I guess the word would be scarcity minded, but you stop holding on so tightly to what you have, you start to have a healthy level of detachment, and you're willing to give up what you've got for what you want, and on a subconscious or psychological level. There's a really good book called "Letting Go" from Dr. David Hawkins. It's one of my favorite books. And one of the things he says in that book is, "the unconscious will allow you to have only what you believe you deserve." And so if you look at a person's life, generally, it's a product of their subconscious belief systems value standards, which are then conditioned over and over and over by their environment, because almost all behavior is subconscious. And it's all outsourced or triggered by the environment. And so the environment holds the person together. And in order to shatter your subconscious belief system, about what you can have, what you can be what you can do, or what you believe you deserve, once you start investing money in that thing, and once you start reshaping the context or the environment, your brain starts to sync up with that which is around you, I don't know the exact term, but in neuroscience, your brain is so plastic. And basically what it says is or the research says is that, your brain, like, syncs subconsciously with the brains of the other people around you. There's a really good book called "Spontaneous Evolution" all about the collective unconscious.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:44
You're expanding my book list by the minute here. I love this.

Benjamin Hardy 32:48
You know, I'm sorry, I'm going so many directions and trying to pull all this together. But I just think zoning this back in, once you start investing money in what you want to do, you become committed, and you start to reshape your identity around that thing. And you also expand your perspective of this whole scarcity versus abundance mentality. So there's a quote from the "One Minute Millionaire", which is a good book. But basically, the quote goes like this "Giving as you get acknowledges the universe as truly abundant. Giving taps into the spiritual dimension that multiplies us, our thinking and our results, there's an ocean of abundance, and one can tap into it with a teaspoon, a bucket or a tractor trailer, the ocean doesn't care. And so I think what happens when you start being less stringent about what you have, you're willing to give it but also you're willing to invest it, you have the ability to expand. And obviously, you need to be wise and intelligent about this. But from a very simple perspective, it just allows you to get committed this whole idea of sunk cost bias, once you start investing, you become committed, and you start to reshape your identity around that thing, you start going from seeing yourself as I want to do this thing to seeing yourself as "I'm doing this thing." And there's an idea in psychology called "Self Signaling", which basically means that how you define yourself is based on your behavior. So when you start changing your behavior, you start changing how you perceive yourself, which is really cool, because basically what it means is that it's not your personality that guides your behavior, but it's your behavior that creates and guide your personality. It's not your personality that determines who you are, it's what you do that determines what your personality is. So you're very fluid. You know, that's one of the ideas I tried to heavily convey in the book is that Western culture has very limiting and fixed views of what people are because they ignore context. And because you ignore context, you isolate variables, and you isolate people and you put them in a box and you say, "This is what you are. You've got this personality type. This is what we love. Like, we love that stuff. And we ignore context, we ignore environment." But once you actually recognize environment, which is really the definition of mindfulness, you realize that who you are in one situation is different from who you are in a different situation. And that once you start to create the context of the environment that you can actually design yourself, and that's really what Darwin said all along.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:02
In what way?

Benjamin Hardy 35:03
Well, he said that there's two types of evolution. He said, there's domestic evolution and then there's natural evolution. And natural evolution is the type of evolution that occurs out in nature when the environment shifts, the species within that environment respond to the shifts. And so it's reactive and unplanned process, whereas a domesticated style of evolution, is where you've specifically shaped external... can create external constraints or variables to seek a specific result. So if you want to have small mushrooms, for example, you've shaped the type of soil and the lighting and stuff like that or if you want a big mushroom, you'd have to change those variables. If you want a fast horse, you do X. If you want a big horse, you do Y. It's just this idea of shaping traits. And there's a really good book, another one called "Altered Traits", you know, the science of how to reshape your biology and psychology. That's kind of where neuroscience and epigenetics are going. But, and then I'll just kind of give this last quote, because probably, this was a big mess of ideas, but Marshall Goldsmith said in triggers, "You do not control your environment, your environment creates and controls you." So all of this is really just around the idea of when you start investing in yourself, you change your identity, you change your psychology, but you also change your environment.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:12
But here's what I absolutely love about it, and we went a lot of different places. And I really very much enjoyed, not just in the book, but our discussion, particularly about how you have control in a lot of places where people don't perceive that they have control, or at least you have influence if you do not have control. And your environment is one of the places that I see so often that people don't think they necessarily can influence it in the way that we're talking about here. And everything that you've discussed, is ways to be able to influence that. And I so appreciate that. And let's see if we can spread that message far and wide

Benjamin Hardy 36:54
Awesome, man. Well, I appreciate you having me on the show. And yeah, this has come at me differently today than, you know, it often does. But it was a lot more, kind of, fluid. But yeah, I mean, if you just look at what's around you, you have to realize that that's what's shaping you. What you put in your body food wise, what information you can see, what type of music you've listened to, what kind of people you listen, I mean, what kind of people you're around, like all of those things are outside of you. Everything, you are in an environment as we speak, wherever you are, whoever's listening to this, like you're in your car, you're at a house like that is influencing your inner world, you know, and so once you start to really think about that, you start to think, "Okay, if I shaped what's outside of me, then I shape what's inside of me. Then I shape who I am and who I become." And that's exactly what Winston Churchill said, he said, "we build our house, and then our house builds us."

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:41
I've never heard that quote. I've heard a lot of Winston Churchill quotes. I love that. That is fantastic.

Benjamin Hardy 37:46
Yeah. So I just think, in my opinion, that's kind of where freewill really comes in. It's not free will or determinism, it's not choice or environment, we all have the ability to make choices. But what you need to make the choice of is which environment is going to shape you because the environment will shape you. So you just need to make the choice, who do I want to become? And what environment will create that? That's kind of the essence of the book and how I've come to, kind of, portray it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:10
Well, the book is "Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success". And I so appreciate you sharing the messages that you are, I think there's something that needs to be spread far and wide. Because unfortunately, they are not yet popular belief. But that's why we have you on the show today. And that is what I'm so appreciative for you making the time and taking the time to come on and share them with us and our audience.

Benjamin Hardy 38:34
Oh, absolutely, Scott. This has been fun, man.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:36
Where can people find out either about you or where can people get the book?

Benjamin Hardy 38:42
Yeah. So, you can obviously get the book anywhere books are sold– Amazon, Barnes and Noble, independent bookstores. If you want to, you know, depending on when you hear this engage in a competition, right now you can just go to willpowerdoesntwork.com. And right now we've kind of tried to gamify the opportunity people have to learn this book. And basically what the competition is, you can sign up for free, but then you've got to buy the book, read the book, and then change your life in one of four categories, whether that's income, health, side project or addiction. And then by June 6th of 2018, you submit just a small, you know, essay, like, a page long of how you've transformed your life. And you've got to provide some evidence that you've actually done that. And the person who changes their life the most by June, will actually win a Tesla.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:30
You heard it here first. Win a Tesla. And that's not the most exciting part, any changes that are going to come from you making them in your life are probably much more beneficial than any Tesla but there's a Tesla too, so nothing wrong with that. Love it. Why not?

Benjamin Hardy 39:46
Yeah, why not? You know what I mean? No, it's about incentivizing it. But, yeah, so there's that going on. So just willpowerdoesntwork.com or if that's not interesting to you, just go grab the book, you know, anywhere on Amazon or Barnes, wherever.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:58
If you want more on using your environment to change your life, check out "Willpower Doesn't Work", or if you've been particularly struggling with perfectionism or the imposter syndrome, and those are holding you back, one of the things we consistently do with our students is help them create a plan for inevitable success, which involves stacking everything you can possibly get in your favor.

Speaker 2 40:21
The prospect of trying something new that, understandably, you might not be that good at, because you're a beginner, it's at best, really uncomfortable for us. And at worst, the fear of failure prevents us from even taking those steps.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:39
Join us next week right here on Happen To Your Career to learn how to take what we taught you today and use it to set yourself up so that you can't fail and you can move past perfectionism and imposter syndrome. See you next Monday, right here on Happen To Your Career. And by the way, if you're listening to this from the UK, we've actually set up a HTYC camp right now in the UK. Myself, Alyssa, my kids, we're actually living over here for about a month. We'd love to meet you and be able to get to know you if you're a listener of the podcast. If you're in the area, or even if you want us to come to your area, drop us an email at hello@happentoyourcareer.com and we can send you info on the events and meetups we've got going on in the UK or when we come to your area. Until then, head on over to happentoyourcareer.com/225 to download the transcript, see the steps that we talked about during this episode, like how to use sunk cost to your psychological advantage and sign up for all of our other free resources. All right, we'll see you next week. Adios. I'm out.

Scott Barlow: Caroline, Welcome to Happen To Your Career.

Caroline Adams: Thanks Scott I’m thrilled to be here and hope I can live up to the introduction. I’m excited to be here and take some questions and tell my story.

Scott Barlow: So glad you mentioned that. I’ve gotten to know you a bit over the last year and know you can live up to that and then some. This is the first time we’ve recorded live in this way. When we are done recording the main show we are going to hang around and answer some questions so don’t hesitate to drop in questions in the chat if you are here live. Caroline, I’m excited to take about your past because it's interesting and how you have worked your way to what you do now. How would you describe what you do now? What is being a coach look like?

Caroline Adams: I think you summed it up in the beginning well. I help people recognize their strengths, understand what they like to do, not just what they are good at, a lot of times we get people who are really good at things they don’t enjoy, understanding the difference and getting them into a career and life they love. That is what I spend the bulk of time doing. When I’m not coaching I love to write and be creative. In addition to running my business which is somewhat creative but not necessarily in the ways we want, but I’ve created this career so I have space to do a lot of things I want to do in my life and I spend as much time doing them as possible.

Scott Barlow: Which turns out is what we are all about and part of how we ended up meeting because we had alignment. I know that isn’t where it started for you and I’d love to go way back. Where did your professional career start and how did we go from there to here?

Caroline Adams: It’s a great story and let me caveat it by saying to people listening it could sound like a smooth past. I know when I’ve listened to people telling their story it sounds like they did it easy. Most of my career journey was fear, inertia, not listening to my intuition, rationalizing, settling, not empowering things. Luckily I kept at it and figured it out. I know a lot of people are struggling with how to get there. I totally know and have been there. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

I started in management consulting. It was a great experience. The real life MBA and all I could ask for. I use a lot of what I learned. I fell into my career. That beginning role. In that I started, I always thought growing up, I grew up thinking I would have a creative careers as an interior designer or writer. For many reasons I didn’t pursue that. I started out in college, my brother was working at Accenture and decided to make a career change and offered as a bartering chip that I could step into the role. So there began my management consulting career. I started as an intern and continued after college. That was it. I fell into it. It was a good thing then and I got a lot from it but I didn’t get in intentionally thinking about what I wanted to do. It set the stage interestingly. At the beginning of my career because I thought I’d do something creative and wasn’t. I always had this thought that you aren’t doing what you are meant to and are limiting yourself by following this career. Even when I enjoyed and liked the work, which I often did, it didn’t seem like it was the right path for me.

Scott Barlow: What were some steps along the way that caused you to think you needed to do something about it? What happened that brought you to knowing it wasn’t right and it's time to do something?

Caroline Adams: It was a lot of trial by error. My first jump was a jump at the earliest possible opportunity once I made manager and did it for all the wrong reasons, it was not a great experience. I had weekly migraine headaches. So not good for my health.

Scott Barlow: Before or after you jumped?

Caroline Adams: After. I jumped, I was fine and healthy, but not fulfilling my purpose. I had existential angst. There was nothing wrong with my career I just wasn’t happy. I jumped and found out how unhappy one could really be so I then jumped again into design school. That was a good jump, I told myself if you are going to jump again at least make it mean something. It as interesting because while I took that risk to go to school and follow my passion, rather than do interior design I did graphic design. It shows the struggle I was having to really give in and let myself do what I wanted.

There was a series of jumps and it was interesting because that jump led me to the next role as a summer job. I was fully intending to become a graphic designer but through the summer through my connection I got the chance to work at a financial services firm in a very creative role. Here I was writing everyday getting paid financial services money for it. That was great and a great lesson to us all. We get in binary thinking that I could do something creative or I could make money. There is no way to do both. And I realized and only found this because I let go of the other jobs and followed part of my passion to design school and ended up in a corporate environment I never expected to be in doing what I wanted to do. It was so great I left design school and took a permanent position that led to a ten year career making a bunch of pivots in that organization. I could go on and on.

Scott Barlow: You said you were making financial services money which is most of the time substantial compared to the average company and you were doing writing. That really does for that point in your life feel like the right combination of creative and financial goals. What was that role doing and its main purpose to help those listening to think of these jobs?

Caroline Adams: It was corporate communications. I wasn’t writing the great American novel. I was limited on what creative license I could have but was still flexing those muscles and thinking on how to get communications across. It was in the HR space which led me to my next pivot which was moving from HR to anti-money laundering.

Scott Barlow: I did not know this. I had seen this and been meaning to ask you but it never became relevant. I want to hear about this? What does this mean?

Caroline Adams: It is catching bad guys and relevant in the news now. Criminals use the banking system to launder money and hide money gotten through ill gotten gains. This was catching bad guys. It made me feel like I was doing something for the broader good which was important to me and starting to niggle at me. Even though I was doing something I loved and liked the people, getting promoted, I was starting to feel dissonance that it wasn’t the right fit and my values weren’t the same as the company, and wasn’t sure I could do the work in a way that I wanted to do it.

Scott Barlow: What changed? What in terms of how your values changed or when you recognized it?

Caroline Adams: I think it was always there. The initial shine wore off of the I’m getting to do something creative and make corporate money. Well you are making that because you are working for an institution. I started to think back behind the scenes, you are meant for something bigger, how can you help people. I was experiencing a day to day struggle with I enjoy this but is it really my path and could I do something more and have more impact on people's lives and be more my creation autonomy.

I moved into anti-money laundering. As people think through their career changes we assume if it’s not clear how to get from point A to B we have to go back to school and get more experience, and a certification and that is not the truth. As soon as you figure out what you want to do all you need to do is tell the story. Be able to convey how you can use your current experience to fit the role. The move from HR to this role was that. I had aligned myself with great advocates. It's important to have the right people around you in positions of power. Partly because I knew I could convey, I didn’t have any anti-money laundering knowledge, but I knew how to run the role and could learn on the side. As you look at job descriptions and talk to people, people tend to focus on the one bullet point in the description that they don’t have.

Scott Barlow: It says I need 17.7 years of experience, I only have 15.2 so clearly cannot ever do that role.

Caroline Adams: Exactly and it's just not true. It’s a wish list. If you bring 50% or more and the other great stuff they don’t even know they want yet but once you tell them they will. That was the key from a lot of pivots I made. Leverage what I could do and what I wanted to do because it was about getting better and closer each time and being able to connect the dots for the hiring person. I can continue going on if you’d like.

Scott Barlow: I’m curious about, it seems like in that occasion you made that role change internally. I think that we don’t always talk about that on this show but we’ve seen that happen a lot of times. That is how people get exceptions made for them. Even though you didn’t have the degree in money laundering. Is there one? Or whatever it might be you still made the change. You built relationships for advocates to get you to the conversation in the first place and then you were approaching it as what value can I bring to thing’s they don’t even know they need in this role. As opposed to being just caught up on not having the degree and going back to school.

Caroline Adams: You just shot down the dreams of every anti-money laundering person. I do have a lot of connections in that field if anyone is interested. Everything I’ve done in my career is because I talked to people about what I wanted. I presented it when they were in a position to help me and conveying what I wanted and how I would help them. It's about the win win. Its 100% how I’ve navigated. The objection I hear that I don’t know what I want so how do I talk to people. You talk to people about what you are doing and what you do know. Here is what I’m exploring, here’s what I like. They give you ideas and you make connections saying things out loud. You ask them to connect you with someone else and go from there.

It took me a long time to learn that. I wasn’t doing it all along it took a long time to realize how important those relationships are. Once I realized that and how meaningful it can be, I’m an introvert, and I had created a habit of not talking to people that wasn’t deep and meaningful. I shied away from networking because it seemed superficial and felt uncomfortable and once I realized how to talk to people about what they cared about or what they needed it changed the game. Not just for me but for them too. I first did this by being a great connector. Listening to what they wanted and their problems and dreams and goals and saying I know someone that might be a good resource and offering value. There are simple ways to build relationships. We teach more direct ones in Career Change Bootcamp but if you are just starting out there are a lot of ways to start those conversations now.

Scott Barlow: I absolutely love that. Thank you. I know we have had conversations but thank you for representing how it can work. In Career Change Bootcamp we have scripts and tools and systems to be able to make this process easier. It does come down to taking those actions and making connections with real people in the world. People hire people, not computers, not job applications hiring people or applicant tracking systems. It’s real people make those decisions in just about any company you want to work for.

Caroline Adams: It's so true and I’m glad you mentioned it. I know today we are talking about filters. Learn from my mistakes. I’ve spent a lot of my career in my head, dreaming and mapping things out without taking steps. It's only when you take steps. Looking at my career, going to design school for a semester, how the dots connect but then I didn’t know where I was going I was just experimenting. Career Change Bootcamp does a great job helping people understand it’s not do or die. If you talk to someone you don’t have to accept a job on the spot. It’s figuring out if you want to work there and talking to people that do it. It's so important to take the steps even if they are really small or side steps. Just movement, I don’t care how great your filter is if you aren’t taking steps to use it or test it it's just a filter and not reality.

Scott Barlow: I want to come back to the filter concept and what it means for making difficult career decisions. I’d first like to hear how this finished out for you. You are in anti-money laundering and you enjoyed it but things happened in between then and now. Clearly like anyone has listened can understand the experience you’ve had to put you in a great position to help others but what else happened?

Caroline Adams: Here is where the story takes a dark turn. I burnt out. I loved the work but I failed to realize it wasn’t the right environment for me. I burnt out. I took a sabbatical, I negotiated it, it wasn’t a given, so if you are thinking of doing it there are great ways to figure out how to get time and space to figure it out. I took a sabbatical and I thought of becoming a coach and getting certified. It was that pause, where I stepped out of the context and for me I was exhausted spiritually and mentally, in the beginning I was just getting back to being a whole person. It took me a while. I encourage people not to get to this place. First stepping back it was good I realized I needed to do something differently. I settled on coaching and we can talk about my filter and how I got there but now I’m a coach, I write, create, run the business and my life. It's a great place to be.

Scott Barlow: Let’s talk about the filter concept and I’d love to hear how you have filtered these decisions for yourself. When we are talking about a filter we can tell what it is and how it works but it’s most useful when you are faced with difficult decisions like should I take this job or is this company worth my time, will this role make me more happy more often, and how do you know? How would you define what a filter has done for you?

Caroline Adams: I think in terms, and I hope this isn’t out of left field, but I’m an aspiring minimalist. That is about maximizing what is most important and letting everything else fall away. That is what a filter does. These are the most essential things in my life. As the other noise hits you can in a methodical way be able to “filter” them out. Get out the bad stuff and keep the most important.

Scott Barlow: I love that. Have you heard the story of Warren Buffett talking to his pilot?

Caroline Adams: The five things?

Scott Barlow: For those that haven’t I will probably butcher it but he is in this conversation with his pilot who is trying to decide what he wants to achieve in his life and they talk about it and Warren says here is what I want you to do. Write down your top 25 goals and get them down and take several hours. Then I want you to prioritize which fall into the top 5 and at the end you will separate them into two groups. The top 5 and then the other 20. Get rid of the 20 and throw them out. Do not look at them until you accomplish the top 5 because those are the most important and the rest doesn’t matter. I see that as the same thing and other way to look at it. Helping you decide what is truly important. When you focus on everything it gets really complicated and then there is no way anyone no matter how much success or money you have can have everything. It’s physically impossible.

Here is a question for you. Thinking over this filter, and we call it an ideal career profile, how have you used this concept in your latter career?

Caroline Adams: It's a great question and there are a bunch of techniques I’ll explain but another value is once you start getting offers and everything that is not on your top 5 or even 25 starts coming at you. The nature of how we are conditioned we try to fit ourselves into those things and we forget all the hard work we’ve done to know what we want. The filter helps remind you as those are hitting you.

One thing I did was time travel. Mining the past. What are things in my last roles that I really loved and why? It's important to peel back the layers. What about it, was it because I was in my strengths and honoring my values or was it the people. Understand that.

Another is what is going really well in the present that I want to hold on to with my current work? We want to keep those and add others. We don’t want to swap them but add more and better.

Fast forward to the future. You’ve probably heard this but basically propel yourself into the future. You are 75 years old and you think what do I want to have done or have lived? What is important for me to say about my life?

For me mining the past was how I got to coaching and fast forwarding to the future is how I designed my life. The past was the what the future was the how. How do I want to run the business and help people and lead with these values? Look at yourself at different points in time and get an idea of what themes keep coming up. There are often answers staring us in the face but it takes these exercises. Another one I have alluded to is designing your life first.

In my personal filter, ICP, I started with what life I wanted to lead and career is an important part of that but only a piece. Before, and a lot of people do this, we focus on our career and try to fit our life in the nooks and crannies and are unhappy when our life doesn’t fit. On sabbatical I decided no more. I’m going to design the life I want to lead and make my career fit that. There are things I want in my career and things to help me further life goals.

We’ve talked about strengths. A key, with this, and especially because we work with high achievers and they are really good at a bunch of stuff and can become good at a lot, for those people it's important to look at what you are good at and you do and people recognize you for and ask yourself how much you enjoy those things. One way to clear the filter is saying I love doing this thing and I’m really good at it and I’m always asked to do this thing and told its a strength but I really hate doing it. You put that in your filter and avoid at all costs. I stole this term from someone Edy Greenblatt who wrote a burn out book. She calls them sneaky depleters. You are good at them, people ask you to do them, but it comes at a cost because you don’t enjoy being there. I had burnt out. It was important to say what happened? What was I doing? It was important for me to refocus on the signature strengths and the things that are in your element.

The last thing, then I’ll take a breath, is think about who you want to be. We get so focused on the role. What is my passion? I focused on who do I want to be in the world, how do I want to touch people, help them, how do I want them to feel. Find the career and roles that fit into that. You can be that person right now in your current role. I started acting like a coach while I was stuck in my corporate job. I could start bringing those elements in. I still did my role but I could do it in a way to get space and pull me more quickly and easily into that future role.

Scott Barlow: That makes so much sense. I love the piece about becoming who you want to be. I’ve given it a lot of thought over the last 5 years. Prior to that I don’t know that I considered if I wanted to go a particular place I would likely have to become a different person along the way. That doesn’t always mean you have to make huge changes. Sometimes its small behavior changes and playing the part.

By the way we will have all of these and references and the transcript on Happen To Your Career.com/223. When the episode is released. You can get all of these things we’ve talked about. Another great place as you are trying to develop a filter and define what great career opportunity might look for you is going to figureitout.co and you can start putting it together if you are falling in love with the concept of having a filter.

Let’s go back to that and how it can be utilized. I’ve found one of the biggest benefits of taking the time and identifying what you want and lay it out in a way that you can filter out the stuff that isn’t great and keep in the things that may be. I find that often if you have made the little complex decisions like how do I want to do work? I wanted to be able to have lots of window space. Or not necessarily be cooped up in one room with flexibility. Making this decisions for yourself and having it on paper allows you to turn the complex decisions like should I stay in my job or not and what roles would be a good fit allows you turn those into yes or no questions. What other benefits have you found?

Caroline Adams: So many, one that pops into my mind is I still use my filter now. I’m in my dream career and just because you get there doesn’t mean you are done. This is just one more stop on a much longer journey, I still use it and refine it. What was important to me last year may not be as much this year either because I’ve built a strong habit, but can tweak it to focus on five years from now and what I want that to look like. As opportunities come my way what do I want to pursue? It's made the whole way I approach my career more intentional. I can make yes, no decisions. I had trouble following my intuition and I’ve been working on it hard. I’ve had intuitive hits all my life but I’m a thinker, I’m an INTJ, so I process and outthink and look for data to make sense of something you can’t. I’d end up dismissing a lot. I find that a filter can help with that piece of me. Let’s run the numbers but can help intuitively. I have a sense of the broader life and career I want. I can trust a little more that intuition and feeling and it doesn’t feel like it fits. The two big things are continuing to use it and make it better and it’s greater than the sum of its parts. Not just data points like a robot but thinking more holistically. That has been really important. Intuition is really important and it's been important to factor that into my decision making.

Scott Barlow: That is interesting. I’ve found ironically that going through the work of creating the ICP, that can act as a filter has allowed me to be more in tune with my intuition and stop ignoring where I feel it in my stomach but do it anyway because I feel like I have to. I hadn’t thought about that but it has.

Caroline Adams: Another thing I want to share, for people making big changes whether is corporate to running a business or nonprofit to corporate. Major changes, just because you make a change doesn’t mean you change the things you are trying to leave. I’m a workaholic, I burnt out twice, and surprise just because I’m in a much better career that fit my needs doesn’t mean that tendency magically goes away. The filter helps me remember that there are reasons I made these changes and back to habits focus on success that are going to enhance what I’m doing. That is what I do and how I approach it. The ICP, or filter is really important in that aspect as well. You can’t outrun yourself, I’ve tried, I’m not fast enough.

Scott Barlow: I love that and I very much appreciate that. You can’t outrun yourself. So true. If you want to get started in developing your own filter take advantage of some of these ideas like time travel, mining the past, evaluating what you are enjoying and what isn’t working. We will put all of that at happentoyourcareer.com/223. Otherwise go to figureitout.co and get an 8 day course that helps you begin pinning down what you want. Great ways to get started in this. I so appreciate you taking the time. Want to answer a few questions?

Jackie in our Career Change Bootcamp says “I love this and am so glad you are my coach Caroline.” That’s fantastic. The other thing as people are typing, the thing about filters is how it can reduce complex problems or questions into simple yes or no’s and we haven’t talked about that. Here is a way to think about it. When you have a filter and have a good idea where you want to go then it allows you to evaluate different opportunities and say is this bringing me closer to my ICP? If it moves you in the right direction keep considering it otherwise wipe it off the table. That is one of the biggest value added ways that I interact with clients and students. I was working with someone who had 5 or 6 opportunities ready to pay him money and all appealing at first glance but as we used the filter three of them were terrible fits. They wouldn’t lead him to where he wanted to go. He could have went down any of those paths and spent years pursuing one of those three things and we created an off the table list. Based on the filter. Will it get me closer to where I want to go? What is your experience?

Caroline Adams: I think the initial power of and it's one of the things that got me into coaching is people don’t know what they want. They know what they don’t want but when you focus on what you don’t want guess what you get? I think the filter helps you rise out of where you are and start helping you survey what is around you. It helps you get honest with yourself. That initial impact for a lot of people and putting down on paper and saying it out loud is a huge step. I think for so many people once they go through this exercise they realize the path they were going down, the path of least resistance and realize they want to do something else. It's a powerful exercise in being honest with yourself about what you want with no holds barred.

Without talking yourself out of it and worrying about how you are going to get it or the million reasons why not. It's the beautiful thing when someone is going down one path but a whole new array of choices opens up to them. That is happening in Career Change Bootcamp right now. Really I didn’t think I could do this. It’s cool because it helps you explore all the options while narrowing the focus on what is right for you. You aren’t casting a huge net that is overwhelming but seeing opportunities you wouldn’t see but also narrowing. It’s an interesting interplay between broadening and focusing that is more aligned with your strengths and values.

Scott Barlow: Dave agrees and says I always know what I don’t want Caroline. As humans it's easier to pick that out. We have a couple questions. Casey says I find difficult being a multipotentialite. Go back and see Emilie Wapnick’s episodes. It’s someone with many interests and talents. She says I find it difficult to pick top goals and narrowing it down. What advice do you have for filtering?

Caroline Adams: There are a couple ways. I love that you are using that term. I would say don’t narrow them down yet. Get really clear on what those things are. One way is to look at, someone in the bootcamp said I want to spend 60% of my time doing this type of work and the rest to be creative and rest. Playing with those broad percentages. Let’s say you like to write and paint and make films, how does that fit. Is it okay to write 10% of your time? Play around with how those look for you. The filter, once you have those big buckets, is go the next layer down and say how does it look day to day. How much time would I spend doing this ideally. Do I need to do it everyday or if I can find time once a year is that enough?

Scott Barlow: I can empathize with that. From being a multipotentialite and working with a lot of them, it's a bit different for everyone. You have to figure out what your version is. We find that at some point you have to just go and act and then through that, whether its talking to someone or taking a set of jobs that may not be 100% lined up with everything you get feedback and information for the next step defining further what it looks like. I like the first half of my day to be creative work and the second half is interacting with others. That isn’t for everyone. What is your brand of multipotentialite? You can get part of the way there through reflection but at some point you have to act too and you get new feedback and learnings. Whether through conversations, accepting an opportunity that lines up better. We have more questions.

Helen says what is the best way to pick one focus and let go of competing interests? It's hard to move in two directions at the same time.

Caroline Adams: I think Scott just alluded to that. Sometimes you have to just start doing one or both. Maybe it's a decision of do I have to have this for my career or just in my life. For me design I didn’t want in my career and I’m much happier expressing it in my life. Explore and pick one and make moves and maybe try both. At some point start playing around with what are the essential pieces in your career. Also can you combine them? I love when I hear competing interests. What if they are cooperating interests? I worked with someone who was a nutritionist and a designer. She blended them. They were very disparate until she brought them together. How can they cooperate and blend them if you can. I was in a lot of COO roles and did a lot of things so I didn’t have to pick one. The other way is to say it's a great hobby and I’ll focus on the others in my career.

Scott Barlow: I’ve had similar experience so I’d cosign that. The only other thing I might add is if you are looking for different ways to combine them together then sometimes it's not obvious right away. You have to take the best path that you can see and continue looking. The reality is, I used to get told I should be on the radio. That doesn’t pay jack and I don’t know if I want to do it. As I went through life I found other outlets to do that. Now we run a podcast and do other media. I’m not technically a radio person. I run a business and I’m a coach that fit together for me. But it wasn’t apparent ten years ago. Had I not taken other steps forward to go into HR which was a portion of what I was great at and made other changes I would not have made this happen. Sometimes you have to, especially when combining, move forward before it’s all figured out.

We have one more question. “I found out what I want but my difficulty is using my talent to develop into a career. I don’t have any specific talents but I know I want to help others understand what they are good at and devise a plan to reach their objectives. What advice do you have?”

Caroline Adams: Join Career Change Bootcamp and we can explore it but first you have a great awareness. You do have a specific talent, how to help others understand what they are good at which is a great talent. What are the various applications of that? How can I help others? I also am good at helping others in this way, so is Scott. We might do that in a different way. Go the next layers down and challenge yourself what does it look like, how are you helping them. Scott has a great exercise called the 5 Whys. Keep asking why to get to the core nugget as to why it so important to get awareness. Start with that because it's fantastic to have that skill. Unpack what is behind that for you and expand it.

Scott Barlow: Absolutely, I believe that it is a marketable skill. It can be in a lot of ways. be in leadership, that is a main core. As I’ve done tons of surveys when people look fondly on bosses is because of this skill and being able to help them. It's great in other ways too. We’ve had a few pointed out in the chat. Career coach. To Carolines point you have to go a step or more further. What is the context in which I enjoy this and am the best at? It could be drastically different than me or the next person. You can get more specific and once you have that it's easier to align it and ask is the opportunity getting me closer to this. If so fantastic.

Caroline, I so appreciate you taking and making the time and coming on the show and making Happen To Your Career history with our first ever live recorded podcast. Thank you for leaving a mark in the Happen To Your Career history.

Caroline Adams: Happy to make my perhaps black mark on your history. It was really fun. Thank you for all your questions and the great activity in the chat box. I hope to see some of you throughout as you make these decisions or if you come through the program. Keep working on going after the career you love.

Scott Barlow: We will see all of you later. Next time. You know where we are at. Until next time we are out.

Scott Barlow: Normally we have a guest on the show, and we have so many amazing guests coming up in the near future that I think you are going to love. We’ve also done some things on the show we’ve never done before. I can’t share yet but it’s coming soon. I think you are going to be ecstatic.

Today though we are doing something different. It is just me. Why? Because I wanted to focus on something we get questions about all the time. That is what about careers that are incredibly fulfilling and pay well for creative people or people who are creative thinkers or want more creativity but they aren’t necessarily traditional creatives like artists or painters? They recognize they want more in their life but don’t get it in their particular role. I’d like to head on into that. This might be you. If it is and you have the desire for more creativity in your role and aren’t getting it or have time in your day where you get ht at creative component I think you are going to love this episode.

I want to divide this into a couple sections because we don’t always recognize some of they reasons it can be hard to find a job as a creative and I want to talk about those reasons. They aren’t necessarily what you think and I’d love to give you examples of creative roles and what they look like and how many of the people we’ve worked with that wanted more creativity have been able to do that. And how I’ve been able to do that because I’m one of those people.

Human beings in some way need to create and don’t always think of that need as creative. In our society when we talk about creative we think of a renaissance artist or people making no money, starving, and doing it just so they can express their art. That is a myth. Jeff Goins was on the show in episode 65 and he wrote a book called “Real Artists Don’t Starve.” I think you can tell the context of the book. I believe that. Regardless if you are an artist, write code for a living, or anything else you can think of or want to do about anything else you can think of.

At a fundamental level we all have a basic need to create. I wanted to address that because we think of using that word when we are talking about an artist or well known creativity.

Now that that is out of the way let’s talk about why it's hard to find a job as a creative in the first place. We now know we need different types of creativity but now we need to figure out what it means for us. Even though we all need to create, we have discovered working with different people and research that we all need to create in different ways. For example, I have found I love to be able to create different types of thought processes or concepts for people to help them look at things in a brand new way. That fits with what I do but that isn’t necessarily what the next person needs to be creative. To identify what types of creativity you need we have resources.

First, I’d ask yourself some questions. I’d dig into the context where you’ve enjoyed creating in the past and what it can look like and go under the surface. What types of people was it with, what are the situations, what is the context? That will give you a better clue. You can observe the patterns. If you want a good way to get started with that you can go to figureitout.co where we have an 8 day mini course that helps you get started thinking through the things you need, not just creativity.

Once you have identified what those contexts are with your creativity and what you need you are only part of the way there and can start to see why it’s complicated. If I know in the past I loved to put together communications, write those, and even though everyone is sending out an email I’m trying to figure out the perfect subject line so people pay attention to it and so sending it to 1800 people in the company so it doesn’t go to waste is a type of creativity. It is different than what the next person wants.

Once I know those pieces next I figure out what are you missing in the current or past roles? When you start evaluating what you are missing it can give you clues about what you need as well. For example, I got an email from a couple weeks ago from a guy that is a listener. He had taken a graphic design role and even though most people say it is creative, it didn’t align with the creative he needed. Not because he wasn’t using creative muscles but because he didn’t have the freedoms to decide how to do the work how he wanted. Part of creativity for him and scope was having some autonomy behind it. He could have continued on in graphic design, I’ve heard this story a number of times because they go into it loving to design and creativity but they don’t consider these other questions. He realized he needed autonomy too and concluded that designing for a company wasn’t a great fit. Now that he knows that he can go and try and identify places where he can get that. Part of the reason this is so difficult to figure out is because it's not just the types of creativity you need but how.

I want to give you a couple example questions and tools to think about what you need. Here are a couple questions:

How do you use creativity in your current role you want to keep or what do you want to use in your next role you don’t have now?

Why is this type of creativity valuable for organizations or to other people? Once you get answers to that it helps you to know where to begin looking. What areas do you not get to be creative in your current job that you want to use your creativity or it’s completely lacking?

Those should get you started.

When you have answers it makes it easier to be able to start looking in another space. We’ve talked about a variety of ways to design experiments or test drive other roles and you can go back to designing career experiments so you can identify in other roles if you get to use this type of creativity. You can do that by identifying a few different places and talking to people in those roles and asking them how they get to be creative and what matters to them and see if it aligns with you. It helps you to parcel out what is a good fit for you.

People haven’t thought of, and I see it again and again, for those people that need more creative autonomy the higher you go in type of position and scope, for example a manager or director or CEO, and also depending on industry I may have more authority which can go with autonomy. Not always, but it can give me more ability to insert creativity in my role.

Think of our graphic designer guy, he wanted to decide what and where and how the design took place as opposed to being told it needed done in this time and look like this. For him even though he was getting to solve the challenge to make it look right and getting it into Adobe Illustrator, for some people might work, but for him it wasn’t the creativity he needed. If he was getting to make more of those decisions it would appeal more to the creativity he was lacking. You might feel it's the same thing for you. We’ve observed when you go up in scope for those roles and higher roles, often the pay goes up. Not every CEO gets to use creativity in the way that is good for you but generally if you are finding you need more autonomy around your creativity and that is part of what is creative to you then it's worthwhile to look at those higher level roles that allow that.

For example, if we go back to roles I’ve had in the past, HR director and manager, in most to of the companies they gave me a ton of decision making power in how the work gets done. That is the type of creativity I needed because for me being able to solve problems to develop the solutions and identify what was needed and create it and work with my team to implement it was the type of creative I needed. It won’t be right for everyone and you have to do the work to find what works for you but because I was in those higher level roles it allowed me more ability to choose where to insert my creativity. Not true for every organization but I want you to start thinking about this in a different way as opposed to just saying I don’t have creativity in my job and need it where am I going to get it? That is another place to look. When you are in those higher level roles, getting paid more with more autonomy you can look for those types that match with your creativity.

Let me give you a couple examples. People that are in strategy, being able to come up with a strategy and solve problems and strategically think of how to get to a solution the quickest and most effectively - strategy directors or growth directors can fit. I’ve talked to editors that get to exert a ton of creativity but maybe it doesn’t align so one example is a Director of Content. They may have a ton of ability to exert their creativity as a part of their job.

Another more traditional route might be an Art Director. They get paid on average north of $80,000 or some maybe less but that is another example. Art directors design the vision for a work of art or product. It’s more traditional. A director of content might be in charge of the strategy and plan for all the content for an organization. It might be digital or maybe editors that plan and review and revise material, coordinate with writers to explore ideas, establish a schedule, get to establish standards but more frequently that is at the director level. Those are a couple examples.

More might be direct response copywriters or a marketing director. I’ve done marketing in a variety of fashions and it can be so much fun and creativity for my type, not necessarily yours. It could be chief of strategy or growth which is getting more popular.

For you you have to go to where we started. What are the types of creativity you need that you have and are missing? What is the deeper level context and what do you want moving into the next role? Then you can explore different roles and identify whether the type of creativity you need lines up with the creativity needed in that role. Sometimes you might have a Marketing Director in title that does one thing in one company that lines up but at another organization is the opposite. That is why I say both roles and companies. After that you can start to pin down an area through that exploration. Again if you are focused on having your creativity and eat it too or to have it and get paid well. Often I’ll look at those higher level roles especially if it lines up with autonomy around this as well.

I would love to hear your thoughts and additional questions. We have so much more coming up for you. We have things I can’t tell you about but pay attention to what we have coming up next week.