Introduction 00:05

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:30

We've had over 20,000 discussions with people all over the world about their careers, often about wants, needs, aspirations, maybe even things that they've only told their spouse or partner, and sometimes we're the first people that they are telling. And as you can imagine, this puts us in a pretty unique position to observe patterns. And one pattern is that there are some pretty big misconceptions, especially around pay during career change. And I just want to share what happens during some of these conversations. So it might go something like this, when we initially meet somebody trying to learn about their goals, what they're trying to, what kind of change they're trying to make, and you know how we might build a package around that. So we'll say something like, "Hey, what's your ideal compensation?" And then they'll say, "Well, you know what, that's really hard. It's a hard question to think about." And then they tell us what they're making now. And then, here's the kicker, many people will say, "But I could make as low as" and then they'll throw out a number that's even lower than what they are paying now.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:36

Okay, so first of all, this is fascinating discussion from a psychology and a sociology perspective, and it doesn't seem to matter whether you make $90,000 or $650,000 a year, almost everyone believes that they are needing to take a pay cut when it comes to making a career change, even if they've heard our podcast, they still think that in their situation, they're probably going to need to make a pay cut. So this is because we falsely believe that we are going to have to start over if we're in a new career or industry or area. But if you have those experiences, if you have experiences at all and skill sets, they don't just disappear because you go to another role or company or industry, your experiences are not automatically less valuable in those scenarios. Are there companies out there that will perceive your experience and skills as less valuable? Yeah, absolutely. What do you do about it, though? Well, turns out, just don't accept a job with those companies. After all, how many jobs do you need? Most people need one, right? Your new rule is to focus on going after what you want, not what you think you have to accept. Okay, but determining what you want creates a new challenge, right? If you don't know the life that you're trying to build and how work fits into that, then it makes it challenging to know how much money you're going to need to support that life in the future. So I want to give you two ways here to completely overturn how you're thinking about your income goals.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:14

Number one, you have to understand where you're running to first, what is the life that you're trying to build, then you can begin to figure out your financial goals. From there, you can begin to figure out how you want your work to support those financial goals. Now I fully understand this is literally the opposite of how most people are thinking about their career. Instead, it's usually the other way around. It's, "I currently earn this much, and it would be nice to earn a bit more, and if you are in a marginal amount more, then I could buy, I don't know, whatever, insert your goal here, a boat, invest more, save more, invest for kids", whatever it is. So this is normal human behavior. And it turns out it's not helpful if your goal is leading a more fulfilling life and fitting more fulfilling work into that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:06

Okay, so I want to give you a second way to think about this differently, and this is what we found when we work with our clients, and also when we get to be involved with helping them establish their goals and later on in negotiations for job offers, all those parts. Very rarely, our clients taking a pay cut when they make a career change. In fact, what we found is less than 15% of the people that we're working with are taking that pay cut in one way or another. And when they choose to, it's 100% intentional, not something they feel they have to do. Okay. I want to give you one more bonus tidbit here. Once you figure out how much money you need to support the life that you want to live, you might be very surprised. Maybe it's less than you thought, and that's amazing, right? Okay, but if it's more than you thought, then that's where you can begin to calculate out the opportunity cost that can occur by not changing careers to something that is allowing the financial side to fit your financial goals.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:15

Okay, so here's an example for how to do the formula. Let's just say that, you know, I earn $150,000 a year. But I figured out that to support my financial goals and the life that I'm trying to build, whether that's mid term, long term financial goals, that means that every single month, if I am needing to earn 175,000 to support that, then that means every single month I delay moving from this situation that opportunity cost is literally $25,000. So it adds up really quickly if I hem and haw about making a change because today work was okay, and I think I can tolerate this and then, you know, it goes up and down, you go through the roller coaster. Then 90 days goes by, and now that's $75,000 that I won't get to make in my lifetime because I'll continue to allow time to go by.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:09

Okay, so that's not a great scenario. So here's what I would encourage you to do. Number one, begin to identify the life that you want to build and then how work fits into that. You can start with our 8-day mini course, go to figureitout.co. And if you want to implement what you've heard and you want to completely change your life and your career, then let's figure out how we can help support you. So here's what I would suggest, just open your phone right now, go to your email app, and I'm going to give you my personal email address: Scott@happentoyourcareer.com. Just send me an email and put 'Conversation' in the subject line. And when you do that, I'll make sure you get to the right person on our team, and you can have a conversation with us. We'll try and understand your goals and what you want to accomplish in your career, no matter where you're at, and we can figure out the very best way that we can help you in your situation. So open that up right now. Drop me an email, put 'Conversation' in the subject line, Scott@happentoyourcareer.com.

Emily 00:01

I was like, it's just... I felt like I had no place to go. I think I had, like, some sunken cost fallacy in there where I was like, I'm just here, and I've spent so much time doing this that what else am I going to do?

Introduction 00:20

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:43

There are countless stories we tell ourselves to stay stuck in a job that's no longer serving us. Maybe you're convinced you've invested too much time at an organization to just walk away, or that you'd be heartless to abandon your team and that they'd never forgive you because they need you there. It can be really tough to challenge your own logic. But what if staying is costing you much more than what you realize?

Emily 01:12

You're sacrificing so much of yourself, and you're in these toxic places, and you don't see it, and other people just take advantage of it, like, I would never want to be in that position again.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:21

That's Emily. When she first came to us, she was pretty trapped. She was in an unhealthy work environment, unsure of what her next step should be, and at the time, she was a paralegal and swore she had never, ever returned to the legal field. Fast forward to today, and Emily's been in a new role for over two years, and she's here now to share how finding a healthier organization in a more fulfilling role has completely transformed her life. But here's the twist, after doing all the hard work to figure out what kind of role would fit her best, she found the perfect opportunity that she has loved for those last two years in, you guessed it, the legal field. I'm gonna let Emily explain how she discovered it wasn't about the industry that was making her miserable, like, she had really originally thought at all. Here she is discussing her situation when she reached out to our team three years ago,

Emily 02:16

I had been in my role, I'd started there in 2013 and I kind of accidentally fell into it. And so it wasn't necessarily something I was looking to do, but I happened to be, like, really good at it. And we were dealing with special needs, population, and helping them, as in the legal sense of things. So I really enjoyed it, and I thought it was very fulfilling that the office itself was just, it was chaotic. And now I call it toxic. I think I was in it at the time, and didn't really see it, and I just, I was crying every day, multiple times a day, like, losing weight, my hair was literally falling out. And I was like, my husband was like, "What are you doing? Like, you need to like..." And I was like, "Well, who's gonna do it, if I'm not the one to do it? They don't have anyone who, like, knows how to do it." And he was like, "I just... We need to do something."

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:07

Yeah, that's really interesting, too. So you were in the thick of it, and it sounds like at that time, you didn't even have the language, it sounds like. Now you'd call it toxic, but didn't even necessarily have the language to know how to refer to the environment at that particular time as you're in the thick of it. And so I think the thing that's really interesting that you said is, when your husband is saying, "You need to do something about this. You need to go," and your response as you're in the thick of it was, "No, there's nobody else like to do this." I think that's really common. So, here's what I'm curious about now, now that we jump several years ahead, and now that you're in a totally different environment, different situation, even different role, how do you think about that now? How do you think about this whole, "I have to be there because I'm needed" type of situation?

Emily 04:03

Now I look at it like I feel like I was like, a totally different mindset at that time because now in my position, it's not so much like I know that there are people if I'm not there, like, they can handle it, and so I don't worry about it. Also feel personally, I don't ever want to go back to a place where I'm putting someone above myself who is not... I saw a quote a long time ago, and it said, "Your job will have posted before your obituaries are posted." And I always think about that now because I'm like, it's not true for everybody, of course, but it's so true that you're sacrificing so much of yourself, and you're in these toxic places, and you don't see it, and other people just take advantage of it, like, I would never want to be in that position again where I felt like I wasn't appreciated, or like everything was like, the negative of what I was doing, and nothing like, "Oh, that was a great job", you know. And so, yeah, that's just, it feels like another lifetime sometimes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:04

I've heard that a lot, where people describe it like that was a lifetime ago. I can't even imagine, you know, I can't even fully fathom it. It just feels like a totally different place at this point. But what do you think feels the most different? What is making it feel night and day difference now versus then?

Emily 05:24

Before I would have, like the quote, Sunday scaries, those would happen Friday afternoon for me. Like, I was already thinking about Monday. And it's just... I don't ever feel that anymore. I feel like I'm confident in that. If I need to do something, I can go to them and be like, "No, like, I need to do this. And you'll find a way." Where before, that would have been like, I would never do that. Like I was like, almost like walking on eggshells. And now it's like I learned how to have that confidence in myself to not be put in that position, or like to do something about it when I am there, you know, to recognize the situation.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:05

Can I read you something that you sent us a long time ago? One of the questions we had asked you forever ago, you had sent us some information about what you were struggling with at the time, and at that point in time, you said, finding the strength and confidence to leave my current role without feeling guilty. And, yeah, that's exactly what you wrote. And, you know? And I thought that's really interesting too, because one of the other things that you had said later on, let me see if I can find it here, you said, one of the biggest differences for you is now having the strength and confidence in your new situation. So I thought that was so interesting. Why do you think that was such a big thing for you at that particular time?

Emily 06:56

I've always been, like, I'm not someone who wants to, like, have attention on me. I don't want to talk about myself, like, I just want to get up and do my job and, like, help who I'm supposed to help, like, just kind of be there. And so I felt in being like this people pleaser, like a yes woman doing all of that, I think that it took away a lot of my strength and my confidence. Because when I was in the thick of my old job, I felt so scared to just assert myself, or if I thought there was something that could be better, I just didn't have it to go there and be like, "This is wrong." Like they had hired a new office manager about six months before I left, and he was terrible, like, really awful. And I tried, you know, we had a pretty close relationship, because as a person, she was a really great person. And so I went to her and I said, "Hey, I have some concerns, you know, and like, I want to voice them to you because I know I'm not the only one." And it was like, well, it was reversed to where it was like, "Well, you're not being cooperative and like, you're not being a team player, like you're being too harsh or this or that." And so I think that that takes away because then I'm like, "Oh, maybe I am wrong. Like, maybe I don't know what I'm doing, or I don't know what I'm talking about. Like, if he's the manager, you know, he obviously knows what's going on." And so I really wanted to, like, bring that back because I knew it was bleeding out into the rest of my life. And I'll never forget my friends came up for my birthday, and within 24 hours, they were like, "What is wrong with you? Like, you're jumpy and you're anxious and you're like, you're so worried about everybody else and if they're okay, and what's going on." And I was like, "I just think it's this, and I don't know." And so, yeah, it was just I felt like I really wanted to win that back for myself and for, like, my family, since I was not myself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:50

Yeah, so even your friends could see that this had eroded into a situation where you were no longer yourself, no longer operating this yourself.

Emily 09:00

And they knew, like, what kind of chaotic situation it was. And they've been telling me for a long time, just put your notice in. I actually put my notice, we call it my two year notice. Because I put my notice in, and then about six months later was that, and I just couldn't leave. They wouldn't find someone. And of course, I felt guilty, so I never left. And then CoVid hit, and then I stayed for another, like, year and a half. And so we call it my two year notice.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:30

What finally allowed you to move past the guilt that you were feeling and leave?

Emily 09:37

I had a co-worker and she... I give her a lot of credit, like, with me, like she really gave me some of a little bit of a backbone from my last little while there because she was very, like, she was confident, she was tough, and she would tell you if she thought something worked better. She had a saying, you know, "If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you." And that was like her thing. She did not get along with this new manager, and she would butt heads a lot with the owner. And she came in one day and tried to log into her computer, and she was locked out of her computer, and she couldn't figure out why, and that's how she found out she was getting fired. I was like, wow, like that. She's been there for six years, she was, you know, sometimes she was tough, but, you know, she got her work done and she was good at her job, and the clients loved her. And so to find out that that was like, how they were going to end her time there, and just like, her stuff was in a box and she couldn't get on the computer, and that's how she finds out, it just really cemented in for me that if I quit today, and in six months, are they really going to still be thinking about me? I don't know if it's going to affect them as like, are they thinking about it as much as I am? And that really encouraged me to be like, okay, like, I'm done. And I was also when I started listening to the podcast, and when I started talking to my husband about it and like, "Should I do it?" And he was like, "I'm okay with you doing and I'm all for it, but I want you to promise me that you'll quit your office, like, either before, like, right after you start it." He's like, "That's my only request." And I was like, I can do that now. Like, it really was, like, a switch for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:21

Kudos to you. Because I think that's really incredible. It's just so hard, like, where you're going from where you're feeling guilty, like you're going to leave them in this situation that is unrecoverable, all the way to the other side, where you're making massive steps forward and at the same time leaving. It's just not easy. There's no way around it, right?

Emily 11:46

And I'm someone who is very comfortable with how things are. I'm very like, I don't do change well. I'm like, I need a really, really good reason if you want to change things up on me. Like, I'm very comfortable when I get comfortable. And so it was a really big... All of it at once was, like, a really big step, but well worth it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:10

Well, so let's talk about that then. I'm interested because you decided to leave, and then you started doing this work for yourself on deciding what would be next and making a more intentional change. And I think to your point, that's really hard, especially when, if you're the type of person whose tendency is to be, you know, staying in that comfortable type of situation. So what did that look like for you at first, and what did you find worked for you as we began to think differently about what you wanted and what would create a better situation for you?

Emily 12:43

It's interesting at first because it really... The few, like, we did the strengths test at first, and it really like, I was like, I'm pretty like, was not surprised at my StrengthsFinder results, but it just makes you think. And I worked with Alistair, and he started just asking me, like, the most basic questions. And I was like, "I don't know." And I started thinking about it, and I started getting a little panicky because I was like, I don't... What am I doing? What am I supposed to do? And I swore I was never going to work in a legal office again because that's not for me. Clearly, it's not for me, because I can't handle it. So it really made me kind of break through that initial, I think, I put myself into this mold or a box of what was expected of me, and just breaking it down to the basics and being like, "What are you looking for? What finds like, what are you going to be fulfilled out and what do you think that is?" It really opened it up to more like, okay, like, I could think differently about this.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:44

I think that's really interesting too because, like, you talked about breaking it down to the basics, right? And at the same time you were, it's not like freaking out a little bit, I don't know if that's the way to put it, but like, freaking out a little bit because it's like, "I don't know. I don't know what I want" for these seemingly basic types of questions. And I think those things do tend to coexist too, especially if we haven't thought about what we actually want or need in that way before. It can be a bit of a struggle. And, I mean, it can be exciting too, but it also can be hard. You also talked about the transition, like, as you're going and you're working through this how some parts were hard for you, and you were breaking it down to basics. Do you remember what worked for you, or anything in particular that stood out, whereas, like, yeah, "It got me this realization."?

Emily 14:48

Yeah, actually. I was talking about my old office, and now it was a lot of work, and they always would... things that they would always use to kind of describe me as is that I was sensitive and I was overwhelmed. And what was the other? Emotional was probably one of them. Like, I do. I'm very much like, I feel my emotions. And I tend to, like, maybe overthink a little bit. But all it's all, you know, being overwhelmed. I was like, "I don't want, like, these are my worries about a new career, like, I don't want to feel overwhelmed. I don't want to feel like I'm too sensitive, or this or that." And he was like, "That's just... Did you ever think that maybe that's just like how they responded to, like, their own flaws, or what was going on in the office? Like, you should rethink it to how, like, you being overwhelmed, or how you being sensitive is a strength for you." You know, I'm trying to remember my... I know I think empathizer might have been, like, one of my top strengths and, like, includer. And so he was like, "How do you use those to your advantage? That's a great thing. Being emotional and, like, being open with people is a good thing. Like, don't let them take that and make it a negative thing about yourself." And the overwhelm, like, I was doing the work of two to three paralegals at the time, and so he was, like, "Just take it and, like, think about the context that they're saying it in. And, like, why they're saying it. And then think about it again, and then you might feel differently about it." And so I think it was really helpful to see what people might think negative and how to use that tangibly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:33

Yeah, it's all feedback, right? Like it can still be useful. And to your point, like, being able to turn it around and say, "Well, what's causing them to say this?" And still being able to pull useful pieces out of it for yourself. I think that is... Okay, so I'm curious on this because you're now a parent, and everything else, like, this has been something I've been trying to figure out for a long time– how I teach that to my kids. Because I think that's one of the most underrated skills, not just for kids, but for everybody, to being able to filter feedback, because we get feedback from so many different sources, and most of it just doesn't matter that much, or most of it might have a kernel of usefulness, like, what you were talking about. Yeah, exactly. So I'm curious, what ended up helping you start to look at it in a different way? Was it just having somebody else turn it around for you? Or what have you found works?

Emily 17:31

No. I think it was just hearing it from a stranger. Because, you know, like, my husband's great, my family's great, and they had been telling me, like, "You need to do this", and my husband would hear me telling my coworkers, "Hey, maybe you should look at something. You deserve something else. And there's probably other stuff out there. You don't..." And he's like, "Why aren't you telling that to yourself?" And I was, "Well, you have to tell me that, you know." And so I think hearing it from a third party again is, like, this switch, and you're like, "Maybe, like, it's not me." I think I am someone who takes on a lot of, like, other people's feelings onto myself and turns them into mine. And so it just was a way, like you said, to like, kind of, filter how things were coming in, and to kind of see it in a new light, and to go back. He had also... I said that I never wanted to work in legal again. And he said, "Have you ever considered that it's not the legal work you hate, it's your office that you hate?" And I was like, "Well, I guess, but I guess I never split the two." And so I think that that was really eye opening too, because he had said, "You have so many skills and you have so much experience. Let's not discount it right away." And so because I had, I completely discounted, I was like, "Nope. Don't even want to look at it." And so I'm glad that he helped me work through this initial, "Nope, never again" kind of feeling.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:53

I think it's really interesting to me because we get so many people that we get to talk to that come in saying, "Look, I'm in legal, I'm in marketing. I'm in..." whatever, insert your occupation or industry or profession or whatever, and then, like, "I just need to be done with marketing. Or I just need to be done with legal." But then, to your point earlier, you said, "Well, I really was focused on breaking it down to the basics of what I need." And sometimes being able to break it down to the basics, like, you're talking about, allows you to be able to start to separate out and tease out, almost like, you're undoing a big thing of yarn, and starting to see, like, "where does everything go?" So then that allowed you, in your case it sounds like, to realize, "Well, maybe it's not legal. Well, if so, then what is really important?" So that leads me to a question, like, what specific aspects of your life did you want your new career to support? Because you were breaking it down to the basics, and I'm curious what you learned there.

Emily 19:52

Well, a work life balance was huge for me because I had none. You know, I got calls on weekends. I got calls after work. I got a call, like, after a day of brunching one day, and I was like, "why am I even answering this call?" But I have to answer it, you know. And so it was really important for me to, like, find a place that would support that, and to just not look at me as, like, just an employee, but like, as a person, you know. And I know, like so many people look for that. And I think that, like, it's out there, you know. And I think it was important to find someone who would understand, like, if something came up, or if you wanted to take a day off just because you wanted to take a day off. And that was, like, nothing that, like, I got before. Like, I wanted to be able to wake up and not have this, like, fear. You know, like I said, Friday afternoon, I don't want to think about Monday already. And so that was really important. And to just find something that was, like, fulfilling and made me happy, and that was probably, at the time, was probably what I was looking for. Now, I think, now that I have work life balance, it's like, wow, that's amazing. Like, it wasn't really something like I thought about, and now that you experience it, it's like, wow. But it's not like, you don't even realize it's a thing until it's a thing. But just something that I just wanted to feel like I was making a difference, and I felt like parts of my role I did have that, which was why it was so hard for me to go.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:20

Well, let me ask you a different question. What led you then from paralegal to legal secretary? First of all, for everybody else's benefit, share with me what a legal secretary is, and then tell me a little bit about like, how you eventually got to that?

Emily 21:42

So for a legal secretary, in my role, it's mainly like you're communicating with the courts, you're coordinating between the attorneys and, you know, our clients, and then the courts, making sure the hearings, calendaring. Actually, I work for state hospital system. And so it's just like, it's a lot of moving parts. And so they kind of keep them on the railings, you know, keep them going... And so that transitioned me into a legal analyst, which is, it's similar but it's a little more involved as far as petition preparing and things like that. So, but it was great. Like it's just the paralegal. It was technically considered a step down from being a paralegal. I'd done it for eight years, but it was something I was willing to do. And I was like, I have the skills for this, and I know I think if I can get in, I think that there is room for promotion. And so that was my mindset as, like, patience. Like I didn't feel, at first, I think I really felt like I needed to find the thing that was going to be the thing forever, and then there was a switch. And working through the boot camp that I was like, you know, maybe I should just give it a go, and maybe there's more opportunities, like, there's promotions. That's why they call them promotions. And so taking that stress off of myself, I think, made it a little bit more like, "I will apply, and then I'll apply for this promotion. If I don't get it, don't get it. But there's always, like, more opportunities in the future."

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:18

So you came into this thinking, "I must find the thing for the rest of my life" like that whole, yeah, no pressure in that whatsoever, right?

Emily 23:27

No pressure on yourself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:29

So then it sounds like at some point, you shifted to this more iterative type of thinking where you're like, "Hey, I can continue to make changes. Do you remember what caused you to start to think differently?"

Emily 23:43

I think it was just... It's hard to, like, put into words, really, I'd been so focused on just getting through the day for so many years, and just like getting through the work day without doing something wrong or like having someone yell at me. And so I was so in it that I can't see the forest for the trees. And so, in just one day, I think it was when I started listening to the podcast, and then my husband is like, bless him. He is just so like, he listens to me blabber, and he like, will give his advice when he thinks it's important. And he was very patient with me as I was going through these like moments and like meltdowns of, "what am I gonna do? I can't go, but I should go." And then he just was like, "Just do it, and something will happen. And if it's not what you think it is, then you can do something else." And so, yeah, I think just working through the bootcamp and recognizing that, like, things don't have to be concrete, like there's a flow and there's like the ebbs and the flows, and you'll find that, like, it will happen for you the way it's supposed to happen.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:56

Yeah, completely. And I know that this isn't true for all state or government types of roles, but some of those tend to have pretty strict interview processes. And I'm curious what this one was like for you, how you experienced it, and what did you find helped during the interview process?

Emily 25:17

Well, I was gonna say the interview prep was one of the biggest things for me.

Emily 25:23

I don't do speaking well. I get very nervous. And I start bumbling. And I don't answer the question that I'm asked. I give way too much information, and then I don't answer anything, you know. And so working through that interview prep, I think there was a set of like, basic questions that helped me to start thinking through, like, "Okay, what if they... How am I going to answer this? And like, how am I going to present myself in what I know, and not necessarily my public speaking flaws?" And I think I even did a mock interview with Alistair, and I was like, it was so terrifying. And he's like, "See, you're just talking. Like, you're just..." But having, like, being able to, like, think that through beforehand, and then to have to someone to talk about it with, was huge and it helps me in my second interview too, that I eventually did. And you're on a panel, and like you said, they're very technical and how they do it, and so it was really good to have that practice of, like, points and here's how to take your skills, and not just your hard skills, but your soft skills, kind of like we were talking about earlier. Here's how to make it applicable to these questions that they're probably going to ask you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:23

In what way?

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:38

Yeah, so it sounds like the mock interview, as well as, how to think about these different types of interactions or questions that you're likely to be asked, was really helpful. You know what's really, sort of, I think it's fascinating? Some of the research around this found, not just in one study, but multiple studies over and over again, that if you practice something, like, in this case, you were doing mock interview, so you were practicing. If you do that for just a few minutes, it doesn't even take that long. And they tested it out at different types of time periods, but just a very short period of time of practicing prior to going in an actual event, whether it is, you know, an interview or anything else, the confidence that how you feel, how prepared you feel going into something is dramatically different, well over 50% different when you take the time to practice for just a few minutes. So I think people's tendency, especially for people like you, where they'd sort of regarded themselves as, you know, I just get nervous in interviews, or I just get nervous in public speaking. And, you know, yeah, exactly. And I think that's a good chunk of the population, right? Like most people, most of us get nervous. That's the reality. So what advice would you give to somebody else who is in a similar situation? Because, you know, like we said just a minute ago, so many of us have challenges with public speaking and with interviews and not just getting nervous, but beyond just nervousness, it can, you know, it can derail the entire event in itself. So what advice would you give to somebody else who's in that situation?

Emily 28:20

Just to be like, not think about it too much. I'm an overthinker, and it gets me in trouble, for sure. And so I think if you just go in knowing who you are and taking that few minutes to practice it, even if... it can be anybody– talk to yourself, talk to your dog, you know, and just get out your first few like jitters of your words, and to just go in there and know that these people, they had to go through an interview process too, and so they've already been there, and they know what it's like. And again, if it doesn't happen, that just opens the door up for the next thing to happen. I wouldn't necessarily see it as a setback. It's more like, okay, you practice. You got to practice. Round out. You have another mock interview out of it, and now you'll be ready for whatever the next interview comes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:09

Well, I think that's a perfect place to ask you about how has making this type of change, a more intentional change, how have you seen that impact the other areas of your life?

Emily 29:21

Oh my gosh. This is huge. Like, I feel lighter, like, just brighter, in general. I had my supervisor ask if I wanted to plan a vacation anytime soon because other people were taking vacation. Like, stuff like that is, like, I joke that I still get scared to ask for days off because, you know, it's going to be, like, this huge guilt trip, and it's not. And so I just think that making that initial leap to, like, do the boot camp and to go through it, you know, like I mentioned, I'm not someone who wants to do the change. It just felt like I needed to. And so it just, I feel like I can do stuff now. You know, I've had a son since then, and I get to spend a lot of time with him. I get to work a hybrid work schedule, so I don't have to go in every day, which is great, and it just so much more like, I don't freak out if, like, I don't get calls on the weekend, but if someone were to call me, it probably wouldn't be work related. It would be for something else. And so it's just such a 180, I think I said in my email this most recent one, I was like, "It just... I felt like I had no place to go. I think I had, like, some sunken cost fallacy in there where I was, like, I'm just here, and I've spent so much time doing this that what else am I going to do?" And I think it's that first step is really scary, especially for people that like to overthink everything to just go in. I also like to know, you know, I like to know the ending of a movie before I get invested in it, kind of thing. Not see, like, where is this gonna go, or it just, I think this started with you asking me how I feel now. I feel fantastic. It's just so nice to go somewhere and work and like, know you're doing something good, and it be appreciated, but then you are a person too, and so...

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:21

That's amazing. Well, and I'll read off the most recent email that you sent to us too. There's a portion where you talk about how, now that you've made this change a little over two years ago, and then you were in one role, and then got promoted to another role, arguably, even better fit, and that was part of the plan. You knew that you might be taking a partial step down potentially, and the intention was to be able to make a longer term move. So you've done that, which is amazing, first of all, let me just say that. But in the email you wrote us recently, is that you said, "I'm still in the same department, and actually promoted into another role a few minutes after starting it. Still love it. I went from a place where I was crying multiple times a day and on the verge of falling apart about every little thing to a place of confidence, respect, and calmness. And without this, I'd still be in the same dark place." And so I know that that takes no small amount of work. It doesn't just happen. You know that too, because you've done it firsthand.

Emily 32:26

Yeah, some tough questions. And I was like, do I have to answer this? And he made me email people on LinkedIn. And I was like, "Really? I have to email perfect strangers? Like, you do not know what this was like for me."

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:39

Well, here's what I really wanted to understand a little bit more of, you know, now that you've made that type of change as you continue since you're now thinking about this more as iterative and not you have to find the one thing to be all things for the rest of your life. But now that you're thinking about this in a more iterative fashion, then what do you think is going to be easier the next time around, next time you want to make a change, whether it's in your career or other areas of your life, what do you think will be slightly easier for you?

Emily 33:07

I think being able to make a change without feeling guilty about what other people might think about it or might have to say about it. I am very lucky and that they really encourage you to apply for promotions, even if it's outside of whatever department you're working in. Like, they really want to see you grow and, like, land in good positions. And so for me, I think being able to, like, when that time comes to, you know, look for a more promotional role, then I'll be able to focus on that itself, and like applying for that, rather than all the emotions that come along with leaving your current position and knowing that there's someone who can do the work when I leave, and it's not just going to sit there. So I think that that will, you know, and being able to do the interview that, and I mean that, I would say tangibly, the interview prep was one of the biggest things for me, like I said before. And so I just think all of it combined, really just having a different mindset on how to look for a career or role that you fit into, just less strict pressure on myself, you know.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:20

Absolutely.

Emily 34:21

And, like, you said, it was a lot of work, and it wasn't easy. And there were times where I was like, maybe I should go back, because it took a while to, I think, right before I had an interview for the Secretary position, I told Alistair, "There's an opening at the Red Robin down the street. I think I'm just going to apply there because I have to do something." And he was like, "Don't. No. Don't panic yet." And I think just knowing that if you put the work in, that like, you can expect to see a result, and that it is possible to do a 180 of, like, where you were. Because I honestly was like, I'll never get out of here, like, this is my life forever, and it wasn't. And I said earlier, it is like another lifetime ago.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:09

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:07

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

Speaker 3 36:13

I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life. I had gone into this new career that I was like, "This is it. I'm making great money. I've got all this opportunity. I get connected with all these high level people." It was like the thing that I thought that I wanted. And it wasn't.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:32

Do you remember those quizzes they had a stake in middle school, or maybe for you, early high school, that matched us with our career path that we should probably be on forever? My results said I should be an architect or a dentist, or I can't even remember what else, doesn't matter, right? But life would be a lot easier if we just took those results and that was the exact career that would fulfill us for the rest of our lives. But unfortunately, that's not how it work. And the journey to figuring out our calling can take a lot longer than we expect, and it leaves us feeling pretty lost at times. If you're in one of those spots where you're feeling lost in your career or like you don't know what the next right step is, this episode is for you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:22

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

Haley Stomp 00:01

Now it's about what works for me in this part of my life, and I only have eight more years till my kids go to college. What do I want the next eight years to look like?

Introduction 00:16

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:40

A few years back, my wife had a health scare that became a serious wake-up call for me. I realized I'd been telling myself over and over that my family was my biggest priority, but I wasn't building a life that truly put them first. I thought I was showing up for them, but when it came down to it, I was constantly pulled away by work, deadlines, and the endless to-do list that seemed to grow every single day. But in that moment with my wife, I understood something absolutely had to change. I had lost sight on why I started this journey in the first place, to create a life where my family could come first. Maybe you're feeling like your career is driving everything else, leaving little room for what truly matters to you right now. What if, instead of trying to fit your life around your work, you could flip the script and design your career to fit around your life?

Haley Stomp 01:30

You're not just gonna put the gas down 100% until you die. I mean, it's okay to kind of work everything together. And maybe that was the realization that this phase of my life needs to all fit together or stack together. It doesn't have to be my career is driving everything, and I'll try to fit everything in there. It's more like, how do I make this phase of my life ideal with all of the factors that are in it?

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:55

That's Haley Stomp. Haley received her degree in engineering, but later pivoted to marketing, where she worked for well over a decade. And when she reached out to us, she was a senior vice president in Worldwide Marketing, and she is also a mom. Haley realized it was time for another career pivot when her priorities began shifting and her home life and work life were no longer meshing. I want you to take a listen in the conversation that I have with her because you're going to hear how Haley came to terms with leaving the company that she'd been with for quite a long time, over a decade. And we're going to dive into her journey of intentional change, uncovering how she designed her career around the life that she wants for herself and her family, not the other way around. Here she is talking about where her career started.

Haley Stomp 02:43

Yeah, I had a couple big pivots during my career. So I graduated with a chemical engineering degree, and I went into engineering in a food production company. So I know how to make a lot of different things– breakfast, cereal, fruit snacks, and cake, and all kinds of stuff. So that was exciting. I did that for several years, and then I made a transition from that company to a different company. And when I switched to that job, I started my master's to get my MBA. And when I was getting my degree, at night, I started shifting from manufacturing into R&D and project management, and that gave me a whole view of all the different functions in a business. And I realized that marketing was having a lot of fun. They were getting to go do stuff and get out of the manufacturing plant. And so as I was finishing my degree, I tailored my classes to the marketing end. So by the time I got done with my master's, I had been eyeing a marketing job within the same company. I moved into that role. It was a big change for me to go from being an engineer to being in charge of marketing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:55

Okay, hold on. Let me ask you about that then. So was that really a case of where you're looking at other people in marketing and be like, "That looks like they get to have all the fun." Or were there other elements there that caused you to say, "Hey, I think I want to lean more towards marketing." Tell me about that.

Haley Stomp 04:12

Yeah. I mean, it was both. I was working on really important projects, but I literally bought a manure-spreading truck for a project I was working on. I was working with sulfuric acid, which was dangerous. I was getting called in the middle of the night because pumps weren't running. From doing all of these things that were interesting and exciting, I love the science and I love that I was doing it, but I was seeing the business side, and people were getting to make big strategic decisions, and get outside of those walls of the plant and go places and see people and do things, and I really wanted to be a part of that action.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:47

Is that part of the... I've gotten to know you a little bit over the last year and a half, and one thing that has become very evident to me is those strategic decisions are something that you are very good at. I'm curious, though, where you started to realize and recognize that, one, that was fun for you because it sounds like that's part of what you were alluding to. And then two, that that was something that you were or had the potential to be great at.

Haley Stomp 05:17

You know, I took a bridge role in between engineering and marketing. It was a project manager role. And in that project manager role, I could take my project manager skills as an engineer and see all the potential problems, and I got to understand all the functions. And the thing I really liked doing, I got to report to the leadership team on how our project was doing. I get to tell them, "Here's where the problems are. Here's where we need money. Here's what's going well." And I loved that part of it, trying to direct the decisions and figure out and basically negotiate on the things that I think needed to happen so we could hit the goal. But that role was really, I think, where I discovered my love of being in that position.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:58

So how did that influence then some of the changes that you made after that?

Haley Stomp 06:02

Yeah, so I applied for a marketing role when I graduated and moved out of the project manager role. Got the marketing role. And a couple months into this role, I had a presentation in Belgium. I got to fly to Belgium and give this presentation, and one of the leaders in the company approached me, and she said, "Hey, we want to go work with this company in China, and we need somebody to launch this product for us globally. Would you be interested?" I was like, "I know nothing about the product. I've never been to China, but yes."

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:32

Sure, that sounds great. Let's do it.

Haley Stomp 06:35

Yeah. And I mean, it was one of those exciting door moments for me where I just took a leap and just did it. It was probably the biggest pivot of my career to go do that because it pushed me out of my comfort zone, and it just sent me down this track that was really eye-opening and developing and changing on what I was going to be doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:56

What were some of the biggest learnings out of that experience living outside your comfort zone?

Haley Stomp 07:04

I learned I couldn't be afraid to fly when you have to get on a 13-hour flight. You have to get over that in a hurry. I think the main thing I learned is that I could do so much more than I gave myself credit for. I mean, I went to Asia by myself for a whole month, and I was also pretty scrappy. And, you know, the big learning, I think, when you leave your culture and start working within other cultures, it's just how similar you are. And it was about building those relationships and understanding where people are coming from and building that team. And you know, they're my teammates, like, the person that sits in the same town as me, they're the same as that in terms of our relationship and what we needed to do together.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:44

I'm also curious then, what caused you, after you started making these changes, recognizing what you enjoyed more and then moving up the ladder with this organization, what were the pieces that caused you to recognize that you no longer wanted to move in the same path?

Haley Stomp 08:02

Yeah, I mean, I think my priorities shifted a little bit. I went through... When I didn't have kids, I was doing a lot of this exciting climbing and traveling and all of that. And then when you start to have to balance, you know, a marriage and kids and all of this stuff, you just have to reprioritize a little bit. So I think it was that balancing act was definitely a reason to shift and think about, how am I going to do all of this. And I think, too, I've always had a project mindset. So as an engineer, you could be a process engineer, project engineer, I tended to be a project engineer. I wanted to start on an end date, and I wanted to see that, and then I wanted to move on to the next thing. And so I think there were a couple points where I was like, "All right, I feel like I've gotten this to a good point. I need the next thing."

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:50

I need to get this project to be over and move on to a different.

Haley Stomp 08:53

I'm ready for the next one. Because this is more about maintaining and more incremental growth where I was looking maybe for some of those opportunities to make those big shifts.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:03

So that's really fascinating. I think even that mindset of having a project outlook, and I found that that can be really helpful for people because when we're in a, what was the name of the last role you're in?

Haley Stomp 09:17

Senior Vice President of Global Marketing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:19

Yeah, when you're in, you know, that type of role where you're Senior Vice President of Global Marketing, it just goes on. It is not necessarily something that unless you are treating it as a project with an open and closed and maybe even experimental type mindset, then it is perpetual. And I think that in itself, creates a lot of challenges when other things start to change in your life, like, you described, hey, was married and had kids, and there became other different priorities that started to become very important as well. And when something's perpetual or non-project, then it's harder I found to even think about stepping away or changing the landscape or moving on to the next project, or whatever. So I'm curious what that was like for you, and whether you found the same experience, or what advice you might give to someone who's in that situation.

Haley Stomp 10:15

You know, I think one of the big learnings I've had in the last couple of years is that there are phases in life. You know, you go to college and your eye is on the prize– I'm going to get my degree, I'm going to get this job, I'm focused on my career, and oh by the way, I want to get married and have kids, but I'm focused on my career, and you're kind of going through your 20s. And even for me, I would say my early 30s, like this is all just going to work out. And I think the last couple of years, I really realized that look, I'm in a different phase now. I read there was an article recently that I ran across where it talked about the three phases of a woman's career. And it was so helpful to say, "Oh, wait, this is normal. There are phases in a career." And as I'm getting older, as the things in my life, priorities are changing, it's okay. It's normal that your career is going to look different along these phases, and that you're not just going to put the gas down 100% until you die. I mean, it's okay to kind of work everything together. And maybe that was the realization that this phase of my life needs to all fit together or stack together. It doesn't have to be my career is driving everything, and I'll try to fit everything in there. It's more like, how do I make this phase of my life ideal with all of the factors that are in it? So, you know, on your project versus perpetual I think it was about giving myself permission to say, "I get to design this space how it works for me, instead of just following along the career trajectory and hoping everything else fits in."

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:48

That makes a lot of sense. What made you finally decide that "I'm going to make a career change from that role, that situation, that organization." What took place that caused you to decide?

Haley Stomp 12:02

Yeah. So two years before I left, I had been in a role for about 10 years, and we had done amazing things. I had built a team, we had grown the business, so much success, so much fun. But I was at that point like I was talking about the project versus perpetual, where it was more about maintaining an incremental growth, and I was hungry for that next thing to challenge me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:24

That other project. Yeah.

Haley Stomp 12:25

I was ready. And so I was at a decision point internally in the company too, do I look outside, or do I look for something internal? And timing worked out really well for me to try this global rule, to go back to the global rule, and putting my Superwoman cape on, I was going to spend half the time out of the country and do this amazing job. At the same time, my kids were starting to need more from me in terms of activities and eating and whatever it was, you know. So I think it was a little bit of a perfect storm in terms of it was the ultimate challenge. I tried to, I think about watching the Olympics and different drives have different difficulty ratings. I feel like I stepped into like, okay, the highest difficulty rating. So if I perform it here, I should get a really good score because the difficulty rating of everything I'm trying to do at once is pretty high.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:17

What was the final thing? If you remember, if there was one thing that caused you to say, "Okay, this is it. I'm making the change."

Haley Stomp 13:26

I remember the day that I was like, "All right, something's got to change." I was on a conference call, and I'd been on several conference calls, and I'd been really trying to keep it all going. And I just dropped off the call, and I got in my car, I left work, I got in my car, and I drove to my parents' house, and I just said, "Look, I don't know if I can go back to work tomorrow. Like, how am I going to get up tomorrow? I have all these things that need to be done. I need to talk about this." And so, in the bucolic small town, Iowa way, we went to an apple orchard and bought some apples. We had a nice dinner, we talked about it, and the next morning I got up, I called into the next conference call and drove home while I was on the call, and was like, "All right, I'm gonna get through this, but I've made a decision that I need to make a change, and I need to figure out how to do that." So a project manager that was going to go back on and say, "What's my action that I need to take to get out of this place?" And I didn't mention this before, but earlier in my career, I'd had another moment where I was like things were not going well. I need to leave. And I gave myself, at that point, I gave myself three months. I said, "I am doing this for three months, and I'm going to make it work. And if in three months I haven't fixed it, then I will make a decision." And luckily, at that point, three months later, it was all going great. But in that pivot point, in 2020, I could feel that I needed to upset the apple cart in an even bigger way to make it better.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:01

After you made that decision, do you remember what it felt like at that point in time? What did that feel like?

Haley Stomp 15:07

Honestly, relief. I had a sense of relief like, okay, I made a decision. And I think I've noticed that a lot along the way. And making a decision, one way or another, is such a relief. And it may not be the right decision, but, man, just making that decision feels good. And it's like, "All right, I made this decision. Now I can start moving on whatever plan is following that decision."

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:30

That is amazing. I also have felt that. And now, actually, strangely, I use that as an indicator for whether or not I felt like making the right decision for me. If I'm getting some of those same senses and feelings after I've made that decision, that helps validate it. That said, though, I'm curious, what advice would you give to people who are in those same sort of situations who are trying to make those types of decisions for themselves? Because it's hard.

Haley Stomp 16:00

You know, it's really hard. And I think so much about this, and I think from some of my other friends and contacts too, I wish that I had a coach while I was still at my last job. I wish I had hired a career coach while I'm just within my company trying to make decisions. And it's lonely at the top. And the farther you move up in a company, especially when you've been there for a while, people have seen you at different levels, and so when you get to the top, it's hard to find the right people to admit that you're not sure what to do or you need help. And so you have to build that network. And yes, you build it within, but I absolutely think building it outside of where you're at is so helpful. And when I left, I made a huge effort to build my personal board of advisors. And I had, I mean, I joined a women's networking group. I had Happen To Your Career, we had the Happen To Your Career group outside of that. I had my therapist. I had my friend who wanted help marketing. She started her life coaching business, so we were trading hour for hour. And then I had some other people that I just made a list like, these are the people that are going to support me. But if I look back, I wish I'm like, man, I would have enjoyed work more before if I would have done some of those things earlier, if I had worked harder to put that together. I just want to tell any HR person out there, any manager out there, help your people get that network because it would be so beneficial.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:27

It creates a much healthier place to operate from, is how I've always thought about it, as opposed to not having that network and having all those questions like, "Should I be doing this? Should I not be doing this? Is this right for my career? Is this...?" Like all the million things that go through. And I've experienced the same thing, the further up you go in any organization, no matter what size it is, small or large, it definitely becomes far more challenging to find people to where you can talk through things like that, and it's still appropriate and productive and useful for the other people as well, and yourself.

Haley Stomp 18:06

Yeah, and you know, we put a lot of pressure on people's managers, but I think finding a mentor is helpful. But the thing I liked about having a coach is that person is dedicated to helping me. And, you know, in my case, Mo was seeing all kinds of other people in similar positions. And so it was really helpful to hear, "Oh, you know, luckily, there are a lot of other case studies and other people where we can draw information and draw experience from." And that was very helpful for me too.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:34

"You're the third person I've talked to today, that is..." No, but seriously, though, like all joking aside, I can completely appreciate where that is very helpful. Because if it's normalized, whatever it is, whatever we're talking about, whatever type of challenge, if it's normalized, that alleviates some of the feelings of craziness or whatever else other people might feel. I'm not even sure what to call that feeling, honestly,

Haley Stomp 19:02

Well, I think there's so much responsibility. As a leader, you're trying to be there for your people, and you're showing strength, and you're showing resilience and all of those things. But it doesn't mean you wouldn't benefit from some help or somebody to talk through these things with. And from the female perspective, when you work with a lot of males, sometimes it can be intimidating or hard to say, "Hey, I don't know what to do here, because you're already trying to look like you know what you're doing." So that was another factor sometimes too, is, man, can I find another female who's 10 years older than me to just kind of tell me how it's going? What do I need to do? You know?

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:38

Yeah, when you look back after you made that decision to make a change, and then as you started exploring what your next steps would look like, what was most challenging or what surprised you along the way?

Haley Stomp 19:55

I had to, I mean, my job was my identity. So I had to figure out who was I without this job, and what did I want to do. And there was some work for me to understand that just because I left that role, I didn't leave all of my strengths behind, and I didn't leave who I was behind, all of that was still me. I could take that with me, and then I just needed to look for the next place to apply it. So I think it was unraveling that idea of, you know, am I a failure for leaving this role? Was it because I couldn't handle it? Was there something wrong with me that I couldn't do this? And kind of getting to the point where, no, that's absolutely not the case. And I think there was also a really positive feeling the day that I posted on LinkedIn, that I had left that role, so many industry contacts had complimented the work I had done to that point. And I think that was a learning to say, "All right, I did this for a really long time. I've banked all this. This is my experience, and no one can take it from me, and I don't need to feel bad about making this decision for myself." It's okay, it's good. And again, life has phases. You make these changes, you don't have to stay at the same place your whole career. And sometimes it's okay to do that for yourself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:16

Why do you think that's so hard for so many of us?

Haley Stomp 21:19

Well, I mean, it's safe and comfortable, and you know what you're doing, you've got that structure, you know the bad and the good already, you don't have to learn that. And you have your network, and you have all of that. I think it's scary to let it all go and just kind of be out there by yourself. And I think that's really hard. And the other thing, you know, when you're a manager, you don't want to leave your people. You feel bad about, "Oh, I don't want a..."

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:44

That sense of responsibility. That's pervasive.

Haley Stomp 21:47

Yes, and then you have to remind yourself that, "Look, any of these people could leave tomorrow." You have to be kind of selfish. And it can be hard to be selfish about those things when you've been trained to be in a leadership role where your main job is to help develop people and to help your team. You know, to say, "All right, I need to be selfish about what I need." It can be really hard to just say, "All right, I gotta do this for me."

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:11

Yeah. So let's talk about that for just a second. I think that's really fascinating that you use the word selfish there because I would argue that changing pieces so that you can make sure that you're taken care of as well as taking care of your kids, you know, your family. It's probably not actually that selfish, but it definitely feels selfish. I jokingly and seriously use that word a lot, like, I'm like, "Go ahead and be selfish", like, for a minute, like, what? But what do you think for you that feels selfish to where we need to use that word? Because you're not a selfish person. You're the furthest thing from a selfish person that I can think of. Still, though it feels that way.

Haley Stomp 22:53

I will tell you it doesn't feel that way anymore.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:56

That's great.

Haley Stomp 22:56

Yes. I just, I think, at the time, because you spend so much time building these things, and you're so committed, maybe we take so much out of the success and the things that we're able to do. It's really tangible. The rewards of working and doing that are very tangible. You get paid, you get praised, you see the results on a budget, on a sales sheet. You can really touch and feel the success of what you're doing, and so it's a very tangible way to see that what you're doing matters. It's not always tangible to see that I made chicken for my kids and they're super happy. That's not...

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:34

Sometimes they're not super happy.

Haley Stomp 23:36

Yeah, actually, I guess they don't really like my cooking. But I think we tie so much of our worth into that, and who we are into that. And, you know, and especially me, being a female in a more male-dominated area for so long, being a first-generation college student, I mean, I remember thinking at some point, I'm done. I don't have to prove anything to anybody else anymore, like, I'm done. I can be done with that. And now it's about what works for me in this part of my life. And I only have eight more years till my kids go to college. What do I want the next eight years to look like?

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:10

Yeah, we've definitely had that conversation many times over. Or it's like there's only this much time for this, for the kids, and that is definitely a driving force for me as well. I am also really curious, you said, "Hey, I don't feel that way anymore. I don't feel like it is selfish in the same way that I did at the time." What changed for you and what did you have to do for yourself in order to get to that point to be able to look at it differently?

Haley Stomp 24:43

Well, I started writing, and I think that was helpful. I also think when I finally started talking to other people about other jobs and explaining my experience, the reaction I would get was sometimes surprising. You know, when you're at the same place for so long and you're always pushing and being pushed and doing things, you don't actually realize maybe, you don't appreciate everything you've done. Not everybody's been to all the countries I've been to, not everybody's done the things I've done. But it's hard to realize that when you're in it. And so I think, when I started looking at other opportunities and talking to other people, it was nice to see their reaction to, oh, you know, and just realize that all right, there is value without this company, there's value without my title, my experiences here, I'm very comfortable and confident in what I have done. And so I think it was just starting to reach out and look at other positions and realize and be able to compare all those years and what all that experience looks like compared to other potential roles. And also, just honestly, just talking to other people who have done it, listening to the podcast, I mean, you have so many good examples of nothing fell apart when they quit and found the next thing, every one of those is...

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:55

Life still went on. Crazy, isn't it? Like, life still went on.

Haley Stomp 25:59

That was a huge thing for me. Like, oh, it's cool. If I don't leave the country for a month, guess what? I still have cool things to do. There's people to meet. Life is going on all around me, outside of where I was at. And I just... I needed to actually see it to believe it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:16

Okay, let's go all the way back to when you made that decision, and you were maybe even just before that decision, maybe the month prior to that. Because we have a lot of people that are listening to the podcast that are in that place right now, and they are considering, "Hey, do I stay? Do I go? If I went, what would that look like? What does the world...? All the things that you know having been there run through all these crazy things that run through your mind, and also some of the not-so-crazy ones too, and you don't necessarily know which ones are which. But what advice would you give to that person who's in that place, who's trying to decide, should I make a career change? If so, what does that look like? What does a better life or better career look like for me? What does extraordinary look like?

Haley Stomp 27:04

Yeah, I mean, well, if they're listening to the podcast, that's a great start because for me, it was just so helpful to hear other people make that decision and come out okay on the other side, that was really helpful. And I still have it up in front of me on my board, the ideal career profile. Like, writing down here is what I want it to look like. And you could even, you know, what I ended up doing was I made a spreadsheet with, here are all the things I want, here are the opportunities, and I would score it, and it would give me a really quantitative objective look at this. I mean, people could do that where they're currently at too, to see what's missing. You know, when I used to coach my team members, I'd be like, "All right, you're not happy where you're at. But can we design something internally first? Can we look at that first?" But I mean, honestly, I hate to be a broken record but hire a coach. Go get yourself a career coach.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:57

So much easier. I very much have been in the camp over and over again, and my identity used to be built on, "I can figure this out myself." Like, very, very much so strong. Like, my dad is a wonderful, really wonderful role model, and also he's the type of guy who would just figure it out, like, never pay for anything. So that was what I grew up with. And, well, in some cases, I'm still releasing that, and there are many things in life it's just harder or impossible to do on your own. So I really appreciate that advice, not just because we have a team of coaches working with people all over the world.

Haley Stomp 28:35

Well, and I think it's, I mean, it's really daunting when you haven't updated your resume or really been on LinkedIn because you've been happy for a long time, or when you haven't done any of those things, it's so overwhelming to think about, "I don't even know where to find a person to help me or how to do this." And so a couple years ago, I found somebody to help me rewrite my LinkedIn and my resume, just in case. And I found Happen To Your Career by Googling, you know? And I was like, and I compared it with a few other things, and was like, "This one feels good, but I just kind of had to take some leaps of faith to find some of those resources." Because when you have to start, you have to start somewhere. I think that's the thing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:15

One last fun fact before we go. I feel really fortunate that I get to interact with a lot of our clients, not all of our clients, but you and I got to meet along the way. And that doesn't necessarily happen for everyone, but then later on, we actually talked about a role here at Happen To Your Career, which is something that doesn't happen all the time at all. And what was really cool, you mentioned your ideal career profile, which you said, "Hey, I still have up." And your ideal career profile helped us realize that what we were talking about at the time just honestly was not the right opportunity for you. And I think that that is so cool, and evidence of like, "Hey, that working, and you staying in line with what is true for you."

Haley Stomp 29:58

Yeah, I think that was so helpful. And there were a lot of times along the journey where I was like, "I should take this job, or I should take these jobs because I should get a job." And it was, it took a lot of patience and willpower, and practice. They know the things that weren't right.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:13

That's so hard.

Haley Stomp 30:14

Yeah. But as I went along, it got a little easier. But there were definitely points where I was like, "I should probably just take this job", and I'm glad I didn't do that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:30

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:22

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

Speaker 3 31:28

I was like, it just... I felt like I had no place to go. I think I had, like, some sunken cost fallacy in there where I was like, I'm just here, and I've spent so much time doing this that what else am I going to do?

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:42

There are countless stories we tell ourselves to stay stuck in a job that's no longer serving us. Maybe you're convinced you've invested too much time at an organization to just walk away, or that you'd be heartless to abandon your team and that they'd never forgive you because they need you there. It can be really tough to challenge your own logic. But what if staying is costing you much more than what you realize?

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:10

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

Roberta Dombrowski 00:01

I talked a lot about being versus doing. Our society really emphasizes the doing. Here's what I want to achieve, here's the impact. Do more with less. Like, all just profit, all of this stuff. And it doesn't think about, "Who do I want to be when I'm doing it?"

Introduction 00:23

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:48

Have you ever accomplished one of your goals or reached what maybe was the pinnacle of success only to feel overwhelmed and unfulfilled? Whether that was climbing up the corporate ladder, maybe even making it to the top, only to look around and wonder, is this it? Is this all there is? The truth is, there is such a thing as fulfilling work, but it's likely not where you've been looking. So if you've ever felt like a cog in a corporate machine and questioned whether there's more to life than just climbing higher, you're not going to want to miss this episode.

Roberta Dombrowski 01:23

I think a lot of people look at the executive level and they're like, "I want to climb the corporate ladder. I want to get there. I want to make an impact." But it's almost like you're a slave to the schedule. You are confined. It's a long hour. Yes, you have the title, but your life is pretty much that. It's hard to balance things outside of work. And so now my schedule is super flexible.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:49

That's Roberta Dombrowski, a self-described Job Hopper in the tech industry who navigated different roles and organizations at a remarkable pace. By the age of 29, she'd already climbed the ranks to become a VP of user research, wearing many hats along the way, including learning designer, product manager, user researcher. Although this looked pretty amazing from the outside, the rapid ascent took a significant physical and emotional toll on Roberta. Manifesting in panic attacks and other health issues, this made her question everything. Roberta, in this episode, opens up about the emotional toll of corporate success and the bold decision to step down from her executive role. You're going to hear how she transformed her experience into a powerful coaching approach, combining business acumen with mindfulness to help others navigate their own career crossroads. She, like myself and many others, have grappled with internal conflict between societal expectations and her own need for personal fulfillment. Ultimately, she made the courageous decision to leave her exact position and stare down the fears and uncertainties in redefining her path. Oh, by the way, you can assume from her track record that she's now a very established career coach with many accreditations, ACC, CPCC, and all the others. However, I should also mention, she's a part of our team and a career coach here at HTYC. Roberta understands the emotional rollercoaster our clients face because she's lived it herself. She blends traditional coaching methods with mindfulness practice, helping our clients connect with their bodies, their intuition, and guiding career decisions. Hey, one more thing before we jump into this discussion, you're actually not going to hear from me today. Samantha, on our team, who usually works behind the scenes on the podcast, got to talk to Roberta about her journey. So I'm going to let them take it away. Here's Roberta sharing where her career first began.

Roberta Dombrowski 03:47

It started when I was a kid. I've always been the person who, I was around adults, and I was a deep listener, and I would be asking questions, and I would be just really intentional and listening to like my dad or my family, anybody, aunts, uncles. And when I went to college, I was really the first person that went to college in my family. I got my first real taste of coaching. I wore a few different hats at the time. It was like a portfolio career before it was hip. I worked in Disability Services. I was an instruction leader, and then I was like a note-taker. And when I was doing supplemental instruction, it was this amazing program where I was teaching first-year student skills. I was mentoring, teaching, and then the manager at the time that I had was a coach, like she was a trained coach. It was a higher ed environment. And I would just go to her, it was my first time being away from family, and I would be just talking about my career and questions and all these questions that a 17-year-old has, and I never had someone hold that space for me. I was always holding space for other people. And so that always stuck with me. And then when I transitioned into corporate after I graduated, I actually decided to go into learning experience design. So I was creating virtual in-person training, and then I made a bunch of huge transitions after that too.

Samantha Martin 05:18

Just to briefly touch on your transitions from college, what industries or roles or hats did you wear for those who were trying to figure out what you wanted to do?

Roberta Dombrowski 05:30

So many. My first role out of college, I lived in Boston, I took a customer support success job. It was in the tech space. It was for a social media data analytics platform. So basically, like, it monitored what people said about brands on Twitter and YouTube and stuff like that. And so basically, I was answering help calls all day. It was usually, like, something went wrong, something broke, and I found myself getting really frustrated because I was like, "Why don't we just design the experience better than this so people don't get frustrated." And then I moved into learning experience design. So I was creating virtual in-person training, helping people to use the platform more effectively for the software platforms that I was working on. And then I transitioned to a company called the Predictive Index. And that was really like, that was like, I spent four years there. For those unfamiliar, it's like similar to MBTI. It's an assessment company. It focuses on, like, behavioral assessments, and I was on their learning team, so I designed virtual, in-person training. At the same time as I was in that role, I also got my Master's in Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning. And I was just like, all in on learning, of like, how can I help people learn, how can I help them learn more effectively about themselves. So that was a big transition. And then after that, four years there, I went into EdTech. I went to educational technology companies. I worked at a company called Pluralsight. I worked at a company called EdX, which is like a large open-source platform. I wore different hats in those roles. First I was a product manager, and then I decided to specialize in user research. Which is very similar to product management. And the reason why I switched to those is that it was still in the field of learning, but I wanted to have more of an impact in the work that I was doing.

Samantha Martin 07:35

Was there like a common thread that you were finding when you would decide to change from thing to thing?

Roberta Dombrowski 07:43

When I look back now, it is the values that was guiding me. Even if I look at my first role that I had, like, I was support, I wanted to be of service to someone. I found myself getting frustrated with help stuff, and I wanted to be more proactive. And so that led me to learning experience design. That one hit a lot of my goals, my needs because it was one of my core values is learning and teaching and supporting and mentoring. When I went to product, I was thinking about how can I make more of an impact in these organizations? Is it by designing training or is it by designing learning experiences in general? And I decided I wanted to, I tend to. I'm the type of person that, like, I push myself to see if I can do it or not. Like that gives me some excitement about things. And so I was like, yeah, like, I've worked with product managers. I could do product management for, like, a product that's learning focused. Why not? And when I got into it, I always described product management as my experience of it, it didn't fit quite right. Like I described the metaphor as a pair of shoes that's too tight, like, you're putting your feet into a pair of shoes that's too tight, like, you can work with it, you can wear it, but you're going to get blisters over time, there's going to be some bleeding, some wear and tear. And so when I was in product, I looked at my entire career, and I was like, "What did I find energizing from all of these roles? De-energizing from all of these roles?" And the thread that I saw was learning. Every single industry, every single role, I'm energized by helping people learn. And so that's when I decided to specialize in research and user research, more specifically, because I was doing it as a learning designer, and I was doing it in product, and it was like, I was meeting with customers, I was understanding what's their needs, what's their behaviors, what motivates them. And it just lit me up. It always did. And so any role position that I'm in, it has to have a balance of these things, like, what's energizing, having the heads down deep work, but then also, like... I call it like Meerkat syndrome, a little bit. Where I'm like, I like going heads down in my hole, but then I like popping up, and like being with other people too.

Samantha Martin 10:08

Well, we all know that you're a career coach now that seems like that really crosses over into what you enjoy working with people and then going behind the scenes to figure out things that work best for them and what you can bring to the next session. So I can definitely see what you're saying like and how that crosses over to being a career coach. But I wanted to go back before we jumped into that. And you had talked about energy and evaluating your own energy, and before we started, you were talking about being a mindfulness coach and how energy plays such a huge role. So I was just wanting you to touch on that a little bit, because it's so interesting, and I find that so many people don't recognize that, or haven't even really taken time to think about the different types of energy and the signs and things like that. So you can take it away.

Roberta Dombrowski 11:01

Yeah, absolutely. I'm happy to. Most people don't, right? Society typically teaches us to prioritize analytical, especially in the United States– intuition, gut feel, feelings, emotions, are typically deprioritized. I've kind of fell into the camp because of my body just speaking to me. I was in a product management role. I had just accepted my first role in product management, and I was leaving the house to meet my team for the first time, and I was so in my head thinking about everything that could go wrong, like just anxiety, that I actually fell down the stairs and I broke my ankle. And so it was a really eye-opening moment for me because I was present, but I wasn't present. Like I was present and that I broke my ankle, but like I wasn't present in the experience. And that really kicked off my journey with mindfulness, because I actually couldn't move. So I had to have two surgeries for my ankle. I couldn't move for like, nine months. I was on bed rest, and I needed my energy to go somewhere. Like I couldn't just work all day. It was healing. And so I ended up taking some mindfulness classes, and it really helped me manage my anxiety. It was just like really restorative for me. And then over the years, I decided to go through teaching certification as well, through Brown University. And the way that I incorporate it into my coaching work now is I talk a lot about being versus doing. Our society really emphasizes the doing. Here's what I want to achieve, here's the impact. Do more with less. Like all just profit, all of this stuff, and it doesn't think about who do I want to be when I'm doing it. I have worn so many hats in my career. I can do anything. I know I can. Like, and that's not being cocky or anything, just like anybody can do anything that they choose to. But I always say, like, at what cost? And it's all about how we're being. Do you want to have that high-power executive role, have an impact, but then also be completely burned out and have no personal time and just exhausted? That's okay. That's if you want to do that. That's your choice. And so that's how, when I work with people, I introduce them to, like being versus doing modes. I do energy audits with them too. So I actually have them track their energy throughout the day, especially if they're in leadership or collaborative roles where they actually, like, keep a journal of here's what my energy is saying, like, what's my body feeling versus what am I cognitively thinking. So that they can start to tap into that muscle a little bit more. Because most of the time, we kind of override it as we go throughout our day like some people don't go for walks, some people don't take breaks for lunch. And so it's important.

Samantha Martin 13:59

That's so interesting. So you said when you fell down the stairs and broke your ankle, you were going to meet a team. Was that a new role you were starting?

Roberta Dombrowski 14:08

It was, yeah.

Samantha Martin 14:10

How did you last or how did that change that role for you?

Roberta Dombrowski 14:17

Yeah, so it was the product management role. I was in there for about a little over a year. It was tough. So I was fully remote while my entire team was in the office because this was before covid. So, there was a disconnect from the team. I was kind of on the back foot the whole time. It was hard to connect with them. It was hard for me to step into the role. I had imposter syndrome while I was in the role too. That's part of, I think, why I fell down the stairs. It was like the what ifs– what are they gonna think of me? I want to do this amazing. Like, all this talk track and narrative that I had for myself. So, yeah.

Samantha Martin 14:55

So what was your last role before you decided to pivot fully into career coaching? Can you tell me about that journey of deciding that you wanted to change to career coaching full-time?

Roberta Dombrowski 15:12

Yeah. I was a VP of research at a research company, actually. So I was researching how people do research. I was the top of my field. I was the top of my industry. It's actually very hard to find full-time VP level research roles. I've probably seen a few of them since then. And so yeah, I was in the career I could have asked for, everything on paper looked great, and when I had signed that executive-level role, I negotiated a part of my contract that I wanted an executive coach. I needed an executive coach. And the reason that I do that is that I tell people always who's on your executive team. So as leaders, whether you're an individual contributor, you're a manager, whatever it is, you have an executive team. It could be your partner if you're married, it could be friends, family, it could be your therapist, it could be a coach, but that's your team that you're surrounding yourself with that's going to help you hit your goals. And so that's what I was doing when I took on that leadership role, I was like, "I need my team if I'm going to be able to step into this level and have the type of impact that I want to." As soon as I started working with her, I realized really quickly, like, really quickly, that one, the role that I was in wasn't the right fit, and two, that I loved the work that we were doing together, that I was just like, even when I was interviewing for that role, they were asking me, like, why I loved it, and part of it was because I would have the opportunity to coach other people. Because I knew at this point in my time, in my career, I said with such confidence, like, I was born to be a coach. I know this. If you look at my entire path, nothing else, it just led to that. And so as I started to work with my own coach, I loved the work we were doing. And so I was like, all right, I had this really pivotal moment with my husband where I was just like, this job is not working, like, it's not giving me energy. Like, what I really want to do is coaching, but I'm going to do it when I retire. And my husband's like, props to him, why married him, he's like, "Why when you retire? Like, you're 29. What are you talking?" And I was like, "What?" But that was my inner critic. That was my saboteur. It's like, you can't have it at this moment. That was the talk track. And so he made me second guess that. And I was like, "Yeah, you're right. I guess I have to do it now." And that just flipped everything for me. Everything that I had thought about doing in the future, that I really would love, I was like, I'm gonna do it now. Why would I wait?

Samantha Martin 18:01

Right. That was going to be my next question before you mentioned your husband but now is about your support system and their reaction to that. Since you said like you were at the top of your game, and you were, you know, had this high level at a pretty young age, you had made it, and from the outside, it looked probably like everything you know you could ever hope for. So what were the reactions like when you were like, "Eh. Now I'm gonna go coach."?

Roberta Dombrowski 18:29

My husband, very supportive. My parents, no. My mom still thinks I'm insane for what I've done. She's like, you blew up your life. Because what ended up happening, really, over the last few years is I burned down almost every element of my life and rebuilt it in the way that I want it to be, rather than expectations of other people. The fellow leaders that I worked with who were, like, executive level, they thought I was crazy, but they thought they knew me, they're like, "Yeah, this makes sense. I would never do that, but like, it makes sense for you." So it was definitely mixed, like, my best friends so supportive, or, like, "Of course, Roberta." So usually I find that the people that really know you will see how it aligns, and they're very supportive. And then the people that had the most pushback were my parents, and it's because they have hopes and dreams. They want to see me or be successful and not blow up my life.

Samantha Martin 19:26

So that, as you know, the change from what you've always known and aimed for in a career to something you've realized fits you better can be like a very hard decision to make with a lot of emotions, baggage, a lot of things. So what were you feeling during that transition?

Roberta Dombrowski 19:52

I initially felt very confident in my decision. Once I make a decision, I'm pretty committed to it. I think, a few months after the decision was made, and I started to transition into coaching, and all of that, is when the fears kind of crept in. It's like, the second-guessing of, like, "What have I done?" But then I have an amazing session with the client, and I'm like, "Oh yeah, I'm doing, like, my purpose, what I should be doing." The fears typically ended coming up on the business side of coaching. I don't care about promoting myself. I want to be a true coach, a master coach, that's what I'm working towards, is just like, how can I be of service. So that I'm always confident about when I'm making the decision to switch and follow it. It's part of like, you're never gonna be able to control everything 100% but it's like, how can you set yourself up for success towards the vision that you're seeing? And I'm someone who I will regret not going for it and not believing in myself 100%. So that always kind of would push me towards it more and more.

Samantha Martin 21:05

So now you've been a coach for quite some time. How do you find, like your day-to-day, I guess, your life compared to when you were, you know, at the top of your game in research?

Roberta Dombrowski 21:21

It's so much more flexible. I describe it as having true freedom. I think a lot of people look at the executive level and they're like, "I want to climb the corporate ladder. I want to get there. I want to make an impact." But it's almost like you're a slave to the schedule. You are confined. You are, it's long hours, yes, you have the title, but your life is pretty much that. It's hard to balance things outside of work, and so now my schedule is super flexible. Like I went to Pilates today, like, Wednesday Pilates are my favorite. Like, I have more work-life balance. I could pick my hours. I get to pick my clients that I get to work with. It's true freedom. Like, it's why I have chosen this path, is so that I can live in a way that is fulfilling to myself. And it's not either or, like, how do I have this great job? Or like, I need to be taking care of myself, but it's yes and yes, I can meet with clients and do something I love and like, still take care of my body and have time for myself and sleep and not hustle all the time.

Samantha Martin 22:32

Yeah. Now be up at 4 am to get a workout in before you go to work. Yeah. It reminds me of that, oh gosh, I'm gonna butcher it, but that story about a man on an island who's fishing on a boat, and a businessman approaches him and he's like, "Oh, like, we could really expand this operation, and you could do all these things and get all these other fishermen under you, and like, we could have all these franchises, and you can make all this money, and it comes around to, and then you could retire a rich man." And he's like, "And then I'd be a rich man, and I'd retire to do the exact same thing I'm doing right now, just sitting in this boat and fishing." It's kind of reflecting on, you know, pulling out of the hustle and looking at life and being like, "There's got to be more. What am I really aiming towards? And I could have it right now."

Roberta Dombrowski 23:31

Yes, exactly. Like one of the things I love so much about mindfulness is it's all about paying attention to the present moment. What's coming up for you? And so, like, I'm very tuned into those moments when I'm like, "This is it. I feel at peace." Like, in my free time, I do gardening. I'm like, on the water, I am outside, I'm with clients, and it's like, I yearn for those sorts of things. I think that one thing that I realized when I was in an executive role too, is a lot of people have this mental model that like, work has to be hard. If it's not hard, it's not work. When I worked with my executive coach, be like, flip that on its head. Like, what? Like, that's a bias that I had because of how I grew up. But work doesn't have to be hard, it can be useful. And so that's what really this phase of my life is about, it's like, how can I be useful and just embrace what is and live in my zone of genius? And that's it, and it's amazing.

Samantha Martin 24:35

Yeah. Another thing I wanted to touch on that we talked about before we hopped on here was when your body is sending you signals of when things are not right. And a lot of times that happens before you realize that something's wrong or you need to change. And I know you said that you had a few examples of that throughout your career. So do you want to talk a little about that?

Roberta Dombrowski 24:58

Yeah, I'd say that the big one was the ankle and falling down the stairs, but before I actually fell down the stairs, I was waking up in the middle of the night having panic attacks. And so that's when I was just interviewing for the role. And I didn't think about it. I was just like, "Oh, I'm stressed out. I'm having a panic attack." I didn't like connect it to the job that I was interviewing for until I fell down the stairs and broke my ankle. Over the years, I've had two experiences where I've had panic attacks. Luckily, I noticed it now. I notice it before it gets that strong. Usually for me, it's like feeling in the pit of my stomach. I notice my back hurting, my shoulders hurting. It's like where I carry tension, maybe a heart racing, maybe it's dreading going to a specific meeting. I notice, like, the way beginning stages, so that it doesn't build up to that point yet. And really, our bodies recognize how we're feeling before we actually emotionally process it. So it's really about like, I love somatic work and being able to tune into that because what we resist generally persists, and it's going to come out in other ways and usually stronger.

Samantha Martin 26:15

Yeah, and we work with a lot of people who realize after the fact that their body was something, and some that is like the straw that broke the camel's back because huge things will happen, like a broken ankle. But for anyone that is starting to realize that they're in that place, what advice would you give someone who feels like something doesn't feel right?

Roberta Dombrowski 26:42

Yeah, usually what I hear common is, "Oh, I feel tired. I'm exhausted, I'm burned out, I'm stressed." Those are like the big ones. And so usually what I recommend is time. Take your PTO, your time, integrate little breaks throughout your days as much as you can, get up from your desk, stretch, go for a walk in the middle of the day, eat away from your computer, those will give you, like, mini breaks for yourself. And then, long term, it's time to start thinking about, what is your vision, what's your transition plan? I always say, reflect on your career and your previous roles, what made you choose those paths. And then also start to think about, like, what's working, what's not working within your current environment. There's something that's causing, like, the physical ailments or the end low energy, whatever it might be, and usually, it requires actually slowing down rather than speeding up a lot of people because it's discomfort, right? It feels really uncomfortable to slow down and listen to what your body is telling you. Trust me, I couldn't walk for months like it's really uncomfortable. But in that discomfort, when you start to sit in it and listen to it, is when the wisdom comes out and you will know, you will start to see the signals. When you take the breaks, you will see your body, your nervous system, start to return to normal.

Samantha Martin 28:05

I'm just now recognizing that. So I had my second daughter last year, and when she was eight days old, I broke my foot. You know, I was just... this is the worst timing. This is awful. I had a toddler too that I needed to be taking care of, but people pitched in and helped out, obviously, I'm lucky for that, but it also just made me take a break that I wouldn't have taken that I really needed in that time. So I was on the couch, elevating my foot, but I was also, you know, like bonding with my daughter. It ended up, now my foot's all good, so it ended up really being a positive and a break that I needed. So now that you're saying this thing, that was kind of a sign that you're not going to slow down unless I make you slow down.

Roberta Dombrowski 29:06

Force. Yeah, your body will force you to slow down. Absolutely.

Samantha Martin 29:11

Yeah, very interesting reflection that I've had just from this conversation. So what would you say is your favorite thing about being a coach?

Roberta Dombrowski 29:24

Holding space for people, being able to hold their... They tell us, like, what their hopes, their dreams, their vision is, so being able to hold that for them and ground them in that and help them come to the answers for themselves. Like, I'm holding space. I always say with my clients that they're the expert in their lived experience, and I'm bringing my expertise in coaching, and together, we're helping them hit their goals. That is my favorite thing in the world. It's like the aha moments, the insights, the things they forgot about themselves, really, a lot of the time, they're coming home to their true intuition, their true vision, what they're hoping for, and being able to be a partner with them on their journey is really, really beautiful.

Samantha Martin 30:12

Yeah, we kind of touched on this a little bit, but you are just a great example of someone who had, "made it", but then really pivoted, and are loving your career even more than you could have imagined, and you were not at the place that you had been aiming towards for many, many years. So there's a lot of people that we work with that are, you know, lawyers or doctors or some type of position that they've worked very, very hard for, for many, many years, and they're still feeling something is not right. So what would you say helped you in that time to make that decision to step away?

Roberta Dombrowski 30:58

I always ask myself the question, "Am I running towards something or running away from something?" And that's usually when I know the answer. It comes up pretty quick. And it takes pausing and really getting vulnerable with yourself, of like, why is this not working right now. If I'm running away from something, that's usually a fear, that's usually the wrong motivation. When I answer, I'm running towards something, and here's what I want, I want more freedom, I want more fulfillment, I want this, I want that, I want to be able to serve people, I want to be of service, that's the sign that I'm making the right choice that it's values-driven. And so when I'm working with clients, I ask them the same question, are you running to/from? If they tell me that they're running from the career, they're running from the job, the environment because of a poor boss, a poor manager, role, not feeling appreciated, that's a sign. Then it's something else, typically, or it's something we can dig in more. We can dig a little bit more into. Usually, when they're saying, "I'm running towards this, this, this, this." I'm like, "All right, let's make it happen." And it takes being grounded and teasing apart. And there's an analytical part, there's a intuitive body part, sensation, all of that. And also, when I think about ease and running towards I actually, when I worked with, I've worked with a business coach before, too, she talked a lot about like, push versus pull energy. So running towards something sometimes could be like pushing, Like when I was a VP, when I was climbing the letter, I was push, push, push, push. I'm great at executing pushing override. I was overriding my body a lot of the times. What I want, and what I work with clients on is how can you pull yourself like you're pulling something towards you energetically, rather than pushing. Because pushing expends a lot of energy, but when you pull something towards you, it's more useful plus helpful.

Samantha Martin 33:11

It's interesting. So our podcast, obviously, has a lot of people who are wanting to make a change or working on a change, and it's helpful for them to hear about other people that you've worked with who have done the same. So I know you already talked about the things that you really enjoy in career coaching, but where do you find that people struggle the most when they are wanting to make a change?

Roberta Dombrowski 33:37

When I work with clients, typically, the first thing that they come to me with is, I want someone to review my resume, I want my materials updated and stuff like that. And so I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, let's slow down. Where are you actually aiming to go?" So that's usually like a first struggle is they want to go a million miles an hour, they're already there. And I work a lot with like, let's intentionally slow down and create the vision of where you want to go. So that's one piece. When I also work with clients, there's a lot of thoughts, feelings, mindset, imposter syndrome, things that come up. It's a lot of second-guessing if somebody is transitioning career fields, what are others going to think? Am I gonna be good enough? What's the best way to do this? So that's another theme. Once they align and they have, like, clarity about where they want to go next, typically, a big next bump is like positioning and networking. They like to forget that they've been humans their whole life and have interacted with people because there's a vulnerability to it. When you start to go out and network with people, you're basically like, you're throwing out your intention to the universe and what you're hoping for, and if it gets turned down, there's a lot of risk involved. You start to question yourself, and so people get a little bit fearful or scared or nervous when they start to do that. So I really love like, when I work with career transitioners, people are pivoting careers. It's really a journey. It's an arc. And there's ups and downs at each stage, and it varies for each person too. Some of my favorite moments are when I'm working with someone at the beginning, and I dig deep into like, what's your relationship to work. Because that brings a lot of things. Like, how do you define success? Because that's going to influence things and values and all of that too.

Samantha Martin 35:33

Yeah. What would you say to someone who's like, "Yes, that's how I want to be living life but that wouldn't work for me because of X, Y, and Z, or I got into this career field, and there's no way."?

Roberta Dombrowski 35:47

Usually, I flip the question back, and I say, "Why? Who says that? Why is it not possible?" And then usually they start to ramble off these, what I call limiting beliefs, that are there for a reason. And so I will dig into that with them, and start to poke them a little bit and be like, "Oh, well, why is that? Why is that?" It's not going to change immediately, but usually, I call these like saboteurs or inner critics. It's parts of their personality, parts of behaviors, mindsets that come up. And so usually you can't say, "don't think that way", because then it's just going to keep coming up louder. And so usually I acknowledge it. I'm like, "Why? What's the voice?" I will start to identify it with them. And then if they start to do more visioning and stuff like that, we'll say, "How can we honor this voice and listen to what it has to say?" Usually, it's a protection mechanism of, "Oh, I can't do this because I need to provide for my family, or I need to do XYZ." And so it's like, all right, valid point. How can we acknowledge it and move forward? And then, usually, it's little experiments to try and prove that wrong, or find evidence of why that narrative or way of being actually can be tested and kind of negotiated with. Like it's the same thing that I've done with myself. That was what the story that I had with my husband is, I can only do coaching when I retire. And he did that. He pokes like, "Wait, what?" We all have thoughts like that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:30

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:22

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

Speaker 4 38:27

And now it's about what works for me in this part of my life, and I only have eight more years till my kids go to college. What do I want the next eight years to look like?

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:37

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

Caity Noonan 00:00

I don't even know what I want to do. Like, let's back up. Because, yes, there's all these great companies across industries I'd love to work for, but what am I actually going to do there?

Introduction 00:14

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:39

What happens when you're in the place where you want something different, and you know that for sure, but what else could you do in your career? What else is even out there? Or how could you find out? We hear this dilemma from people all the time. We call it the restaurant with no menus. You're ready to leap into the job market, you want to find something that fits you better, there's so many possibilities, but where is the list of jobs to choose from? Wait, there isn't one. The possibilities are endless, cue, and existential career crisis. But wait, before you spiral, I want you to listen to this episode. Caity was in the same place that you might find yourself, and she found a career that she didn't even know existed, that it turns out, was a perfect match for her.

Caity Noonan 01:27

I just got really excited. I didn't even know this was a dedicated field that people did. And I knew this was something for me because I got excited. And like, it was the first role and area and field that I had felt, for the first time in a really long time, excited about something.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:45

That's Caity Noonan. Caity was a successful VP of marketing in the tech world. Her career was going great, but she began to realize she was no longer excited by her work and knew she needed a change. She took the time to explore her strengths, her passions, what she was excited about, she really dug into the questions of "what's next?" Eventually, her self discovery, combined with extensive research, led her to discover change management, which is an area that she didn't even know existed, and ultimately realized that this could be the perfect match for her. This didn't just happen by accident, though. She didn't just take an assessment and out pops change management for her. Nope. Caity did a lot of work with her strengths, defining what we would call must haves, and experimenting, and she was able to uncover her ideal fit after researching, experimenting, connecting the dots with those strengths and potential careers. I want you to listen as we walk through how she identified her ideal career. Here's Caity explaining why she first decided to step away from marketing.

Caity Noonan 02:56

In terms of my career, I started off in account management and sales. That led me to product marketing, and that really was what I loved. It was okay, this is it. This is right where I need to be. I love every aspect of this. I then grew my career as a product marketer from junior all the way up to senior level management, and I sort of have gotten to the point where it's just not the same anymore. And so about a year ago, I finished up at a company, and I just very deliberately was like, "I don't want to do this anymore." There's, you know, Product Marketing just isn't as exciting to me as it used to be. The role, the job has changed the more senior I've gotten. There's aspects I love about it, and there's just a lot of stuff I really don't like about it. And so I wanted to have a very proactive approach and saying, "I'm not just going to get back on the market, fall into the next PMM job." A recruiter sends to me. You know, I'm just going to take the time. And I had a partner who was really supportive of this. He just was there to say, you know, "We're okay financially. Why don't you just take some time and figure out what you want to do next?" And so throughout all of last summer, you know, we did lots of travel, I just took time off. I wasn't really thinking about any career moves. I just needed the time off. And then kind of earlier of this year of '24, that's when I was like, "Okay, I need to start digging into this." And being a product marketer, research is, like, one of the biggest things that you do. Like, it's one of my strengths. And so I'm like, I can do this, right? I'm on Google. I'm searching. I'm reading books. I'm doing all the things I think I need to, right? I'm sort of talking to some close friends and coaches and mentors, and I'm just not getting anywhere, right? I'm just thinking, okay, I see all the pieces to this process. And I think you've mentioned this on a previous podcast of people just kind of jump from step A to, you know, R. They just think, like, "Okay, I think this is it. I'm just gonna go target this role or this company, rewrite my resume and just go for it, right?" There's not a lot of exploration, education, learning, experimenting, right, and testing. And I didn't know that's what you need to do, which sounds kind of silly now, but it seems obvious, but you really don't know it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:04

How would you know? I mean, it's not like this is a standard class in college or anything else along those lines.

Caity Noonan 05:11

Yeah. And I think, and I just wasn't getting the hands on direction and education around what I needed to do this process. And that's kind of when I discovered HTYC, and really bought in and just understood your approach, right? I read your book, and I saw that you have the short, sort of trial bootcamp, and I thought, "This is so different", right? Like this is hands on. There's a blueprint, and it's very methodical. And as me, I'm very much like a doer and executor. Just tell me what to do, and I'll do it. And that's what I needed.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:46

Well, here's one of the things I'm curious before we get too far along here. Because, you know, fast forward, and let's say that one of the things that you did incredibly well is you've went into this very intentionally, you were willing to invest the time and energy in yourself to make sure that your next change is a good match and a good fit, and it's setting you up to for anything in the future too. And you had learned that areas of what many people might call change management are really great for you. So we're going to come back and we're going to talk about this. But before we do, I'm really curious, was there a particular moment or event that made you realize that product marketing in, at whatever level, in whatever organization was no longer a fit?

Caity Noonan 06:41

Yeah. I think, you know, I think the moment for me when that was happening was I wasn't excited about the profession anymore, and I didn't want to educate myself anymore. I didn't really care about furthering my education in it, going to conferences, networking with other PMMs, like, just... that's where I kind of knew I've lost my curiosity and my passion for this job. But I think what was tricky for me was that there are parts that I really liked about it, and I know we're going to get into this, I think with, you know, some of the strengths work, but it was hard for me to blatantly walk away, because there were parts that I really did like, and so that left me a struggle of, "Okay, how do I keep the elements of Product Marketing that I really that I really enjoy, but not be doing this job?" So yeah, but I do think that was the moment when I knew that that career or that profession and that role wasn't going to be the right move moving forward.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:35

That's interesting. And you also talked about, you just mentioned, the strengths pieces. And I think one of the things that you did really well was going into strengths and viewing that, let's call it a process. It's not technically a process, however, you're viewing it much like a detective. Okay, what were the pieces that you were utilizing over your past roles? So I'm really curious, what did that portion of the process? As you started to get into discovering, here's what my strengths are, here's what they actually mean. And I think coming into this, you already had a pretty high self awareness, at least that was my perception, since you and I got to chat. And I guess just take me through a little bit about what that section of going through, understanding your strengths and then beginning to relate that information to the real world. Would that look like for you?

Caity Noonan 08:25

Well, I had first... So I had been familiar with StrengthsFinder a while ago. I think the first time I did it, about 10 years ago. I was at a company and my findings were actually different then, no surprise, probably, but there was no real application of what those strengths were, and I didn't really do anything with them at the time. And so fast forward 10 years, we're here. I redo the StrengthsFinder testing, and I'm just blown away by the findings. Like my top five, I was shocked how accurate it was. I mean, and I could literally look at the five and say, "yes, in all my career, I can point to these things with each of these five strengths". So first I was actually really shocked about how accurate that was. So and then the process of diagnosing your strengths, which is a really in depth system where you're going through each and every one of your roles throughout your career, your responsibilities, your projects, everything you've done, and then applying your strengths to each of those jobs you've had. And I think that was a real aha moment, because I started to find these patterns and these threads throughout each job that I was starting to tie together, but in relation to my strengths. So one example was that maximizer is my number one strength, which is really about you love to optimize things, you always want to make things better, you really like systems and processes. And one of the things that was threaded throughout my whole career is I've always gravitated towards operational projects. Always raise my hand to make a process better, institute a new system. And it was really operational and more people based and less so just launch this product or go do this audience research. It was very much focused on making the company operate better. And so that was, like a big aha moment. It was like, "Yeah, all the projects I actually really enjoy doing are spot on Maximizer", or, if I think about in product marketing, I really liked the element of doing competitive analysis and market research, and intellection was my number three strength. And so all of these like little patterns of the parts that I like about product marketing kind of reveal themselves. But also part of that work in looking at your past roles and responsibilities is figuring out what you didn't like to do. And I know this is a great exercise with the grid, where you really have to force yourself to plot your strengths of what you like, what you don't like so much, what you're good at, but you don't want to be doing, right? So you have these sort of different buckets, and I think that's sort of a forcing function to really look at everything you've done in your past roles and really think about were you reluctant to do it? Did you raise your hand to do it? Did it give you energy? Did it drain you? Really had to think back through that whole, each role I ever had, doing that diagnosis. So I spent a lot of work on that, and that's when things started to emerge to me around the power of strengths, of finding your top five strengths.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:20

That's awesome. And I want to ask you about the work that you did. You said, "I spent a lot of work." So first of all, just help me understand what kind of timeframe was this for you? Was this, you know, a couple hours in a day? Was this spread over months? Help me understand as you were doing the strength specific work, what kind of timeframe was that?

Caity Noonan 11:40

You know, I worked, you know, I worked on and off on it for that whole kind of module around strengths, probably a couple weeks, you know, but quarters at a time. So I'd come to it, I'd come back. I'd have fresh eyes the next day. I'd be like, "Oh, actually, let me..." I also did that. Or I didn't quite like that as much as I thought I did. So you're constantly re-looking at that work and reevaluating it throughout doing that module around your strengths. And I really like the system where you sort of look at all the work you've done, you start to highlight the things you love, you start to look at the things you don't, you start to do, I think, the scoring was brilliant, where you look at the number of times you usually each strength. And then you can see of your top five, which ones emerged as your strongest.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:25

How frequently is this showing up? And you can start to see the different types of patterns.

Caity Noonan 12:30

Yeah, whereas, like three of mine were pretty well, you know, in the same range, and two were a little bit lower down, but it was just sort of interesting to take more of a kind of such a fine tooth comb and applying your strengths to your career. And I had never done that. I didn't even think to do that on my own. I never would have.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:48

So I think a lot of people I found are surprised about how this tends to work. I think many people that I've interacted with over the years sort of have the perception that, "Hey, I'm going to go take an assessment, or we're gonna do this exercise, and then a few hours later, I'm gonna have an absolute understanding of all my signature strengths and everything goes with it, and then we're gonna be able to talk about what this means. Am I gonna be a beekeeper in Zimbabwe, or am I going to do something else?" And so I find that there's a lot of surprise around what it takes. I heard you say this was spread over weeks where you're spending hours chunks at a time and then have reflection or allowing things to simmer in between. But what did you find surprising as you were going through that section of the process?

Caity Noonan 13:31

Yeah, I started to see patterns emerge around my values. So the biggest one for me was I really care about how things are done, and not so much the what. That was a big one for me. Where I was at so many companies, a lot of them startups or small size companies, where just getting things done with speed was more important. And I realized how much I internally thought that and I really cared more about having operational soundness, because I'm kind of a perfectionist. I think things can always be done better. I like to optimize those. I like to take time and presentations and make sure they're spot on. You know, where I'd be in these environments where speed was the priority for the company. And so I started to see these patterns of my own values, like what really matters to me in the workplace. And I could start to see where I was finding these areas of unhappiness because my values around what I do at work were not aligning with the role. So that's just one example, and then sort of reflecting on your strengths after you do all this is really interesting as well. So relator was one of my strengths, which is very more focused on sort of people to people right, kind of more individual and more supportive. And I could see how that was a strength because as a product marketer, you really have to get buy and cross functionally, across the whole company. You have to really influence others, influence your peers, influence your leaders. And so I can kind of see how that emerged as a strength. And thought about, "Okay, well, how can I take that with me into the future as well into a different role?" But, you know, from here, I could kind of go into how I discovered change management, you know, from that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:05

Yeah, let's definitely talk about that here in a moment. I think one of the things I'm interested in first is like I heard you allude to the values piece, and it sounds like that was way more important for you than what you perceived it originally. What I'm also curious about is, if we talk in terms of what we would call an ideal career profile, and for context for obviously, that's a tool that we use here at Happen To Your Career, and where we can begin to on paper, on purpose, define, you know, what a profile of the most important elements, whether it's values driven or anything else, and what you need, and then that allows us to be able to start relating that to the real world. But here's what I'm curious about for you, what were some of the examples of the must haves that you identified for your ideal profile, and why were those so important to you?

Caity Noonan 16:00

Yeah. It's funny because the ICP work, yeah, ideal career profile, it's sort of this other, sort of, parallel path, right? That's happening at the same time as the strength. I know you like to use the puzzle analogy, which I think is great, of like, you know, you sort of have your edges pieces, right? Your sort of anchors. I sort of see the ICP as the sort of macro, your sort of, macro view of what your career should be, and what those, not constraints, but directives look like. And so for me, the ICP was so helpful because I actually went through a lot of reprioritization. I think the prioritization of the ICP is super important. Like, to begin with, I had finances pretty far down on the list. I was just like, "I just want to be happy and work life balance, and I have to love my job." And, you know, a very kind of not as a practical view. But then when it came to doing a budgeting exercise, where, okay, "What do I absolutely need minimum to stay where I live in the Bay Area?" Which is a high cost of living. We aren't moving, so that kind of eliminates certain things to just maintain a lifestyle of travel is really important for us, and doing all the things we love doing and our hobbies. So I really had to actually think about that first, right? And so where I had finances kind of further down on my ideal career profile, it quickly kind of got bumped up. I think it was at like a number six. It then became a number three. But for me, my sort of real prioritize, like my one and two, was really around health and wellness and work life balance. So, you know, those were really important for me. I didn't want to be on the road, commuting every morning and every night. That's important for me. It's important for my health. So that was a real big one. So finding a job where it's not going to require five days in office and the budgeting process also helped me sort of narrow down the fact that I can't go be a travel agent or go work in a nonprofit for animal conservation. There's just certain things that I'd thought about at the very beginning, this really wide scope of all these fun things I could be doing. You know, it kind of got more narrow. It was like, "Okay, I'm gonna, I have to stay in kind of a corporate job or corporate environment, which is fine, because all these other things in my life matter and they're important, they come first." And so that was a really, kind of, not a forcing function, but it's almost like a nice reality check, but it helps you. It's a funnel, and it starts to get smaller and smaller, and you get more clarity the more you start really forcing yourself to prioritize what matters in your life. So I think that, and then combine with the strengths. So here I was kind of on the ICP side. I was like, "Okay, I know sort of what I want my daily life to look like. I want to be able to work out potentially during the day, be out in nature as much as possible, and be able to go into an office a couple days a week. I'm totally fine to get on a plane and travel at least once a month." So I had kind of all these, you know, it kind of probably needs to be in a corporate job with this minimum budget. And then over here, on the strength side, I'm starting to figure out what makes sense in the actual role in the company, and so you kind of combine those two together at the same time, and the whole picture starts to come into view a little bit better.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:10

Interesting that you used finances as an example. Tend to take the view on finances that if we're talking about money as a tool, and ultimately, money helps you build the type of life that you want to build, right? So then what I hear you saying is that you're looking at, okay, what is the type of life that I want to continue to live, and what do I want to build, and how much does that cost? And then it sounds like that's influencing where that falls in priority. Because to accomplish the type of work that you want to do within the scope of the life that you want to build, then there's certain financial costs that go along with that. So really nice job on that. And then I think one of the things I'm really interested in here is you did all this work to create that ideal career profile, and it helped you begin to make clear what those priorities were and are. Can you walk us through a little bit how you combine your strengths, your insights from the ICP, and began to articulate what created, or what would create an ideal career for you?

Caity Noonan 20:21

Yeah, and I'd say first, like, what was also before I landed on my target role, which is change management, I also was considering the travel industry and being a travel agent. Because I absolutely love planning trips in my free time. It's one of my most exciting hobbies that I absolutely love doing. And I thought what a career could look like in this. And I sort of, you know, went down that path and explored that my career coach totally different, right? Just to see what could this look like. Those requirements that just weren't going to match my ICP, and that meant working really hard hours and slogging if you're going to start your own business as a travel agent, or the budget requirements just wouldn't have been met, right? It would have required some other major life change. But so that's just one example of how I did go down another path, exploratory mapped it against the ICP, and had to go in a different direction. But...

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:15

Hold on, can I ask you about that? I think that's such a great example. And I think sometimes when people hear those stories about, "Hey, I pursued this and decided it wasn't quite for me." I think it's really easy for people to understand that. But also, on the flip side of that, when people are going through that themselves, I think sometimes the tendency is to get all the way to the end of that exploration and say, "Oh, now I have to start over this thing I thought I was interested in is not actually, you know, not actually something that is going to fit in one way or another." And sometimes when you're in the thick of it feels like you're being set back, not for everybody. And it also depends on how you're looking at it and how many things you're pursuing at the same time. But what was that like for you, and what did you perceive as the benefits to finding out that didn't work?

Caity Noonan 22:04

Right. Well, first I'll say, I'm so glad I did this during the program. Because before the program, I started exploring being a travel agent on my own, and I started this program, and it's going to cost X dollars, sign up now, and I got so close to just launching into it, right? And saying, "This is what I want to do", without having stopped, you know, evaluated, understood the roles within the industry.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:24

Being a travel agent.

Caity Noonan 22:25

Yeah, any sort of networking experiments talking to the right people, and that's actually where it came to, where I figured out it wasn't going to work. I think, you know, I was able to make a few critical connections of people I didn't know, who have recently either become agents or were new to the field, or people have been in the business for 30 years and found out a lot of things I would have not known otherwise of just, it's extremely difficult to get your business started. It takes a lot of, you know, self promotion, and business promotion, a lot of the stuff in marketing, I just didn't know I didn't want to be doing looking over at my strengths, right? Like going over there and seeing, okay, it's actually a lot of this job that's not quite what I want to do. The part that I love doing was the planning. And so then I was trying to figure out, here's there a role within the travel industry that is just the planning piece. And the role doesn't... I didn't find that the role exists in the space that I wanted it to. So I think there was this discovery that the piece that I love doing so much about travel doesn't exist in a profession unto itself that would have paid for a full time job, that would have sustained my lifestyle. But it made me feel so relieved that I did the work. Because had I not figured that out, I always would have been thinking in the back of my head, "Oh, I should go do this." Or, "Why didn't I?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:42

Why didn't I pursue this one thing? Like...

Caity Noonan 23:47

Yeah, and I did all the work and education required to be able to rule that out and feel good about it, like, feel no hesitation that this isn't right for, not only is it not right for me, but it could actually also hinder my hobby, right? I also don't want to hate travel planning, because I'm doing it day in and day out in a role that isn't quite the one I want. So I also had to weigh that against it too. Do you kind of want to be doing this 8 to 10 hours a day, and you're not going to have any room to do it on your own when you love it so much, right? So that was kind of interesting discovery.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:19

So I think that's really cool what you're talking about, because it sounds like in doing that work, not only did you reach a more effective approach, where you're like, "Yeah, I shouldn't spend any more time or money or effort on this", but at the same time, it made you feel better about the decision that you're making and what you're choosing to not pursue as well as what you are choosing to pursue. So how, then, how did you lead towards change management? Take me through, like, what were all the parts and pieces that happened along the way where you get to the point where you're like, "Yeah, definitely want to dive further into change management." How'd that happen?

Caity Noonan 25:02

And what's funny is, I didn't even know it existed. And I think this and how I discovered it was so interesting. So, you know, I kind of rolled out a few other things. My ICPs in a good place. I know what my life priorities are. I have a good sense of like, okay, this is the arena I need to stay in. Part of the process when you're finishing a lot of this work is then deciding, okay, "Are you going to go in a company direction? Are you going to go in a role direction?" And so I think a lot of people go to the company and I actually started going down the company path, and I quickly realized, I was like, "Wait a second, I don't even know what I want to do. Let's back up." Because, yes, there's all these great companies across industries I'd love to work for, but what am I actually going to do there? So I had to quickly pivot over to the role side and just get really specific about what is a new job going to look like for me. You know, I loved all the strength work I had done. I had so many aha moments, connected so many threads there. And then I just started doing a little bit of research. I took all my five top strengths, started saying, like, doing some online research around, like, what are professions, studies, education, around people who have these signature strengths? And, you know, I did a little bit of AI plugging, just to see what would pop out there. And I landed on discovering organizational psychology, which I didn't even know what that was. And it was like, "Oh, this sounds really interesting", and it's the first thing that popped up that I was actually excited about. And so from Organizational Psychology, I started to learn a bit more about the people side of how companies are organized and how they go through transformations. Then I sort of from there, discovered change management, which also kind of popped up in that whole space. And I thought, "Whoa, what is that?" And I remember one of my last jobs, a couple companies ago, I had done a two day seminar from HR around change management, and not really knowing that that was an actual profession, was more just change. Like, how can employees go through change, adopt change? And I was very fascinated at the time about that, I was really into it, because I had been through so much change throughout the course of my career, small companies, I've been through three acquisitions at three different companies. Change has been a constant and in every place I've been. And so I just got really excited. I didn't even know this was a field that people did, and I knew this was something for me because I got excited and, like, it was the first role and area and field that I had felt for the first time in a really long time, excited about something in a corporate space, right? Like a role still within a corporate environment, business environment, that I was excited to explore because I was looking at other kinds of adjacent fields, right? There's project management. I had done tons of project management throughout my product marketing career. Okay, that's kind of an option, but I wasn't super excited about it. It's very executional. I had done a lot of that already. Then there was sort of operations roles, which, again, kind of adjacent, but not focused so much on the people's side could end up being very heavily, like numbers related, right? Sort of company performance related. So there was the space just missing that was sort of operations focused and people focused, and project focused. And change management, as I discovered, is sort of like the role that takes all three of those into one space. And so I just kind of randomly discovered that. And then I just started looking into it. I jumped on LinkedIn. I just watched a couple really quick courses, just to quickly familiarize myself with it. I landed on some of the sort of industry de facto companies that are the standard, you know, the change management, training standards, you know, the ACMP, the industry's body, right? The main kind of body, and everything. So I just started going on there and learning about the whole field, the different roles in the space, yeah, and so that's kind of how I discovered it. And really what kicked off my decision to have that be my target.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:58

So I'm curious then, as you were doing some of that research, what are some of the examples of where you were getting that feedback that caused you to reinforce that, "Hey, this is actually a direction that I should go." Where were you getting those little tidbits of information that, from an experimentation standpoint, caused you to think, "Yeah, this is actually an area that I should further experiment with or further dive into."?

Caity Noonan 29:23

Yeah, I think there was a couple things. I think one of them was the more I was reading about the role, the types of projects, who you work with, kind of the different, the wide scope of it, right? So you could be, you could work in change management everywhere from a major firm like Accenture or Deloitte all the way down to a small firm that specializes it, all the way down to a tech company that has an in-house change management team. So first there was, like, a lot of variation and scope. It wasn't too narrow. There were a lot of options here for this role and growth opportunity. I think the second was, the more I was reading about it, the more I was looking at all of my past experience and basically thinking to myself, I've done a lot of change management in Product Marketing already. It just wasn't called that. And it was the pieces that I really liked. So for example, at some of the small companies I worked at, because we were really small in startups product marketing, because it's such a cross functional role, I was often assigned to do these big, sort of company wide change projects, which is everything from like, new processes, you know, an entirely new hire training curriculum, or designing new deal review systems, like all of these things that I loved doing that I didn't know at the time were actually, could actually be considered change management projects more formally. So I started to actually have this aha moment where I was looking back and thinking, "Okay, back to my strengths, all that whole diagnosis I did around my career, what did I like doing? What I not like?" All the things that popped out that I liked were actually related to change management with me not even knowing it at the time, or even what it was called that could fall into that bucket. So that was sort of kind of one internal aha moment, the more I was learning about the field. And then also just going and, like, starting to read JDs, I was like, "Okay, what do these jobs really look like?" Right? Like, everywhere, from a junior level through to, like, you know, a senior consultant level. And I think what I liked about that the most was nothing put me off. Nothing was like, "Oh, I don't know about that. I don't like doing that." Not one thing sort of stuck out as being like, I'm going to be resistant to having to do that. And that's not to say that this field doesn't come with its challenges. I mean, change for human beings is one of the hardest things to do and to work.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:41

It's going to be challenging, absolutely.

Caity Noonan 31:44

And knowing that too, didn't put me off either. And I think that was like a huge sign. And then I don't know if we want to get into it yet, but then when I started to do the networking piece around finding people who were in change management field, either new to it, been in it 20 years, with all those conversations, nothing really put me off.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:03

But here's the part I think that's fascinating about not just doing work more intentionally, but living life more intentionally, is, I think that almost everybody, I shouldn't say everybody, a lot of people believe that you're going to be able to shortcut this process. Like, I should just be able to do a couple of assessments or whatever else, and then I should be able to go look at job descriptions, and then I'm going to have the results, like you just talked about, like I'm reading through the job description, and not only is nothing putting me off, but the same time, I'm excited about a great chunk of it. And that doesn't just happen by accident. There's a reason that it is a stereotype now that when you look at job descriptions, everything sounds just terrible for the most part. Yeah, and it's unfortunate.

Caity Noonan 33:00

Yeah. Deliberate process. And I think one thing is, I wouldn't have even known to look for those JDs had I not even known this field existed, which is...

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:08

Needle in a haystack, right?

Caity Noonan 33:10

To even start, right? And yeah. So that was a big part of it, and there was so much work that went into that, right? And yeah...

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:18

Just a moment ago, you mentioned, as you started to talk with actual people that are in this industry, this type of profession, occupation, they're actively fulfilling these roles or have, what were some of the realizations that further reinforced for you that this is actually an area that I'm wanting to make a move into?

Caity Noonan 33:38

Yeah. I would say one of the first big discoveries was targeting, you know, if I wanted to go into change management on the consulting side. So you're kind of, you're an outside company firm, come in, you help a business go through change or you go in house to a change management team that might be at a big company that can afford, they actually know change management. They're growing it as part of their award. And so I started to figure out, okay, within this industry or within this field, which direction do I need to go? And I needed to start targeting that even further down. And I landed on the consultant side only because I liked this idea that I could then be exposed to multiple industries, multiple companies over the course of my career, being able to work with different clients. And, you know, having been at tech companies for pretty much the last 20 years, this would be, like, a nice change, right? Like, yeah, change. But like, for me, just a very different experience to say, and I've never been on the consultant side, so that kind of got me excited to just hear people who I talked to, who work more on the consultant side about how they get to meet with different clients, they get different challenges, they work on different programs. And importantly, the change is very readily, probably more bought into if the company's paying for an outside firm to come in. So that was important because I know one of the struggles can often be adoption of the leadership with change. So that can be trickier. So I think the consultant side was the direction I went in. I was getting more reaffirmed by the people who I was talking to on that side than on the in house side. And yeah, and then just looking at kind of the growth path people have had in this field. And you know, what was really interesting is when I asked them their challenges, you know, what they've come up against, nothing really scared me. It wasn't like, "Oh, I'm gonna have to deal with this like I did in my product marketing and career" right? I think I was nervous that it was going to be too close to what I was doing before where I was going to start to pedal back, or have some anxiety about making this decision of this role. But I never had that which I think was important.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:43

Very cool. That's really cool. Anything else that your perspective has changed on through the course of doing this work for yourself?

Caity Noonan 35:50

Yeah, I think also just having there's so much more self awareness after this, right? It feels so much better about walking away from certain things that, you know, I have to just, I had to choose, right? Like, what things in my life are most important to me? And it's really, it's self reflection. There's so much self reflection. It's amazing. And stuff you wouldn't know to do this yourself. Just the amount of work, the prompts, the writing, the discoveries that come through that writing and seeing it on paper is huge. Just saying, like, "I wrote that X is more important than Y. Okay, well, what does that mean? That means I can't go do this job over here, and I'm okay with that." Because, you know, I went into this process thinking everything was on the table, right? Like, I want to work with animals. I want to go plan trips.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:36

I can do anything.

Caity Noonan 36:39

Yeah. But this helped me be okay with coming back to being in a professional corporate job. It was so great to make me feel great about it, and know why I'm still in this space, and it actually shows the things that are most important to me in my life. So yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:57

That's really cool.

Caity Noonan 36:58

The big learning moments for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:06

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:58

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

Speaker 3 38:04

I talked a lot about being versus doing. Our society really emphasizes the doing. Here's what I want to achieve, here's the impact. Do more with less. Like, all just profit, all of this stuff. And it doesn't think about like, "Who do I want to be when I'm doing it?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:21

Have you ever accomplished one of your goals or reached what maybe was the pinnacle of success only to feel overwhelmed and unfulfilled? Whether that was climbing up the corporate ladder, maybe even making it to the top, only to look around and wonder, is this it? Is this all there is? The truth is, there is such a thing as fulfilling work, but it's likely not where you've been looking. So if you've ever felt like a cog in a corporate machine and questioned whether there's more to life than just climbing higher, you're not going to want to miss this episode.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:58

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

Kate Gleason Bachman 00:01

I was quite disillusioned very quickly, and felt like I had made the biggest mistake of my life by becoming a nurse. Even though this is something I had worked for, it took me years to do the prerequisite courses and get prepared.

Introduction 00:21

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:46

All right, here's one that we see all the time. What happens when you have the realization that the career or industry you've been working towards for years isn't the right fit for you? Many people have this epiphany when they're well into their careers or after years of schooling, and some have it the first day they walk in the door and realize this is not at all what I was expecting. It can be a really hard pill to swallow because our identities are often closely tied to what we say we do for a living. So how do you untangle your identity from a career that you once felt passionate about in order to start working towards the right fit for you?

Kate Gleason Bachman 01:22

I think what really drew me into the role of the nurse was the advocacy role. That has always been something that's important to me. In doing the career change process, I was able to actually really hone in on that being kind of a core value of mine is to be an advocate.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:37

That's Kate Gleason Bachman. Kate made a change early on in her career and decided to go back to school for nursing. However, after a short time working as a nurse, she realized it was not everything she had imagined it would be. In fact, she felt a little bit duped because she was not able to care for patients in the way that she thought she would be able to. After hopping around to a few different organizations, she decided something had to give, and maybe it was time to go after what she really wanted, even if that meant leaving nursing. Here's Kate going way back to explain the origin of her career journey.

Kate Gleason Bachman 02:13

In high school, I always had an interest in social justice issues. And I think from a young, young age, I knew that was going to drive the work that I did in some way. So I used to volunteer. I used to ride my bike to the next town over and then take the city bus to go, I'm from upstate New York, into Albany to volunteer at the Social Justice Center, which had all these different things going on. And I just knew that was kind of a world that I wanted to be a part of. So I ended up, you know, I went to college, and my first job out of college was working in public health research. And so I kind of found my way to public health as a way to, kind of, work on social justice issues. And then I actually worked for a training and technical assistance organization, and I saw through visiting programs and health centers the work that nurses were doing and advocacy. And I was like, "Oh, I want to do that. I want to be a nurse." So I went back to school to become a nurse, and then kind of started a second career in nursing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:18

So what was it that you saw or you experienced, that caused you to believe, "Yeah, this is something I want to pursue in one way or another."?

Kate Gleason Bachman 03:29

I think what really drew me into the role of the nurse was the advocacy role. That has always been something that's important to me., In doing the career change process, I was able to actually really hone in on that being kind of a core value of mine is to be an advocate. And I saw nurses on the ground, they're running outreach programs, we were actually working with farm workers, we're working in the fields and helping connect people to services. And it was that advocacy piece that I think really drew me in and made me say, "I want to do this. This is how I think I can be of most service through my work."

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:04

Interesting. That's so fun too that it seems like that is one of the big threads throughout that led to the next change. So tell me what occurred, what happened along the way. You spent some time in nursing, but eventually you decided you wanted to make it some kind of change around it.

Kate Gleason Bachman 04:24

Yes, yeah. So now looking back, I think it's a little more clear. I became a nurse, and I started working in the hospital, and I, quite frankly, was really shocked by the state of healthcare in the United States. It was not what I anticipated. I had kind of seen nursing as this model of care that took someone's global health into account and their home situation and their mental health and all the pieces that make up wellness for people kind of who we are. And I thought I would be able to apply that, and then I got into a hospital setting, and everyone wants to apply that, and it's so difficult and so fast paced, and the pressure is so immense around insurance and reimbursement and getting people in and out the door. And so I was quite disillusioned very quickly, and felt like I had made the biggest mistake of my life by becoming a nurse, even though this is something I had worked for. It took me years to do the prerequisite courses and get prepared to go back to do this second degree program, and then I got into nursing, and was like, "Whoa, this is not what I thought it was going to be." It was really shocking.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:33

Do you remember any moments during that time about what that felt like to have that realization, like, "I've put in all this work, and maybe this is not quite what I thought it was going to be." How did that feel at the time too?

Kate Gleason Bachman 05:47

I mean, I felt devastated and trapped, quite frankly, that first job was really difficult. I stayed there for almost two years, and then I moved to do Home Care Nursing, briefly, home care hospice nursing, which I loved, but had a lot of challenges as well in terms of the patient caseload and the amount of travel that was part of it. And so finally, kind of pivoted to find myself back in the nonprofit sphere, actually, at the same nonprofit agency that I had worked at for my very first job doing public health research in Philadelphia. And so I found myself, I had through the years of kind of being in nursing school and leading up to that, I had done work with people experiencing homelessness, and I found this job as a nurse in the city shelter system, and that was where I kind of started to feel like, "Okay, I'm finding my place as a nurse. This, I think, is where I can really do the advocacy and the education piece that I want." And so that kind of started this cycle of being in this nonprofit world as a nurse, which I ultimately decided, well, I'm still in some ways, but in a different way. I decided to make a shift, but not for many years.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:57

Tell me more about that shift.

Kate Gleason Bachman 06:59

So I worked in the shelter system for three years, and then as part of that same agency, then in a health center that worked pretty exclusively with people experiencing homelessness, that's in Philadelphia, and I was feeling burnt out. That's kind of how I would describe what was going on for me. I was feeling like my work was coming home with me. There was so much going on. It was very, very chaotic. And I have a strong drive to solve problems, so an interest of mine. And so I really liked that aspect of it, but it was the volume of problems was so great. It was overwhelming to me. It was like a mismatch with my kind of need for balance in my life and the needs of the workplace, which were huge. And so that was when I actually first kind of saw myself as trying to make a career change within nursing, and that was back in 2016. So I had been a nurse since 2007 and I had decided that I really need to make a shift, and I attempted a career change on my own without the guidance of that Happen To Your Career team, and it didn't go as I thought it would. So I made a change to still being a nurse, but working for a hospital system. I was hoping to have kind of more organization around my role, and just to be working in a little bit of a less chaotic environment. I think that's what I was wanting. And I was kind of trying to pivot to do something different. What I found was that it was just not engaging to me at all. It felt very corporate, which is not my style.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:43

Not your jam?

Kate Gleason Bachman 08:44

Not my jam. And I just felt like I kind of felt trapped there, too, to be honest. I felt like I wasn't doing the advocacy that I wanted, and I had swung very far from a quite chaotic environment to an environment in which I felt like I had no flexibility to meet the patient needs in the way that I wanted to, and so that was almost more frustrating than the situation I had been in.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:10

Yeah, I could definitely see that really infringing upon that strong value of advocacy for you.

Kate Gleason Bachman 09:16

Yes, it was a challenge. I felt like my hands were kind of tied in terms of doing what I wanted to do for the patients. So I didn't stay. I actually stayed at that job for less than a year, and then went back into a very similar role as a nurse in a different nonprofit in the city, which is the job that I was in when I sought your help. And that job was great in many ways too. You know, there are so many things about it that were wonderful and it was still not a good fit. And I think in terms of thinking about the kind of lessons learned from this process, another thing that really stuck out to me as I was reflecting on the past year since beginning this process, is something doesn't have to be all bad in order for it to not be the right thing for you. And that, I think, was partly what was keeping me in those positions. There were a lot of things I loved about them, and it was not a great fit for my skill set and kind of the balance that I needed in my life. But I kept trying to do that because there were things that I was getting out of it, of course, and it was fulfilling, and I felt like I was making a difference, and I had patients that I loved and a great team, you know, all these things were wonderful about it, and it was still not a good fit. So that was a difficult and important lesson.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:36

When you were in that situation, what caused you to realize, "No, I need to do this differently from how I've tried to approach career change in the past."?

Kate Gleason Bachman 10:46

I felt that I needed more of a work life balance. I think that is how I would have summed it up at the time. And I wanted something that was not as kind of chaotic and fast paced as where I was like, something has to give, something has to change, and I don't want to do the same thing I did, and so I felt that I needed professional help, and that's how I found myself with Happen To Your Career because I really wanted to make a change that was meaningful, and I didn't think I had the perspective to do it on my own without having a coach and some kind of external support to check what I was doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:28

So tell me more about what you mean by perspective, and then, why did you feel like that was going to be helpful to you at the time?

Kate Gleason Bachman 11:38

I think especially when you're kind of, you're in your own situation, it's difficult to kind of see yourself in an objective way. It's very difficult. And so I think what I was looking for was that kind of external view of someone to be able to analyze and understand what was happening, who wasn't me, who wasn't in the middle of it, moving away from something that has some good components. I think for me, it was even more difficult because my identity was so enmeshed with being a nurse. Nursing had not been an easy journey for me. I had had to work hard to find my place in nursing, and so much of my identity was caught up in being a nurse. I'm a nurse. I help people. This is a passion of mine, and I really care about it. And so to even consider that that wasn't the right thing for me after having, it's like a sunk cost fallacy where I have done this for so many years, and how do I walk away from it? And my identity is so part of this. And so that made it even more difficult. And that was also why I felt like I need another person who's able to really look at all the pieces of this and help me kind of figure out what it all means. Because in the end, you know, the pieces of it were all there. It was a matter of putting it together, like ,your puzzle thing, and thinking about, how do I think about this in a way that I can understand it and then make a change from it that, you know, is the change that will work for me?

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:15

Yeah, and I think you're referring to the puzzle analogy, where we talk about that pretty frequently. We've talked about that on the podcast quite a few times too, but that idea of it's really difficult to try and see the puzzle all at once, especially when we don't necessarily even know what pieces to get go where, or even which pieces we still want to keep and which one we want to throw out, and which ones actually don't even belong to this puzzle, because all the puzzle pieces from all the other puzzles are mixed together, and that together and that whole thing. But my question to you, though is, as you were going through this process, not necessarily our process here at Happen To Your Career, but your career change process for yourself, what do you feel like really helped you the most? Do you remember any of the parts or pieces or tools or questions that was really most useful for you along the way?

Kate Gleason Bachman 14:06

I think for me, the thing that really launched the change process was the ideal career profile and developing that. And within that process was the realization that I was able to come through with my coach that I actually did not want to be a nurse. You know, I did not want to. I still am a nurse, but you can see I still have my identity, but I did not want to be a frontline healthcare worker every single day. And that was very hard to accept. And at first I was saying to my coach, "This is important to me. My identity as a nurse is important to me." And so he was reflecting that back to me, and that kept feeling wrong to me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. And finally, through this process of talking it out, I remember, he said to me, like, "It sounds like you don't actually want to be doing this type of nursing work." And it took me a little while to sit with it, but once I was able to incorporate that and realize that was actually true, my ideal career profile came together. Like that, I had a piece in there that was not meant to be in there, that I was reluctant to let go of. And so once I was able to, I just had the best time writing that thing. Once I got there, I just remember spending so much time on it, and it was feeling I was truly in a flow state. Things were coming out. I knew what I wanted. And the other piece that was super helpful to me in terms of developing that was looking at other people's, you have some example ideal career profiles available, and having something to reflect on. My profile was quite different in the end from the ones that were available, but it was so helpful for me to kind of see how other people had organized their thoughts and what their interests were and what they wanted. It just helped me so much to then solidify my own. So once I got there, I just had the best time making that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:11

That's interesting. And so I talked with your coach, and the way that he had put it was, it's almost like initially. She was trying to fill it out like a form, and then it wasn't until that breakthrough where you started grabbing hold of it and making it your own. And it seemed like the big piece that was really stopping you was that separating what you had been doing and what you'd worked so hard on, from the other pieces of your actual identity, and teasing those out to figure out what was actually true for you, as opposed to what you'd been holding on to. So that's really interesting because I think so many people think that a portion of this process is like, "I'm going to go through and I'm going to basically figure, like, follow the steps and then boom, at the other end, gonna have the answers", right? And it doesn't work like that in reality. How long would you say it took you to start that process before actually coming to terms with the way that I've been approaching nursing isn't actually the way that I want to continue to approach nursing. Do you remember how long that is? Is that like, a week or months, or what?

Kate Gleason Bachman 17:24

Oh, it was probably a month and a half or two months, I would say. The coaching sessions were very front loaded, and that's where I need the most support. I really needed help in figuring out that part of it. And once I did it, and I was able to say, this is what I want, it became such a powerful tool. And as we may talk about, and I'm sure, as it is for other people, the process never goes in a linear way, or as you expected. You can't say, like, as much as you might want to, "I'm going to do this, and then I start to reach out to people, and then I find something, and I sample this, this and this", and it certainly didn't work that way. And I think, had I not had that document, which was much more than just a document, that had I not done that work of kind of knowing these are the things that I want, when the opportunity that ended up coming across my plate came to me, I don't know that I would have recognized it as such a good fit. Had I not done that work, I think I would have let it pass by and said, "This seems kind of similar to something I've done in the past, and I don't know if it's... I don't want to do something that I already did because I'm trying to make a change", but because I had that ideal career profile when this job opportunity did present itself to me, I mean, I was able to look at it and know almost immediately, like, this is exactly what I have been saying I'm interested in. So it made a huge difference. I think it allowed me to see what I wouldn't have necessarily seen had I not done that background work.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:59

And I think you make such a great point too, that we talk about the tool of the ideal career profile. We mention it from time to time. And I think when people show up and we start to help them, some people are like, "Hey, I really want to do the ideal career profile and things like that, or Strengthsfinder, or whatever else." And at the end of the day, those are just tools to be able to understand what you really actually want and what you really actually need. And I think the thing that you've done such a wonderful job at is grabbing hold of that work, and pushing through to be able to get to the point where on the other end of that, yes, there's a document there, and yes, the document can be valuable. But really it's the work that went into that that now causes you to understand what it is that you want that is the most valuable. So I appreciate you pointing that out.

Kate Gleason Bachman 19:47

Yeah, I agree, and I think there's some power in putting to paper what it is that you want. After having done this process, I have used that strategy in other aspects of my life.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:59

Oh, really? In what way? What would be an example of that? Now I'm so curious.

Kate Gleason Bachman 20:02

Actually, part of my ideal career profile, like my dreams, things I wanted to do, was run an ultra marathon. And I will be running my first ultra marathon at the end of September, and so kind of putting that to paper. I mean, this has been a dream of mine for many, many years. And I just very recently decided to do some of that work. And I wrote down that I wanted to do yoga teacher training, which I have also wanted to do. I've been practicing yoga for 25 years, and I said I wanted to do that. And one came across my similar to the job. I wrote it down. I said, "This is what I want." And I think so much of it is about your focus. Like that kind of trained my focus in this area. I said, "I wanted it. It's on my mind." Something is not going to pass me by because of that. And so I happen to see an online opportunity at a yoga studio that I work with just in virtual sessions, and I signed up for their teacher training. So now I'm doing it. I'm starting it next month.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:02

That is so cool. That makes me so happy. And what we don't often talk about on the podcast is that the behaviors and skills that often are a part of this process, they transfer everywhere. Everywhere. And you've done such a wonderful job of transferring those into other places in your life. That is so cool. I am curious, you started with us in the midst of doing some work, and you had a bit of a tragic event. A bit of a tragic event is actually probably understating it. But I was wondering if you would be willing to share just a little bit about what happened and how that impacted some of the choices that you made throughout your career journey and your career change.

Kate Gleason Bachman 21:44

Yeah. So to give some background information, I knew I wanted to make a career change. There were a number of reasons I wanted to do it, and I was kind of on this journey. And I won't go deep into all the things that were happening at the organization where I was, but there were some safety concerns, and at that organization, we had an act of violence and active shooter event in which a colleague was killed. So it's pretty much the most horrible and dramatic thing that can happen in any workplace. And I'm sure, unfortunately, other people have had similar experiences of violence in the workplace, and I just know the impact it's had on me. And so I decided I did not want to stay there. It did not feel safe, and so I decided to leave without another job. And that was extremely terrifying and scary, but with my coach, I decided that was the right thing. That was a huge loss, a loss of human life, but it also accelerated my career change process in a lot of ways. And looking back on it, and thinking about that loss, and the other things that I lost in leaving that job in a faster way than I anticipated that I would, is that part of the change process, I think, is loss, and that kind of, to me, goes hand in hand with that piece of there are pieces of every job that are good, and there are pieces where you excel and it does meet your strengths, and there are pieces where it doesn't, and just because things are good doesn't mean you shouldn't make a change. And there is some loss with change, and that's just part of the change process, and that for me has been really healing and instrumental in my kind of journey of switching jobs and the career that I'm in now. I love. It's so fulfilling. I really, really enjoy it. And there's a piece of me where I do feel the loss of my team that I worked with and my patients that I worked with, and the camaraderie that we had, and this tragic loss of a human life of someone who I worked with. So I think part of the journey of career change is that you leave some things behind, and that's true in other aspects of life too. And I think for me, that was a really important lesson. And I think having gone through this kind of like jump of a moment where I kind of jumped into the unknown, making a career change is a huge deal, and it's also not. Having made the change, you realize that it's not the end of the world. And if you do make a change that you don't like, and you decide to change again, or down the road, decide it's time for another shift, it's also not the end of the world. And so I think putting so much weight on the decision, "Is it right? Is it wrong?" To a certain extent, there's no way for you to know. And you'll learn from whatever you do, even if you learn that it wasn't what you really wanted. But I think you just gained so much from the process that you can continue to use like you have this new skill set that allows you to move on in so many different ways.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:48

We put so much pressure on ourselves to make this the final change, or I have to get this perfect, or however that shows up. It shows up slightly differently for every person. But to your point, it is a big deal but it's also not. Like, after you've done that and you're, I mean, you're gonna go run an ultra marathon, like, there are some elements of that that are also scary and unknown, I would imagine. And after you do many of those unknowns over and over again, it's not as big of a deal as what it feels like back in the first couple. So I appreciate you making that point. Anything else that I didn't ask about or you think is really valuable or important about your story?

Kate Gleason Bachman 25:34

I think the final lesson that I'll say, and I've talked about it a little bit, but for me, the thing that I learned was just, even if it feels kind of audacious and out there is to really kind of say what it is that you want and that can be. For me, it was very difficult. It felt like I was asking for so much, and I hesitated to even say it. And finally, in my example, my ideal thing was to find a job where I could work four days a week, and I could have one day to volunteer or work as a nurse in my community. And that just felt crazy. Like, how am I going to find this job? How is this going to happen? And it felt outlandish, even saying that. I mean as outlandish, just saying I'm going to run an ultra marathon, in some ways. But I put it out there, and I really think that allowed me, it kind of opened my eyes to see opportunities in a different way. And what ended up happening is a former colleague of mine who had started working for the company that I now work for, emailed me and just said, "Hey, we're having trouble filling this position. Do you know anyone who would be a good fit?" And it was my job. I just looked at it and said, "This is for me. I'm not going to share this with anyone. I'm going to apply to this job." And I think I had mentioned that where I work now is also a training and technical assistance organization, very similar to where I had worked before, and I think had I not done the work that I did, I wouldn't have seen that as the opportunity that it was. But it was amazing that it came across through my email inbox, and it was four days a week, and the reason was so that I, as a clinician, could have a clinical practice one day a week in my community. And so it has happened. I said this thing that felt so outlandish, like, who is going to give this job four days a week so I can work as a nurse one day? And I now do. So I, you know, I started the job with four days a week. And actually, only very recently, in the past couple months did I find the right fit for that fifth day. And I'm working in my local Health Care for the Homeless Health Center, which is amazing. I mean, this is, yeah, it just felt like the most wild thing to wish for. But it happened.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:57

I'm really glad that you shared that partially, because I think it helps break apart all the things that had to be in place to lead up to you even recognizing the opportunity. And now, like you said, you're just, in many ways, almost a year later from declaring what it is that you want now having all those pieces fall into place. And I think a lot of times we accidentally gloss over all of those events and milestones that have to happen. So that's pretty wonderful. And congratulations. That's way cool.

Kate Gleason Bachman 28:33

Thanks. Yeah, it's amazing. I really am loving what I'm doing now, and it's been great. And in hearing you say that, the other thing it makes me think of that I think I learned through the process is you don't have to meet all your needs in one place. And that was a lesson I learned from the Happen To Your Career process, that I think was also what allowed me to kind of put that goal out there. I wasn't going to find a job that had all of the kind of intellectual pursuits and writing and research and synthesis of information and being a nurse in the same place. And by being able to separate those, I was able to make it happen. And so that kind of idea of, you know, you don't get everything from one place necessarily, was kind of freeing to me to say, like, "Okay, I don't have to find something that has every single thing on this checklist. The perfect job could be a component of this, and it could still be the best fit for my life."

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:35

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:27

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

Speaker 3 30:33

I don't even know what I want to do. Like, let's back up. Because, yes, there's all these great companies across industries I'd love to work for, but what am I actually going to do there?

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:42

What happens when you're in the place where you want something different, and you know that for sure, but what else could you do in your career? What else is even out there? Or how could you find out? We hear this dilemma from people all the time. We call it the restaurant with no menus. You're ready to leap into the job market, you want to find something that fits you better, there's so many possibilities, but where is the list of jobs to choose from? Wait, there isn't one. The possibilities are endless, cue, and existential career crisis. But wait, before you spiral, I want you to listen to this episode. Katie was in the same place that you might find yourself, and she found a career that she didn't even know existed, that it turns out, was a perfect match for her.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:32

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

Katja Trmcic 00:01

Work was work. Work was something to earn the money so you can have fun. So it never even crossed my mind that I could be happy or have fun with my work, which I am doing now.

Introduction 00:19

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:44

It's happened to most of us. You're cruising along in your career, doing what you think you should be doing, because it's what everyone always told you was right. You follow the directions, and you're on autopilot. You're keeping your head down, you're doing the work, and suddenly it hits you. A moment of clarity, almost like a pothole in the road, jars you awake, making you question everything, "How did I end up here? Where am I going? Who am I?" You realize you're not happy, not fulfilled, and you wonder if you can escape this hole you've dug into a career that you don't enjoy.

Katja Trmcic 01:18

Try to look back at your life as if you're 85-90 years old, and you're talking to younger generations, your kids, grandkids, grand nephews, whoever is around you, and they're asking you about your life, and what are the stories that you want to have to tell. So you could say, "I was a lawyer for, you know, like, 10 years, and then I got a little bit bored, and then I did this."

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:42

That's Katja Trmcic. Katja is originally from Slovenia, and began her career as a lawyer. She chose that route because she'd always been told she should be a doctor or a lawyer due to her good grades in school. From the very beginning, there were signs that law was, shall we say, not for her. It took her eight years to finish law school, and when she began working, she felt completely disengaged, bored and like she had to keep the real her hidden at all times when she was at work. Fast forward, and Katya now lives in Canada, is a licensed mental health counselor and also a career coach. Actually, this is one of the best parts. She's one of the coaches on our team here at HTYC many years later. In this discussion, she talks about how she stopped living on autopilot and looking to others to tell her what her next steps should be, and finally looked internally and asked, "what is it that she really wanted", and now she gets to live that every day, and more importantly, on our team, be able to help others do the exact same thing. Pretty cool, right? Hey, one more thing before we jump into the discussion with Katja, you're not actually gonna hear from me today. Samantha, who's on our team, who usually works behind the scenes on the podcast and all things content is who got to talk to Katja about her journey, and so I'm going to let them take it from here. Here's Katja talking about her background.

Katja Trmcic 03:11

So I come all the way from Eastern Europe, or we like to call ourselves Central Europe Slovenia. So that's a former Republic of Yugoslavia. We're next to Italy, for everybody who doesn't know, because usually people confuse us with Slovakia, which is not the case. So I always had good grades in school, but lack of guidance about what I could do with good grades. So I always thought like most of my, not education, but education about the world came from TV. So I watched a lot of like legal TV shows– Ally McBeall and Matlock and all kinds of stuff like that, kind of, stupid stuff if I think about it now. But I was very excited about it, and it made sense, and I had good grades. And then I thought, I could be a doctor, I could be a lawyer, probably not the doctor, and my grades were not that good. And then I signed up, and I was accepted to law school, and it took me a really long time to finish. I was partying, I was doing everything else. I started working in a law office, like, after two years of studying, I think, and then it took me, like, eight years, I think, to finish school.

Samantha Martin 04:20

So you started actually working.

Katja Trmcic 04:22

Working. Yeah. So because I had to pay for some expenses, like, it was not... And in Slovenia is different, you know, you go to law school and it's paid by the government if you have good grades and stuff like that. But you have to finish in a certain amount of time. So I did finish, but I was bored at my work. I was reading all these forums about relationship problems and stuff. Like during my work, I was not interested. I was not like stimulated. I was not engaged. I had nice bosses to lawyers, and then I switched to junior lawyer after I finished. But it actually didn't really change what I was doing, but I did notice that I got in touch with the type of people a lot that, like now, I know that because I know about my values and I know what's important to me and how I want to be in the world. But I found myself in a situation when I had to kind of be good with or just kind of make people feel like I agree with them, although I didn't morally, and I couldn't really put a finger on it at the time, like it wasn't in my vocabulary, I guess. I just knew that I didn't like my work that much. I was bored. I was always excited about Friday. I was waiting for Friday. Monday was approaching, I was like, "here we go again." But most people around me existed in that way. You know, work was work. Work was something to earn the money so you can have fun. So it never even crossed my mind that I could be happy or have fun with my work, which I am doing now. Just want to say that just to skip to the end, but let's go back. And by the circumstances at the time, I had a partner and we moved to the US, he got a job at a big university, and I went with him, and it was like an adventure, a next step in our relationship. So we moved to New York state, to Ithaca. And first, I just started volunteering because, and that's something that I always recommend my clients when they're changing locations or maybe they're not able to work yet. I wasn't... because I was waiting for my work permit. So I started volunteering at SPCA. I was walking dogs, and I was helping with adoptions of cats, and I love that. And then they hired me based on... immediately when I got my work permit, they had a position for me, animal care technician, which is not where I stayed.

Samantha Martin 06:40

That surprised you. Were you looking to work there? Or had you been thinking the whole time you were waiting on your visa, like, "Okay, when I get this, I'm gonna look into legal."

Katja Trmcic 06:49

I was still thinking about law at the time. I thought, I'll have to find a way to transition to North American systems and do law there. But because I had nothing going on, I was just trying to get out of the house. The process took quite a lot of time, I would say, four or five months after I came, I only got the work permit, but it was important just to be engaged with the community, because otherwise I would just be, like, rotting away, like in the basement suite we had, like, no people, I didn't know anybody. And just now I understand better also, you know, proximity of animals, how good that is for your nervous system as well. Because I was in a survival mode. I didn't know at the time. But when you're moving across continents like that without any real support from family or not knowing people, it's a big, giant restart you create, it's like a computer restart from the beginning. You have to build everything, and how you act in the world, and when you get your groceries and where, you know, like everything is new. So those animals, yeah, that was fun. I did not look for that job. It just popped up and I got my work permit, and I said, "Oh, I'm going to apply for this." And they hired me. But then the same month, I got another position at the University where my partner worked, and it was Student Services Coordinating and Admissions. And I did both jobs for a while because when you have none for a while, and then you have options, then you just take on. And that's one of my problems. I had to learn the hard way later that I take on a lot of things because I'm excited about opportunities. I had to quit the SPCA job and just focus on the Student Services one at Cornell University. I stayed there for three years, and I had absolute blast. It was amazing. It was such fun environment to work at. There was this one coworker, I don't know if I can drop names, but her name was Jennifer, and she taught me how you can just be personable, and you can be yourself, and you can just really inquire and try to be helpful, like for the students and how they appreciate that, and how they open up, and you build this wonderful connections. And me being an immigrant myself, but kind of a couple steps ahead of them, and they were coming, you know, I had to help them. It's really put me in this mama goose situation when I knew what they're supposed to do and where to go, and I was just helping. And I really found so much fulfillment in helping, but also in a way, like Jennifer, like she had so much sense of humor, and I have that too, but I didn't know you can bring that to your work as much as she did. She would prank everybody. And then I started doing that too, and it was really fun, fun environment. So, like, little light bulbs would be going on for me, like, "Ha! You can have fun, like this." But then I had to move again. After three years, we moved to Canada.

Samantha Martin 09:44

So you started realizing, "Oh, look, I can be myself at work, and now I'm enjoying it." What did that tell you about when you were working in legal?

Katja Trmcic 09:52

I think I just didn't know. I didn't know about... I didn't know enough about life, about myself. Like I didn't know myself very well. I thought I have to find information on how to be from the environment I was in. I thought these are the ways I'm supposed to be existing in a professional world. So, like, I could say, nobody taught me, no. I didn't make those connections with my brain cells, yet, you know. Like those connections were not made, and I was strictly looking outside to understand how I'm supposed to be. And that it's impossible to be genuine in that way. You know, like when you're not listening to anything that's happening inside of you and act accordingly. But so I think that was my problem at the time, and very low confidence. Because, you know, in imposter syndrome, that basically with me like it lasted when I moved abroad, it was a big hit of imposter syndrome again. But before in Slovenia, I think just always feeling that I shouldn't ask too many questions, or I shouldn't put myself out there and put myself on the map and be noticed by people because then they might ask me questions and I will be found as a fraud I was. This is all like things that these concepts, they're clear to me now, like I studied counseling recently so I understand things. I did not understand them back there. So I did the best. I was doing the best that I could. But I see this a lot with my clients, how like existing in a way that you think you're supposed to exist, but not tapping into what are you good at, and what do you like to do, and what do you do not want to do, and actually communicating that in appropriate ways, standing up for yourself, be assertive, and just kind of creating situation and environment that works for you, because you're individual and you are unique, right? If that makes sense.

Samantha Martin 11:54

So you just mentioned that you studied counseling. So how did you go from working at the university, and then moved to counseling?

Katja Trmcic 12:05

So I moved to Vancouver, Canada. And first, because I had this new experience in post secondary institution, I said, "Okay, I guess I'm destined to work in post secondary institutions." That was my lead, right, for what comes next. And I just started applying for all the positions I found, and I got a job at a small boutique school for 3d animation in North Vancouver that had very much like a startup vibe. It was still growing rapidly when I was there and that experience, I just had to do everything there. So I was like the head of administration, my title was campus manager. Eventually, I did admission, student services, HR, payroll, scheduling, career support, events, like, everything. All the admin stuff, basically was on me, and I didn't know at the time, like, I got super burned out. It was a lot. But I learned so much. I learned so much. So at the time, when I was ready to leave that company, I seeked support of a career coach for the first time. And she was wonderful, like, for the first time, I started to kind of challenge the way I existed, or the way how I was thinking, because I always thought that's, like, that's firm, that's not to be changed.

Samantha Martin 13:23

Was it like, did you believe that that's how everyone thought?

Katja Trmcic 13:28

Oh yeah. This is universal way of existing, right? Like, I wasn't even challenging it. I wasn't even thinking that it might be different. It was just a fact. This is just. And, you know, and this is how we also people get judgmental of other people because other people are not acting according to how we think they're supposed to be acting. And we think like I thought for the longest time that we all have the same sets of rules provided to us somehow, like we are all on the same page, and some people decide not to follow the rules, but actually that's we're all so different, and we come from such different backgrounds and environments and how we are raised and families and oh, there's so much, so many factors to take into consideration. So yeah, I started... When I realized that the most of the work that the hard work that can be done on me that opened things up for me, because I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna challenge everything. I'm gonna rethink the ways I do things." And that's a very uncomfortable way to exist because what you are able to fall back on, like those constants that you have, suddenly you're kind of taking them away. But for me, it was very liberating. I felt like I've been waiting for that my whole life. I'm so dramatic. But in a way, you know, like it just opened things up what seemed very like walls closing in. I remember when I went to that career coach, my thought was, "Is that all that is out there for me I'm just going to be doing?" I was a campus manager, and I did a lot of things that were very rewarding, but I still felt that I'll be always doing, and in my mind, it was just admin work, and I'm not trying to this admin work for, you know, we are all different, and we all are meant for different things. But that was not it for me when I was doing that. I felt that it was not enough. Something didn't make sense. I wanted something different.

Samantha Martin 15:24

Well, you went from saying, "I can be a doctor or a lawyer to..." you thought a more limiting career after you moved to the US, and so you were probably left with that nagging feeling of, "but I should be a doctor or a lawyer", like so many of us are.

Katja Trmcic 15:43

Probably. Like, I should do something exceptional. Like I should do something important. But important for me, you know, like something that I feel it's important. That's also an important distinction because I always felt like I will do something great. I don't know if this is, probably we all have that feeling, but it's important to come to terms what is great for you and I feel like I got it, like I understand that my grade is so different than everybody else's great, and that's the point, and it's my individual experience, and it doesn't have to translate to anybody else, if that makes sense. But for me, it was like when you go to a career coach, which maybe a lot of listeners already know, or they're curious about, you tap, you have an opportunity to tap into everything you've done so far and kind of evaluate what were the parts that really worked for you. Like, what were the parts of your jobs, of your responsibilities that made you feel alive inside? And you just kind of got lost in those tasks. And you could do more, and you had so much, many ideas, but then you had to focus on the boring things as well. There was not enough time. Like, what was that? And for me, it was always having conversations, maybe because I talk so much like I need a lot of time. But having conversations with people, listening to them, trying to understand what it is that it's a struggle for them, and trying to be helpful or provide value in one way or another.

Samantha Martin 17:15

So before you go into where you transition to, I want to ask when you were in career coaching and you got past those limiting beliefs and shifted your mindset around all things really, what was the most impactful thing that you think that you learned that completely shifted your beliefs on you going from a fixed mindset, I guess, we can say to a growth mindset. And so what caused you to think differently? Do you remember?

Katja Trmcic 17:46

It was when you were saying it, I was like, "Yeah, It wasn't that simple. I wish it was." Like going to a career coach, that was first step, and I had six sessions with that career coach, and they were helpful, but I still had a lot of resistance. So it's just important to know that the change does not happen like this overnight. It just doesn't. I feel like it happened quickly for me, but it wasn't that fast. It was... I was... From the first career coach, I just, I recognized situation I was in that job. It wasn't healthy for me. I got really burned out. That was also a huge responsibility was on me, because I didn't know how to create boundaries, like, what kind of patterns do I have. When you keep finding yourself in certain situations again and again and again, at one point, it's not about the environment anymore, but it's about you. So it's about what am I contributing to this? So for me, I was a big people pleaser. It was hard for me to say no. I kind of got value from being useful, being helpful, being always there to help out with whatever people would need on my own expense. And later on, I recognized that that was also a way to distract myself from actually focusing on what I was supposed to focus on, which is my own personal growth. So sometimes everything is shinier, you know, other people's struggles, I'm going to help everybody. So that was my state of mind when I went to that first career coach, and she kind of helped me with changed jobs. So from that startup vibe, I went into another post secondary, partially government founded, very relaxed organization, and being there felt like vacation for me. So I changed a lot of jobs, which for career coaching is valuable, because I can understand the different energies this place have. But this one, at the same time, when I was at this new job, I got another coach. She wasn't a career coach. She was like a life coach. She saw that I could be a coach, so she mentored me for a year. And under her work, like with her, everything kind of changed for me. We met every two weeks, and she really... it's important that the coach knows how to challenge you in a kind way, but to show you those sides that you don't really want to look at, again, kindly nudging you like what's that all about. And I received a lot of that. And I had a lot of defenses, but I chose to listen and give the benefit of the doubt, and I'm very glad I did, because I learned so much about myself and how I self sabotage. And that time, at that institution, that's BCIT, here in Canada, I took all the professional development workshops they offered, like everything. They had leadership workshops, they had coaching workshops, they have crucial conversations, how to be assertive, how to minimize conflict. I took all of them because the work, I didn't find it very challenging. So I was just learning all the time. So it was a great place to do that in those two years. I was just inhaling information about personal development, self help, coaching. So, yeah, so it didn't happen overnight. There was a lot of... I was so hungry for it, I guess. Something appeared in front of me, and I was consuming it.

Samantha Martin 21:10

Were you enjoying everything you were doing at that time?

Katja Trmcic 21:13

Yes. It went hand in hand with, like, some changes in my personal life, you know, like, and then you just read books, and you learn about all kinds of stuff. And there are attachment styles, and there are love languages and communication styles and podcasts like I discovered podcasts, and I could not stop listening to podcasts because I would walk all the time just listening to podcasts. I would draw, I would listen to podcasts. Like it would be... Especially that's the time of the pandemic when I was at the cozy job. So it was also very boring. Nothing was happening. So I actually had to spend a lot of time by myself, with myself, and for me, all the time was focused on learning, but also exercising. Like I really got into, like, personal fitness. I discovered aerial arts, which was great. So that was my like two years. That was it. And then I started hopping around for jobs. I was trying to find a better job, something that would fit better. So I became an employment coach with a couple of nonprofit organizations, which I enjoyed. I worked with young Canadians, I worked with immigrants, I worked with refugees. I enjoyed a lot, but I don't know, I just always want to learn more. So I did end up going to counseling school. It took a one year intense counseling program, which now I'm a certified counselor in Canada.

Samantha Martin 22:36

Well, let me ask. If you now could go back and talk to yourself in that first law job, where you were feeling unsatisfied, I guess, unhappy, like you couldn't be yourself, what advice would you give yourself?

Katja Trmcic 22:52

I would say to myself, "What parts of this job do you actually like? Is there anything that you like?" Thinking back, I don't remember if I did, probably I would. But to encourage myself to have some, to take some initiative because those two bosses I had, they were very busy with their work, and I was there to kind of support them whatever they needed. But I think for me, it's so important to have ownership in a project or in the company. So it's mine as well. You know, I feel like this is a common cause, like I want to contribute to the success. What can I do? I believe at the time, I didn't even think I could do anything to contribute. But if somebody would tell me that this is normal to feel like that, but I'm supposed to ask questions, you know, it would be different. So for me, coaching changed that, and some very good managers I had later in life that asked me certain questions, or they modeled the way to be that was very relaxed, but still hard working. And for example, from that school in North Vancouver, the 3D animation school, the owner that I shared the office with, he would meet people anywhere he would go. He would have his card. He would start conversations. He would say, "You should come and see my school. I own a school. It's right there." People would actually come. He would show them the school. Would ask personal questions, you know, like, about their lives, and they would ask him stuff right back, and I would be typing away in that room, thinking, "This is so personal. Like, this is so weird." Like, that word is weird– it has so much judgment, right? Like, it didn't make sense to me at the time. But then I saw how, just from those interactions, these people would recommend this school to their neighbors, to co-workers, to kids that they know, and we would get clients like that. So this is actually how relationship building and networking is supposed to look like. You're just having conversations about your life, about the other person's life, what do they like, what did they struggling with, can we be helpful to each other in any way? And we remember that moving forward, going through life, and we want to refer or be helpful to the people who took the time to get to know us just a little bit when there was no agenda connected to it, if that makes sense.

Samantha Martin 25:19

It seems like so much of it goes back to trying your hardest to be genuine and vulnerable and just have conversations all the time. And I can say, like, and not have imposter syndrome, but that's a hard, you know, thing not to have, especially when you're in your first job out of law school, I'm sure. I also wanted to ask because a lot of the people that we work with have the sunk cost fallacy where they, you know, they are lawyers or doctors, or they did these things where they put in so much time and so much effort and now they're burnt out, or they've decided they just want to do something else, but they can't wrap their head around giving up all that work. So as someone who has done that, who has made the decision to not go back to law, what advice would you give them?

Katja Trmcic 26:11

I would say like, first, I have two things. One of the biggest ones is, I think I read statistics recently or this past year, that three quarters of people do not end up actually working in the field that they studied for, right? The major they chose, that is not the career they end up in, and when they find fulfillment and when they're happy. So this is all limiting way of thinking that you have to. It's, you've done what you've done, and it's a lot. You never start from scratch. It's impossible. Your life experiences, your work experiences, it amounts to something, you cannot just say zero, no, if you pivot. You worked with a lot of people. You have a lot of connections, professional connections, clients, people you work with, companies you worked for, co-workers you worked with, these are huge... these are numbers of people that know you, that you could tap into and have conversations with to figure out, to get an idea, to get ideas, conversations. So that's, probably I'm like, I'm jumping ahead, but I love to have these conversations with professionals who think that they have no options. I have a client right now who is a teacher, very close to retirement, thinking that this is what they need to focus on. That's not true at all. And it's very empowering when you recognize that. You're not supposed to know what you want to do right now, but just having conversations and exploring eventually things start to make sense, and you can connect those dots. And sometimes you have to take that leap of faith, but it completely depends on the individual, I guess, and what their financial and home situation is, but from somebody who has done it many times, it's worth it. I always say to my clients, "Try to look back at your life as if you're 85-90 years old, and you're talking to younger generations, your kids, grandkids, grand nephews, whoever is around you, and they're asking you about your life, and what are the stories that you want to have to tell. So you could say, I was a lawyer for, you know, like, 10 years, and then I got a little bit bored, and then I did this." And what is this "this"? You know, like we are creators of what chapter comes next, and we are the ones who usually stand in our way the most. To have that understanding, for me, I guess, like I said before, that was the most useful piece of knowledge to understand that things are possible, but I am the one blocking it. I don't want to say negative thinking, sometimes you have to think negatively, but yeah, with limiting beliefs like limiting possibilities, saying, "This is not possible. This cannot happen to me." No. Why not?

Samantha Martin 29:00

So now that you have settled into career coaching or just coaching, holistically, I guess holistic coaching, talk about your feelings, like when you're doing that work versus, I don't know, before when you were feeling misaligned, or when you were at that job or you were burned out, or any comparison you want to make.

Katja Trmcic 29:22

I remember when I had my first coaching call, when I started coaching, I went for a walk afterwards, and I had so much energy. Like it's just... When you find yourself doing what you're supposed to be doing. And I don't know if I'm going to be coaching for the rest of my life, but right now, it feels like it's the right thing for me to do, for sure. You don't feel tired, like, you feel energized, you feel excited for the clients and for the fact that you can be helpful in that way, because I know that it changes lives, and maybe that's a big thing to say. But I'm saying it because I felt it, I felt how... and sometimes it's just little changes that need to be made, like, little shifts. It's so hard to see our own, like, blind spots. That's why they're called blind spots, because it's a... And when somebody with compassion and empathy, like points things out for you, it just opens everything. Because a lot of us just feel stuck going in circles, like doing the same thing again and again. But to have opportunity for me to be able to shed light, because I see things than people who are in that circle don't see, and to be able to see it and communicate that and see how the client applies that knowledge moving forward, and how it opens things up for them. For me, that's just the biggest accomplishment I could wish for from my work. I would say it energizes me. I feel more alive now. Yeah, enthusiasm, excitement, energy. And before, I was self medicating, like I was still drinking. I was just bored. I was binge watching TV all the time, like just all those signs that, you know, when you just try to numb the voice that's saying, "This is not okay. This is all a pile..." you know, and you're trying to gaslight yourself that you're fine, that you're supposed to be happy because you have what you worked for so hard, you know you studied, the paycheck is good, what else do you want? But that's, yeah, it's gaslighting yourself. Like not allowing yourself to actually listen that maybe there's something else out there for you. And we, as far as we know, for sure, we only have this one life, and it's really a shame if we do not listen, and we don't take a couple of little chances here and there, and we decide how big the chances are going to be. But just to mix it up a little bit and see if something else fits better, I said, it's like a wearing a different hat, you know, like, try this bigger hat and see how it feels. Maybe it's going to be terrible, and then you go back to the small red one and have some fun.

Samantha Martin 32:09

Yeah, decisions aren't concrete, like...

Katja Trmcic 32:12

They're not.

Samantha Martin 32:15

I like that example. So what made you decide to actually get a counseling license?

Katja Trmcic 32:22

I did a lot of counseling myself. I went to therapy, and I loved it. Like, I don't know, for me, I'm like, "Ah!" I was learning new things. It was very empowering, also very hard, but I was processing things, and I was, I felt I'm more and more in control. It's, I'm just collecting all the ducks, and I'm just putting them here. And I see more and more ducks, and I'm, you know, and they're in a row. And, yeah, and I wanted to be the person who is able to help other people with their own self liberation, or whatever it is, you know, like that is keeping them down and keeping them stuck. I do that as a career coach, I do that as a counselor, like, people come with different challenges, but yeah.

Samantha Martin 33:06

Okay, so we've covered a lot. If there's anything else about your journey or about you as a career coach that you felt like you wanted to cover that we didn't get to, is there anything that you'd want to say or talk about?

Katja Trmcic 33:19

I want to just mention that, like, this last year was kind of difficult for me, and I got reintroduced to the concept of survival mode, which I find with my clients a lot. So I want people to know that it's really hard sometimes to make, like, good and creative decisions about different future when they are stuck in a survival mode, which means when they are burnout, when they are working too much, when they have been moving, when they have been going through some health stuff, like whatever it is, you know, like, if your nervous system is all out of whack and you are, and a lot of times, this is when people make decisions that they need a change, right? So to really understand that the priority should be to calm the nervous system first down, which means allowing themselves enough rest, limiting... They say the best thing is to go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time, like making sure that they move their body, they hydrate enough. A lot of times, people are anxious, but they're just not drinking enough water, which is, it blew my mind, but it's true, like those simple things.

Samantha Martin 34:26

Like my mind right now.

Katja Trmcic 34:29

I just learned, like in a program I was in, that we have to treat ourselves as a plant, like we are a big plant. So what do we need? Like we need exposure to the sunlight. Like we need to, I guess, plants don't exercise, but we do need to move our body, like we need to go for that walk. Whatever makes sense to us, smartphones, like, how dissociation just kind of escaping the reality and just kind of, I know because I've been doing it myself, and I still do it from time to time, but it's so important to know that this is affecting us in all kinds of ways that are not even researched yet. You know, like this cannot be healthy for us. So for us to become, I say, to re-parent ourselves, we become a parent, and we make decisions for ourselves that maybe are not the favorite decisions, they're not the most popular ones, but they're good for us. So how can we make those decisions and create a system or routine that takes place, and then from that place we go and we try new things? Because we will fail. And when we fall back on the established systems, they're meant to nourish us and and hold us in a gentle, caring way, it will be much easier to just pick yourself up again and try another thing that might work a little bit better than the other one, because this is time to experiment, this is time to be creative. It's really hard to tap into that creative part of us if we are struggling in a survival mode. So I think that's a big one that is very helpful for a lot of people, and I'm still struggling with it myself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:09

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:01

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

Speaker 4 37:07

I was quite disillusioned very quickly, and felt like I had made the biggest mistake of my life by becoming a nurse. Even though this is something I had worked for, it took me years to do the prerequisite courses and get prepared.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:22

All right, here's one that we see all the time. What happens when you have the realization that the career or industry you've been working towards for years isn't the right fit for you? Many people have this epiphany when they're well into their careers or after years of schooling, and some have it the first day they walk in the door and realize this is not at all what I was expecting. It can be a really hard pill to swallow because our identities are often closely tied to what we say we do for a living. So how do you untangle your identity from a career that you once felt passionate about in order to start working towards the right fit for you?

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:59

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