Natalie Bernero 00:01

It was just a feeling of dread, like, going into work and having to deal with these conversations. And then that led me to trying to avoid doing that work, even though that was my primary job. So it was just this... It just felt like a battle every single day.

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 00:45

I cannot tell you the number of times I've heard someone say, "Well, work is supposed to be hard. That's why it's called work." Or even, "Work is supposed to suck." It's the mindset that has been ingrained in us as a society. We are unconsciously taught from a young age that work is grueling duty and we have to put in our dues during our prime working years because that's just the way of the world. Luckily, this narrative is very misguided, and people are starting, just barely starting, to realize that work doesn't actually have to suck. And it all starts by looking inward and asking, "Do I really want work to feel like work, or could it feel differently?"

Natalie Bernero 01:32

I was so keen on getting out of finance that I almost wanted to ignore any job that had to do with finance, but that's actually where a lot of my skills lie–is in analytical work dealing with numbers, that financial analysis piece.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:47

That's Natalie Bernero. Natalie was working in the finance industry when she started to feel very misaligned. She felt she was not working on her strengths and that her values had evolved since she accepted the role and that it was no longer a fit. Natalie's support system really didn't understand why she needed to leave her comfortable finance role, but she pushed it back because she knew a more fulfilling role was out there for her. Natalie articulates the ups and downs of her career change process very well, and I think you'll be able to relate to her mind blocks that she had to overcome to even begin the process. Listen for those as we get to later on in the interview with Natalie. Here she is as she talks about the origin of her career change.

Natalie Bernero 02:34

Up until this point when I made my career change, I've only had one job in my one career, and I had a great experience at that company. I had great mentorship, great leaders, great co-workers. I felt like I had a really good support system. So hence why I stayed at that company so long. I was learning. I was growing. For a long time, I did enjoy it, but I found myself growing into a role that I came to realize in this process didn't align with my values and wasn't something that I wanted to do long-term.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:05

Tell me about that. I'm so curious about that. I think that's something that many of us experience over the course of our lives, where something that was wonderful changes because it no longer aligns. What would be an example of your values? What changed for you?

Natalie Bernero 03:24

So, for context, the job that I was in prior to my career change was, I was a trust officer at a wealth management firm. It's kind of, it's a very niche career. So if people aren't familiar, it's basically in the estate planning and trust world. It's a little bit of legal, essentially, I was managing trust funds–is the best way to put it. And so when I initially started my job, I was working... I was growing up into that role of being a trust officer. And so I was being heavily mentored, and I was kind of in a role that was a hybrid of real work and doing supporting and learning the ins and outs of wealth management. And then I was also growing into a role that was more relationship management and working one-on-one with clients and customers. And so I think I really enjoyed it at first because I was learning something, but I was doing a lot of analytical work, which is something that I really enjoy. However, when I grew in more into that role of being a trust officer, and more relationship management piece, that kind of analytical work fell away, and I found myself just working with clients, which was okay, I was good at it, and I did enjoy working with some of my clients, but unfortunately, a lot of my clients were kind of really entitled individuals. And that's where I found the value misalignment– is I really value working hard for the things that I have in life, and the clients that I was working with necessarily didn't share that value. And so I think at the end of the day, that's where that shift happened, where I found myself not enjoying it, because that's what I was dealing with day to day, and the analytical work that I used to really enjoy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:58

When you began to realize that there was that misalignment and values that particularly around working hard, what did that feel like? Do you remember?

Natalie Bernero 05:10

Oh yeah, absolutely. How can you forget? I found myself just constantly stressed and anxious and constantly thinking about the interactions I was going to have with my clients on a day to day basis. There was some... I'm sure anyone who's worked in customer service can, you know, there's always those tough cookies that seem to call you more than the good clients. And so I would just find myself constantly worried in thinking about, "What am I going to say? What am I going to do? How am I going to handle this? Am I doing the right thing? Is this what I'm going to say, I'm going to do? Is that going to be the right thing to do? Am I going to make it more mad?" And so I just find myself so anxious about that, to the point where I was like, dreaming about it, dreaming about having interactions with clients. And so it was just a feeling of dread, like going into work and having to deal with these conversations. And then that led me to trying to avoid doing that work, even though that was my primary job. So it was just this... It just felt like a battle every single day.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:10

Once you began to realize that this was the pattern for you, what caused you to realize that you needed to make a change?

Natalie Bernero 06:17

I think I knew that I needed to make a change for, I would say, a couple of years. And it really kind of hit for me, and I think for a lot of people, during the pandemic, there was this big shift in how work was being done, and I realized that I wanted to make a change, but I just didn't know where to start. And there were periods where I would just kind of randomly apply to jobs on LinkedIn because I was just so fed up at my job. I was like, "Well, I'll just start throwing my resume out there into the universe and see if anything sticks." Naturally, nothing did. And then I would go back into a period where it was okay, things were okay, and I could sustain it for a little while longer. But I knew that being young in my career, if I was already having these feelings of, "I need to get out. I want to make a change. I want to do something different.", there's no way that I should stay in that job for another year, two years. I didn't want to find myself 10 years down the road still in that job and wishing that I had done something differently. And that's kind of what got me inspired to search for help and search for career coaching.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:16

What caused you, do you think, to wait several years? Because I heard you say that, "I think I knew for a couple of years", what do you feel like caused you to wait several years before deciding to take action on that?

Natalie Bernero 07:33

Well, I know what caused me to wait. I was making really good money for my age, I was good at my job, and I had great mentors and c-workers. So those three things I love, and so on paper and in my mind, it was like, "I should be happy here", because it's ticking all of those boxes. And yet, inherently, I was stressed, anxious, dreading my day to day job. And so I think I stuck it out for so long, hoping that I would be able to push through that stress and somehow get through this hard time, and then everything would come into place, but that value misalignment was never going to go away. And so I finally, you know, I needed to take the leap. And that didn't mean that I couldn't find a career that still ticked all those boxes for me, but was also doing something that I really enjoyed. That was the hope that I always had, especially going into this process.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:26

When you look back, what do you feel like, functionally, whether it's big or small or anything else, what worked to be able to allow you to decide to do something different?

Natalie Bernero 08:35

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I guess it was just, I had to... I guess I just, I remember one day I was running errands after work. It was dark after work, and I had a tough day. Lord knows what was going on, but I was stressed, I was unhappy, and I was just on a whim. I just searched on Spotify for a career advice podcast or something like that, and Happen To Your Career came up, and so I was just driving somewhere, and I just started listening to a couple of episodes. And then hearing success stories, people saying, "I never thought it was possible, but I did it, and I'm so much happier, and my life is so much more fulfilling." I had that inkling of a, "there's no difference between me and that person that's talking of their success. The only difference is that they took the leap and they took the time to immerse themselves in this process. And I can do that too." And so it was just seeing the examples of people coming out on the other side and having success in their career change was inspiring to me, especially because when I would talk to my family about wanting to be in a career that made me feel happy and fulfilled, my mom would say to me, she's like, "I don't think I've ever known anybody that's happy in their careers. It's work. Work is supposed to be work." And so I feel like in my own support circle, there was just kind of this feeling of like, "Oh, work is work, and you're never going to enjoy it." But then I'm listening to this podcast that's telling me, "I made a change, and I'm so much happier, and I love my job." And so it was that moment of inspiration, but then also having to shift my own mindset and belief that I could find that happiness too.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:11

I'm so glad that you had that experience. Also, now that you know it's possible, you get to help spread the word. Because almost everyone in the world has that type of conversation, whether it's with family, friends, other additional co-workers, it's like, "Work is work. Work is supposed to suck." And especially now, in today's times, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way at all, but it is what we're taught from a young age. And that is, by the way, we have that but we don't talk a lot about it on the podcast, but you may have heard us say it, "Our secret mission is to get enough people in place, influential places, into organizations that they have made that change for themselves where they can then help pass that knowledge and those skills on to other people." So ultimately, we can create a movement that causes people to be able to thrive at work, as opposed to thinking, well, "Work is work. Work has to suck. Oh, bother me, or..." I don't know, insert your cliche here. May I read a thing that you shared with us early on, for you, about one of your biggest fears?

Natalie Bernero 11:19

Sure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:20

Okay, so you had shared with us, "My biggest fear is that industries I would like to work in are hard to make a livable wage or are hard to get into higher up positions where the salaries would be more desirable. I'm afraid it will be hard to find positions I want in industries without having to take a big salary cut." Tell me a little bit about that.

Natalie Bernero 11:39

Yeah. I think I was, again, I came from wealth management, I came from financial services, which I think has this element of prestige in that industry– when you think of like, super wealthy people, their investment bankers, venture capitalists, all that kind of a thing. And so being in that world, it just felt like a guarantee, of like, no matter what you're doing, if you do well at the company, you're going to grow and make good money. Unfortunately, that was a really big focusing point for me going into this process. But the industries that I was interested in and thought would really fulfill me, really excited me were things like the travel industry, hospitality, restaurants, things like that. And so I knew that there was companies, organizations out there where, obviously, people are making great money their living fulfilled lives, whatever that looks like for them. But I just, I felt like it didn't have that same guarantee with it, especially going into just those various industries that I named. And so that's kind of where that fear came from, is like, "Yeah, maybe I can get into the hospitality industry, but I'll have to drop way back my salary, and that'll feel like a step backwards for me, coming from such a prestigious, high paying role."

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:51

What helped you to change your mindset and your outlook on that?

Natalie Bernero 12:55

Talking to people that did work in the industry and had the success. So when it came to the reach out portion of career change bootcamp, and I started to meet with different people and talk to people at companies that I was interested in, they just came back and were telling me that they live their successful lives and they have enough money to support their lifestyle and so, yeah, just speaking one on one with people that had lived in that experience and told me about what they did. It was completely different than stereotype that I had in my head.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:26

What do you think caused that stereotype for you personally, if you're reflecting back on it? Because this is, I'll say, first of all, it is definitely a common conversation that we have all the time. We've had it many thousands of times over the last 10 years, so you're not alone. And you know what, looking back, what do you believe caused that for you?

Natalie Bernero 13:47

Yeah, I think I was definitely thinking of like, when it came to the restaurant industry, like thinking of people who are actually chefs, or people who are bartender service, that kind of thing. And that's notoriously a job where you have to work really hard, really long hours, and not for great money, unless you're working at a Michelin star restaurant or something like that, which is pretty prestigious. So I had that connotation. And then when it came to the travel hospitality industry, I was just thinking of like hotel management and things like that, like roles that I didn't know a lot about, but I just had this assumption that they came with long hours and low salary and, don't get me wrong, I'm sure those roles do exist, but there's so much else that goes on behind the scenes to run organizations, companies in those industries, where people with my skills, like financial skills, analytical skills can also get into the industry and kind of earn those higher salaries as well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:45

I think that, well, I guess, first of all, I'll say that the stereotypes are there for a reason, to some degree. And also, within every single industry, there are exceptions to that, that reflection that you had just described is definitely what we've seen over and over again. And we've also found that for individuals, they don't even need to worry about the stereotypes for a particular industry, because most people are not looking for the amount of jobs that an entire industry contains. They're looking for like one opportunity. And if you only need one opportunity, why couldn't you be in the situation where that is the exception, and that's a very different way of looking at it, instead of looking at, well, the average says this over here, but that's true for almost every industry. So here's what I wanted to ask you, though, as you think about your career change, as you started to get into it, what do you think was harder than you anticipated?

Natalie Bernero 15:46

I'd say there was a couple things that were hard for me. And the first was in the first couple of modules, it's all about building your ideal career profile and what you want that to look like, everything that you want and need in a new career. And that wasn't necessarily hard for me. I had this idea in my head of what I wanted, but putting it all on paper and seeing it, it felt like this perfect thing that I was never going to find, like I was never going to find a job that ticked all of these boxes for me, especially, as I got more into the process. I had that feeling, but then I had the hope of, well, maybe I can. But then as I got into the process of doing reach outs and connecting with people, I was very optimistic about it, but there were some conversations that didn't go great, there were tons of people that didn't get back to me who I really wanted to talk to. And so as I was kind of riding that roller coaster, that ideal career profile started to feel more and more out of reach. And so I started getting to a point where I thought, at this point, I'll just take anything that I can get, because I want to get out of my old job so bad. And that got me into that negative headspace of kind of ignoring everything I had built in the ideal career profile. So it was hard to continue trying to reach out and continue to try and find opportunities that did take all those boxes on my ICP, and to keep pushing through that process and hoping that I was going to find that opportunity that I really wanted, even though I was so close to just giving up and taking anything. You know what I mean?

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:18

Yeah, absolutely. And is fascinating to me, no matter where someone is coming from, how far or not far they are along in their career, however much experience they have or don't have, everyone that we've ever worked with goes through that same kind of dip where they have done a lot of wonderful work in defining what it is that they want, and now they're actually actively working on it, whatever that looks like for their particular process you're talking about, where you're reaching out and you're having real conversations with people, and at some point along the way, something, or a series of somethings don't go well, and they hit that wall. And it sounds like for you, that was exactly the point where you started to feel like, "Oh my goodness, I will just take anything. I put in all this work. I need to get out of this other role that I'm in currently and just get me out of here." And that I think is normal. So my question becomes then, when you get to that point, arguably one of the hardest points when you're working towards something that is meaningful for you, what worked for you? What allowed you to move through? What were some of the parts and pieces that other people might be able to duplicate that you found worked really well?

Natalie Bernero 18:37

Yeah, it was definitely in those hard times that working with my coach was really helpful and beneficial. I would go to her and tell her really honestly how I was feeling, "I'm having a hard time, I just want to quit my job, and it's not going as I thought it would go, like, what can we do? What should I do to keep moving forward?" And it was at those moments that she would kind of take me back, and we'd revisit my ideal career profile, but we'd also revisit the values that we had gone through and listed at the start of my process, the things that I value and we want to make sure align in my career. And so she would just kind of keep those as a constant reminder to me of like, "Even if you can't tick all of your boxes on the ICP, make sure that you're hitting your values. Make sure that the people you're talking to share your values. Make sure that the companies you're looking at share those values, because that is where you will find that alignment and that happiness." So her reminders to go back and really put my values first, really kind of helps me. And then she also helped me find different ways to find different people to talk to, different ways to look for companies, rather just then spending hours and hours on LinkedIn, which I found myself kind of getting trapped in that cycle of looking on LinkedIn constantly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:48

Give me an example of one of those ways that you were able to go in and look for a company that fit with your values.

Natalie Bernero 19:58

Yeah. Well, first of all, she pointed me to other job boards other than just LinkedIn, you know, we looked at Indeed, too. There's one specifically for... it's a website called Built In there's Built In Colorado, I think they have others in different states, but, you know, they highlight mostly tech companies. We looked at, there's a couple of other resources that she gave me that talk and specify in different companies. And you can filter for companies that you want, especially on Built In, you can filter for industries that you're interested in. You can filter for remote work. You can filter by job type. And so just looking at those different resources pointed me to a lot of different companies that weren't on LinkedIn or work didn't have as much of a presence there. And then I would go take those companies, and then I would start searching for people that I knew or connections that I might be able to reach out to that way. So just having those, just additional online resources was extremely helpful.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:50

What do you feel like you did an especially great job at? When you look back, you're like, "Oh, not everything worked that well. But this I did pretty well."

Natalie Bernero 21:02

I'm pretty self-critical. I'm sure I did some things really well, but that's a tough one. I mean, at the end of the day, even though the reach outs were really hard for me, when I go back and I look at all the reach outs that I actually did, I did a lot more than I thought I was going to. It felt like I only had one or two for a while, and then I had three, and then I had four. But by the end of it, by the time I made my change, I connected with, I think, 12 or 15 people, something like that. And that was a lot more than I thought I was going to do. And now I've connected with, in having those reach outs and connecting with those people, I feel like I have not a larger network that as my wants change, as my life changes, and as I may want to make another change in the future, I have so many more resources and connections that I can go back to in the future. So even though that was probably the hardest part for me, I think at the end of the day, I surprised myself in how much you can actually accomplish if you just keep working on it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:04

What do you feel like was the surprise to you? What stood out as the surprise to you for just how much you can accomplish? What was it about that?

Natalie Bernero 22:13

Just the fact that I was able to be bold and asking people to have those conversations. It feels kind of awkward to just reach out to someone that you don't know or that you've never talked to before, but that was the biggest surprise, was that even though you're putting yourself in that uncomfortable situation, you just kind of got to do it, and then you realize that you're capable and people are willing to talk to you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:36

It seems as though, well, I won't speak for everyone, but for me, when people say bold or like making bold moves, a lot of times it feels like that is instant, or that is massive moves in some way or another, but I also hear you referring to, it was the build up of these specific smaller moves that felt uncomfortable, but it was the build up over time that really caused you to be successful through this process. Is that fair? Or what would you say to that?

Natalie Bernero 23:08

Yeah, I would agree. My coach was great about that, too. In moments when I would say, "Oh, I don't really want to do that, or I feel uncomfortable doing that", to push me and say, "You need to do these things. You need to. I'll help you with a template. I'll help you draft how you're going to ask for this thing, whatever it is, along in this process." And so she would help me with that, but then she would kind of give me some tough love and make sure that I followed through and did do that. So yeah, it built up slowly over time, just with starting with reach outs. But then when it got to the end, when it came to negotiating for my job that I ended up getting, she made sure that I did negotiations and I asked for more. And so, yeah, it built up over time, but she really helped me be successful in that regard.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:51

It sounds like definitely having another person there who was able to, as you said, give some tough love and be able to urge you to keep going, was effective for you when you got to those uncomfortable parts. Is there anything else that worked really well for you to be able to move through that discomfort, especially since that was such a big part of your success?

Natalie Bernero 24:13

Yeah, I would say some other things that helped me be successful through that process was talking to my other friends and family who had gone through career changes in the past, and a lot of my friends and family that I talked to about it didn't do career coaching, but, you know, they had made successful career moves. And this being my first time that I was actually going to be leaving a job and making a change, I had a lot of anxiety kind of built up about that. So hearing other people's success stories, just how they were able to do it on their own, gives me a lot of hope knowing that I also had HTYC in my career coach to back me up. That gave me a lot of hope that, "Okay, I'm not on my own in this. I have these coaches, I have these great resources, and I've seen other people who have just done it completely on their own." So, I know that I can be successful in that as well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:03

That is super cool. I am also curious too, talking about the reach out process, and within that reach out process, do you remember any of the interactions that you had where you're like, "I don't know if this is gonna... I don't know if this is gonna be effective." And then it turned out to actually work. Do you remember any of those times?

Natalie Bernero 25:26

Oh, yeah, yes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:27

What was the first time that happened where you had that experience?

Natalie Bernero 25:30

I would say the first time that happened was, no, it's not the most effective way. But I just randomly messaged a guy on LinkedIn who worked at a restaurant management company in Denver, and it was a total shot in the dark. And I wasn't... I've done this before, so I wasn't expecting him to answer me, but I reached out and I said, "Hey, we have a mutual. Here's our mutual thing that we have in common. I'd love to talk to you about what you do." And he instantly got back to me and was like, we met for coffee, I think, three days later. And so I know, again, I know that's not the most effective way, but just having one of those times that was a total shot in the dark, and I wasn't expecting anything out of that to then him becoming a connection, and him introducing me to people at restaurant management company and talking to me about what he does and what the opportunities there were was mind blowing, and gave me a lot of hope for continuing this process. The other one was I reached out to an old friend from college, and he worked at a company that I was interested in, and, you know, obviously was willing to have a conversation, since we knew each other from school, but he actually ended up, after a conversation, ended up sending me an opportunity that then became the job that I took. So I wasn't expecting much out of it, other than just to talk about the company and the conversation, but he was the one that ended up getting me the opportunity that I ended up taking. So those two just kind of random shots in the dark that I took throughout the reach out process ended up getting me: A, great connection, and, b, my next job.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:57

I think what's amazing is that, although it's easy to see how that one particular person and that one particular interaction then snowballed too much later, turning into an actual opportunity. It's much harder to see that in the moment. You don't know which of those connections or which of those interactions or which experiments you might run that are going to yield feedback about what you do or don't want to spend your time on, or yield a relationship that turns into something really fun and wonderful and then later ends up turning into an actual paying opportunity. So really, really nice job, because when I know from both personal experience and from us working with many people over and over again that it doesn't always seem like it's going to work out that way in the moment. So kudos to you. That is awesome. What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about making a career change? Where... Let's go way back here to the point where you had realized for a while that you needed to do something different, but hadn't quite accepted it yet, and you were just considering, you're at that consideration point, we'll call it off, "Do I make a career change? Do I continue to stick it out? What does that look like? What does this mean?" What advice would you give to that person who's in that place?

Natalie Bernero 28:17

Yeah, there's a couple pieces of advice that I would get. Is one just starting to believe that it is possible and that you can do it, you can make a career change successfully. I feel like I had a lot of mind blocks that kept me in my last job for probably longer than it should have. And I know that other people experience that as well. So just starting by shifting your mindset to believing that you can do it and that it is possible is definitely the first step. And I think my second piece of advice is to not get attached. I feel like I had, kind of when we were talking about our ideal career profile and everything, I started to get really attached to this idea that I had to find the quick job at the perfect company, and it had to be this glorious opportunity that paid six figures, and I was kind of searching for that one perfect opportunity. And the job that I ended up taking, if you had told me at the beginning of the process, I probably would have not been interested in it. And so I feel like you can't get too attached to any one specific thing. You have to keep your mind open as you go through the process because you never know what opportunities are going to present itself. You never know what connections are going to be, the ones that lead to opportunities. And so just kind of keeping an open mind and not getting too attached to one thing, I feel like really leads you to success in the end.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:35

I think that's amazing advice. I just taught a session for a group of our clients the other day, and that's one of the things that had come up during that session, is, "Hey, how broad or specific or general or not general should I be when I'm creating my version of ideal?" We use the tool of an ideal career profile, but ultimately it is that picture or vision of what it is that you're going after. And I think to your point, if you're not necessarily locked in on it must be this industry or this way, or this particular thing, or at the time we were talking about someone who wanted to go into learning and development, and was very focused on learning and development, and instead focused on shifting your focus to say, "Okay, how do I not get attached to this, but experiment with it. And how do I look at the pieces that are most important to me? And if they happen to fit outside of learning and development, that's amazing." Because, as you said, if you would have seen this job at the beginning, you probably would have written it off the list.

Natalie Bernero 30:35

Yeah, exactly. And I was surprised that it ended up being the role that I'm in because it's a financial level, and so I was so keen on getting out of finance that I almost wanted to ignore any job that had to do with finance. But that's actually where a lot of my skills lie, is in analytical work dealing with numbers, that financial analysis piece. But I was just so keen on ignoring the finance piece of it, that at the beginning of this process, that would not have been my ideal career, but it's the opportunity that I ended up taking, and I'm really excited about it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:10

Tell me about negotiation. This is an area of struggle for so many people. I think it's fun. I know that that makes me crazy, and I'm okay with that. However, for you, as you went through the process of negotiating and asking for what you were looking for and that set of interactions, what do you feel like worked really well for you?

Natalie Bernero 31:35

Yeah, I was definitely adverse to negotiating. I found it really interesting when I got the offer from my job. The salary that they offered me was above what I had asked for on the application. They say, "What do you expect to make in this job?" And what they offered me was above that, which I feel like is a negotiation strategy on a company's part to kind of make you feel like you don't need to negotiate because they're offering me more money up front. So when I talked with my coach about the offer, and I said, "Hey, they're already offering more money, like, I don't feel like I need to negotiate." And she was like, "Nope, we're absolutely negotiating." So she really pushed me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:14

Thank you for your concern. No.

Natalie Bernero 32:17

She's like, "Nope, I'm gonna push you out of your comfort zone anyway." And so I feel like it's hard. I'm a very much a people pleaser, and I definitely don't want to rock the boat and avoid a confrontation. And so going into negotiations, it feels like you're going into... you're not confronting somebody, but it feels like you're asking for more. And so it feels uncomfy, for sure, and I'm sure 99% of the people listening feel the same way. But what really helped me was going through a template of how to authentically ask for more money or for more benefits or something like that. Authentically do it and in a way that we can frame it as a win-win scenario. Let's benefit me, but it's also going to benefit the company, X, Y and Z. And hearing that, it sounds like, how can you make it sound good for the company? But my coach really helped me, kind of walked through that and created that template for me, and then sending that email felt a lot better than just the idea I had in my head of being like, "I want more money, please and thank you."

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:16

Do you remember any of the verbiage that you used that felt authentic to you? And also recognizing the caveat here is that what feels authentic to you, especially in negotiation, where you're trying to have a genuine conversation, may not feel authentic to the next person. But do you remember any of that verbiage that you use that made it feel more authentic to you and to still be able to ask and find that wonderful win-win type of ground?

Natalie Bernero 33:45

Yeah, for me, it was really highlighting in that email that I was really excited about the company and the opportunity. And so in highlighting that and making sure that they were aware that I was really, really excited about the opportunity, but there was just this one little piece that I needed to get over the finish line. I feel like helped a lot because I wanted to let them know that like they weren't going to lose me as a candidate just because the salary wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. But I would also love if we could come to some sort of mutual agreement that's going to benefit both of us. So that felt really authentic to me to make sure that they knew that I was still a very willing and excited candidate.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:23

So it sounds like part of what you did was making sure that they fully understood that you were on board, excited to be there, and also simultaneously, there was a piece or multiple pieces that didn't line up with what you were looking for. And one thing I should mention for everyone listening, many times it's not appropriate to send an email. Sometimes it is. So in listening to Natalie's story here, definitely was appropriate in this particular time to send an email. But before you just assume that it's email versus conversation versus anything else, definitely partner with somebody that is experienced in negotiation, because it's very different on an interaction by interaction, and company by company, and motivation by motivation basis. So really, really nice job. And also on the other side of that, what's the biggest thing that you learned through this process for yourself?

Natalie Bernero 35:19

I think the biggest thing that... I learned so many valuable skills in this process of just how to build a network, how to shift your mindset when you're approaching any challenge in life, whether it's a career change or whether it's any other obstacle that I'm going to hit in life. But I think I just learned a lot more to trust my instincts, and learned a lot about what I value, and that has really helped me from a career standpoint, but also just a life standpoint. When I look at things that make me mad or upset, I now think of it from the standpoint of this is probably misaligning with something that I value. And so just having that expanded self-awareness, I feel like is going to be amazing going forward, as I evolve and change my career and then my life in general.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:07

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 37:00

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

Speaker 3 37:05

We were actually leaving for a sabbatical in Europe, and I knew it could be gone for seven months, so thought that this would be a great opportunity to kind of really explore things, come back and know what I wanted to do. And of course, that didn't happen. I went over there with, you know, high expectations of I'm going to have that 'aha' moment, and I'm going to come back and know exactly what I'm going to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:25

Over time, you've definitely heard the word clarity come up as it relates to careers, career change, everything in between, and certainly once or twice on this podcast. The interesting thing is that most people think clarity means knowing what you want. And it does, in a way. But interestingly enough, clarity comes from the root word, which is the same root word that declare uses. So when you think about clarity, it really is about declaring what you want. In fact, declaring what's most important to you. That's what creates the knowing what you want. Now here's also an interesting thing, you can't get you to your ideal role unless you know what ideal means for you, what's most important for you. And the truth is, most people just don't know what they want or have the courage to declare what is most important. One of my favorite success stories about landing an ideal role comes from Kristy Wenz. Kristy traveled around the world thinking that she would be able to have clarity at the end of that. She was visiting wineries, tasting wine, and she learned that she loves wineries and wine. However, she still came back without clarity. We got the opportunity to help her answer the question and declare what she really wanted. And once she figured it out, things really opened up for her.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:51

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.

Charles Duhigg 00:01

There's a normal distribution of extroverts and introverts among super communicators. There's a normal distribution of charming and curmudgeonly. And if you ask super communicators, "Were you always good at communication? Is this something you were born with?" Inevitably, they say, "No."

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 00:45

If you want to get anything done, results of any kind, you're going to need to be able to communicate with other people. And if you really want to excel at just about anything career related, working with team, making meaningful connections, job interviews, salary negotiation, networking, and, quite frankly, anything else that you might be interested in being successful at, well, then it helps if you are a skilled communicator, or what our guest today calls a super communicator.

Charles Duhigg 01:20

There's this common cultural myth, which is that people who are really good at communication are born with it, right? We say born with the gift of gab, or that they're extroverts, or they're really charming. And the thing is that the research shows that that just isn't true at all.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:34

That's Charles Duhigg. Charles is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, New Yorker staff writer, and best selling author. His previous books include 'The Power of Habit', 'Smarter Faster Better', and his newest book, which is out now, is 'Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection'. Now I think this is going to be a great conversation for you to hear because, well, quite frankly, I found his insights extremely helpful over the years. I loved 'The Power of Habit', and for the last 10 years, I've been buying the book for our team, and quite frankly, anybody who I thought would benefit from it as gifts for people. So when Charles came out with his latest book on communication, honestly, I bought it because I'm familiar with his work. However, it was a pleasant surprise, because I've read so many books on communication, and this is very different than every other communication book, and I've probably read, I don't know, well, over 100 now at this point. Many other books try to oversimplify communication by saying, "Here's the research, and here's the tactics, and here's what you need to do in all circumstances." But supercommunicators, it adds a lot of nuance. Charles walks through helpful details that he pulls from research, like the different types of conversations you need to have in different situations at work. You're even going to hear how we walk through a specific example of how a supercommunicator would ask for a raise. But before we get to that, I asked Charles to share a bit about where his career began.

Charles Duhigg 03:09

So, after I graduated from college, I started a company back in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is where I grew up, to build medical education campuses. And after doing that for a couple of years, I realized that I didn't know as much about business and management as I wanted to, and so I went to business school. So I went to business school to get my MBA, and during my first year in business school, we ended up selling the company. And so suddenly I kind of had this... I had this, like, sort of freedom that I hadn't anticipated on. And between the first and second year of business school, you do an internship. And the idea is that you do an internship with a company that you hope is going to hire you. And so that's what I did. I went back to Albuquerque, and I did an internship with a private equity real estate firm, and I was trying to decide between becoming a journalist or going into business. And while I was doing that job, I realized that I really actually much more enjoyed doing journalism, and so that's kind of how I ended up here. It's not a particularly exciting story.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:05

Well, let me ask you about that. I'm curious, though, because you were considering between business and journalism. But what caused you to lean that direction? What was happening way back then, where you're like, "Yeah, this is it. This is where I'm gonna lean."

Charles Duhigg 04:18

I think that the thing about business is that you spend a lot of time building spreadsheets and trying to get better and better and better and faster and faster and faster at evaluating deals. And so the fact... You learn something really, really well, and then you continue sort of focusing and getting better and better at one small thing or one large thing, but it's one thing. Whereas in journalism, you get to learn something new every single day, and that just seemed more entertaining to me, more interesting. And the idea of storytelling sort of seemed like it could be interesting to me for the rest of my life. So yeah, I mean, like many things that, I think that, in retrospect, we sort of force a narrative on our decisions and at that time, it just seems like this is the most interesting thing to do right now. And then there's some path dependence.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:06

I think one of the things I really enjoy about your work is that you do a great job bringing people along for the ride. And what I mean by that... Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'll tell you what, I love 'The Power of Habit' so much that now, for the last 10 years, have been buying it for people– we buy it for our team, we buy it for gifts.

Charles Duhigg 05:27

Oh, that's very kind.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:28

Yeah. So definitely enjoyed it. But also, I think about almost all your work, you tend to say, "Hey, I'm learning about this in one way or another, whether it's from an investigative point of view, or whatever else." And then you bring us along for the ride. When you think about supercommunicators, because we're going to talk about that here momentarily, so tell me about like, what is that central idea that we keep either pulling away from or coming back to, what is the drawing point that you were talking about earlier?

Charles Duhigg 06:04

The central idea is that communication is a set of skills that anyone can learn, and that there's nothing inherently special about supercommunicators, except that they understand those skills and they understand they can apply them the same things that they do with a best friend or someone who it's very easy to talk to, those are fungible skills that they can bring to any interaction. And when they do that, they'll achieve this kind of what's known within neuroscience is neural entrainment. They'll feel connected to each other.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:32

I think it almost feels like the title and the subtitle are a little bit in conflict with how someone might understand, because it almost feels like supercommunicators, which you make the point in the book that anyone can become a super communicator. But when I first read the title, I felt like it was about these exceptional people in some ways. And I think that's one of the things that you address early on in the book, too, is that it seems like some of these people must have superpowers, and that was your theory, if I understood, as well, like, "hey, these people must be different in one way or another. But turns out, they're not."

Charles Duhigg 07:11

No, not at all. And in fact, I think that there's this common cultural myth, which is that people who are really good at communication are born with it, right? We say, born with the gift of gab, or that they're extroverts, or they're really charming. And the thing is that the research shows that that just isn't true at all, right? That there's a normal distribution of extroverts and introverts among supercommunicators. There's a normal distribution of charming and curmudgeonly. And if you ask supercommunicators, "Were you always good at communication? Is this something you were born with?" Inevitably, they say "No." They say something like, you know, "I had trouble making friends in high school, and I had to study how kids talk to each other." Or, "My parents got divorced, and I had to be the peacemaker between them." And what that's really telling us is communication is a learned skill. It's actually a set of learned skills. And so most people stop there. They say, like, "Okay. So, that's great. I want to learn those skills for having a hard conversation, or having a conversation with someone I disagree with, or a friend." But the next step that's really interesting is, you know, it is a fungible set of skills. The same with reading– no one would ever suggest to you–if you learned to read a nonfiction, that you can't read fiction, right? Or that if you can read a menu, you can't read a computer instruction guide. That would fundamentally violate what we think of as a skill. A skill is by inherently fungible, and yet, when it comes to communication, people assume that they are not fungible. But what the research tells us, and what supercommunicators the book tells us, is, once you learn how to do this, once you recognize the skills, then you begin to understand how you can apply those same skills to literally anyone.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:54

We have so many people that listen to this show where they'll contact us and while I'm honored to have many of these questions, we'll get quite a few questions like, "Hey, how do I say the right things to convince my boss that I need a raise?" Or, "How do I go into this situation to persuade or, you know, convince that this other thing that needs to happen?" And what we find over and over again is that there's this misconception in many different ways, where it's like, "Hey, if I say all the perfect things in the conversation, then miraculously, people are going to get this different result." And...

Charles Duhigg 09:37

Totally. And they'll just agree with me, because, like, yeah. So okay, to answer your question, so let's distinguish what's happening when I sit down with someone. The first thing to figure out is, "do I want to actually have a conversation with them?" Because if my goal is simply to persuade them, then I'm not looking to have a conversation. Now, I will argue to you that that's a pretty ineffective way to persuade someone , it turns out, like, all the research tells us that if I sit down with you, and I'm like, "I want to convince you of something that you don't want to believe." It's probably not going to go well, right? A conversation would be better. But at the outset, like you have to decide to have a conversation. And a conversation does not mean I say something and you listen and you change your mind. A conversation is, I say something in a way that you can understand me, and you say something in a way that I can understand you. And we might walk away disagreeing with each other, but as long as we understand each other, then the conversation has been successful. So okay, so let's say I'm going in, I'm trying to, like, trying to get a raise, and I decide, "Look, the only way I can do this..." If I walk in and I demand a raise, if I don't have a conversation, my boss is going to be like, "Sorry, see you later." So what I want to do is I want to have a conversation. So in a conversation, we don't think just about what we want to say, we think about what the other person wants to say. And so the best way to start a conversation about getting a raise is to go in and ask your boss a question like, "What would you expect to see from me that would make you feel like I deserve a raise?" And oftentimes, when we're preparing for a hard conversation like that, whether it's a good conversation or bad conversation, we spend a lot of time thinking about what we want to say, right? I'm going to go in and I'm going to tell him X and Y and Z, or this person is bothering me, and I'm going to tell give them a piece of my mind, but we should spend as much time trying to figure out what we are hoping to learn from the other person, right, what questions we want to ask the other person, what they might want to say in this conversation, because that's the way that we engender a conversation, rather than just competing monologue, which is usually what happens when you ask for a raise, right? You go and say, "I want to raise", and your boss says, "Here's all the reasons you can't have a raise." And then you say, "Yeah, but I still want to raise." And they say, "Here's all the reasons we can't raise." They're just competing monologues. They're not actually conversations. But the key is, in a conversation, I never go into a conversation just saying, like, "Here's what I want to say, and I don't care what the other person has to say." I go into conversation saying, like, "Here's actually what I want to know from the other person. Here's what I want to learn. Here's the question that I really want to ask", and that should be at least as important, if not more important, than what you want to say or what you want to tell them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:18

Well, and it really seems like conversations, what you're describing as conversation right this moment, are the way that people get exceptions made for them. Like in that case that you're describing where it's like, "Hey, I'm gonna tell you that I want to raise. You're going to tell me all the reasons why I can't have a raise, and I'm going to be unchanged. I still want to raise." And that's not going to help, ultimately, in the end. But having a conversation, this different type of approach, where I can hear you what is going on with you, and want to understand you, then that allows me to be able to respond, and ultimately have a dialog which then leads to, or can lead to, at least those exceptions.

Charles Duhigg 13:05

Totally. And think about how different that conversation would go if you said, instead of my goal is to persuade you to give me a raise, to say, "Okay, here's my goal. I want to find out what would make you want to give me a raise. Not to convince you, like, what would you need to see that would make you want to give me a raise?" And because we're not just learning about you,"Here's something I want you to learn about me. Not that I want to raise, because everybody wants a raise", that's not really like an interesting piece of knowledge, "But rather, I want you to understand how a raise would impact my life." Because it might very well be that, you know, "I've basically estimated I can continue to have this job for another six months. But if I don't get a raise, I have to look for another job." Or, "I want you to know that my spouse is pregnant, and we have a baby coming, and I need to be thinking about my financial future. So it's not so much that I want you to give me a raise as much as here's something I want you to know about me, and here's a question that I want to know about you." That doesn't mean that necessarily the conversation will be perfect. It doesn't even necessarily mean that it will be a conversation. But that's a much better thing than saying, "I'm going to go in and I'm going to ask for a raise and I'm going to give them these seven reasons why I deserve it" without knowing whether those reasons matter or are interesting, and without wanting to have a conversation, but rather just hoping that this other person will listen to you .

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:24

Well, when you ask that type of question, what would it take for me to be able to get a raise? Or what would I need to do in order to...?

Charles Duhigg 14:35

Another way to do it is to even just say, to even make it sort of more general, "What would you need to see in order for you to want to give me a raise?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:45

Which is even one step back from that.

Charles Duhigg 14:48

And in some sense, it's better, right? Because now it's not, I'm not saying to you, I'm not mandating that you have to talk about me. I'm inviting you to talk about whatever you want to talk about. And this is a big distinction when we're asking questions. So what we're talking about right now are deep questions. Right? A deep question is something that asks about values or beliefs or experiences. And so I'm basically asking, like, "What do you believe is necessary in order to want to give someone a raise?" And we can ask those questions in ways that mandates, right? You know, "What did you think of my last movie?" Puts you on the spot. I am mandating that you talk about me rather versus saying, "Hey, what do you think... I'm just wondering, what do you think about movies, in general? What makes a movie good or what makes a movie bad?" Now, what I'm doing is I'm inviting you to talk about your perception of movies. Now, obviously, the fact that I have been in a movie, you know that I'm really curious about me, right? If I say, "What would it take for someone to get a raise around here?" You're not going to suspect that I'm asking the question in an academic sense, right? I'm obviously asking about myself, but by asking the question in a way that invites rather than mandates a particular response, what I'm doing is I'm making it easier for you, to be honest with.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:04

I find that it also creates a different type of ability to partner, for lack of better phrase. So when I ask that type of question, then if I am shifting the focus from me to you, what do you think that strangely allows us to now partner on this thing? What would it take?

Charles Duhigg 16:33

Yeah, that's exactly right. And I and the way I think about it is, getting on the same side of the table, right? Are we facing each other, or are we both facing a question or a problem together? And you're exactly right. That if I come in and I say, "I want to raise", and I know you're going to say, "I don't have the money for a raise", then we're on opposite sides of the table, and ultimately, all we're going to be able to do is kind of battle with each other, at least tussle. But my goal, and this is true in any conversation, particularly in any hard conversation, is to get you on the same side of the table with me, and to say, "In a perfect world, it would be really easy to give me a raise, but we're not in a perfect world. So let's look at this question together and try and solve how do we make the world a little bit more perfect together?" Now, again, that doesn't mean that necessarily this is going to work like gangbusters. It doesn't mean that your boss is going to be like, "Oh, this was such a brilliant way of asking me. I'm now going to give you a raise." But that's not the goal. The goal is to understand, right? Once you understand better, then you actually can start moving towards that raise. Because there is something in your boss's mind where they're saying, "If X, Y and Z happened, I would want to give this person a raise, because otherwise, I would be terrified that they would leave. I'd be terrified that someone else would hire them." And so the goal is, let's figure out, and again, this is something we're going to work on together, shoulder to shoulder. Let's figure out, "What is that X and that Y and that Z that you wish I was doing? So much so that you'll actually pay me more to stick around, because you know how valuable it is."

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:10

I find that people tend to ask questions where they're really tactical focused and certainly self focused, to your point earlier. And it seems like shifting the goal from the... Here's the thing that I want: how do I get that to, instead, how do I connect with and understand the other person. Is a really difficult goal shift. Why do you think that is? Or do you find this?

Charles Duhigg 18:38

So I don't think it is a difficult goal shift once you understand that, right? So, yeah, again, I think it's about how we like the three to five minutes we spend before we walk into a conversation, right? I mean, again, our default is to be like, "Here's what I want to say. I want to tell that guy so and so. I want him to know that I need this and I need that." So we're very focused on ourselves in that situation, right? And if we just realign, and we just say, "Look, there are some things I want him to understand about me, but what do I want to understand about him?" And we put that forefront in our mind, that it actually changes our approach to the conversation. It changes how we behave in that conversation. Now, that being said, sometimes the tactics of achieving that are hard, right? Like, what do I do in the conversation? Well, at that point, your best friend is always asking questions, right? Because the nice thing about asking a question is it gives you more information without necessarily angering the other person. And so the question is, the question to ask yourself is, "What kind of questions can I ask that I think are going to make this conversation what I'm hoping it's going to be?" And that means that they have to be honest questions because if you ask a question like, "Why don't you think I deserve a raise?" That's not actually completely honest, I mean, it could be an honest conversation, but it's not going to come across as an honest guy. It's going to come across as an argument embedded in a question-like form, which is why it's better to say, "I'm just wondering, when you've given raises in the past, what are the things that made you decide to do that? When you look at my career here, what do you think I should be thinking about in terms of trying to increase my salary?" Right? Those are more genuine questions, and the other person can detect a genuine question versus an argument hidden in the questions form.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:33

We're very good at that. We're really doing question detectors in many different ways.

Charles Duhigg 20:39

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:41

So let's take a different situation here. I'd like to talk about the three different types of conversation. Let me just give you a couple other scenarios that we encounter all the time– we've had people who are experiencing serious racial discrimination at their work and they're trying to navigate through that, or even decide, can they impact that all the way to people who are trying to realign their roles with what is going to be a much, much better fit, so that they can contribute to this organization that they actually do enjoy, but they're not having a great experience with to many, many, many other thing. So I guess my question to you is, how can we approach those types of really challenging situations differently so that we can truly, one, understand the conversation that might be going on, or even approach it in a way that we can have a hope at understanding the other parties?

Charles Duhigg 21:41

Yeah, okay, well, and then I have a question for you. But before, you had mentioned the three kinds of conversations, so just for people who aren't familiar with them. So one of the big findings from the last decade is that we tend to think of a discussion as being about one thing, right? We're talking about getting a raise, or we're talking about my job, or we're talking about where to go on vacation, or why I'm upset today. But actually, what researchers have discovered is that every conversation, or every discussion, is made up of different kinds of conversations. And in general, those different kinds of conversations, they fall into one of three buckets. There are practical discussions where we're talking about making plans or solving problems together. There are emotional conversations where I might tell you what I'm feeling, and I don't want you to solve my feelings. I want you to empathize, and I want you to acknowledge and relate. And then there are social conversations, which is about how we interact with each other, how we interact with society, the social identities that are important to us. Okay, so here's my question for you, so think back to when you've been in one of those situations, right, where you've been unhappy at work, tell me what was going on. Tell me what was going on, and what you were feeling and why it was important to you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:50

Well, one that was a... this has probably been 20 years ago now, but there was a company that I worked for and actually owned a franchise for the same organization, loved that, went and worked on the corporate side and had a terrible experience. And essentially, I was being asked to collect some debts for the organization in a way that I didn't know at the time, but was illegal. And what I did know at that particular time was that it felt completely against everything that I valued. And I'm not even sure that I could have articulated at that time, 20 years ago, honestly. But that's part of what was going on. I was going and trying to collect some of these debts, and everything about it felt incredibly wrong.

Charles Duhigg 23:37

Yeah, it felt okay. So, did you end up having a conversation with your boss or the CEO? Did you ever sort of...?

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:45

Yeah. It took me a while, but I did have a conversation. And this is not what I would recommend in any way whatsoever. But the conversation I had, I was attempting to articulate some of those feelings the way that it came out, which so many things are not useful to the other party. The way that it came out is I ended up feeling like I needed to tell my boss that I made a mistake because I chose the wrong job, essentially, like this is not working, and I feel like I need to consider something else.

Charles Duhigg 24:22

And why did that not go well? Like, what happened that makes you think that's not the right approach?

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:28

Well, three weeks later, I got fired. So, okay, that's one indication.

Charles Duhigg 24:34

Yeah, okay. So let's break down what's happening here, okay. So what I hear you saying, and tell me if I'm getting this wrong, is that you came into a job and you were having an experience in that job that setting aside whether it practically made sense, whether this was the right business strategy or the wrong business strategy, emotionally, this was very challenging for you because it did not align with your basic values and beliefs. And simultaneously, and I'm guessing here. So please tell me if I'm off base, I'm guessing, you also felt like this was ineffective, that as a franchise owner yourself, like going and beating up on other franchise owners did not seem like the right way to run a sustainable company for a long time.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:18

As it turns out, yes.

Charles Duhigg 25:20

And that's actually kind of a social conversation, right? Because it's talking about how we relate to other people. So what I'm hearing you say, though, is that when you brought this up with your boss, you actually tried to pose it as a practical conversation, instead of posing it as an emotional conversation or social conversation. What you said was, "Practically, I have a problem, which is, I chose the wrong job. Will you help me solve this problem?" And they did. They fired you. Right? If you chose the wrong job, problem solved. I mean, and from their perspective, possibly problem solves for you. You asked them to help you solve a problem that you're in the wrong job. And they said, "Okay, don't be in that job anymore." Now a better way to do that, and again, is if you had said time ahead of time, and you said, "Look, I don't want to have a practical conversation about this because this isn't a practical problem." It's not like you were having problems, like problems following their instructions. You just didn't want to do what they asked you to do. So if you had gone to them perhaps, and tell me if you think this would have been effective, if you'd gone to your boss and said, "Look, I completely understand what you guys are asking me to do here. And I think it's actually really effective. Like, I think we're going to collect these debts, and I think it's totally fine, like, I understand. The thing that I'm struggling with is it's making me feel terrible. It feels like I'm doing something that doesn't align with my beliefs and my values. Can you help me understand why I'm feeling that? Is this something you think I'm dumb to be feeling, or is it a right thing to be feeling?" Now, I'm not promising you that your boss would have been like, "Oh, I'm so sorry you feel that way. Let's try and make the world a better place for you, but it probably would have been a little bit more effective. And I think what this indicates, what this point said, is one of two things. Number one, when we isolate the conversation to the kind of conversation that we want to have, it becomes much easier, because we're no longer pretending like you can solve my emotional problems through a practical solution. Instead, what we're doing is we're engaging very explicitly on the emotional level. The second thing is, you could have had that conversation and still gotten fired. In fact, you might have gotten fired just for having that conversation. So having a conversation does not mean that all of us... iIt's not magic.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:37

It doesn't guarantee an outcome.

Charles Duhigg 27:38

Doesn't guarantee an outcome. It doesn't guarantee that, like, you're going to agree with each other, but you're going to be much closer to understanding how to agree to each other and figuring out if there is some overlap what researchers refer to as the ZOPA, the Zone of Possible Agreement. You don't know what the ZOPA is when you go in and you're having an emotional issue and you pretend that it's a practical issue, because they're going to say something like, "Oh, okay. Like, if this job doesn't work for you, like, we'll just remove you from the job. We'll help you solve the problem." But for you, the actual problem was not that you wanted to be removed from the job, but that you wanted to be able to do the job a little bit differently. Is that right?

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:19

Absolutely, that's right. So let's talk about how we can better prepare for those types of discussions. Because the reality is, you know, I was in that situation, if we go back 20 years ago, I was working 90 hours a week, and I was pretty stressed out, and there were so many things that weren't working. I didn't do a great job of prepping for that conversation at all. Also, I think that that is very much the case when people are getting into these conversations. Sometimes it's difficult to even think through what kind of conversation this is, let alone how I'm going to go about having this conversation. What advice would you give based on what you've seen for how people can better prepare for these?

Charles Duhigg 29:02

So if you know what kind of conversation you want to have, that's one thing, right? If you're saying, like, and it's worth spending some time to just sit down and say, "Do I think this is a social conversation? Do I think it's a practical conversation? Do I think it's an emotional conversation?" And then in the book goes through a lot of the steps to do this, right? But let's say, again, it's 20 years ago, you're young, you don't have the presence of mind to know exactly what kind of conversation you want. You're confused yourself. Is this a practical issue? Is this an emotional issue? Then the best thing you can do is to sit down and say, "Okay, what do I actually want to know? What am I desperate to learn from this person? And what questions can I ask them to help me understand it?" So in this particular case, the questions might have been something like, you know, "I know that we do it this way, and this way doesn't seem to me like the best way. Can you walk me through why we do it this way? What's the history here that's led us to the point where this seems like the best way forward? Help me understand how this technique, this approach to debt collection, how it helps the long term goals of this company." Right? And again, you have to ask them honestly, it can't be like, like, "How do you think that this approach helps the long term?" Right? It has to be like, "I'm just wondering, like, I know you guys have thought about this a long time, and I know everyone's really smart. And I see a like, a little bit of tension here. And hoping you can help me understand why that's wrong. Help me understand why this approach makes sense." And here's what might happen, you might learn that actually you are wrong, right? That you're feeling all these emotional qualms, you're feeling all these ethical qualms, and that, like when they explain to you, "No, no. The only way this company works is if people actually pay their debts. Like when, when this franchisee does not pay their debts, they're actually creating risk for this other franchisee that's doing everything right? That's doing everything by the book. So, like, we have to come down hard on these people because they're threatening other people who don't deserve to be threatened." And you might walk away saying, like, "Oh, I didn't see it that way before. Now I understand why I'm doing what I'm doing." But I would say the number one thing that people can do is, instead of focusing on what they want to say, focus on what questions you want to ask because that's going to give you... and by the way, you do not have to resolve it. You do not have to resolve everything in one conversation, right? If I go in and I ask you a series of questions, I ask my boss a series of questions, then I can walk away and I can spend some time with that and processing that, and then come back and say, "Look, I want to reflect on what you told me. I have another question for you, but I want to just share with you my thoughts on it." That's a dialog, right? Then we're actually dialoguing with each other. And again, that does not mean that your boss is going to say, like, your boss might very well say like, "We do it that way because we can, because we hate our franchisees, and either you hate our franchisees too, or this isn't the right place for you." And that's fine. But it's better to know that than to get fired three weeks later, unexpectedly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:13

You know something that is really interesting, I went through and I listened to some of your interviews recently, just on different podcasts, but I went back 10 years ago because I was curious about, you know, how has this changed some of your conversations? First of all, have you done that? I don't typically go back and listen.

Charles Duhigg 32:34

No, no. I'm very impressed. This is a lot of preparation, but no, I haven't gone back and listened to podcasts for 10 years ago. Do I sound different now?

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:44

Well, yes, in very subtle ways. We were talking about nuance earlier, but I think some very subtle ways. So I think one of the things that you do really well now is you create a dialog very differently compared to how you did 10 years ago, it felt more like a traditional interview versus any conversations you've had in the last, say, year or so. It feels much more like a really interesting dialog every time. It's a way to go.

Charles Duhigg 33:13

That's really... Okay, so I'll answer this in two ways. The first is, how much do I or anyone else do it deliberately? This is actually kind of the awesome thing about the human brain. So if you think about it, communication is Homo sapiens superpower, right? It's the thing that has allowed us, our species, to succeed so well. And our brains have evolved to maximize and make that superpower as efficient as possible. So one really interesting thing is, when we are exposed to a communication skill and we say to ourselves, "I'd like to do that", we start doing it habitually, very, very quickly. So with many activities like running, you have to practice a dozen times, right? You have to push yourself to run a dozen times before it starts to feel automatic. With communication skills, if you push yourself to do it two or three times, it starts becoming a habit. And that's because the brain latches on to communication skills very quickly, and it makes them into habits very, very quickly. So that's the first part of it. The second part of it is the reason why... So in every interview I do now, I try and make a conversation, I try and ask questions, I want to learn about the person. In part, just because otherwise it's insanely boring. It's insanely boring to like, spend an hour with you and not learn anything about you. That's not that much fun. I like myself, but I've already talked about myself a lot. And I think that the thing that I have learned in writing this book is, it is okay to listen to that little voice inside your head that says, "Actually, this person wants to ask me a bunch of questions about real estate, but what I'm really interested in is I want to ask them about accounting", right? It's okay to give into that instinct, that curiosity that we feel where we want to learn about the other person, that is a good instinct. In fact, that's part of the same instinct that allows these habits, or these communication skills become habits so quickly. Our brain is really, really good at communication when we let it be good at communication. And the key is to learn how to listen to your own brain and to have a dialog. But let me ask you, does that correspond to your experiences?

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:19

It does.

Charles Duhigg 35:20

You do a lot of these interviews, right? How many interviews have you done at this point?

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:24

A thousand.

Charles Duhigg 35:26

So it's a lot. And what makes a difference when you walk away, setting aside whether the audience likes it, how the audio turns out, when you walk away from an hour interview slash conversation, feeling energized versus feeling drained and exhausted. What do you think makes a difference?

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:43

It's always the connection or lack thereof in one way or another. And so it is always the pieces that lead up to or block that connection from being had.

Charles Duhigg 35:55

I totally agree. I totally agree. And I will tell you, the worst conversations I have, the worst interviews, are when it's a person who they haven't read any of my work and they have a list of questions that some producer gave them or that they like found on the internet. And then what will happen is they'll ask the question, I'll answer it, and then, regardless of what I say, they move on to the next question. Right? So it's not a back and forth, it's not a discussion, it's not a dialog

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:23

That's not that exciting to listen to, in my opinion.

Charles Duhigg 36:25

It's not that exciting to listen to. It's not that exciting to do. It's super tiring and boring. And so I think that the thing is, if we approach every interaction with another person saying, not every, you never have to have a conversation, like when sometimes you get in the Uber and you just want to check your email, you do not want to talk to the driver, and that's totally okay. There's no rule that you need to have a conversation all the time. But when we are interacting with someone, if we say to ourselves, "I want to make this a conversation rather than competing monologue, rather than just some transactional interaction", it ends up not only being more fun, it's actually easier. Our brain literally can default to conversation much more easily than to the alternative.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:12

Fun and easier. That's a hard sell, Charles. I don't...

Charles Duhigg 37:17

And some people listening are not going to believe me. They're going to be like, "No, it's so tiring to talk to people", and here's where that you don't have to have a conversation, not only do you not have to have a conversation, you can start a conversation and then just stop having it. Right? You can get in the Uber and you can chit chat with the driver for three or four minutes, and then you can just stop. Because it's oftentimes these anxieties of, "how do I end this conversation? How do I begin this conversation? How do I keep this conversation going if there's an awkward silence?" It's those anxieties that prevent us from having conversations. But actually, once the event manifests, you don't feel anxious about it at all. It's very natural.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:02

Hey, if you've been listening to our episodes here at Happen To Your Career and you want to make an intentional career change to much more meaningful work, and have it neatly laid out into an organized framework, well, guess what, we actually have that available for you in the Happen To Your Career book. It's available on Amazon, Audible anywhere else where you get your books. You'll learn about the five hidden obstacles, stopping your career change, how to figure out what would truly make you happy with your career. And what brings you more happy more often. And more importantly, how to transition to a much more fulfilling career and life. You can find the book on Amazon, Audible anywhere where books are sold, by the way, people are particularly loving the audio book, which you can access right now in second.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:50

Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up for you next week right here on Happen To Your Career.

Speaker 3 38:57

It was just a feeling of dread, like, going into work and having to deal with these conversations. And then that led me to trying to avoid doing that work, even though that was my primary job. So it was just this... It just felt like a battle every single day.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:11

I cannot tell you the number of times I've heard someone say, "Well, work is supposed to be hard. That's why it's called work." Or even, "Work is supposed to suck." It's the mindset that has been ingrained in us as a society. We are unconsciously taught from a young age that work is grueling duty and we have to put in our dues during our prime working years because that's just the way of the world. Luckily, this narrative is very misguided, and people are starting, just barely starting, to realize that work doesn't actually have to suck. And it all starts by looking inward and asking, "Do I really want work to feel like work, or could it feel differently?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:59

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.

Edna 00:00

I just didn't have the autonomy that I know I needed, in retrospect, to thrive. So after a year in I said, "That's it." They were shocked, but I was not, because I was actually, between you and I, was miserable. Because I wasn't enjoying it. I was busy. But for me, the work wasn't meaningful.

Introduction 00:27

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 00:51

A big part of what we do here at Happen To Your Career, on this podcast, in our company, is not just to get people to better jobs or enjoy their work more or do work they love or whatever. Instead, it's much more about helping you realize what creates more fulfilling work and ultimately a more fulfilling life. And when we're talking about making an intentional career change, that process is pretty fun, or at least it can be, especially at the beginning, and it also is really challenging. For example, if you're in the situation where you just quit your job after a year because it wasn't a fit, how do you identify opportunities that do, in fact, fit?

Edna 01:37

Week one was fine. Week two was fine. Week three, I'm like, "What the heck did you just do to yourself?" Right? So, we're about four months in, and things got slow, and you start to ask yourself, "What are you thinking?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:51

That's Edna. Edna is a scientist who spent 19 years working in consumer packaged goods for the same company. During that time, she moved from role to role around the world in search of more fulfillment. Eventually, she decided her search for the fulfillment needed to move beyond her longtime employer, and she moved to a new organization within the same industry. It didn't take her long to realize that the new company was not a good fit, and she needed to move to something new, something different. This time around, she decided she wanted to take a more holistic approach and figure out what she truly wanted, instead of sticking with the familiar. Edna began working with a coach on our team, and she ultimately moved to a new role as a scientist in pharmaceutical research and development, a completely new industry that she had never considered. In our conversation, you're going to hear all of the details that went into Edna's year-long journey in search of much more fulfilling work. Strengths, she trusted the process. She figured out what would work for her specific situation. She ended up using executive recruiters. By the way, we haven't covered this strategy of using executive recruiters a lot on the Happen To Your Career podcast, because for most people, it's actually not a great strategy. Most people think that they're going to go find a headhunter. The Headhunter is going to be a great way to introduce some new people. And generally, you find that that's not useful if you're looking for fulfilling work. But there is a way to do it, and for some situations, it's fantastic. You're gonna get to hear that strategy as you listen to my and Edna's conversation. Let's dive in. Here's Edna sharing a bit about her career journey up to this point.

Edna 03:37

I worked for a consumer package with companies, CPG companies, for 19 years. As you mentioned, I'm a scientist by training for a PhD in chemistry, and I was literally hired out of the lab. I was doing my postdoc, and the company came on campus to recruit, and I interviewed, I got the job. And it was, I honestly say I had an awesome time because, in retrospect, I change jobs every three to four years on the most part, and I change jobs into something that was different enough, challenging enough to allow me to learn and grow. So for example, I started off my first job was formulating laundry detergents, and I did that for four years, and then I moved on to formulating cleansing liquids. Your body washes, your liquid enhances but I did that for three years, just getting water out of my mind. I moved to formulating under antiperspirants, and all of this was in North America, and then I got the opportunity to move to Mexico and lead a team that was based there formulating our household service cleaners. So toilet bowl cleaners, kitchen cleaners, I did that for three years. And so I, you know, you get the sense. I had the opportunity to work on a lot of different product types for a lot of different biographies with a lot of different teams, with a lot of different stakeholders in the US, in Mexico, and ultimately in India. So even though I was with the same company for 19 years, I felt every time you make one of these changes, it's a big enough switch that it stretches you. And what I've learned through the process with them, and the reflection of myself is learning and growth is important to me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:29

It sounds like that is something that you've arrived at as you made different moves through your early career. Tell me about that.

Edna 05:39

And it is. I mean, the minute... I used to tell my bosses that, well, maybe I just used to reflect on it, "The minute I can do my job on autopilot, it's not good for me, it's not good for the company, it's not good for anybody around me." So I need to feel stretched and challenged to be at my best. I just love to learn. I love to learn. And it's great, and it's frustrating sometimes, because it does result, at least my career has resulted in multiple changes, right? And not small changes– Moving to Mexico, coming back to the US, moving to India. And ultimately, actually, why I left my first company was because, as I projected my career, you know, another decade, the opportunities to continue to learn and grow at the magnitude that I wanted were not there, from what I could see, right? So I guess there's a bigger job, more money, but is it stretch enough for me? I wasn't sure. So I actually wasn't actively looking for career move at that time. And I was based in India. So, you know, the R&D organization that's based in India for my company there. And they found me, my second company found me, and when they reached out, I said, "Listen, I don't do..." I was curious why they reached out to me. Because I'm like, "I don't know what to do." They said, "Let's talk." I said, "Where would I go?" They said, "Where do you want to go?" They said, "What do you want to do? We're hiring you. We'll find a place where you're in the organization." And so after six months, we talked, and I decided to join. And so came back to the US, leading the team that was based here, big company lead in its industry. And what I discovered is company was good. It was not a fit for me, and this is coming into the values as well, right? I, in retrospect, realized that I thrived with when I have autonomy. So and I didn't realize that the 19 years of my previous company, I had a lot more autonomy than I felt I had in this new environment. I was extremely busy again. It was a growing industry. The company was doing awesome, but I just didn't have the autonomy that I know I need, and I needed, in retrospect, to thrive. So after a year in I said, "That's it." They were shocked, but I was not because I was actually, between you and I, was miserable. Because I wasn't enjoying it. I was busy. But for me, the work wasn't meaningful. I was doing a lot of work, for my taste, it wasn't meaningful. So I quit. And I quit start without a job in hand. I was done. I was done. So I quit. I didn't realize how tired I was. I slept for two months. I traveled a bit, and then I found a coach. And part of finding the coaches, I needed some help. Yes, recruiters were calling me even then, but I wasn't ready to have the conversation with them because I didn't want to make the same mistakes I had made in the first transition, in the second transition. Second thing is, I wanted to make sure I was looking more holistically at opportunities versus just going into an industry, similar industry that I had known before. I could have ended up there, but I wanted to make sure that I was looking more holistically at opportunities. And third, I needed... I wanted some structure, right? Because you go from, as you said, go from going, going, going to stop, and it's a little bit jarring to the system when you used to some sort of structure to absolutely none. So I wanted some sort of structure and guidance to help me navigate through this, right? So someone to be accountable, otherwise it could also keep my life away, right? So that is how I found you. It's really looking for that holistic. I want to make sure I'm not just going to what I know, I'm comfortable with. I needed a structure, and I needed accountability. For me, and trusting that even though my coach would not tell me when I get the job, what or how I get the job, trusting enough in the process, because that's what you, your team is designed to do, is trusting enough in the process to get me there, get me to the end point, the outcome that that I desire. But not knowing exactly, putting at some point, putting the trust in, you know, these guys started, this is what they do for a living. You do your piece, it'll work out. So I think it is, but I don't know. I don't know that I really thought about it from the fact that I'm a scientist, maybe it's just because I'm a scientist, so I just approach things in a certain way that I don't even think about it. But yeah, like...

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:34

Obviously, is there any other way to do it? So here's another thing that I was really interested in. I think you did a phenomenal job when you were going through and identifying and taking feedback and inputs for your strengths.

Edna 10:56

I love that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:57

I could tell. And, you know, here's one of the things we don't actually talk about this a lot on the podcast, but internally, we understand that our clients are ready to move on to the next milestone, if you will, if you want to call this a milestone, once they've taken ownership over their strengths. And when we talk about ownership, that is partially in the verbiage and how they're able to externalize those but there's a couple other elements too, that where we consider ownership. However, one of the fun things about that is it shows up in very different ways from person to person. Not a surprise, we're all different people. And I think one of the things that you did that was really fun and fascinating was you took all of these different inputs and just for a little bit of context for everybody listening, one of the things we'll often do with many of the folks that we work with is we'll ask them, in this case, you Edna, to collect inputs from other people who know you, who've worked with you, or friends or family members in terms of what they believe that you're great at, you know, what are your strengths, what do they see that is great about you? And sometimes people are apprehensive about this process, but it always ends up with, like, all these really wonderful things about the individual. And I think what was fun about what you did is you color coded every single piece of feedback, whether it came from an assessment, whether it came from a person, whether it didn't matter what the source was, but you had all of these different types of inputs. And then you said, "Okay, well, here's where I see my strengths." And then you took that and color coded so you could visually see where and how they showed up in the feedback. What prompted you to do that in the first place? And I'm curious, what did you learn from that?

Edna 12:50

Yeah. So I'm visual clearly, and sort of colors for me helped. And the Gallup StrengthsFinder already had that sort of color code. So I took that color code and sort of matched it with what my feedback with Gallup. And it was interesting because I was also a little bit about apprehensive about getting feedback, because I've done enough assessments at this point in my career. But I took a step back and said, "Hey, this is from a different lens." And I like that the questions that you reach out to people, folks with are all positive, right? So I took the opportunity to seek feedback from people that have managed me, people who have managed, people who've been my peers or my stakeholders, and I did it from the US, India and China, the scientists. So this is the one data that represents.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:39

Let's get a significant sample size. Let's represent enough data. Let's get...

Edna 13:43

On every level, I don't want it to be by. So yeah, I guess there are some scientists in, right? A lot of scientists. And then you've done the StrengthFinder assessment, and I got my top five strengths. It was so fascinating to see when the feedback came that my strengths are my strengths. They were saying exactly what Gallup StrengthFinder was saying in different words. They express it in their Mexican way, in the American way, or in the Indian way. But what they were saying about me is me. So I'm very consistent. And very reassuring to know that who I am and how I show up in the workplace has value. One of the questions I asked is, "What things become easy for me, that others struggle with? What do you think I could teach others?" And the consistency that came out of those, that feedback for me just solidified that understanding and appreciation of my strengths. And also, at some level, helped me not to minimize because you see, individualization is my number one, and I'm like, it's just what I do. You know, but it has value, and it was so clear to me from the feedback I got from people around the world that it has value. And for me, I actually did StrengthFinder before, and I said, "Do I need to do this again?" And, you know, they said, "Yeah, you do need to do it again." What I found, for me, in retrospect, is this exercise really anchored the process. It's because you have to start by understanding what it is you're good at, where that comes from, and you will then be able to appreciate, hopefully, for the individuals listening, is the successes you've had and the contribution, which is in your career, and the contribution that your strengths have had towards that success. Because I bet you, they're rooted in your strengths. The successes you had are rooted in your strengths. But until you're able to sort of step and see that link, you may not fully appreciate it. So what again, for me, one of the great things about this whole process is, I walk away with a deeper understanding and appreciation of my strengths, and the process is rooted. It starts there. It starts with understanding the strengths, which is again, so basically, I've done this before, but I hadn't never done it like this, never done it like this. And I said appreciation, and the choice to leverage my strengths even more in the future. So not only do I walk away with appreciation and understanding, there is a very deliberate decision and the intention to leverage moving forward, because more success would come out of that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:26

Yeah. And to your point, the first step really is that awareness, which creates that foundation, or grounding that you had mentioned earlier, if everything else decision-wise to come later is going to be grounded. If you want to do more work in your strengths, you have to understand your strengths at an incredible depth. Otherwise, how likely is it going to be that you're going to choose to do work or spend more time in your strengths? It's highly unlikely, right? Of course. So a really great point. So here's my question for you, when you think about that and you got that grounding, how did that help you functionally, later? When we fast forward ahead and we say, okay, now you got this really wonderful opportunity that I think is a great fit for you from everything that I understand, and everything that Ben and I have talked about, but I'm curious, you know, how did you see that functionally show up along the way? That being your strengths understanding.

Edna 17:32

For me, I think, one, it helps me on a day to day. So I actually understand myself better sometimes when I'm in situations and I'm struggling a bit, it helps certain things, I'm like, "Oh, I can understand why this is off for me, because I'm missing XYZ." And, for example, I'm an achiever, right? And sometimes I like to procrastinate, and I've discovered just put on a list. If I put it on a list, it's going to get done because the achiever in me will ensure that thing is checked off the list, right? Little tricks like that, exactly the little tricks like that. I think the biggest one for me, though, is leaning into my individualization during the process. And I'm sure it'll show up on the job what you know as I've taken up this new role. But because of what I discovered, and I'm going to fast forward to the experimentation phase, there was a lot of emphasis in the experimentation modules around making sure you're connecting with whomever you're reaching out to. So if you're reaching out via email, or if you're reaching out via phone, make sure you understand who it is you're talking to, try to spend some time connecting. And, honestly, I struggled with that a bit because I'm here to get some information, I don't have time to connect. What I realized is, because of my individualization, I'm inherently curious about people, and what I realized is, to the extent that you can connect, it impacts the transaction. Every interaction has a transaction and a connection. The quality of your connection can impact your transaction. So for me, just focusing on trying to... And I'll step back. I'll give you an example of even going into interviews. In the past, I would want to get through the interview, and interviews usually come quite naturally for me, but I'll be so focused on the interview. And as a result of going through this process, it shifted a bit. I go in and try to understand who's on the other side of the interview, who is this person who's talking to me? So have the conversation. The interview will happen. We know we're both here for an interview. None of us don't forget to get that part in, but spending the time upfront to connect was a shift for me, and seeing how that connection then, in turn, impacts how the interview happens. And I done it, yes, within the interview space, but even outside. You know, you go to a restaurant and you're waiting for a table and you're talking to the hostess. In the past, you know, I wouldn't really bother Tuesday party or too waiting. But now you have, okay, it looks like you're busy today. How's the house? Just spend a minute. Spend a minute connecting. Because that connection oftentimes impacts the transaction. The tables come up on you, would you be willing to, it's just little things. And recognizing that because I'm inherently wired to connect to people, connect to people, so that in somehow, individualization is my number one. So I would do it anyway, but being mindful of, you know, one, it's a strength. Two, it's not work for me. And people are people on the other side of any interaction as a person. And that person, you know, try to get to know that person a little bit. You may not, you may have hours, you may have seconds, spend a minute, spend a second to connect.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:05

Yeah, so that's really interesting. So what I hear you saying is that you realized somewhere along the way about how important it is to make that connection and to connect with others. And then it also sounds like along the way you realized that your tendencies or strengths, or it doesn't matter what they are, whatever we'd like to call these, your tendency to be individualistic or to individualize, and then also that, paired with your curiosity, those make a way that is easy for you to connect with others. So I love that example because it is very literally harnessing your strengths and tendencies and utilizing them in a different way than what you were thinking about it before. That's cool.

Edna 22:01

Exactly. And because, you know, I end up knowing a lot about people anyway because I, in retrospect, individualization is my number one. And so, from the taxi driver in Mexico City who showed me pictures of his vacation, you know, and so... But just be mindful that you can lean into that as I have the choice as to how much I want to it or not, but being mindful top of mind that listen, spend the time, if you can, spend the time to connect, because that connection usually impacts the quality of that connection impacts the transaction. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:37

Edna, tell me a little bit about the role that you're moving into and what makes it a great fit for you?

Edna 22:44

Yeah. So I'm changing segments slightly. And I remember in the beginning I said I wanted to be able to look holistically. I would not have picked this segment for myself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:55

Interesting, yeah.

Edna 22:58

And what makes it a great fit is that it's an innovation. So I'm staying within research and development, which is what I love. I love working with scientists, or within the science space. I am going to lead innovation. This is what I love to do. I love to lead innovation. Because, as I said, one of my things is about one of my values is learning and growth. And the beauty about innovation is that you're not doing exactly the same thing repetitively. You're constantly pushing and learning and trying something differently or doing something totally different altogether. In addition to that, what I love about this opportunity is that the company as a whole is pivoting, but one that wasn't necessarily innovation focused, to one that wants to be a lot more innovative.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:47

So time and place is an important part of this for you, too.

Edna 23:52

They don't know how to do it quite, hence, people like me coming in. I don't know them. I don't know their segment, so we're going to have to figure it out, but they're open. So what makes it beautiful is, yes, it's innovation. It's in R&D, the organization is pivoting, and so having the opportunity to help shape what this organization will look like in future is music to my ears. This is what I do. This is when I'm in my sweet spot. Yeah. And in a meeting, in an organization that does meaningful work, so it's in healthcare, about affordable healthcare. Never done it. So gotta learn. Opportunity to learn for me is huge. Get learning and growth is important to me. And in a space doing stuff, the type of stuff that I love to do, it'll be a challenge, lot to learn, lot to figure out, but for me, I feel like it's the role that was created for me at a time when a company that's at the right spot and it's open– open to be changed, open to be influenced, open to be shaped. And I'm looking forward to that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:03

That's a lot of fun. That right type of challenge in the right environment, yeah, tends to create really enjoyable and healthy growth.

Edna 25:16

And everybody I talk to, it just feels like interviewed with, it just feels like it's my tribe. When one of the things that along the way, when the coaching journey is, I need to find my... You used to tell me, you need to find your tribe. I need to find my tribe. You know, when you're talking to them, I'm like, "This is my tribe. These are my people. They approach leadership the same way that I do. This is my tribe." So very much looking forward to having the autonomy to drive, lead, shape the future of an organization that's working in a very meaningful space. For me, yeah, that's changing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:04

That's cool. That's amazing. I appreciate that we got to sit front row while you were working on this. This is amazing.

Edna 26:13

Highs and lows on a good, bad, ugly, right? It was awesome, in retrospect.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:22

Can we talk about for a moment something that we have not mentioned regularly on the Happen To Your Career podcast, tactically, one of the approaches that led you to this particular role, this particular job opportunity, was working through recruiters and you, before we hit the record button, astutely acknowledged that we haven't spent a lot of time talking about that on the Happen To Your Career podcast, and there's a good reason for that. That's really not a great approach for everyone, but it can be a good approach for some people, and I think it certainly has worked well for you. Can you tell me a little bit about how you worked with recruiters and how you worked through to figure out that certain opportunities were right for you or not right for you as you were working through recruiting relationships?

Edna 27:16

So it was interesting. I quit my job, and that I quit on a Friday. Well, my last day was on Friday. I quit actually on a Monday, and I had to put this calling me immediately. I was in no shape or form to have discussions in me, that self assurance said, "don't just jump in." I just, you know, you have to make sure this next thing is right for me. In my case, I actually never went... I never reached out to the executive recruiters. The executive recruiters reached out to me. And I think what worked for me is a couple of things, in the sense of your knowing what I was looking for, having gone through the process right, understanding the strengths, understanding your values, so I had clarity around what I was looking for. And second is because experimentation came into play for me, then, was doing the research on the organizations and the potential companies to try to get a feel for, "Is this the type of culture I want to work with?" So there's a lot of good tools and life tips and tricks that I learned through Ben into how to do that research on organizations. And then third is just, I would come back to my self assurance. You talk to a recruiter like, even though the job may sound good, this one's just not for me. And I can't tell it comes from my self assurance. I don't know where it's inherently in me, but some things are just like, it's not for me. It's not for me. So even when this opportunity came initially, I was like, "What? Doing what? Where?" But I was like, "Okay, let's have the conversation." Yeah, I hadn't thought about this segment. Hadn't thought about relocating. Actually, wasn't want to relocate, but let's talk. And once you get into a conversation, then you realize, actually maybe, and then the next conversation is like, even more so. So I think just using the recruiters, not as a channel that directed opportunities to me, versus a decision making, I still have the opportunity of this opportunity to decide, but the recruiters were the ones, in my case, that channeled opportunities to me, and then I did use some of the experimental tools to do the research in the company and the culture and the people– who do I want? Who do I know within that can I reach out to from that company that I might not get additional information? So I still did that work, but the recruiters just funneled the opportunities to me. I use them that way. That makes sense.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:10

Yeah, absolutely. And I think...

Edna 30:12

I'm not getting swayed necessarily by the recruiters. Except there was one

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:17

There was one.

Edna 30:19

Who actually, and that's like, this opportunity is not for me. So we had the conversation, and I was telling them how I quit my last job, and he's like, "Okay, you cannot say this. You cannot say this when you interview." And I'm like, "I'm not." So he almost treated me as if I was damaged goods, and I was like, "I'm not damaged goods. Listen, I learned, I went through this. This was my journey. Here's what I learned." So, yeah, there was one recruiter like...

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:47

There were all the telltale signs, yeah.

Edna 30:50

Some opportunities. So I leveraged them to channel opportunities to me, and then I still went through the process of assessment, evaluation, but, ultimately, was my fault.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:05

So here's the things I think that... and listening to your story made that work as a strategy for you. Number one, you had already gone through the process of understanding what you were looking for, the most important elements, pieces that lined up with your strengths, how you wanted to work, what you're interested in, what creates the right magnitude, was the word you used, of growth for you, which I love that. I haven't had anybody else use the word magnitude of growth. I've been looking for a good word around that, so I'm gonna borrow that. That's amazing. And so you'd already done all of the hard work going into this to be able to recognize what would or would not be a fit. And then, as opposed to saying, "Hey, recruiters are my end all be all, you were strictly using this as a channel to get visibility to different types of opportunities that may line up." Now, this is not a great situation for everybody, because for some people it strategically works, depending on what you're looking for, and does that line up with some of the experiences that you have. And for other people, it doesn't necessarily when you're making a career change. In this case, what I love about it for you is that you were talking to lots of recruiters and lots of opportunities, which as a function, if you get like the recruiter who messages you, and I think you'd be amazing. You go all the way through the process, you have one job offer, and you've talked to exactly one to two recruiters, then all of a sudden, it's really difficult to say no to that opportunity for many people, shelf assurance or otherwise. But what you did, you talked to many, many people over the course of time, and then that helps create a better decision making framework, too, nicely done.

Edna 32:52

Absolutely. And it also gives you confidence that even if you say no to this, there's going to be another one to come, right? I can't tell you when, where. Actually, I just had two recruiters for two different opportunities. I've diverted them to friends, but reach out to me in the past week. So, you know, you don't get so desperate that this is the only one. The first ones, yeah, and you say, if you turn them down, you can get a little nervous, but if you're in it long enough, you're gonna say, don't keep. If you have something of value to offer, they'll show up. They'll show up. So just having the confidence that they'll show up, and then having the coach to help you as well, when you're, you know, not sure, thinking doesn't feel quite right. And I remember Ben saying, "What do you think? What do you feel?" I'm like, "I don't think so." He said, "Go with what you feel." And so, okay, we're really excited. And what I also loved about this approach is you never knew what opportunities that were coming in with. They came from, or I would never have picked this industry for myself, for example, the one that I said yes to. So it did, in a sense, also open me up to opportunities there and segments and geographies that I would never have considered. I had an opportunity in Switzerland, another one in the UK, and another one lots across the US and so I would never have, but it had a diversity of opportunities come to me that I perhaps would never even have found had I gone about the approach the way I was going about the approach.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:32

I think there's one other really important note on that that it sounds like you're pointing out that this became a source of exposure to new opportunities for you. And I think in your situation, it worked really incredibly well. It doesn't always work for every single person under the sun as a strategy, and it depends on what you want, and the life that you want to build. In your case, I think that this was an incredibly effective strategy. Because it allows you to, not really sit back necessarily, but allow opportunities to come to you. And then you could evaluate those opportunities and say, "Wow, I've never heard of this. Let's investigate that." And then that allowed you to, not just gain exposure, but experiment in a very different way. A lot of times we talk about experimentation where you're seeking those opportunities out, and then you are getting some measure of feedback, and then that influences your understanding of what it is that you want. In this case, it was... I love the strategy and nature of this, because it was, "Hey, let's attract some of these to me, and then let's evaluate them, and let's still use these as experimentation." Yes. Nicely done.

Edna 35:51

It was experimentation, but it was different. Because I told them, I said, when we got to that stage and I started doing experimentation as it was initially, "It's gonna look different for me. It's gonna look differently." And so I experimented, but it was slightly different.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:10

What advice would you give to other people who are interested in making a career change? I mean, we're talking about, like, these ups and downs and all kinds of things spread over many months. So this is not exactly a small excursion when we're talking about the goal of doing work in a much more fulfilling way. Often what I mentioned earlier is intentional career change. This can tend to be fun at periods of time, but can also be really challenging. So what advice would you give to people who are considering making an intentional career change?

Edna 36:43

So I tell them to do what I did, in a sense, if you need help. We need make sure you try to get someone who has experience in providing guidance to help you through it. Two, I think for me, was to ensure that your network and or the people who surround you are supported. Because that's another thing that happened during that ambiguous time, is I happen to mention my decision to step away to someone who didn't understand what I'd done, and so had a bunch of questions of, "Why would you judge?" So that didn't help. I was already in that period of ambiguity, and I realized that, you know, up till that point, I'd surrounded myself with people who were 100% supported, and even if they were like, "Okay, now we get you. We were with you. We're with you, that's challenging, but we're with you." Because the last thing you need is people who will make you question yourself on this journey that is challenging in and of itself. So lean in, get someone to help, make sure you have the support and that dedicate the time, do the work and trust the process. Trust the process, even when it feels like, you know, you have questioning why you do it. Trust the process. In my case, just trusting the process, trust the process. It worked for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:18

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 39:11

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

Speaker 3 39:16

There's a normal distribution of extroverts and introverts among super communicators. There's a normal distribution of charming and curmudgeonly. And if you ask super communicators, were you always good at communication? Is this something you were born with? Inevitably, they say, "No."

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:32

If you want to get anything done, results of any kind, you're going to need to be able to communicate with other people. And if you really want to excel at just about anything career related, working with team, making meaningful connections, job interviews, salary negotiation, networking, and, quite frankly, anything else that you might be interested in being successful at, well, then it helps if you are a skilled communicator, or what our guest today calls a super communicator.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:06

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:01

Why is it that some people seem to move up the career ladder and make money much more easily? Well, others stay stuck in the same pay for years. Well, here's a little secret. It's not about working harder, as it turns out. It has a lot more to do with clear communication and knowing how to ask for what your work is worth to the organization, your boss, and the other people who have a vested interest. In this episode, we'll cover the most valuable ways to use 15 minutes a week with your boss, a story of how Justin got a 20% increase in pay when only asking for 12, and then how a minimum wage job making takeout pizza changed my life completely. Also, share some strategies to help you get your own raise in compensation with your company.

Introduction 00:53

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:19

Okay, when I was 17 years old, I worked for a takeout pizza place, and I really enjoyed it. It was fun. And I was pretty content with the work I was doing in the spare time for high school classes. But after I'd been there for a year, one of my co-workers urged me to do the craziest thing. She said that I should approach our boss and I should ask for a raise. She'd done the exact same thing at her year anniversary. Now I didn't even know that it was a possibility just to ask for more money. But I was excited about getting a raise, and I'd never learned not to. So I approached my boss, and guess what? I got a raise. And here's the reality, it was only a quarter on top of my, I think, it's like 5.25 minimum wage. But this quarter was the gateway quarter. That quarter opened my eyes to a whole world where I realized it was possible to happen to my career, and that I could ask for more if I believed that what I was doing was worthwhile or valuable, and from then on, I did just that. Now, okay, so here's a funny thing, if you count the businesses I've owned over the years and asking customers for a raise on contracts, and also all of the actual jobs that I've had then, I've asked for a raise around 40 times– seven of those were asking my employer for a raise. Sometimes it's been very small, other times it's been massive increases, five-figure increases even and negotiated a $20,000 raise, negotiated a raise that ended up leading to a $40,000 total increase, which was 20, I think, it's like $26,000 of actual salary, and then the remainder amount of RSUs. Here's the thing. It ended up not being that crazy of an ask or not that difficult of a negotiation. I made it easy for them to say yes, which leads me to exactly what we're going to walk through in this episode. How do you build a foundation that makes asking for a raise easy? This process will make the ask feel much more natural. It will make it easier for your boss to say yes and be on board and once that foundation is built, I'll give you an example here for what that conversation might even sound like, and often it's a series of conversations to have with your boss for that raise that, well, you might feel like you badly deserve. Okay, let's jump in here. If you're thinking about asking for a raise, you need to be providing more usefulness and worth than what is expected of you. This means you need to be doing much more than just the bare minimum in your role. Does that mean working insane hours? Well, it could be, but more often than that, it means delivering actual value– what your boss perceives as valuable, what the other people in your organization perceive as valuable, those people who are stakeholders need to understand what it is that is expected of you, as well as what you're actually delivering overall. Simply put, you must understand the expectations, and then you must exceed them. The most important expectations are in the eyes of those who have the ability to say yes, those people with a vested interest. Yes to raising your income. If you're not performing extremely well, you won't be in the kind of position to ask for anything above and beyond the norm– including a raise. You might think you're already performing well, but the question is, where do you stand with your boss? Let's walk through how you can always know where you stand with your boss. If you want to build a great relationship with your boss and have them always feeling like you're exceeding expectations, then the first step is to actually focus on that relationship, and one of the easiest ways to do this is having some kind of face time. I recommend scheduling consistent check-ins with them to discuss your progress and clarify expectations. Now you might already do this, or you might already have one-on-one setup, and this can be a proactive approach. It can demonstrate your commitment. It can also keep you on track, and if done well, it can guarantee that you're both on the same page. Now let's talk about what's most important to truly be on the same page. Because this can be simply a 15 to 20-minute weekly check-in. It doesn't have to be like hours and hours of call time or meeting or face-to-face time. It can be where you're simply explaining the work you're doing, the priorities you have, and specifically how it connects back to the goals that you've both agreed upon. It needs to have those parts. If it's missing something, it's going to be challenging to truly be on the same page. So let's just say it's every Monday. You and your boss have a 15-minute standing meeting at 10 am. You're going to prepare a document where you list out your priorities for the week and then make it easy for them to connect back how those priorities are going to support the goals that they or your company or you are trying to meet. If there's time, you can do a recap of the previous week. You can show them how you knock those expectations that you agreed on last week out of the park, and then you're going to repeat this weekly which this sounds are really simple and overly simple, and is actually relatively easy to execute if you can try not to overcomplicate it. This also feeds into the next most important part, which is, don't just meet your goals. You need to exceed them. You need to overachieve on your goals. Is another way to think about it. This means taking ownership of your tasks. It means not just striving for excellence. It means that you are truly looking at ways that are going to create value, not just what feels like value, but value in relationship to what you have agreed upon and then over-delivering. So we talked about reporting progress in those weekly meetings. When your boss understands your goals and can see your consistent performance, then as this adds up over time, especially if you are over-delivering on a regular basis, then this will make it easy, painfully easy, to recognize your value, especially if you now have all of the things that you've agreed upon, you can actually go back every once in a while, say quarterly, and then be able to say, "Hey, look, here's a quick summary of everything that we did over the last quarter. You and I met, we agreed on this, we agreed on this, we agreed on this. Here's my side-by-side results of what we agreed upon versus what I delivered. You'll notice that over the last quarter, I have delivered incredibly consistently more than what we agreed upon. So I just wanted to call that out. This seems to be working for me. Is it working for you?" This is just a way to even level up and help them see that connection over and over again. At the same time, it continues to build trust. Now that might be obvious. If you're consistently over-delivering, they see the pattern of that, they're connecting back the pattern to that. They're beginning to trust you, of course, right? By continuously clarifying your goals and overachieving on them, you ensure that your boss are also on the same page. This alignment makes it so much easier for your boss to justify giving you a raise when you decide to ask. So much easier. Once you've built the foundation to ask for a raise, the asking is just it feels like it flows a lot more naturally. This works hand in hand with what we just covered because the actual act of asking for a raise correctly can't happen without having that relationship, without having that trust, without having the awareness of your over-delivery non-performance, it just can't happen without it. When it's time to ask for a raise, how you go about this is super important. Instead of just demanding more money, we want to frame it as you and your boss or anybody else who's involved are working together to find a solution. It can be a really useful negotiation tool and technique to frame this up in a way that promotes partnership. We're working together to find this solution. This means that when you go to ask, you're not going to say, "Hey, can you give me a raise? Here's what I've been doing. I feel like I really deserve it. Here's the market data that supports that. Can you give me a raise?" That's not what you're going to do at all. Instead, here's an example of the way a usual ask for an increase might sound like in conversation. You're not going to ask a question that leads to a yes or no at all, because here's how the usual ask for a raise goes. I say, "Hey, can I have a raise? I have over delivered consistently, and we've talked about it, and I've overachieved. Here's all the things, here's the market data. Can I have a raise?" And your boss responds, "No, I'm really sorry. I don't think we can do that this year. It's not in the budget." And then you've now forced a decision, "No, sorry, can't do that." That's not super helpful. It's not helpful to you. It's not helpful to your boss, not helpful to anybody, quite frankly. Or somebody might go the absence of authority route where I don't think the higher-ups are going to be able to do that. So either way, it's based on how you approached it. You basically backed your boss into a situation where they are forced to make a decision, yes or no, not super helpful. Instead, a much better way to go about it than "Can I get a raise or not?" A much more helpful way can make all the difference.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:31

You've already built this partnership foundation at this point in time in your weekly discussion of company goals. So that is the mindset you should have going into this discussion as well. You should invite your boss, or whoever partners in solving this problem into the discussion to actually solve this problem. Here's what the conversation might sound like. It might sound something like, "Hey, I am very aware that if I changed organizations, I could get paid significantly more. I've done the research. I'm well aware of that. But I want to be really clear. I don't want to go anywhere else. I actually love it here. I have had a huge track record of success that you and I had talked on a weekly basis. I'm overdelivering. I also want you to know that it's important to me for my own goals that I am getting to the point where I am making $157,000. This supports my financial goals. This supports what I can do for my family. This supports a lot of the life I want to build. And my personal goal would be to figure out, with your help, how to make it feel like a silly thing not to pay me that amount. I'd love to have a conversation with you of how we could make this happen and what it would take, and get your advice on that." So what I'm doing here is I'm creating a partnership. I'm helping make them aware of the problem. And then, instead of asking for an increase, I am asking for their help in solving this problem. I'm making them a partner in the solution. So I'm asking, "How can we..." not them, not me. "How can we, together, make this possible? What would this look like?" I'm also not putting such constraints on it that I'm forcing a decision or that I'm forcing them to get scared about it. Instead, I want them to know what the challenges are, how I'm looking at it, and that I want to be a part of the solution as well. This approach frames it as a problem-solving partnership. It also highlights your loyalty, your value, and your willingness to work together towards this common goal. And then after this initial ask, which the ask you noticed is about how might we have a conversation to make this happen, or how might we figure out how to make this happen? I can frame that with other useful asks as well, like, what would we need to do to figure this out? Who would we need to talk to, who would need to be involved? What would the circumstances need to be for this to be true? What would this look like for this to become possible? Those are much more useful questions. First of all, those types of questions, like those–what, who, when–type of questions, those tend to focus us on, "How might we solve this problem?" And then we make the issue less about "Can this be granted or not?", and more about "What would it take?", which is a different type of thinking, and it triggers a different part of the brain as well. This approach is going to cause them to think through what you're saying, and not just give a yes or no. We're also using the language of "we" when we're saying, "How can we make this happen?" Okay, so all these things tend to work together to add up to create a much more useful ask. Because often people have in their mind that when they go to ask for a raise, it's going to be a one-and-done type of conversation, "I'm going to go, they're going to grant a raise, and it's going to be amazing. Or what if they say no?" In any case, it's not usually a one-and-done conversation. Sometimes it is. But I've done this a lot of times over the years, not just for myself, but with our clients here at HTYC. And almost always, this is a series of conversations. Sometimes it's spread out over many months, sometimes even a year or more. For most people, though, it's a series of conversations that can get things going initially and sometimes produce results right away. I want to give you an example of this, not from me, but from one of our clients, Justin. We worked with Justin to negotiate an increase. I want you to hear how he approached his boss and turned the conversation into a problem that they could solve together.

Justin 16:07

And then I simply called my boss and said, "Hey, I have something that's really, really important to me to talk to you about, and I'd like to do that in person sometime in the next three or four days. Do you have time on Thursday or Friday? " But I called him on Monday, and I didn't tell him anything else. And then he didn't really reply. But setting the conversation up like that, I feel like it was really powerful because I feel like it flipped who was nervous. Because normally, I would go in and say, "Hey, you know, I'd like a raise. And I've done a really good job." And I'd be the one whose heart was pounding and who was nervous. And when I went in on Thursday and met with my boss, you know, I was slightly nervous leading into it, but not nearly as nervous as I was before. And I could tell he was just waiting for me to hand in my resignation, and I could see the look of relief on his face when all I did was ask for a 20% raise, which was like amazing, because normally you would say that, and they'd be like, "20%? Whatever." But just for for him to sort of sit back and I know that he also talked to his boss, and they sort of already knew something was up and we were meeting for an important reason. But for them to sit there and think, "Okay, well, like he's probably handing in his resignation, or he has another job offer for a few days", it kind of puts them in that mindset of, oh, this is what it really could be like if you did leave. And framing the conversation where I was not the nervous one, really, I feel like that was probably the most important thing out of this whole process. Another one of the things was, and it's going to be different for everybody, but for me in particular, I could pretty easily trace back some ideas and things that we've implemented over the past few years, and actually put $1 figure on some of those, not necessarily to say, like, "Hey, look, I saved the company $1 million, therefore, I want you to pay me 900,000 of that." But for me to actually look at it and say, like, "Whoa, this idea actually did save the company a million dollars, and this other idea saved the company another $500,000." It definitely made it easier for me to sort of convince me of my worth in the process. Because these were all ideas that I'm pretty confident if I wasn't working there, that nobody else would have necessarily come up with them, and being able to word things in the sense that made my boss feel like we were going to work on this problem together, versus just saying, "Give me this or I'm leaving." Saying, "Give me this raise or I'm going to leave" it puts everybody in a standoffish mode, and that's not really the best place for everybody to be at. But being able to word it as, "Look, I'm qualified for all these other jobs, and I could go get them today, but I don't want to. I want to say here. Here's what I'd like to get paid in order for me to stop looking at all these other job offers and jobs that are available, and here's what I want in order for me to continue with my career here and sort of stop focusing on other opportunities. And how can we make that happen together?" Like that was really powerful because it, like you said earlier, like it puts them in problem-solving mode, and it sort of takes the threat away, which is, you never want people to feel like they're cornered and they need to do this or else. Because that's just not a great way to approach anything in life.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:23

Justin's story is a great example of how approaching the conversation the right way can lead to positive outcomes. However, I know you might be thinking, "What if my situation doesn't go as smoothly?" It's a common fear. It's a significant deterrent for many people. A lot of people never even ask, never even get very far into thinking about how it might be possible because they're worried about, well, "what if I say 'no'?", and how might it be perceived? Things that they haven't even happened yet, and still it deters us. Now, I've asked for enough raises and worked with enough people asking for increases to know that this particular fear is always in the back of your mind. What if they say no? What if I present them with this well-thought-out, precisely planned collaboration and I'm met with rejection? What then? Will they fire me? Will they look at me differently? Will they think I'm ungrateful or prideful or selfish? This huge deterrent stops so many people. So let me put your heart at ease. In 99.999997, I'm making up this number of cases where you have this conversation, the outcome is going to be overwhelmingly positive. So now we don't have any data to support that, but what we do have are observations with our clients over the years and doing this many, many, many times over, like hundreds and hundreds of times. So in all cases, it's created a positive outcome. Sometimes it promoted a better relationship, which, by the way, is the opposite thing people think might happen. They look at it as a net-sum game. I need to ask, so therefore that's going to erode some of the relationships that I have. However, I haven't found that to be true. I think that it can actually be the opposite way. I think you can strengthen the relationship by having a really great conversation in here for what you need and what your boss and other people in the organization need. Also, I want you to understand that what I didn't say is you're going to get exactly what you ask for 90% of the time. It's going to be a positive experience. But it doesn't always mean you get exactly what you ask for. This is a great part about the process. Sometimes you get a better result than what you ask for. Even if you don't get the answer you want, more often than not, it doesn't actually mean no. It could mean anything like if your boss says, "I'm really sorry, we can't do that right now." It could mean not now. It could mean, "I believe that you deserve this, but the terms need to be different." It could mean any number of other things. But even if you are met with resistance, it doesn't mean it's impossible, and it doesn't mean it can't create a positive outcome. If you've built the foundation we discussed, and your boss says no to your request for a raise, he'll more than likely give you a reason why feels it can't be done or whatever else, and it's up to you, since you built a great relationship, to then begin to understand the reasons behind the reasons, so that you can help your boss work through them. Here's the magic phrase to use in this instance. "I totally understand what you're saying. I really appreciate your honesty. What would need to be true? What would need to happen, or what would I need to do in order for this to become a yes?" This can turn the conversation into a very positive manner. If you were given a no, then, it's going to help you dig to understand what are the reasons behind the reasons and you will be able to have a place to work through those. That's often why this can turn into a series of conversations, too, because your boss or other people that you have as a vested interest might not know the answer. They might not have thought it through and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. We're solving this together. You might be given items to address, tasks to complete, goals to hit, or exceed in order to get this raise. It also might be they just haven't thought about how to do something that is going to be an exception to the rule. They might need guidance. They might need you to help them think through this as a partner in one way or another, which means that you're going to need to ask questions. You're going to need to be curious, you're going to need to not give up on the first obstacle that comes along, or if they don't quite know how to make it happen. You might be told the budgets are already set, or might be told any number of other reasons why it can't be done, or why it's going to be challenging. But challenging does not mean no. This is where you're going to lay the groundwork to continue the conversation. It might feel bold but insist on wanting concrete steps, actions, or processes that are going to ensure that it's going to lead you to receiving your requested raise. What this might sound like? It might sound like saying, "I would love to work with you to figure out what the concrete steps might look like. What specifically would need to happen? You know, who are the people that would need to sign off on this, if not just you? Who else has to be on board?" This series of questions will help guide you to the next step, and also you can continue to reinforce that, "Look, I'm not looking for you to do the work for me here. I want to understand and work with you to understand what it would take. How can I turn this into a situation where everyone in the organization who holds the super strengths might feel silly not paying me this amount? And it doesn't need to happen today or tomorrow, but I do want to understand what is needed so that I can make it happen with your help." The purpose in having this additional conversation is twofold: You want your employer to understand that you're very serious about receiving this increase and you're willing to do the work that is needed for, in some cases, both of them. Both you and them. And also the second purpose is to create an actual plan, which then allows you to achieve your goal. This navigation through an ambiguous situation that doesn't have clear guidelines, is a set of skills that you can use, not just for getting raises, but for almost everything that you might want for the rest of your life. So what we're talking about here, doesn't just apply with raises. It applies in any type of negotiation or interaction where you need to do something that is out of the norm, an exception if you will. And even if you get to an initial obstacle or no answer, you'll have positioned yourself as a person that's determined to move things forward, and determined to be a collaborator, and determined to be a partner. And this helps create a better relationship overall, too, which means that even if you don't get what you're looking for, it's going to create later opportunities that you can be given to do so, or even if you don't get what you're looking for, it's going to create a different relationship, which then will get you access to other opportunities in the future. Also, here's the thing like, now that this raise and your goals are on the table, then as soon as you can pin it down to a plan and what needs to be achieved, then you can go right back to the foundation that we set up and discuss this with your boss on a weekly basis. "Hey, here's what you said I needed to do. Here's what I'm doing. Here's how I'm over-delivering to be able to make this happen." Don't fear being told 'no'. No, very rarely actually means no.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:26

I'll tell you that one of the biggest reasons that people never get a raise is what I mentioned at the front side of this. They simply never ask, or they're just incredibly uncomfortable asking, or they're worried about what asking means in the first place. There's so many things that tend to stop us. And if you want to negotiate an increase and feel like you need help crafting your ask, that's something we can help with. Sometimes all you need to do is have an outside person to help you think through, create a plan, and go into this with a strategy that's going to work for your situation. It just makes sense. And I'll tell you, I love to negotiate. I live this. I breathe this. It's one of the things I do for fun. Some people play golf. I get myself into negotiation situations. It's super fun, super enjoyable, and they look at it as an ongoing experiment. I know I'm a weirdo. However, I also know that each and every situation is different from doing many negotiations on my own, each and every situation is completely different. And even though I do this for fun, I teach it, we have built a company around much of this type of negotiation and interaction that is collaboration and partnership. I still take a partner when I'm going to negotiate something. So that's what I recommend to other people, too, take a partner, whether that's our organization, whether that is somebody else. However, if you want our help and you need support, here's what I would suggest– take the next 5, 10, 15 seconds, open up your email app. Email me directly. My email address is 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 pretty informal conversation. And then we can figure out the very best way to support you in getting this increase, by the way, I'll mention this episode if it was helpful to you, and we can figure out the very best way that we can support you to make it happen. So do it right now. Drop me an email with 'Conversation' in the subject line now.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:29

Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up next week right here on Happen To Your Career.

Speaker 3 30:35

That just didn't have the autonomy that I know I needed, in retrospect, to thrive. So after a year in I said, "That's it." They were shocked, but I was not, because I was actually, between you and I, was miserable. Because I wasn't enjoying it. I was busy. But for me, the work wasn't meaningful.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:55

A big part of what we do here at Happen To Your Career, on this podcast, in our company, is not just to get people to better jobs or enjoy their work more or do work they love or whatever. Instead, it's much more about helping you realize what creates more fulfilling work and ultimately a more fulfilling life. And when we're talking about making an intentional career change, that process is pretty fun, or at least it can be, especially at the beginning, and it also is really challenging. For example, if you're in the situation where you just quit your job after a year because it wasn't a fit, how do you identify opportunities that do, in fact, fit?

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:41

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.

Cheri 00:01

I'm not stressed out. I'm not frustrated. I'm not spending my evening dreading the morning. So I have the space in my brain to focus on life, like, making dinner and spending time with my family.

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 00:45

Maybe it sounds obvious, but making an intentional career change to work that fits you will change your entire life. Now, when I say intentional career change, I mean to change where we're optimizing for life fulfillment, inclusive of work. This means it's not just about finding out what's wrong with your current job, honing in on that one thing and then finding a new job. It's about completely shifting how you think about work and ensuring that it aligns with the life that you want to be living. Taking the time to make this drastic shift can change your stress level, it can improve your mood, give you energy, can make you happier overall on any given moment. It also tends to take longer than your typical job change. The question becomes, is it worth it for that extra time and energy you spent? Well, you get to decide, but here's what Cheri thought.

Cheri 01:42

I'm just a happier person, I'm a better partner, I'm a better parent, I'm a better friend because I'm happier.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:49

That's Cheri Thom, and this is what we like to call a "Where are they now" episode. Cheri began working with us back in 2020 when she was desperately trying to escape a job that was making her miserable and negatively affecting her entire life. And if you haven't already, you can listen to the first parts of her story in our last two podcast episodes, which are episodes 570 and 571, and I would encourage you to go back and take a listen to those if you haven't already. That way, we can get the full picture here. But after really digging into her strengths and defining her must-haves in her ideal career profile, Cheri did a great job of figuring out what she wanted and then finding organizations and roles that fit her. Ultimately, she landed a job that she loves, and then she got a promotion after less than a year. Pretty cool, right? It's now been three years since she made her intentional career change, and we invited her back on the podcast to reflect on these changes and see how her life has been since then. In our conversation, you're gonna hear how she still uses to this day what she learned about herself and her strengths to continually tweak her definition of ideal and grow her career. So let's jump into this conversation. But here's Cheri discussing how her role has progressed since she started.

Cheri 03:12

So I started as a product owner. I had been a business analyst for many years prior to that, and knew I wanted to take a role that was a little bit, had a little bit more responsibility. I loved being a business analyst. I wasn't entirely sure that that was where I should be at that point, but I wanted something with more responsibility. So I did product owner certification, I did scrum master certification, and I took this job as a product owner. And what that meant to me is that I was responsible for the business analysis, which I loved doing, but also that I got to participate in some of the decision making. So I would help guide our customers to making the right decisions for what they needed. I was there for about a year and loved my job, loved my team, loved the people I worked with, loved what I was doing. Everything about it was fantastic, not to say that it didn't have its pains, but overall, it was super happy there. And then it was a little before I was there for a year that my boss offered me a promotion, and I did not immediately take it. I was like, "Are you sure?" and I spent about a week thinking about it– I talked with you, I talked with lots of people. I spent time figuring out if it aligned with what I wanted, because I honestly wasn't sure, and I didn't want to step away from this job that I loved and that I was really good at and to do something that I didn't love and I wasn't good at. And I talked it over with my boss, and I told her my concerns. I was like, "Okay, I want to do this, but I don't want to be not good at my job." And she was so fantastic. She's like, "Well, what we can do is we could start interviews, and if you like the people that would be your boss, we can go that route. If you don't, you can change your mind later, and we can hire a new product owner." So she just gave me some options, and I ultimately decided to take it and so I'm really happy. It's been two years. I lead a team of product owners and data analysts, and it's been a huge learning curve. Strengths get in the way a lot, but it's been great.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:12

So let me ask you about that time, two years ago, then. So obviously you and I got to meet at that time period. And from what I remember of our conversation, you had already started going back through your ideal career profile and then trying to basically check the boxes for lack of better phrase, and determine what lines up, what potentially doesn't line up, and then we had a conversation about what could line up even better than you imagine. What do you remember about that time period? What was your focus on?

Cheri 05:12

I think after being in a job where I was unhappy for a long time, for me, one of the most important things was to be happy in my role. I didn't want to be in a spot where I was like, stressed out or didn't like what I was doing, and so I needed to make sure that this is going to align with all the things that I learned, right, my strengths, and that's a big one, and I mean what I wanted. And you know, I reviewed the job description, I talked with my boss, I talked with lots of people to think, to kind of gage if they thought it was going to be the right fit for me, which I know seems strange, but you know, sometimes people have a different perspective with you than you do of yourself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:29

Certainly.

Cheri 06:30

And I just needed to make sure it was going to be the right fit for me because I didn't want to end up in a spot where I wasn't happy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:36

Do you remember any of the pieces where you were not entirely sure about? Like, as you were going through your ICP, or you're having those conversations with friends or other people that knew you, what were some of the pieces that popped up that seemed questionable at the time?

Cheri 06:53

My biggest concern was, I'm very blunt and direct, and I was really concerned about having tough conversations with people. And it's still a concern every time I have a tough conversation with someone, but what you told me was, make sure you're being helpful. And that has been so impactful to me because that's what I do in every conversation I have. I just try to make sure I'm being helpful. So people appreciate, you know, straightforwardness. I don't know that they always appreciate quite how blunt I am, but I do my best to make sure that I'm helpful.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:24

When we were going through and we were having that conversation, I also remember one of the things that you had mentioned to me was you had a concern about, "how am I going to learn this", not just around the communication pieces for making sure that your version of direct and blunt is also helpful at the same time, but in some other areas too, as you're transitioning from one role to another, and you recognized, I think rightfully so, that there was going to be a learning curve associated with it, and you didn't want the expense of that learning curve to drain out the enjoyment that you had grown accustomed to, it sounded like. So I guess my question is, how did you go about addressing that learning curve?

Cheri 08:16

I'm still learning. I think my boss is phenomenal and has been like a true mentor and has guided me in all of the things. I still make mistakes. I am accountable for making mistakes, the mistakes I make. I read a lot. I reach out to people to get their take before if I've done something that I'm a little bit unsure of, I ask for feedback, like, "Was that okay?" "Was that not okay?" "What could I have done differently?" Yeah, it's a process I continue to learn every day.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:51

Okay, so here's a totally different question. You've done a lot of work digging into your strengths when you went through that initial career change. How have you found that you used that knowledge of yourself and your strengths as you've grown your career, and ultimately, what your version of ideal looks like?

Cheri 09:11

All the time, every day, achiever is one of my strengths. It's probably my top one. It is often in the way because I'm very much a person who likes to get things done to check them off the list. And as a people manager, I can't be the one who checks them off the list. I have to help others check them off the list. And not everybody works the same way I do. So that's been probably my biggest struggle, is allowing that to be okay with me. You know what I mean? Like, obviously they can work however they want, and I just have to be okay with the fact that not everybody works like me, and not everybody learns the way that I do. And so I think that's recognizing that that's the achiever in me has been huge. I think had I not done this, had I not gone through that exercise and figured out what my strengths were, I don't know that I could take that step back and recognize that it's me getting in the way of myself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:04

You know, I think also that raises the question for me, how do you find that you're able to take some of this knowledge that you've accumulated for yourself and help your team grow in their roles and make their work a better fit in one way or another? Because that's part of what I think I hear you alluding to, like, everybody works differently, right?

Cheri 10:27

Yeah. It kind of ebbs and flows on how much I focus on it. But I have, on more than one occasion, recommended that they, specific people of my team, not all of them, but, look into what their strengths are, what their style is, how they work best, how they learn best. Last year as a team, there are 14 of us, we did the MBTI, and it was really interesting, so interesting to see how some of us were alike, and some of us were so different, and the people that I thought were like me, were generally the opposite and vice versa. So that was really interesting. But I think it's important to know ourselves and to learn these things about ourselves. So I do recommend those kinds of things to my team. Can't force them to do it, but I like when they do. Makes my life a little easier.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:22

So tell me more along this line of strengths then. What else have you found that has changed how you're looking at, how you're doing work in order to lead with your strengths, or in order to focus on where you can best contribute?

Cheri 11:36

So one of my strengths is learner, which you know, when I'm reading about strengths, a learner is either learning or teaching. I'm a terrible teacher, horrible teacher. And so that has been, as a people manager, that's been kind of a struggle. Like, I want to be learning, but I need to be teaching and I need to be coaching. So I've been spending a lot of time figuring out how to be a better coach. So you know, reading different articles, reading different books, asking more questions.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:06

What I hear you say is that you recognize that you're a learner, and for you, that means spending lots of time learning and then working with other people, as you're learning to improve yourself, and then working with other people to help them improve. And part of the way that you're doing that is by coaching. It sounds like part of the learning you've been focused on has been learning to ask better questions, learning to be able to allow other people to talk with them.

Cheri 12:41

I have just been like, I'm not a good teacher, and I need to figure this out, but I'm a great learner, and I need to help them to learn. I like that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:50

Well, sometimes you have to come on the HTYC podcast to be able to put it all together. Like, that is what we do around here. No. But seriously, though, I think that just knowing what I know about you, that I could absolutely see that being very, very, very true, because you do have this, not just propensity to learn, but also this need or desire to be able to learn. And I think for you, from everything I know about you in the past, I've seen that you also apply it really well to whatever real world situation that you're in, as long as you're feeding that learning and as long as you're seeing how to use it with other people. Is that right?

Cheri 13:34

Yeah, that's absolutely true. And we had talked about one time before that, in previous jobs, I wasn't feeding that learning quite enough. And so I find things outside of work where I could continue to do that because it is such a strong part of me. And here I've, I mean, in this new role, I've spent, I mean, every day still learning stuff. So keep it at work. Keep my learning at work.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:59

Well, that's fun that you get to roll that into something that you get to contribute for in that way, and then certainly get compensated for too. And that's not right for everybody, but it sounds like it has been for this period of time for you.

Cheri 14:12

Right. And I love learning about myself and how the brain works and different things like that, so I think it's been really, it's been fun for me too. It's not just been valuable to me and my team, but I think it's also been fun for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:24

Yeah, that's cool. So tell me a little bit about, like, as you reflect on the last two years these couple of changes, what do you feel like you've learned about what creates a more fulfilling career for yourself?

Cheri 14:39

It's a really good question. I think the autonomy and the mastery that you mentioned that like, I know that's just human nature, but I think that that has been so important to me to be able to really have ownership of something and be really good at it. If I'm not good at something, I'm generally not happy doing it. So I think that was my biggest struggle. I think when I decide whether or not I wanted to take this job was, if I'm not going to be good at it, I'm not going to be happy. And I needed to be happy because I was so happy in my previous role, and then continuing to be able to do things that allow me to grow as a person. So, you know, the learner we just talked about, and then every day, even outside of that, I learned something new about the platform that we work on, a business that we work with, or the people that I work with, and I think that's really fun for me, too.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:27

How is, here's a kind of crazy question for you, but I'm curious, three years ago, you made your initial career change. Well, I mean, you'd made changes before. However, let's call it the first intentional career change. And with that intentional career change, that was very different from what you were experiencing just a little bit longer than three years ago. How is life different now compared to when you were in that last job before your intentional career change three years ago?

Cheri 16:03

I'm just a happier person. I'm a better partner, I'm a better parent, I'm a better friend, because I'm happier. That's been huge.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:12

That's amazing. Do you find that other people notice too? How do you know? How do you know you're happier? I'm curious. That sounds like a silly question, but...

Cheri 16:28

Which I know, like that sounds so stupid, but where I'm currently at we have our cameras on all the time. And where I was previously, I never met my co-workers like I would talk to them. I could see them on the sidewalk, though, and never have known who they were. But I would literally work in my pajamas. And I don't do that anymore. I get dressed every day, which, like I said, I know that sounds stupid, but it's a thing. I needed to be a little bit more put-together when I started my day, and I think that that was just a symptom of me not being in a place where I was happy and fulfilled, like I worked in my pajamas.

Cheri 16:24

Well, I get dressed in the morning.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:25

That is a good sign.

Cheri 17:32

And I mean, I'm much calmer.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:0345

How does that show up? Like, how does that show up in your life?

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:05

That's interesting. So for you, like getting dressed and getting whatever your version of ready for the day was a sign that you felt that it was worthwhile or worth your while versus previously, you just scroll in in your pajamas because it was not a great experience for you, is what I'm hearing. So yeah.

Cheri 17:39

Yes, I have a teenager. I don't yell nearly as much as I used to, and granted that's something I've also been working on very intentionally, but I'm 100% a yeller. And I think just being in a role where I'm truly happy, because that's one less thing that I'm stressed about and one less thing that I need to yell about.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:57

That's really cool, actually, that is amazing. And also I would imagine that being able to be in a role that you are feeling much better about probably gives you more of the headspace than to focus on like I heard you say a moment ago, like that's something I've been working on intentionally, but that probably gives you the headspace to work on that as well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:38

That's really cool. It's really amazing to me how distress particularly, not necessarily eustress, because there's multiple types of stress. Eustress is often known as the good stress, and distress, the bad stress, that's not exclusively true. However, for the purposes of our conversation, distress for long periods of time, it's funny how it just zaps or dissolves all other energy. It's crazy.

Cheri 18:18

Right. I'm not stressed out. I'm not frustrated. I'm not spending my evening dreading the morning. So I have the space in my brain to focus on life, like making dinner and spending time with my family, and, you know, whatever those things are.

Cheri 19:05

Yep, all of it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:09

Here's a totally different question for you. I think that something I am curious about also is one of the cool things when we get to have somebody come on after a couple of years of experience and time lapse in between, is that often having that initial intentional career change changes how they do other things, not just in work, but also in life. So I'm curious what else might have changed along the way for you? And then also, I'm curious, what advice you might have for someone else who is wanting to make way back, I think three years ago, somebody who's in that situation where they're thinking about an intentional career change? So let's do those one at a time. First, where else have you seen your life change because of that intentional career change?

Cheri 20:07

My husband is wanting to make a shift. He's been doing the same thing for a very long time. With different employers, but the same general thing. He's been wanting to make a shift. And I'm going to use the word harp, but I talk at him all the time about how he needs to put in the work, and he needs to figure out what he wants to do, and he needs to, I don't tell him to do an ideal career profile, but I tell him, like the basics. You need to figure out what your ideal day looks like. How do you want to wake up? What do you want to wear to work? What do you want the setting to look like, trying to make him focus, or kind of reframe his thoughts, because he and I have talked, and he's not a dreamer. And I think you and I have talked about that too, like I was never a dreamer. I never thought about what I wanted. This kind of like abstract thing to look like. So I think having gone through this program, I have gained a little bits that I try to help other people with if they're wanting to make a shift in one way or another, and it doesn't even necessarily need to be a career. It could be they want to... Even growth at work, what does that look like for you? What do you want to be doing? So one of my team members and I have been having a conversation about what she wants her future to look like. And so, you know, I'm like, "Well, what does that look like for you? What's your ideal? What do you need to have to make that happen?" And then once they had that, like, it basically gives me an outline of where I can help her grow so that she can get to where she wants to be.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:42

That is really cool. That's really awesome actually. Here's the reason I love that. Because have you and I talked about our secret mission before at all?

Cheri 21:52

No.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:52

We had that conversation. Would you like to know the secret mission? I actually don't have to, if I tell you, I don't have to, nothing has to happen after that. Yeah. No. Seriously, though, our secret mission is to be able to work with enough people that are in positions or grow to be in positions that they have the authority or influence that they can then help the organizations and the certainly the people in the organizations, be able to get to their own personal version of fit too. Because the reality is, we're not going to work with every single person in the world. And if we really want to make an impact in the way that we do, then there has to be a ripple effect. So thank you, by the way, for honoring the secret mission you're now inducted in. Yes, you were doing it without even knowing it. Way to go. No seriously though, that's a big deal. I think it's really cool for you to be able to, one, do this for yourself and then start to apply that learning, which is what you do anyway. We already established that earlier. You can't help but do that, take that, learning those things that you've done for yourself, and be able to help use it become applicable for other people. And I would guess that that is probably incredibly valuable to the people that you get to work with in one way or another. You may not always feel comfortable being like but that doesn't mean it's not incredibly valuable. That's pretty awesome.

Cheri 23:26

And it's one of my favorite things to do, which I just realized right now is to impart of what I learned on other people. Like, if I've taken even snippets of something away from something, I like being able to pass that along, so that other people can have that knowledge. When I started teaching yoga, that was why I did it, so that I could offer it to other people for free, who I felt like needed to have 10 minutes of yoga in their day.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:55

When did you start teaching yoga?

Cheri 23:57

In 2016. It was one of the things that I needed to do when I needed something to learn.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:02

I guess this is one of the outside of work things that you were searching for. That's cool.

Cheri 24:07

Yeah. And I wanted to... I worked with all these people who, you know, we sat at a desk like this all the time, so I don't know you're and I wanted to be able to do yoga for free. But these people, I didn't want them to have to pay for it. And so I did yoga teacher training, and then I started teaching at work, and people could take a class for free because I wanted to be able to give them that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:29

Yeah, that is really awesome. And now years later, you're noticing the pattern that's a thing for you and that's important for you.

Cheri 24:38

This is a good conversation we have. I do take things away from this.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:42

Oh, my goodness. You heard it here first. So totally different question then. What advice would you give to other people who are in that place? Now that you're three years removed from an intentional career change and you've been able to continue to build on what you have learned through that initial career change, and now you're into what we would call refinement of your career, what advice would you give to people who are way back and just thinking about making a change for the first time?

Cheri 25:14

My advice is the same as it was when I first did this. Know what you're running towards. And make sure you're running towards something and not away. That was advice that was given to me years ago by a friend, and it has stuck with me, and it's been such a driving factor in a lot of the things that I've done. Basically, have a goal. Know what direction you're headed because otherwise you're just driving around aimlessly going nowhere.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:41

I love it. Do you have anything else that we didn't already cover?

Cheri 25:45

Oh, the last time we talked, I had mentioned, so one of the questions that you had asked me was, "what happened when things got hard?" Because they absolutely did. And I told you about a conversation that I'd had with someone, I don't even remember who it was, but it was someone who was going through Happen To Your Career. And we were talking on LinkedIn one day, and I was venting about this job that I had applied for, and everything seemed great, and I was on, like, the third interview, and they're like, "Oh, wait, this job is not remote", and it was hours away from here, so it's not something I was going to do. And I was so upset about it because it was really... it was the one I felt like. And he told me, these things have a way of self filtering. And that like my attitude was crap then, and those few little words made such a huge impact into my attitude about the whole thing, and that's what helped me to kind of trudge along to end up where I'm at now. But that was the other thing I had in my notes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:41

What were those few little words?

Cheri 26:42

These things have a way of self filtering.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:44

These things have a way of self filtering. They do. I agree. Strangely.

Cheri 26:50

Yeah, absolutely. Like there was a reason that one didn't work out, and it was because it wasn't the right one for me for one reason or another. And so when he said that, it kind of like gave my brain the space to think that way and be less upset about it and continue on until I found the right fit but yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:08

That is... I've thought a lot about this over the years for that type of advice because if some people believe in fate or that things happen for a reason. And for a long time, I was sort of back and forth, like, I don't know if I believe in fate or not. However, here's what I've realized, is that the psychological impacts of choosing to believe things happen for a reason far outweighs whether or not you're actually right about whether or not they happen for a reason or not. So I'm just gonna go with what serves me really well. You could be... What did you say earlier, you know, when that initially happened you were, I don't know, less than excited. I can't remember what word that you used.

Cheri 27:59

I had a crappy attitude?

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:00

You had a crappy attitude, yeah. So you could continue to have a crappy attitude or you could choose to believe that it happened for a reason.

Cheri 28:07

Right. And it led me to the path that I am now on, which is I'm very happy with. So.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:14

Very cool. Okay, if you think about career refinement as opposed to career change. So the continuous act of refining and re-establishing your ideals, your what you want, and then also your minimums, which also have a tendency to have your expectations increase in both areas once you've done something as difficult as an intentional career change. So my question is, for people who are in the place where they want to continue to refine their career, what advice would you give that person?

Cheri 28:50

I have this post-it note on my desk that says "We can honor who we are as people and still push ourselves." And I think that has been... I read it every day. And I think acknowledging who I am, what my strengths are, what my weaknesses are, who I want to be, but still kind of pushing on some of those weaknesses, anti-strengths, has been a big thing for me. It has helped me to grow in my role. It has helped me to grow as a person. It's helped me to be a better version of myself. So I think finding something that is meaningful to you, maybe, so this little statement, for whatever reason, is just meaningful to me, and it kind of helps me to find a trajectory I want to be on.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:37

That's fun. I love that one too. You know, earlier, you were talking about how it was really important to you, since you were already in a role that you were excited about, and you loved to not just make a change because it was right in front of you, or it was available to you, or people were asking. And so, I know part of the goal was just to continue to move into a role that you loved. What did you find? Were there areas that were even better than what you could have imagined, or what ended up happening there?

Cheri 30:15

I think that there are areas that are better and then there are areas that are worse. So this has been a little bit of a push for me, because it's definitely outside of my comfort zone, or it was outside of my comfort zone. It's a little better now. But, you know, we talked about having those tough conversations that's been a real challenge for me because I'm very blunt. And I'm not in the weeds anymore where I love being, and so that's been a little bit of a challenge, but I love that I get to continue to grow, and I get to help other people grow. Love that. And I don't think I necessarily expected that when I was deciding whether or not I was going to take the job, that's not really something that I factored in, is that that's what I got to do. And I love that part of it. And just as a side note, I have told you this so many times, but I am so grateful that I went through this, because it's just changed who I am as a person. It's given me more confidence that I am making the right decisions for myself and being able to help others make the right decisions for them. So I'm just so grateful.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:23

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:15

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:21

Why is it that some people seem to move up the career ladder and make money much more easily? Well, others stay stuck in the same pay for years. Well, here's a little secret. It's not about working harder, as it turns out. It has a lot more to do with clear communication and knowing how to ask for what your work is worth to the organization, your boss, and the other people who have a vested interest. In this episode, we'll cover the most valuable ways to use 15 minutes a week with your boss, a story of how Justin got a 20% increase in pay when only asking for 12 and then how a minimum wage job making takeout pizza changed my life completely. Also share some strategies to help you get your own raise in compensation with your company.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:10

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.

Cheri 00:01

It was impacting not only my work life but my personal life. Like, I was snarky with my husband and with my son. And that's not fair to them. I mean, they had nothing to do with it. So I knew something needed to change.

Introduction 00:18

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:43

When your job begins negatively affecting other aspects of your life, like, your family or your health or self-worth, those are usually red flags signaling to you that it's time to make a career change. But then comes a huge dilemma. And we see this all the time. In desperation to escape your current situation, you end up jumping into a new role, a new situation, another job that's just as bad as the one before. Maybe the names have changed, but the situation is not any better, right? So how do you avoid this desperation in your job search and find a new role that adds to your life instead of draining it?

Cheri 01:22

I knew what I wanted to do and what I was working towards, and this opportunity came up, and as much as I wanted to say yes, because I wanted out of my current situation, that would have been me running away. Because it was not in line with what I wanted to do going forward.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:36

That's Cheri Thom. Cheri had been a software product analyst for 12 years, and she really enjoyed what she did. But when her family relocated and she had to find a new job, she realized almost immediately that this new one was not a good fit for her. So she searched on her own for almost a year, she was feeling pretty lost and doubting herself, and that's when she began working with us here at HTYC. Last week on the podcast, you heard me and Cheri in a live coaching session discussing how to find organizations that fit what she had defined as her ideal. That's episode 570 if you want to go back and listen. She did an amazing job at getting really detailed on exactly what would make an amazing next step for her. You'll hear how Cheri went from desperately trying to get out of a job that was making her miserable to being so sure about what she wanted in the next step of her career that she turned down roles that seemed great but didn't actually align with what we call the ideal career profile. If we fast forward quite a bit, Cheri ended up in a role that she really loves, working as a product owner and still a business analyst. But wait, there's so much more to the story. Cheri's role was such a great fit that about a year into that job, her boss offered her a promotion to lead the team. We're going to include some of my conversation with her about that promotion and her considerations that went into accepting it at the end of this episode. And then next week on the podcast, we'll have another episode with Cheri now that she's been in this role for approximately two years. But before all that, let's rewind quite a bit here. Let's go to the part of the conversation where Cheri tells me about where her career first began.

Cheri 03:24

When I was in college, I went to school to be a software developer, and I don't know, it's probably my last year at school, and I'm like, "Okay, so I can't sit in a cube and write code all the time", because that was my vision of what a developer did. So I didn't. And I started working in healthcare and software development, but I was a business analyst, or actually I was a software product analyst, so I was responsible for the analysis of solutions and the testing and the support, and I loved it. And it was really a perfect fit because it was the technological side of things, but also kind of the business side, the personal side, the social side of it. So I did that for 12 years, and then the company I was working for just went through a lot of change, and it wasn't the same place that it had been. So I switched jobs, and that job was great, but then we moved so I switched jobs again, and the job that I took, what I was told during the interview, isn't what the job ended up being. So whether that was me not having a full understanding of what to expect, or there was a seat in the interview, I don't know, but it wasn't what I was expecting, and I was really, really unhappy. Really unhappy. So I was there for, oh gosh, I probably started looking for jobs within a month of starting. But doing it, you know, the going on, Indeed, or Flexjobs, or any number of other tools looking for jobs, and I just was not getting any hits, like no emails, no interviews, nothing. And that went on for a little over a year, and then I decided I need to do something different because I needed to get out of that job. And so that's when I contacted you guys. And I started by talking with Phillip, and I remember I started crying on the phone with him because during that interview I felt like I been lied to, like, to start my new job. And so I said that I don't trust myself. I don't trust myself to make the right decision going forward, like, I don't know if that's what I want to do. And he said to me, "Well, you can't help that you weren't given the full picture, like, you can't hold yourself accountable to that. So it's not that you don't trust yourself, it's just, you know, you just need to change the way you're doing things." So that was great. So then I started working with Jennifer, and she's fantastic, and we worked on my ideal career profile, and we worked on my strengths and all of the things after that, and that was kind of how it started.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:43

That is so cool. And it also makes me wonder, what were some of the pieces of that role that were so different for you? Because it was, clearly, in every interaction you and I have ever had in any way, it seemed that it was a clear misfit, and it was a clear, I don't know, bait and switch is the wrong word, because that's not really what I mean, but it was completely different compared to what you believed was going to be versus what it actually was, by a long shot, not by... So help me understand, what were some of those pieces? What's a couple examples that were so different?

Cheri 06:17

So I had been a business analyst for quite a long time prior to starting there. And I spent time with the customers, I worked with them to figure out what they wanted to do with their tools, to make their jobs more efficient or add functionality, or whatever it was. So when going into this role, that was what I expected, and that's kind of what I told it was going to be. So they were taking all of these existing tools and condensing them because they needed just a more streamlined process. Well, that is what they were doing, but that wasn't what I was doing. So I spent most of my time reading documentation. I had some interaction with users, but minimal at best. And I mean, I told you that the reason I didn't want to be a developer is because I didn't want to sit in a cubicle and write code. And so that's what this was to me, like, I was missing the entire social aspect of why I got into business analysis in the first place. So that was a huge mess. I didn't like their management style, but I don't know that I would have known that during the interview. I think that's just something you kind of learn. Well, maybe not. I guess as you work with different managers, you kind of learn what styles you like and don't like. But I didn't like the management style. And I mean, those were two, I guess, really substantial things for me, those are such a huge part of the role that you're in– to be unhappy with those two things makes it hard.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:42

I don't know if I ever told you this before, but I can definitely identify with not wanting to sit in the cubicle and write code. So I actually changed majors. I think it was like 9 or 10 times through college, but the most substantial portion of time I was in one major before I changed, I was in computer science. So I was like, getting deep into C# and C++, and I don't know, name a programming language at that particular time. And I loved some of what you could make, but I hated, just despised sitting and writing code for hours and hours and hours. And it's like, "well, this is what you do." So I can fully appreciate what you're talking about. And I have friends that just love doing that. They get so much out of doing that. And that is not me at all.

Cheri 08:29

And I love the challenge of it, like, it's not like walking this challenge to it, and that's the part about it that I loved, but I just needed to have more interaction with people than what my vision as a developer was.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:41

That makes a ton of sense. Okay, so you got to this point where, shortly after you were in the role, realized that it was not a great fit, and it was different than what you perceived it was going to be. What made you decide to start doing something about it right away? Because it sounded like you started taking action pretty early on in one way or another. What caused you, what led up to, you know, during that first month or two months, what caused you to say, "Oh, I have to do something about this."?

Cheri 09:13

I'm a firm believer in that if you're going to complain about something, you need to do something to change it. And so I was complaining every day. I literally cried every single day. I was miserable. And it was impacting not only my work life, but my personal life, like, I was snarky with my husband and with my son, and that's not fair to them. I mean, they had nothing to do with it. So I knew something needed to change. I gave it. I feel like I should have given it more than a month before I started looking, like, just to get into the kind of the meat of the job, but I'm really glad that I didn't, because, I mean, I was there for over two years, and it didn't get better. So...

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:51

You knew early on. So that's interesting. But I think what you said there is, I feel like I should have given it more time. When it was pretty clear, I'm sure from an intuitive level and maybe other evidence that you had in front of you, that wasn't the case. But I think so many people feel that it's like, "Well, I should just weigh it out. I should just give it some time. I should just..." But there's only so much time. So I think what you did is right because two years, that's a substantial chunk of time here on Earth, right?

Cheri 10:22

Yeah. And I think that with any new job, there's a learning curve, and sometimes those first weeks, months are more challenging, maybe, than what it is going to be longer term. Simply because you don't know the business, or you don't know exactly what you're going to be doing, and you're meeting all those new people. And so I think that's why I feel like I should have given it more time before I started looking though, again, I'm glad I didn't.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:47

I'm glad you didn't, too. But you know what, that raises such a good point, though, because if it's about purely the learning curve, then what you said is very true. There's going to be a learning curve anytime you're in a new situation. However, the issues that you were experiencing that didn't line up, it doesn't sound like had much to do with the learning curve. It sounded like it had to do with other areas. So I think that's a really great lesson to be able to pull out of that for everyone. When you get into that new situation, it has to do with the learning curve, it has to do with something else that is going to make it more of a challenge or more overwhelming or more something at the beginning, then that's okay, and those are great things. However, if it doesn't fit into those categories, then you can't ignore that. That's cool.

Cheri 11:35

A solid point.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:37

Well, you made it and you did it. So kudos to you. I just get to come in here and have a conversation with you afterwards, and then say, "Oh yeah, here's what you did. Good job." Well, so once you started working through this, and once you began to realize, "No, clearly this is wrong for me. I must make this change." What was the most difficult piece for you? Or what challenges did you experience along the way?

Cheri 12:06

I started hunting for jobs on all of the normal things, I guess, Indeed, and LinkedIn and Flexjobs, and Dice, and all of the different places. And I had what I thought was a really good resume, and you know, I would submit it with my cover letter, and I would just hear nothing. I applied for, oh my god, it felt like hundreds of jobs. I don't know if it actually was, but it felt like a lot, and I heard nothing. Like, not a peep for over a year, which was really, really devastating. It was hard to continue to be motivated to find something new when I was not getting any interviews. And I think that was probably the most challenging part in the beginning,

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:43

interesting. So what did you find helped with that for you personally?

Cheri 12:48

Well, when I started working with you guys, I was talking with Jennifer, and she said that I needed to kind of cater my resume to every job that I was applying for. And I had never done that before. So it was going in and, you know, picking the keywords out of the job description and sticking into my resume because so many companies are using the applicant tracking systems now. I think that one was huge for me. But then also making sure that I was applying for the right things or things that I was going to want to be doing. I think for a long time I was applying for anything that fit within the realm of possibility because I wanted out, and that obviously wasn't probably going to work out in my favor long term. But yeah, so those are the things I think were kind of key takeaways for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:34

But I think it can be fascinating because most people don't have the privilege of sitting on the other side where those applications are coming in, and seeing large amounts of applications. And one of the things that would happen is you could see the people that felt a little desperate and the people who are applying for a wide variety of things, sometimes because you might have one organization that is a head organization but has a lot of sub-organizations, and you saw people that were applying to different roles in different sub-organizations, or you'd have people that are applying to a variety of things in the same organization too. And just never crosses most people's minds, and it probably didn't until I saw it as well that that might not come off particularly well, but there's all these little, tiny cues that people on the other end respond to, whether they know they are consciously or whether they are doing it unconsciously, and those are so difficult to watch for. So that's super cool that we were able to take that and work with Jennifer to be able to identify what was going to create the right situation. And one of the things I heard from you before we hit the record button was that, you said, "Now that I've been here for four weeks or so, one of my co-workers colleagues had said, 'it really feels like you fit in here. You've only been here how many weeks? Like, I can't believe it because it really feels like you fit in here.'" And I think that's one of the examples of a massive difference when you have done your homework, you've identified a great fit, and then you're showing up, that can create a different feeling coming into. So here's my question for you, what were the pieces when you look back and this took you about 12 months or so in total to make this change once you started really actively working with us on it, what were those pieces looking backwards that really led up to this particular opportunity?

Cheri 15:32

I mean, as I said, going in, I felt like I couldn't trust myself, and I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had been happy in my previous role, but the previous previous role. But I got to the point where I just didn't know if that was what I wanted to do because the experience I was having was so bad. So working with Jennifer, and we did the exercise where you write down all of your previous jobs and what you liked about them, what you didn't like about them, and there was a lot of similarities between the jobs and what I liked and what I didn't like. So knowing that was really helpful. Also, we went through and figured out what my strengths were and how they show up, both positively and negatively, which has helped me in all of my life, not just work-related. But from that, there was a lot of takeaways, like I learned that I wanted to... Jennifer said I wanted to be an advocate. So I wanted to advocate for people. So whether that meant just pulling for them on the software side, like, being the person who is going to stick up for my customers, or whether it meant something else, but I wanted to be an advocate, and 100% that's true, like I never had put that together prior to working with her, but absolutely and I wanted to be a product owner. I have found that I really like that idea of kind of being the subject matter expert and kind of owning a process or a product. And I hadn't been looking for that when I was looking for jobs because I didn't feel like I was qualified for it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:58

Tell me about that for just a second. So when you say, "I didn't feel like I was qualified for it", what was it about those types of opportunities or roles where it made you feel like, "Hey, I couldn't go after this."?

Cheri 17:11

Because I felt like it was something you needed to grow into in an organization, not that you could just come in and inherently do. I felt like you would start as a business analyst or developer or whatever, and then kind of grow into that role once you had learned enough about the business, about those tools, in order to be a product owner. I think differently now. I think it's a skill set. I don't think that you necessarily have that skill set because you've been a business analyst or a developer and grew into it. I think it's a different skill set altogether, and it's just something I think that I've always enjoyed doing. So, you know, it's one of my strengths.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:47

Yeah, so I heard you say that, "my strengths have helped me in all areas of life, not necessarily just work." What's an example of that?

Cheri 17:54

I'm an achiever. I like to check things off my list, and my son is not at all. And so recognizing about myself, why things he does irritates me has helped tremendously. So when I'm trying to get him to do something around my house, I try not to be like letting my achiever take over and getting him to kind of work the way I want him to work. That's been a huge one. Also being a learner. Learner is my number one. I've taken the strengths 2.0 thing twice, and learner came up both times. But knowing that about myself, and I think I have a lot of learner in the job that I'm in, but also knowing that about myself made me realize that I could do things outside of the job that I was in if it wasn't going to have that to kind of feed that part of my soul.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:41

What's an example of that where you've now recognized that "Hey, here's a part I might not get from work, or here's a part that I need since I'm a learner" because it is a little bit different for each person who might consider themselves a learner might have learning as a strength. So what's an example of that for you?

Cheri 18:58

I always like to be... it's not for me, like, a learner, what I took away was kind of the learner and the teacher or the teacher, I guess. I'm not so much the teacher. I don't feel like that's a strength of mine, but very much the learner aspect. So in my previous job, I don't know if I wasn't getting it anymore, but I always want more. So I decided to do yoga teacher training. So for a year, I decided to be a yoga teacher. So now I have that. I read a ton of personal development books because I like learning, like how the brain works and how your mind functions, and things like that. So those are the things that I do to kind of feed that learner part of me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:37

That's awesome. So what were some of the other events then? If we keep going along this thread, what were some of the other events that led to you getting this opportunity?

Cheri 19:45

I'm gonna tell you a story. This is back in October. I had applied for this job with a company, and it was perfect. I had three interviews. So I had an interview with HR for about half an hour, and then I had another interview with the hiring manager, and it all seemed fantastic, and it was something I really wanted to do. Well, I had my third interview, which was supposed to have been the final interview, and the first question they asked me was, "Where are you located?" And I said, "I'm in central Wisconsin." I said, "Isn't the position remote?" And they said, "Only through covid." And I said, "Well, that's not gonna really work out for me, so I appreciate your time. I thank you so much for talking with me." And that was the end of it. And I was absolutely devastated because it just felt like such a perfect fit. And someone who I had met through Happen To Your Career, he had reached out to me earlier in the fall, just to ask me about being a business analyst and to learn more about it. And he had messaged me on LinkedIn and asked me how it was going. And I told him this story, and I told him I was feeling devastated, and I just haven't had the motivation to look for jobs to make a change. And he said, "I feel like these things had their way of self-filtering", and that was huge for me. It just kind of changed my attitude towards the whole thing. And I was like, you know what, he's right. This obviously wasn't the right fit, and it helped me kind of change my perspective and just go back to what I needed to do to find the right position. So I'm so grateful to him for just, you know, those little words of wisdom so that I could get back on track. And then shortly after, I started interviewing with my current company. So...

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:27

You know what so funny after doing this for, I guess, approaching a decade now? So many stories are like that, where it gets to the absolute hardest part, where it just feels like you want to give up the entire process. You're usually so close at that point. And we keep seeing that over and over and over again. And at first, I thought it was just a fluke, and now I realize that we have literally not had any person that we have ever worked with where they haven't experienced some version of that where they hit, we call it hitting the wall, and there's a couple different types of walls that people hit throughout the process, but you almost have to hit a wall in some way or another to be able to continue on throughout the process. And the really interesting part too is that I now recognize that that's a sign that people are so close in one way or another. And it's really interesting that, hey, as soon as you got back on the horse, it was just like right there in front of you. That is a great story. I appreciate you sharing that. And when you think about this entire transition, this entire change, and all of the events that have transpired over not just the last year, but the last two years for you, what advice would you give to someone who is way back start, or maybe someone who is in the middle of the transition? If we go back to that point in time where you realize, "Oh no, like I am in clearly the wrong fit, wrong fit company, wrong fit position. Don't know exactly how it happened, but I'm here. I've got to do something about this." What advice would you give that person in that place?

Cheri 23:12

Advice that I received a long time ago that I think has helped me through this, is to make sure that I'm running towards something, not running away from something. So knowing what I'm working for, knowing what my goal is, I think, has been huge. Because there was a job opportunity that came up probably shortly after I started this and I had done my ideal career profile. I knew what I wanted to do and what I was working towards. And this opportunity came up, and as much as I wanted to say "yes", because I wanted out of my current situation, that would have been me running away because it was not in line with what I wanted to do going forward. So I think making sure you know what you're running towards.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:53

That's interesting. And I think that's fascinating too, and I think particularly powerful coming from you because that happened a short while after you started this transition. And once we started working with you, it still took almost 12 months, right? And what I heard from you, or at least I think I heard from you, is that it ended up turning out even better, versus just taking another position and moving along. So why is that?

Cheri 24:19

I feel like that position, and obviously I didn't take the job, so I don't know, but I feel like it would have been very much what I was trying to leave, and that's not what I wanted. I didn't just want the same job at a different company. I wanted a different job. I wanted something where I felt like the work I was doing was meaningful, and where I could have accountability, mastery, and all the things we need to be happy, and where I can work with a great team and work on things that I was passionate about and that just wouldn't have been it. So I'm really glad. I mean, as hard as it was, it was probably one of the hardest things I've done was turning down that job because I was so unhappy where I was. But I'm so glad that I did it. I'm so glad that I had done that ideal career profile so I knew that it wasn't what I wanted.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:03

Do you feel like you might have taken it had you not intentionally identified some of those pieces?

Cheri 25:08

100%.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:09

So ideal career profile for everyone listening, just a little bit of backstory, it's a tool that we create. It's a very simple tool, but the point of it is exactly what you said, Cheri, where we want everyone to be intentionally identifying what you're running towards, as you said, rather than accidentally accepting something that isn't really what you actually want, but that's hard work, to put it mildly, to identify exactly what you want and what is really so interesting. And you and I were chatting about this a little bit before we started. I went back and I looked at your ideal career profile, and you got so much of what you had intentionally upfront a year ago, identified. It always seems like craziness every single time, but it's not. I mean, there's a method to the madness. And it's not magic that it works out that way. It's hard work, mostly. But what are some examples of that, those pieces that way back when you said, "Hey, these are something that I really adamantly want. So much so that I will turn down another job offer that doesn't have that that's sitting right in front of me in order to pursue what I actually do want." What's a couple examples of those things that you were looking for?

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:26

Isn't that funny looking backwards? It's like, "Oh yeah, there's that and that and that. Oh yeah, I have all those things now." Strange. That is so very, very cool. One other thing that I wanted to ask you about, actually, I have two other things that I wanted to ask you about. One of those is we were chatting briefly about the negotiation process. And you got to a point during that process where it was uncomfortable enough for you that you felt like you wanted to just say, "I'm just going to take the offer." Is that fair to say?

Cheri 26:24

I wanted to work for a company that did good or put good out into the world. That was something that was really important to me for one reason or another. I don't know why, but something that made a positive impact on the world and the people the world. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to work with a team of great people, and I really do. My team is fantastic. I wanted to have autonomy and mastery, which I mentioned. So as a product owner, I will eventually be kind of the subject matter expert in different areas of the business. And my boss is huge on letting you work the way you want to work, as long as you get the work done. Those are all things that were really important to me, and I'm sure they were my ideal career profile. So one time we were working with Jennifer as a group, we decided to make vision boards, and I don't have it up anymore, but it was hanging up right next to my desk for a long time, and all of those things are on it, and I still have it. It's sitting in my hallway right now, actually, but I was looking at it the other day thinking, "Yeah, that's exactly." I mean, it was really impactful, evidently, because it's exactly what I got was what I put on that board.

Cheri 28:04

Yes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:04

What allowed you to move beyond that? Because you did something that was really, really hard, hard for almost everybody in the world, in many different ways, to be able to, after working for many, many months, to get this opportunity that was now in front you that was exactly what you wanted in so many different ways, and they're saying, "Oh, here's what we think that we want to offer you." And they were even surprised that you wanted to negotiate in the first place, if I remember correctly, right?

Cheri 28:36

Yes, they had called me with the offer, and I knew it was coming because they had called me. So this is early in a week, but on Friday, the recruiter had called me and said, "Assuming all goes well with your very last interview", I had seven interviews. "Assuming all goes well, you're going to get an offer early next week." I was literally jumping up and down in my living room. My family thought I was crazy. So I started to look at, you know, what I needed as far as salary goes and as far as benefits goes. And he had kind of given me a heads up what the salary, what the offer was going to be. So I wrote down what I was currently making. I looked at all of the benefits and what those were going to cost and vacation and all of the things that go along with the benefits package, and what they were offering was not quite what I needed. So he called back the following week to do the official offer, and as I learned in the videos and in the documentation, I said, "Can I have a few days to think about it?" So I took those couple of days and made sure that I had everything written down. I watched the videos again because I was going to negotiate and I was terrified to do it because I'd never done it before. I watched the videos again. I did all the worksheets that come along with it, and I had everything in front of me. I literally wrote a script for when I was going to call him back so that I could read it because I was so nervous. So I pulled out my script when I was ready to call him back. I had to post it with all of my numbers on it, and I called him back, and I said, whatever my script said, I don't remember. And. He said, "Oh, we just assumed you were going to take the offer as is." And I'm like, "Oh, okay." And he said, "I need to go because I have a meeting in two minutes, but I'll call you back." So oh my god, I'm, like, so nervous at this point. They called me back, and we went through the numbers that I had come up with, and I did have an error in my math. I, you know, came down on my ask a little bit, and he said, "Okay, I need to go back to this person and this person, then I'll get back to you." He said, "We already came up $5,000 for your salary, so I don't know if this is going to what's going to happen here." I'm like, okay, and that's the point where I was like, okay, maybe I should just take it as is and not worry about this because I really wanted this job. This was exactly what I wanted. So I think he called me back the next day or two days later and he said, "Okay, we can't do what you've requested, but we met in the middle." And I was more than happy with that. So it was terrifying.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:59

But you did it.

Cheri 31:00

I did it. Yes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:01

So having gone through that for the first time, and so here's what's so fascinating to me you and I had talked about, you're actually a really great negotiator. You had just never negotiated salary before. That's the one thing that you had never negotiated before. But in all other areas of life, you negotiate all the time. There's no big deal. So what advice would you give to someone who is going through salary negotiation for their first time?

Cheri 31:26

Know why you're asking for what you're asking for. Have the numbers laid out in front of you. If you're nervous, have a script. I think that level of preparation made it a little bit easier for me, just knowing that I had that there should I need to read it and stick to your guns. Don't sacrifice... If there's a certain salary you need, don't sacrifice what you need because you feel like it's the right fit. Because I think down the road, you're going to end up regretting that, and you're going to end up resenting the job, potentially. So just stick with your guns.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:55

Hey, you just heard how Cheri did some really great work to define her ideal career, which ultimately led to her finding a job that was incredible for her. Her version of extraordinary. Now about a year into that role, her boss offered her a promotion to a role where she would lead a team of people, but she didn't immediately say yes. Thanks to what she'd learned during her career change, she knew that it could be an amazing opportunity, but might still not fit her or what she had defined that she wanted for her career. So she went back to her ideal career profile to figure out if this promotion could be a good move. Here's Cheri talking through how she approached this opportunity.

Cheri 32:38

So I had been in my position a little bit over a year, and my boss approached me and asked me if I was interested in this promotion that would, essentially, I would be managing the product owners in the business or the data analysts on our team. And I spent a lot of time thinking about it because it wasn't something that I had envisioned for myself. I had decided long ago that that wasn't where my personality fit, that's not where my strengths lay. And so while I liked the idea of it, I was just not sure. So, you know, I kind of went back and I talked to you, I looked at the things that I had done, looked at my strengths, and my interest to figure out if it was going to be a good fit. And ultimately, I ended up accepting it because I love doing business analysis, and I was thinking about it like, this is just a different version of the same thing. My customer or my project is now my team, and I have their as is, and I have a place where I want them to be, and so it's helping them to grow to become that. And so it's just the same thing, just a different variety of it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:39

Very cool, very cool. And what have you found since you have been in role? What is that experience been like?

Cheri 33:48

I love it, but it is a lot more challenging. And in all the ways that I kind of expected it to be like, I think one of the things that you and I talked about is I don't feel like I'm a strong communicator, and I still feel that way, and so I spend a lot of time kind of thinking about how I'm communicating and how that's coming off. And I remember you told me one time to always lead with heart. And so I try to do that, I try to think about that when I'm having these conversations, and to be helpful, as opposed to critical, which has been super helpful, so different things like that. But it's challenging. It's a completely different ballgame than being an independent contributor.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:25

What are the areas that you have loved as you've now been in role?

Cheri 34:29

I love the challenges, honestly. I am very much a learner, and I always want to continue to learn new things. And then this has given me an opportunity to learn all sorts of new things, learn new things about myself and kind of what I can achieve, and then also new ways to help my team and help them grow and find resources to help them and kind of better understand how different things work for different people. Because I definitely have one way of working, not to say I'm not open to other ways, but everybody works a little differently, and everybody learns a little bit differently. So just being able to kind of myself, focus on learning those things in order to help them, I've absolutely loved that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:07

That's super cool. That's super cool. Anything else?

Cheri 35:11

I think so... I don't know. I just go back to how I'm so glad I went through this program because had I been offered the promotion, I would have just taken it. Because like I said, I liked the idea without having really thought about it, and I think I still could have been successful. But I think that learning so much about myself has really helped me to actually be successful and to look back at, you know, my skills and my strengths and also my weaknesses, to kind of figure out how to be a better version for my team. So I just I'm so grateful that I did it right, that I took that step because I think it's been really beneficial for me, not just in finding a good fit initially, but continuing to find a good fit for myself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:00

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:52

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

Cheri 36:57

I'm not stressed out. I'm not frustrated. I'm not spending my evening dreading the morning. So I have the space in my brain to focus on life, like, making dinner and spending time with my family.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:12

Maybe it sounds obvious, but making an intentional career change to work that fits you will change your entire life. Now, when I say intentional career change, I mean to change where we're optimizing for life fulfillment, inclusive of work. This means it's not just about finding out what's wrong with your current job, honing in on that one thing and then finding a new job. It's about completely shifting how you think about work and ensuring that it aligns with the life that you want to be living. Taking the time to make this drastic shift can change your stress level, it can improve your mood, give you energy, can make you happier overall on any given moment. It also tends to take longer than your typical job change. The question becomes, is it worth it for that extra time and energy you spent?

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:05

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.

Cheri 00:01

I've been looking on LinkedIn at like different organizations that I think might fit the bill like what I'm looking for, and I'm struggling to find a whole lot of things. I've also just been doing Google searches like to find different places to look into.

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

If there were only a list of organizations that fit exactly what you have identified that you needed out of your next role, wouldn't that be nice? Would that be amazing? This is the point during a career change where so many people get stuck. How do you find the right organizations? I mean, you don't know every company in the world that exists. So how do you know which ones are gonna fit your ideals or align with your values? And how can you find them when you're sifting through every single company in the world? Well, it turns out there is a way to find the organizations that actually might fit, maybe even lists of them. You just have to do some detective level sleuthing investigating to be able to find those. Let's walk through exactly how to do that.

Cheri 01:31

I've figured out that, like, I really do like being a business analyst and I want to be a product owner, which is just the next step. And it's just what I'm doing in my particular role that I'm not happy in.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:42

That's Cheri Thom. When she came to us, she had recently accepted a job that ended up not being what was promised in the interview, and it made her really, really unhappy. Over the next few weeks, we're going to be sharing Cheri's entire story from coaching to landing her ideal role to getting a promotion. And finally, a 'where are they now' update. In this case, where she now, where she's going to share her career progress from when she began working with us in 2020 until present day. In just a minute, you're going to hear a live coaching session between me and Cheri. This is from when she was working on making her career change, a more intentional career change. Before this call, she'd worked with our team to figure out what we call "must-haves" and get incredibly specific with her ideal career profile. This means she had already figured out the types of roles that she was interested in. She also knew that she wanted remote work, and she wanted to work on a software development team for a website or an app that promotes either mental health, or health and wellness overall. Like I said, she'd gotten really, really specific, which it turns out is the key to successfully targeting organizations, you have to have a place to start from right. So then it was time for her to begin finding those organizations that fit all these elements. That's where she was feeling stuck. Okay, let's jump into this coaching session right about now.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:13

I think that one of the things I want to have you do here... I've read through everything that you've sent over, I've gone through and done a little bit of investigation on my own. But I am going to want to have you kind of articulate some of the pieces that you want most out of here. And I want to ask you a few questions about that. Particularly, so that we can hyperfocus what's going to be best for you. So let me just start off with a couple pieces here. Give me a little bit of background on what you know you want as it relates to your ideal career.

Cheri 03:54

Yeah. So I have been in a business analyst type role for the last probably 13-ish years. And when I started Happen To Your Career, it was because I was unhappy in my current role. And I wasn't sure if it was the role I was unhappy in, like, I didn't want to be a business analyst anymore, or if it was what I'm doing and the companion. So through working with Jennifer and figuring out my strengths, I've figured out that, like, I really do like being a business analyst and I want to be a product owner, which is just the next step. And it's just what I'm doing in my particular role that I'm not happy in. In the past, I have worked in software development, which I loved. And I would like to go back there. I've also learned that I have a passion for mental health for one reason or another. I was briefly a psychology major in college.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:40

Were you really?

Cheri 04:41

Briefly. Yeah. I ended up having a management of information systems degree, but yeah. So it's always been an interest of mine and I would love to work doing software development in the mental health space.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:54

Okay. Very cool. What was your interest in the psychology side?

Cheri 04:59

I have no idea. It's just how the brain works is so interesting to me. And so I did that. And then probably within the last five years, I started doing yoga teacher training, which I absolutely love. But I did a whole warrior kid series. And it's about how to help kids work through trauma and mental health stuff. And that was the part about it that I loved the most. It's just so interesting to me how, like, the psychosomatic reactions to things, and how kids process things. And just all of it in general, is super interesting to me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:36

I also find it fascinating and curious what some of those pieces were for you about the idea of healthcare companies. Because here's a couple of things I understand. You tell me if this is true. So you're in a small town, rural area, and in Wisconsin, and I think if I understood correctly, that's part of the reason why you've been looking at remote opportunities.

Cheri 06:05

Correct.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:06

There's only so many organizations around that area. Is that fair to say?

Cheri 06:10

That is absolutely correct. Yes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:12

Okay. All right. And tell me a little bit about how you've been searching so far.

Cheri 06:19

So primarily, I have been doing... I've been looking on LinkedIn at like different organizations that I think might fit the bill, like, what I'm looking for. And I'm struggling to find a whole lot of things. I feel like a lot of them are based in Canada or the UK. I've also just been doing Google searches, like, mental health software to find different places to look into.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:40

And it was turned up a few though, if I understood correctly, right?

Cheri 06:43

Right. So United Health has, well, they're always kind of acquiring companies or merging with companies. And they have, I don't know, that the Sanvello app was developed prior to it being a United Health company or before that, but it's a really cool tool, you can download it on your phone. And so I just downloaded it, and I've been looking through it, and I just... I really like it. I like it has a ton of different features. So, you know, not the same thing fits every person. So there's just a lot of different avenues that you can take within it. Super interesting to me. And I think, oftentimes people don't necessarily want to talk to a therapist for one reason or another. And this provides them a tool that they can use to help manage whatever it is that they're dealing with. So I love that app. I think it's awesome.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:29

I just spent a couple of minutes looking at that as well. And I had never utilized it. I'd only heard of it. And that was the extent of it. I didn't even know what it was about. But it was really interesting. And it was fascinating. I think that there are definitely more apps and organizations like that out there as well, which is part of what we get to talk about today, right? Okay, but I cut you off, you're gonna say something else, too.

Cheri 07:55

Oh. I was going to talk about AbleTo, which is a company that they recently acquired, and I don't know a lot about it. But they do... I understand they have an app, I haven't seen it. And I also know that they do virtual care and telehealth for mental health patients. So different avenue, but same general idea.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:14

Okay. Any other organizations that you really were interested in one way or another or had found your way to your target companies list? But maybe you've moved them off for one reason or another?

Cheri 08:30

I was looking at Headspace. Yeah, but it looks like all of their people are on site, or they'll have just their therapists are remote. And I think they're based in San Francisco. So that's not ideal. There was one other one I was looking at, I don't remember what it was. But for whatever reason, it didn't fit.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:50

You've done a great job going through and building out a draft of your ideal career profile. And there's a lot on there. But my question is remote work. Would you say that in order of priority, that is probably the most important thing on there, or one of the things that is a must have that makes everything else possible? Help me understand how you're thinking about that.

Cheri 09:15

So I am not opposed to going in the office by any stretch of the imagination, but there just isn't a lot around here. So I live in a town of...

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:23

Closest major city. Help me understand.

Cheri 09:26

I'm in the closest major city. I think Appleton and Green Bay are an hour and a half. Madison is two and a half.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:35

Okay. All right. So something, you know, if you were going in, I don't know, a couple of times a month or something to Green Bay, that's not too out far or too far outside of the zone of travel. It's not like you're traveling to Seattle from Wisconsin or something.

Cheri 09:51

Right. And I actually had never even thought of that. But yeah, that would work.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:55

Okay. So remote work, I think would be really preferable because it would free up many more options for some of these organizations that maybe you're even more excited about or more passionate about. However, from a functionality standpoint, there's probably some organizations around the surrounding area that could be doable if it were not 100% remote type situation. Am I understanding that right? Okay, cool. I went through, and I was looking at your ideal career profile and trying to understand is there anything else here. And some of the themes that I took away from it are that definitely combining together your abilities as an analyst, and I think even the potential that you have to grow in that area, you know, you mentioned product development, and the several areas around that, too, I think that there's a lot of opportunity for growth, especially if you're owning a product or in one way or another, I think that there's a huge amount of opportunity for growth, especially from organization to organization, because the scale looks different. That said, I think that there is also a couple other opportunities in there, as well. One of the things that you sent to me that you said you wanted out of this is to try and answer a few questions, but also, at the same time, trying to understand how to go about searching for organizations, or ideas for searching for organizations that could be a fit. But some of those questions that you had mentioned, you said, "Hey, I haven't been reaching out regarding jobs that don't say something along the lines of remote work or telecommute." You ask, you know, "Should you be doing that the organization's may make exceptions?" Tell me what's behind that question first of all, before I try to answer it directly.

Cheri 11:42

Well, I've never really thought about it. So if I go like on Flex jobs, or LinkedIn, or whatever different site, and I am looking at openings, if they don't say that they're remote, or telecommute or something along those lines, that I don't even look any further. I just stopped there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:59

Okay, I think there's really two ways to look at that then. So one way is, I think that's a really great way to initially, either filter organizations or quickly identify whether one has a culture of remote work or not. So I think that your thinking around that is very, very helpful. For that said, though, I think the short answer to your question is yes, organizations do absolutely make exceptions. So I would encourage you to absolutely continue being conscious of filtering for organizations that are likely to have that in their culture already, or as part of how they do work already. That said, I wouldn't rule out organizations that fit in other areas that may make an exception for you. Now more than ever before that is happening.

Cheri 12:48

Right. And it never hurts to ask.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:49

Yeah, exactly. And that's exactly where I was gonna go with that. And it sounds like you already know this. It's just a case of let's acknowledge it out loud. Find some of those organizations that you can begin acting on this, and getting to know, and especially, like you mentioned, Headspace is a good example. Yeah, I think most of the way that they've done business in the past has been a lot of on-site based around a particular area. And that doesn't mean that will continue to be the way going forward in the future. And you know, a lot of what you're interested in doesn't necessarily require that you are on-site. Sometimes there are some roles that do. Everything that you've done is not a requirement, at least consistently, necessarily. So yes, yes, yes, absolutely look at those organizations. Let's jump into a few examples, though, of how to find these pieces. I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen on here and just kind of describe to you what I'm doing and why. And we're actually going to search together. That way, you're getting out of this what you wanted an idea of how to go about searching, but also at the same time, then I can kind of show you some of the things that I've found too. Alright, let me know as soon as you can see my screen. All right, cool. So I'm actually just gonna go over here to your ideal career profile. So first of all, I heard you say, you know, searching for like mental health software companies. That was one of the things that you said earlier, right? So one of the things I found is super helpful for searching for organizations is taking variations of different types of words, almost CSI style, and searching for those combinations. Because you might not get it right in Google the first time and maybe not the second time, and probably not the third time, either. But, you know, four, or five, six times down the road, when you tweak some variations, then you can probably get it right. So let's take a variation of that and see what comes up here. So oh, by the way, one of the things that you can do too, is look for suggested searches too so I have my Google Chrome browser on so that it pops up suggested searchers as well. But let's say Mental Health, how about an app since it's a software. That's a more current term that more progressive companies have a tendency to use anyways. So that's going to fit that more progressive type organization is probably going to have more progressive culture, which, you know, that's a far set of assumptions here. But even starting out with words that are more likely to fit are going to be better way to go. So mental health apps, let's just see what pops up here. Okay, so we've got scholarly articles for mental health apps, top 10 mental health apps. Oh, you know what, hold on, that might lead us to a different thing. What if we... Oh, here we go. The seven best mental health apps of 2020. What if we took that and just took that as a search, potentially, again, and said best mental health apps, because that's probably going to get us to a list, or we can click on one of these looks like it was prioritized these 23 mental health apps for stress, anxiety, and more. So here's what's going to happen. We're gonna get a list of apps. Oh, look, Headspace pops right up. Okay, fantastic. We already know about that one. Some of these, I guarantee just if we're looking at apps, some of these are going to be things that are invented by or, you know, coded by somebody in their brother, and they may not be a full organization that is going to be a great fit for you. But there are probably other ones in here too. So we've got Inscape. Have you heard of some of these here?

Cheri 16:26

Some of these, yep.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:27

Okay, the Calm app. Whoo. Yeah, that was really big a couple of years ago, or that's another one. PTSD Coach. Okay, so we've got a whole bunch of them here. One of the things that we can do, we've got the mindfulness app, 10% happier. We can actually go and look for the organizations that fit those. So let's take the, which one was I looking at earlier, let's take the Happify app. Let's see if we can find that Happify app. And then we might have to do a little bit more CSI style work and say, okay, Happify, or we can go find the app itself– Happify apps on Google Play, we can go look at any one of these. So this comes from Happify, Inc. Okay, so Happify Inc., we can now take that information and go to the next step. Happify Inc. Well, it takes us to happify.com. So that's probably the company isn't the same name as the app, apparently. All right, let's go down here. And let's see if we can find what, either a list of their team, or list of careers or jobs. First of all, looks like we have a jobs list right here. Let's go into the team section, it'll give us an idea of how big they are. Okay. We've got a co-founder and CEO. Pretty much all of these are going to have something like that. Head of Happify, Head of Healthcare, Medical Director, Head of Content Strategy, Head of Enterprise Marketing. So part of what I'm looking at right here now that we're on this website, is trying to get an understanding of the size of this organization. Is it possible that they're going to have the set of resources to be able to hire someone like you? Okay, so it looks like they've got quite a bit, quite a few people in their leadership team. That's what I'm seeing up here. So I don't know if this is their entire team, necessarily, but they've got a fair number of people on their leadership team. Let's go over to that job section here really quick, just to get a glance at that. Okay. Happify Health Director of Talent in New York City. So let's see, SVP, Payer of Sales. So they do have some remote for sure. Potential for some remote work. So they list a few different things. So this is an organization that already is doing some remote, for sure, likely is doing remote right now. And there may be an opportunity for them to make an exception. If you found down the road that this is right organization for you, you're right for it. So on and so forth. That's the thinking 17 steps ahead. But that still is where we need to be at, let's not rule out that possibility. We don't see anything saying "We do not do remote work at all costs. We pride ourselves on having everyone under one roof at all times. Because it's..." Yeah, we don't see it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:28

Okay, so instead, we've got a few encouraging signs. And that's all we need at this point to add them to our target list, assuming that we're seeing other things that line up with your ideal career profile, and some of the pieces that you must have or that you're interested in. So if we... Have you heard of this company or this app before?

Cheri 19:51

I haven't, but I'm definitely going to look into it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:53

Okay, fantastic. Look at that. By the way, we did that in what? Three minutes, four minutes.

Cheri 19:59

I wrote it down.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:00

Okay, so, but the reason I'm going into demonstrate it at that level really quick before we get into any other organizations whatsoever, is because that's how all of these pieces work. It is a CSI type process where we get one little clue. And then we use that clue to make a conclusion and then continue our search. And then we get another clue, which leads to another clue, which leads to another clue, and potentially an organization. Now, we're probably going to have just as many organizations, if not more, that we filter out based on what you know about what you want. And that's okay, that's actually a good sign. Because you could spend days and months and weeks and years researching organizations, which by the way, if you're not already doing this, something that is very, very helpful as you're researching organizations is to try and give yourself a time limit. And two ways that you can do that, choose whichever one's gonna work for you. One would be to give yourself a time limit spending on each organization, and then adding it to the list or making a decision to not add it to the list and moving on. And like five to seven minutes is a great amount of time for that, or, and you can literally set yourself a timer like you can pull up a timer on Google and say, seven minutes timer, and then that'll just pop up a timer here. And I can go ahead and start it. And it'll sound really loud and annoying when I get to the end of it. In this case, I'm actually going to close it down so we don't get the loud annoying sound. Really, really easy way to do that. The other way to do that is just give yourself an allotted amount per day. And that way you don't go into the whole spending hours and days researching companies that just aren't a fit for one reason or another because it's easy to get sucked into that. Okay, so we've got Happify, there on the list. All right, five minutes progress. We got one other company. Let's see if we can do the same thing again. Let's go back to what gave us a few seeds here. And let's go back to what was it that we used. Was it mental health app?

Cheri 21:59

Mental health apps, yep.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:00

Mental health app. Okay, we're just gonna search that same thing again. And in fact, I'm gonna put top mental health apps just to see if we can get a few different lists. And even though we're getting a list of apps, somebody has to make these apps which may lead us to companies in the first place. So here we're behind the scenes really quick, just to give you a tidbit of what I'm actually doing here, if it's not already obvious, is I'm trying to figure out okay, how can we get at lists or places where these different organizations might already be found? And what are some of the ways that we can sort of crack that nut? And how can we try it from a few different sides? So top mental health apps. In this case, I just think that this is a super easy way to be able to do it, since I already know that you're very interested in technology and mental health. And we know that there's probably a list of companies someplace on the other end of this list of apps. I gave us a few things, but not too many here. 18 best mental health apps to try and 2020, 10 of the best mental health apps for 2018. I'm also looking at where are these coming from, as well, because that's going to drastically impact the list. This is a place for mom, which I heard you talk about kids, I didn't hear you talk about necessarily, you know, seniors or anything else be part of your passion. So I'm just going to err on the side of what I know about you to try and filter this list really quick here. Let's see best depression apps, best mental health apps for better living, that probably is closer than anything else. Let's just click on that and see what happens here. Okay, so as I scan down the page, I've got a pretty quick list. So we've got Happify, which we've already heard of. What's Up?, which I've never heard of, have you heard of that?

Cheri 23:51

I've never heard that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:53

It's like What's Up?, but... We've got MoodFit, Talkspace, MoodTools, Breathe2Relax. Okay, so there's not a huge amount on here. However, it does give us a few less. So what I would probably do is the exact same type of process. I'm going to rinse and repeat. If I find something that's already working, I'm going to continue down that course of action and until, you know, I've been able to add more companies to the list, more organizations to the list that could be a fit or eliminate more of them. Either way is okay. Either way is good. So let's take one of these randomly here. Have you heard of Talkspace? Okay. Does that... Have you already checked that one out? Is that a potential fit? Or that one's more couples therapy, it looks like?

Cheri 24:41

Right, yeah, I don't really think that's a good fit.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:44

Yeah. What's Up?. Let's see cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. We're getting close.

Cheri 24:48

Let's try What's Up? because it's got a funny name.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:51

It does have a funny name. Okay. Let's do that.

Cheri 24:55

Oh, it doesn't look like they're links.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:57

It does not look like they're links so that's where we have to keep going with our clues. Let's see, What's Up?. I'm not just gonna Google that, I'm going to Google the app too, that way we get something. Oh, What's Up? owns this. Let's see search instead for What's Up? app. Man. That's an unfortunate closeness. When you Google the app I get WhatsApp instead. That's a whole another story for a different data. What's Up? a mental health app– apps on Google Play. So we can actually do the same thing here. Let's see who runs this? It doesn't list a company. Oh, wait, yes, it does. Jackson Tempra. Looks like our first person. Or if that is a... let's find out. Let's go ahead and Google that, as well. Jackson Tempra. Let's see, we've got Muck Rack, we've got Outbrain, Android developer, info on Outbrain. So this looks like an individual then by Jackson Tempra, thought maybe it could be a company name, but it looks like an individual. So I'm gonna say that that's a dead end. And we'll probably move on to the next one. Maybe there's a company there behind there. So it might be worth putting on a list someplace to check out that app and see if it's something you're interested in, because maybe it turns into an organization down the road that you want something to do with. However, for our purposes right now, and just keeping to what's most effective, we're just gonna move on to the next one. Okay, MoodFit. That one says MoodFit focuses on what they call a user's mood fitness. Quick reaction, does that sound like something you're interested in or as a...?

Cheri 26:32

I think it's definitely worth looking into.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:34

Okay, let's look at that, we're going to do the same thing. So this is where I start transitioning the learning over to you. So what are we going to do next?

Cheri 26:43

We are going to Google MoodFit app.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:46

All right, sweet deal. That way, we don't just get MoodFit randomly. And then we see what pops up here, get moodfit.com. Okay, let's see if they are an organization unto themselves. If they are owned by another organization, let's see what we can learn about them. Voted best overall mental health app of 2020. That's encouraging, doesn't say where. So as we scroll down the page here, I'm just looking for other additional clues. That's it. I'm just scanning really quick to try and get a sense of is this something that potentially is worth continuing to look into. User CMS mom, their mom had a really good rating. So that was, I think. Let's see Google Play fitness for your mental health, it's possible that this might be owned by somebody else. So ah, Roble Ridge Software. Okay.

Cheri 27:41

Where have you seen that?

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:41

At the very bottom, it's in very small letters, says copyright 2020 Roble Ridge Software, LLC. So let's see what we can find out about Roble Ridge Software. For all I know, they're like a perfect fit technology health company for you, but maybe not. Let's see what we can learn. Oops, Roble Ridge Software, get rid of that. Type in Roble Ridge Software, LLC, cluster maps, Roble Ridge Software, LLC, apps apple.com. So they probably have a variety of apps on the Apple Store. I'm gonna go ahead and right click on that, open that in a new tab just so we can see if they have very many other apps as well. Nope, they only have MoodFit. Okay, so here's what I would do. That indicates to me that they're probably not a massive organization. They don't appear to... they're the probably the organization behind this. So it's probably worth further checking into. So I would go ahead and add it to your list. And then you can move on to the next one. And then after you've got a list built up, and you have, you know, 7 or 10 organizations potentially on your list, you can start to validate whether they stay on or move off. So far, I think the Happify, the company Happify, you can find the Happify app is probably a good one to stay on and continue checking and probably even reach out to some people in the organization that using the Goldilocks method to learn more about them, and understand if they could give you a good potential fit for the Future. Otherwise, let's add Roble Ridge Software and the MoodFit app and move on to the next one. Okay, let's go back. Okay, so if we had to change our approach here, what other variations might you search? Even though you're gonna be tested when...

Cheri 29:39

I would do mental health software development.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:45

Mental health focus software, fully integrated the EHR, University of Washington, there we go, coding boot camps. That's not quite where we wanted to go.

Cheri 29:57

I've looked at some of these because they develop like EHRs for mental health organizations, some of these.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:05

So anything that since you've already looked at some of these, with what you know now, are there any other organizations that would be going back that appeared to be a fit for one reason or another, but maybe you rolled off the list because of unsureness about remote work?

Cheri 30:22

I think Therapy Notes was one that I looked at that sounded interesting, which I believe was in your search. That's the third one down.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:30

Third one down, Therapy Notes. Okay. That pops up with an ad. Let's see. So they just probably paid 50 cents to $4 for that click. And so hopefully, they're amazing. EHR software for behavioral health. That's cool. From what you remember here, what appears to potentially be a fit and what appears to be a non-fit, or were your concerned?

Cheri 30:57

It's been a couple of weeks since I looked at it. But where I used to work, I worked on an EHR, so I have a lot of kind of exposure to what's going on there. And that's what was of particular interest to me. Oh, here's the problem. I think it's super, super small. But maybe not.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:12

Maybe not. That is hilarious. They have Southpark looking people. This makes me very happy, for some reason.

Cheri 31:21

Because it makes it look like a fun organization.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:25

It does make it look like a fun organization. Yes. So they are not that small. I bet they're larger since they took this team pic. However, we've got some encouraging pieces on here. First of all, there are a fair number of people on their team, they have Southpark looking characters on their page, just amazingly entertaining to me. And on top of that...

Cheri 31:51

Looks like they're in the US.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:52

Variety of positions open. So it's not just one position open. That's another clue to get size of organization too, like, Happen To Your Career, give you an example, we're a relatively small organization, we might post one or two roles at a time, maybe, with the majority of the time we're not hiring directly or don't have roles posted at least. So we've got what 6 roles here posted at just a random snapshot in time. And that means they're probably a small to midsize organization, if I had to take a guess without knowing anything else, just from glancing at the webpage, and the clues that we have in front of us. So this is I think one to add to the list for sure, if you don't have it already. We've got a lot of pieces that line up with your ideal career profile. Plus, I think that's something that you may not have thought of, as well, I know that you referenced on your ideal career profile, part of what you wanted is growth. And you had a few different things that you're looking for as it relates to your personal and professional growth. However, it is many times easier to be able to grow in the... or how shall I say, step into the scope of position in a medium to smaller organization versus like stepping into a fortune 500 type.

Cheri 33:17

Absolutely, yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:19

And then that carries over whether you have a higher title or, you know, you'll get a different level of experience, because it's a small organization. Often it's a lot easier to transfer that to a larger organization if you make another change after that. Right. So I think that those can be a few advantages, just knowing what some of the pieces that you already want to. Okay. All right. So I want to pause here for just a second. And say we've found a few different organizations, a few different dead ends. What do you take away so far in terms of how you can search differently than what you have up till now? So you can continue because our goal here is we need to get a few more organizations on this target company's last, right?

Cheri 34:02

Yes. So one, don't roll out a company just because they don't have remote positions. And two, be a detective. Just keep digging.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:11

Cool. All right. Sounds good. I guess at this point, what would be most helpful? We've got...

Cheri 34:17

Honestly, this is already super helpful. I've just… I felt like I've been running into roadblocks. And so I've never even thought to look at the app store to where the apps are coming from. So that was really helpful. Great idea. And I'm feeling a lot better about this.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:34

I think one of the things that happens for almost everyone that's at this stage where they're trying to align, "Hey, I've got all of these things that I value really highly. And I have an idea at this point of what I'm looking for, but like how do you actually transfer that into reality? Like where do I go to search for that?" And the hard part is, it's not going to work out the same way for everyone. Like, we found an in for you relatively quickly, where it's like, "okay, we can search for variations of mental health software development, mental apps, method, there's probably a whole bunch of others that we can search for that we haven't thought of too." And that said, like that gives us, that's an easy way to get to those lists. And I found that there's almost always an easy way to get to it. It's just so hard to be able to see that and kind of maneuver through it. Usually, it's only a few steps away. But...

Cheri 35:28

I think when I first started looking, I wasn't... I still wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to continue to be a business analyst or in that vein, or if I wanted to move away from something else. I just knew I wanted to do something with mental health. So I think having a narrower focus helps, too.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:45

Yeah, absolutely. And actually, that's one of the pieces of advice I wanted to give you, too, before we end here is that as you get clearer and clearer on what you want, then continue to circle back or double back to what you may have looked at before so that you can reinforce that you've moved on and reinforces something there's not a fit. Or you can do what has happened here, which you're like, "Ah, I already know a little bit about that organization. Actually, now with what I know, that's something that could be good, that could be worth taking a second look at", because you're going to continue to refine as you move through this process. So great job, by the way. Great work.

Cheri 36:26

Thank you. This is very helpful. Thank you so much.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:35

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 37:27

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

Speaker 3 37:32

It was impacting not only my work life, but my personal life. Like, I was snarky with my husband and with my son. And that's not fair to them. I mean, they had nothing to do with it. So I knew something needed to change.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:45

When your job begins negatively affecting other aspects of your life, like, your family or your health or self-worth, those are usually red flags signaling to you that it's time to make a career change. But then comes a huge dilemma. And we see this all the time. In desperation to escape your current situation, you end up jumping into a new role, a new situation, another job that's just as bad as the one before. Maybe the names have changed, but the situation is not any better, right? So how do you avoid this desperation in your job search and find a new role that adds to your life instead of draining it?

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:25

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.

Sarah Hawkins 00:01

I had just tried so many different things trying to find my niche, trying to find my thing, you know, that I was made to do, and I just never found it. And I just felt like I've been looking for so long and trying for so long, and I've never been able to find it. So it must not be a possibility for me.

Introduction 00:24

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 00:49

As you're listening to my voice right now, that means that you have experienced some kind of setback in life, maybe many setbacks. And what I've learned is that it's not really about the setbacks. It's about how we react to those setbacks that makes the difference between either reaching our goals or letting them slip away. Now when it comes to career change, even high performers are bound to stumble across a few obstacles before ultimately reaching their new career. In fact, I would say that high performers even will encounter more obstacles because they're often reaching higher. Turns out this is exactly what happened to Sarah Hawkins.

Sarah Hawkins 01:30

So I grew up in the Central Valley of California near Fresno. And then it's really hot here, and there's no rain and no fun weather. And so I was like, "I'm out and I'm never coming back." So I went to Portland where everything is lush and green and gorgeous. And there's rain, and I don't mind the rain in the slightest or cloudy days or invigorating for me. So I loved it there. I went to school at Lewis and Clark College, and majored in psychology and loved being there, stayed about a year later. But I was not able to get my whole family to move out there as much as I tried. And I have a big family and we're all very close. And so...

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:09

You try to import them all to Portland.

Sarah Hawkins 02:13

I almost had my parents and they were looking at listings. And then my sister got pregnant with their first grandchild. So they said, "Sorry, we're not leaving now." So that was unfortunate. So I shortly thereafter decided to come home just because I missed everyone and wanted to get to know my nieces and nephews as they were being born. So I'm glad I did. I mean, I married my husband, met my husband here, and married him. And it's been great. So I'm glad I made that move. But I guess really, my whole career-type story has been one sort of bouncing around because I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know what I wanted to spend my life doing. And I could never figure it out. You know, my dad was a CPA, my sister was a CPA. My other two sisters are amazing teachers, my brother's an awesome salesman. But I just didn't really have a thing that I felt like I was really good at that I should pursue. I always called myself a dabbler that I liked to do things for a little while. But then when it started to get too in-depth and too and you know, where you'd have to be like an expert, I just lost interest or it just wasn't worth that extra step to become an expert. You know, and that's the thing with psychology, I love psychology, I think it's very interesting. But when I started getting into the upper-level classes of like, really in-depth stuff, I'm kind of like, I don't really want to do this for a living, you know. And so, you know, I tried teaching for a while and it was like, "Okay, well, now I either need to go back to school and get a credential, or I need to find something else." Because I, you know, and it was like, I don't really like this enough to go back to school again, get a whole new credential, all this more debt. So I guess I just never found anything that I liked enough to stay with it for a really long period of time. So I tended to kind of just bounce around to different things, usually falling into the office management administrative type stuff, just because I'm really good at juggling a lot of things. And I've learned really quickly. And so I tend to just do well in that kind of environment because I am able to help with just pretty much anything they need. But it just wasn't very satisfying, I guess, because there's just not a lot of growth in that, at least not in my path. Because you just kind of jumped around. I did a real estate appraisal for a while and didn't stick either. It was kind of like I did all my classes to get my credential and it was kind of like, "Do I really want to do this for the rest of my life? No, I don't." So I stopped that, you know, kind of a thing. And so I felt like I kept having all these false starts, which made me feel like I wasn't really building much of a resume to where I kind of had to keep starting entry-level places. And so I was eventually being supportive roles to people just coming out of college and I'm in my mid-30s. And it was really disheartening because I knew I was capable of so much more.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:14

Absolutely.

Sarah Hawkins 05:14

But I just didn't ever feel like I could reach higher because I didn't have the "experience", if that makes sense.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:23

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And so now that... 'Cause you've kind of gone through this sort of mental switch, thinking that, okay, it's got to be one or the other almost in terms of, I just don't think that I'm gonna find the stuff that I enjoy. And it's going to be able to have any amount of pay, and all of that stuff that so many of us think. Actually, I just got a phone call just a little bit earlier today where I was talking to a guy, and he said, "Look, I want to make $200,000 a year, and I also want to have flexibility to be able to go in and take my daughter to school" he's got young kids, "and I don't see how I can do both." So he was almost thinking about in terms of, hey, I'm gonna have to choose between these two things, and that they can not absolutely under no circumstances can be an option to do both. And we talked about solutions and being able to, I don't know, consider multiple different alternatives. So I'm super curious about that. Where do you think that that came from for you? Like, where do you think that you initially thought that, "Look, this is not ever going to be a possibility"?

Sarah Hawkins 06:36

I think maybe because I had just tried so many different things trying to find my niche, trying to find my thing that I was made to do. And I couldn't, I just never found it. And I just felt like I've been looking for so long and trying for so long. And I've never been able to find it. So it must not be a possibility for me. You know, that must be the unicorn in the, you know, in the woods, it's never going to be found, Bigfoot or whatever. You know. Yeah, you know, just that some people have something that they just are not to, like, my sister knew she wanted to be a teacher when she was five. I mean, her whole life that's all she wanted to be. And I never had that. And I looked and I tried, and I tried, and I just could never. And I always looked at it as a fault of mine that maybe I was a little too ADD. I couldn't commit. I couldn't stick with anything, kind of an attitude in my mind that it was my fault I couldn't find my thing. You know?

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:38

Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Hawkins 07:39

Which I don't know if you're wanting to get into this yet. But that's one of the things in the course that was just mind-blowingly liberating for me, was the term multipotentialite. Because you had a webcast on with Emilie Wapnick. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I listened to that. And I was just like, oh, I mean, I was literally running through the house telling my husband, "I know what I am." And that was just so liberating for me not to be fighting that all the time because I felt like I was always fighting. And sorry, for the multipotentialite is just somebody that likes to do a lot of different things. And they're good at a lot of different things. And they don't just have one little niche. And I guess I'd never heard of it in a positive frame before.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:32

They sound like negative, right? You just have that association, "Oh, it's bad to be a dabbler."

Sarah Hawkins 08:38

You just can't commit to anything, you know, you can't stick with it. And so as soon as it's not fun, or whatever, you bolt. And that's not what I wanted. But at the same time, I'm the type that when I'm not mentally engaged, I just die inside. I mean, my whole soul just withers up if I'm not mentally challenged and engaged and excited about something. And so I can only stick with something for so long before I could feel the deadening start. And so I realized that, well, it's because I need to be doing different things that's why I'm wired. And so whether I'm doing that on a personal side to kind of help with so if I'm sticking with a career then do different things on my own or try to do different things within a role to try to feed that need for newness and challenge and all of that kind of stuff so that I don't get the deadening. And it was just really a liberating thing for me to embrace it instead of fight against it. And just like when she said some of the superpowers of... I think I listened to her TED Talk and she had said one of the superpowers of a multipotentialite is rapid learning, super adaptable, and there was another one where they can merge ideas, and I am definitely a rapid learner. I am definitely super adaptable, but I never necessarily looked at those as strengths. And I never looked at that as a benefit to being the way I was. So just kind of having that all tied together was just, I mean, really, I was on cloud nine for like days, just kept telling my husband, "I know what I am." He was just laughing at me. I was just like, you have no idea. I mean, it was just something that, I mean, it was never really spoken other than I would just say, "I'm a dabbler. I don't," you know, but to have it verbalized by someone else and explained and treated positively, it was just a huge leap for me in thinking about what's possible in the future.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:34

That's so interesting. But I think that that's... I feel like that's a big part of what we do, and when we're working with people is really just, actually, almost everything that we do is just helping people align who they actually are with their work and understanding the ways to do that. Because that's a lot of what I just heard you say, is, "Hey, wait, this is actually a good thing that I am this way. And there is other ways to be able to use that to your advantage."

Sarah Hawkins 11:06

Yeah, yeah. And embracing it will make me happier. And more fulfilled if I embrace it instead of trying to fight it. And I think that's what I've been doing my whole life is trying to fight it. And that's something that needed to be disciplined out of me, you know, kind of a thought process. And I was just never very successful at doing that. So, yeah, just really, I'll be happier if I can just embrace who I was created to be. And that's a good thing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:35

That is so cool. That is just, and I feel like for everybody that we work with, they eventually get to have that mental switch that you're talking about where they flip over and start thinking about what they do or who they are, or some of the things that they offer as a positive and start going with the grain rather than against the grain. That's probably the easiest way to describe it. But that is something that we, in a variety of different ways, everybody has it in, it doesn't always happen the same way. It's not watching the Emilie Wapnick video, necessarily, or whatever else it might be. But that is our personal goal is to have everybody have that moment.

Sarah Hawkins 12:18

Right. Well, yeah, I mean, and I think you guys provide so many different ways to make that happen. Or to at least facilitate that happening. I do think it does take somebody willing to do the inner reflection and the work. And it's not something where you're just going to sign up, and then somebody from Happen To Your Career is going to tell you what your perfect job is. And you know what I'm saying it's not something that you guys necessarily provide as much as you guys facilitate. And so the person that is wanting the answers needs to do the work to figure it out. And it's a lot of self-reflection, it's a lot of self honesty, it's a lot of looking at things the way you maybe haven't in the past, and being willing to be open to what is your inner self really, truly saying to you. And not just what you hear everybody else saying it should be. And I just think that's an important component. And I think you guys are really good at facilitating that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:18

Appreciate that. Well, I'm curious what, first of all, why, just to jump back here really quick and fill in some of the context, what caused you to want to make this last most recent change?

Sarah Hawkins 13:31

Well, I have had some really horrendous health problems, probably for the last, it's been last 20 years, but the last 10 to 12 have been exceptionally difficult, resulting in me needing to leave the workforce because I couldn't walk anymore and was in tons of pain, and bedridden for at least a year, probably closer to two. And it was a really bad I mean, pretty much praying to die kind of scenario. And so I had eventually come to the realization that I will never work again, you know, I can't even walk and I'm in so much pain. It's not like a wheelchair would help. I thought about that. And so my husband had his own business. And so miraculously, I found a solution to my health problems. And it's a long recovery process. But I've already made so many leaps and bounds back to life that I felt being called to go back to work. And so I had been helping my husband probably the last year or two in his business, but it's not anything I'm really interested in. It was just a way to help contribute to the family. But so I was kind of at a place where it's time to go back to work, you know, out of the house, which was very scary because I had to leave under the conditions of I can't physically do this anymore, which was really hard for me because I always take a lot of pride in my ability to pretty much handle what anybody needs. And to have to gradually be saying, "No, I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that" until eventually, I had to come home and lay in bed all day for a year two, was a really, really difficult thing mentally for me and emotionally. And so it was extremely daunting to try to think about trying to get back into the workforce. But it also gave me an opportunity to think about what do I want to do because I kind of had this unique time where I'm not needing to report to another job, really, I mean, I'm working with my husband. But there's a lot of flexibility in that. And so I had the opportunity to really just kind of try to figure it out. Because when I started trying to look for a job, oh, gosh, it was so disheartening, it was just so hard to get your resume in anywhere. And my resume I knew was too vague, but it was because I didn't know what I wanted to do. And so I just threw everything I've ever done on there, to see if it appealed to somebody that could then approach me with an opportunity that maybe I would want, you know, because they didn't know what I wanted. And so it was really hard to tailor a resume. And so I started looking around to try to find services that could help me figure out what I wanted to do. And you know, it was reading all these articles on LinkedIn, and Glassdoor, and everywhere else just trying to figure out what do I even want to do. Because the idea of going back to just being an admin was just so... I just didn't want to do it. Yeah, it was just like, as I told my husband, I know I need to, I just don't want to at all, you know, and that's not any way you want to start a new job, you know, just something that you just are doing just to make ends meet, and you don't want to do it. So that's kind of what started me on the path of finding you guys was I was searching, you know, I'd contacted a few resume writer people, and just that I'm looking for somebody that can help me figure out what it is that I shouldn't be doing. I am capable of doing a lot, but I just don't know what the right thing is. And I need help. And most of them were like, "Oh, well, once you know what you want to do, we can help you tailor your resume." So I was kind of stuck. I didn't know where to turn, which was why it was so awesome when I found you guys because I was like, "This is what I need. I know this is what I need. And I don't know how they're gonna get me there. But I believe that they will." And so that's kind of what prompted the career change was getting back into the market after being out for, I think, I've been gone for four years from outside employment. And you know, prior to that I was seriously struggling. So work, in general, has a kind of a painful connotation for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:02

Yeah, I didn't realize the whole story. That's amazing, actually.

Sarah Hawkins 18:07

Yeah, it's been... It was definitely daunting, definitely scary. I mean, that's what I would tell everybody when they're like, "You're looking for a job?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I'm terrified. But I feel like this is what I'm supposed to be doing." So I'm gonna do it and just trust that it's going to work out. So that's kind of how I got here.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:24

So when you started going through, and really trying to figure out what it was that you wanted to be doing, what was the hardest part of that process?

Sarah Hawkins 18:31

I think I still had some limitations in my mind, just because of my physical issues that are on their way to being better but aren't quite better yet. So I knew I was capable of certain things. But I wasn't necessarily confident in my ability to do what maybe I felt like I really wanted to do. So I did the work of going through to figure out my strengths, which was awesome. But it was hard. There was a lot of times that when I first looked at one of the tasks, I would just go, "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I want to do or what my interests are", like I just kind of... And so I really had to dig deep, I guess, and really just sit with it for a while and think about it. And when I was going to the grocery store thinking about it when I was working thinking about it so that I could kind of really force myself to answer the question as if I was in like a classroom or something. And the teacher was waiting for an answer. Like, I've got to come up with something. And so I would start and then before I know it, the thing would be full or it would be multiple pages, you know, where I was like, "Oh, wow. I had a lot more in there than I thought. I just never really..." I think, too, I had stopped when you're as unhealthy as I was and as sick as I was, you stopped dreaming, number one, and you stopped hoping for your future, number two. So for a really long time, I had stopped dreaming about a future, dreaming about what I wanted to do or, you know, even just like traveling or anything like that you just can't allow yourself to go there. Because where are you are you just feel like that will never happen. So it's just disappointment in store if you dream, so you just kind of shut it off. And so it was a really hard thing for me to start it up again, and start thinking about like, "Okay, if I could do anything, what would it be?" Because that's not been an option for me in probably 20-plus years if I could do anything because in my mind, I'm like, "Well, I can't do anything." So I have to temper it with what I'm physically able to do. And so that was really hard for me, I think, kind of getting out of that mindset of, there's a lot of limitations on me. And realizing that, okay, not as many as there used to be, and it won't always be this way anymore. You know, kind of getting my hope back for my future.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:57

That's like a huge... That's a massive, like, most people it takes 15 years sometimes to go through that type of mindset shift, I'm gonna call it, for lack of phrase right now. That's huge.

Sarah Hawkins 21:10

Yeah, it was for me. I mean, it really made a big difference. And, yeah, I just, I really... I learned a lot. I really learned a lot about myself in terms of, I always knew I wanted to help people like that was something that I knew was always something I liked. But it wasn't until I really looked down at all my jobs, and all my projects, and all that kind of stuff, where we have to write down what was kind of the thing I loved about each of those that I saw the theme of, "Wow, I really like helping people." Like, it's really important to me because that's the thing I loved about everything I've ever done, but I didn't ever really make that connection before. And so for me, my dream was always back when I was healthier, right? My dream was always that when I retire, I would love to go do disaster relief, like hands-on helping people at their worst time. But that's a very physical thing. And so I had kind of written that off as well, you know, oh, well. And so I think when I was talking to Lisa, I had called her because it was the time to figure out what kind of companies, you know, you had to figure out what companies you wanted to approach. And I had no clues. So I knew what my strengths were now, which was great, but I still had no clue what I wanted, or what was would be a good fit for me. And I mean, I had like pages of possible careers that I was like, "Oh, I mean, maybe this would work. Maybe this would work, you know." And so I think she called it my runaway train of a mind of just being like, well, there's this, I mean, and they were all over the place, part of that multipotentialite thing, you know, where it was just like, well, I could be a writer, or I could be a logistics operator, or you I mean, it was just like all over the place. And so she kind of helped me zero in and I actually said out loud, which I didn't expect, but I said, "Well, my dream job would be disaster relief or something like that with nonprofit." And she was like, "Okay, hold on, then why are you looking at all these other things?" You know, and I said, "Well, I can't do that. I can't do disaster relief. Like, I'm physically not able." But then she kind of helped me steer me in the right direction of, "Okay, but then there's other things you can get into that can still fulfill that part of you, maybe in the nonprofit world that you can be making a really big positive difference in people's lives that isn't as physical, maybe look in those areas." And so that's what I did. And that's how I got this job. You know, I'd never even really considered nonprofit before, it just was never even anything in my radar, you know. Now I'm going to be the Operations Coordinator for CASA which stands for Court Appointed Special Advocate. And so they work with trained volunteers, they pair them with some of the children in the foster care system or that are going through the court system. They're appointed by judges to kind of pair with the child and be the voice and they advocate for the child. So the child's best interest is their only focus. So they don't care what mom wants, they don't care what dad wants, or grandma or anybody like that. They just care what's best for the child. And so it helps the judge make better decisions in terms of what's in the best interest of the child. So it's a really amazing organization. And I would be the Operations Coordinator, and then hopefully in the next year, so bump up to the operations manager. So yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:34

It's super, super cool. And one of the things that I know behind the scenes, too, is that not only did you go through the interview process and go through the entire process really like going from deciding that, "Hey, nonprofit, for me, could be an option." But then you ended up getting the job and negotiating for the first time as what I understood too. Is that right?

Sarah Hawkins 24:56

Yes. I've never ever in my life, negotiated, did a salary deposition anything. I was always of the mind, which part of it and I don't necessarily know where it comes from other than maybe my health problems. I mean, those started probably in fourth grade. And I had a hip replacement in my freshman year of college. And so there's just been a lot of things that just, I think, kind of whittled away my confidence. And so generally, when I would get a job, I was just so grateful that they picked me, that I didn't want to rock the boat, I didn't want to look ungrateful, I didn't want to look greedy. I mean, a lot of the things that are typical, but I just never, ever would dream of negotiating. And so you guys kind of gave me the confidence that it's okay. And you can go about it the right way that there aren't bad feelings. And I definitely stressed about it ahead of time. But I did it because I felt like I needed to push myself in that way and try. And if it didn't work out, then that's probably wasn't the organization for me anyway. And so I did, and they were very receptive and did what they could. And we ended up kind of restructuring the job title. And so the job I was interviewing for was Operations Manager. And so when the salary came in low, I came back and just said, "Well, this is what I was hoping for" you know, kind of did your script and just said, "What can we do to bring this up to get closer to what I'm, you know, looking for?" And so they said, "Well, honestly, not much." And there was a variety of reasons for that. But they said, "Well, let us talk about it and see what we can do." And so they called me back and said, well, they bumped it up slightly, the set opening salary, but then they said, "What we would do is actually demote your title." At first, you're kind of like, what? I'm sorry, I've negotiated. But they said, "We'll demote your title. And then in a year, that opens you up, puts you on a path that you can then get a promotion to Operations Manager, which then would benefit." They would be able to give me a larger bump in salary with a promotion than they would be able to do within the same role as like either a starting salary or a raise.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:16

Based on their infrastructure and their board of directors and everything else like that.

Sarah Hawkins 27:20

Yes. So yeah, so it worked out. I'm happy. I felt like they were willing to work with me. And they're excited about having me come on board. And, you know, because that was a scary thing for me too. Because I was thinking, "Well, I don't know, if I just barely edged out someone else. I mean, I have no idea. And then if I'm being difficult, are they going to then just go with their number two?" And so that was something that was really difficult, really hard for me to just kind of trust that I can handle this. And I can do it in such a way that I don't appear difficult. And it worked out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:50

Almost a roller coaster that you end up going through in the end you're like, "Yes, I want this job. This is awesome. I don't want it to go away. What if I was gonna.." Yeah.

Sarah Hawkins 28:00

And when I talked to Lisa, on our negotiation call, she was like, "So how are you feeling?" And I said, "Honestly, I just... I had really hoped that there would just be one piece of this that wasn't so hard, you know, that I didn't have to sit there and negotiate or I didn't have to, you know", because it was just something I really didn't want to do, you know, and so it was just kind of I was really, it really took the excitement of the role out of it for me that I was going to have to negotiate because I was like, "Hey, I got an offer." But then it was like, "Oh, they're gonna make me negotiate." So it was like, you know, it was really a roller coaster is a perfect way to put it. I was happy. And then I was devastated. And then I was scared. And I mean, it was just all over the place. But I put my...

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:41

But you did it anyway.

Sarah Hawkins 28:42

Yeah. Anyway, so now I've done it. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:47

Hey, congratulations, again, by the way.

Sarah Hawkins 28:48

Thank you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:49

Like that is just super, super cool. I knew part of the story. But I didn't know the whole thing. And that is just what you've done is, actually a lot of the things that you've done, are things that most people won't do over their entire life. So I think that's something to be proud of, personally.

Sarah Hawkins 29:06

Thank you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:12

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 30:04

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

Speaker 3 30:10

I've been looking on LinkedIn at like different organizations that I think might fit the bill like what I'm looking for, and I'm struggling to find a whole lot of things. I've also just been doing Google searches like to find different places to look into.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:23

If there were only a list of organizations that fit exactly what you have identified that you needed out of your next role, wouldn't that be nice? Would that be amazing? This is the point during a career change where so many people get stuck. How do you find the right organizations? I mean, you don't know every company in the world that exists. So how do you know which ones are gonna fit your ideals or align with your values? And how can you find them when you're sifting through every single company in the world? Well, it turns out there is a way to find the organizations that actually might fit, maybe even lists of them. You just have to do some detective-level sleuthing investigating to be able to find those. Let's walk through exactly how to do that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:12

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.

Laura McLernon 00:01

If you come at someone with, like, the "I'm looking for a job" mentality, or like "I need to get out of my current job" mentality, it's hard because they don't know who you are, or like if they can help you or not. And so it makes for a really awkward conversation.

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 00:45

When you're trying to step into an entirely new career, relying on your current network doesn't always cut it. And it's a situation we see all the time. You're really excited about diving into a new industry, a new role, but you feel like you're starting from scratch when it comes to building relationships or building a network, and you have no idea where to begin. And your familiar safety net of connections no longer applies. So how do you begin to create new meaningful connections from scratch without seeming extremely awkward or like you're using them to get a job?

Laura McLernon 01:25

How can I build a network in an industry or in a location, or in a role where I have zero contacts from the ground up, and realizing that a network isn't just something you already have, it's something that you can go and actively build in a new field?

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:41

That's Laura McLernon. Laura has worked in many different roles, including partnerships, consulting, training, benefits, and in industries including tech, federal government, education, fitness, and market research. And now, she's a career coach here at Happen To Your Career, and she's phenomenal. And she's also a military spouse. So she's had a lot of experience moving to brand new places and building a network from the ground up. And as you can guess, all this experience combines to make her quite a formidable career coach, and an expert on networking in unknown places, and industries. I want you to listen as Laura walks through her career and explains how she used what we like to call 'test-driving conversations', to build relationships, and pivot into new roles and industries again, and again. And now she gets to use all of this wonderful experience to help our clients do the same thing when they're looking to move into much more meaningful work. Here's our conversation. And she starts out sharing just a little bit about how she took a pretty winding path into career coaching. I think you're gonna love it.

Laura McLernon 02:56

So my career first began in market research, I worked for an international market research company. And it was... I started working there in 2009. So it was like, you know, big time of a recession. So it was one of those things where like, you know, you leave college and you were lucky to have a job. So I felt like I was one of the lucky few. So in that position, I was attracted to it because I had studied international business and international affairs. So it had that global aspect to it. And that's one of the things I love is seeing diversity in the workplace, diversity of thought, as well as like learning about different cultures, different countries, all of that. So the position did have that. But what it didn't have was a lot of the kind of the guidance and structure I needed in that first position. And I felt like, you know, it taught me a lot of things like how to build a training program from the ground up. But I found that I really wasn't interacting with people in the way that I wanted to. And at the end of the day, the subject matter just didn't excite me. And that's when I knew, okay, it's time for a career change. But then it's like, oh, wait, how do I do that?

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:06

What did you find at that point in time as you're having those questions where you're like, "But, okay, I know it's time. But how do I do this?"

Laura McLernon 04:16

Exactly. Right. And so the default thinking is you go back to college career center ideas of making your resume look great. And thinking that if you take just this one like career occupational test, it's going to spit out one answer. And then you just look for jobs that are like that. So I think in this day and age of the internet, I just thought if I Googled enough, I was gonna land and figure it out through Google what my next career move should be. And it wasn't until I stumbled and stumbled many times over in that year-long process that I figured out it's not about finding one answer or even a couple of good answers, it's about experiencing and being able to really get a feel for something before you commit to it, and to see what something resonates with you and something that you could love doing just by being able to immerse yourself in that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:13

So at that point in time, how did you start to do some of that within your career? What did that look like? What went well? What maybe didn't go as well?

Laura McLernon 05:24

Yeah, exactly. So one of my biggest challenges that I've had throughout my career is just that a lot of times I would have very boxton thinking. And part of that comes from the fact that I'm married to someone in the military, and we'd move every two years. For me, that was a challenge, and saying, "I have this, like, giant thing that I have to also factor into the process." And even then, there's been some stigmas for like hiring military spouses thinking we're going to leave after two years. So I kind of started pointing my career and looking at remote work options and saying, "Okay, what could I really do in that space?" And this is around like, 2013-14. So remote jobs were definitely sparse at that time. So I really had to think of, "Hey, how can I find something they love to do that's going to fit in this remote capacity? And that's also going to check these other boxes that I'm looking to in my career?" And so that's when I really started researching things like job search tactics, networking tactics. And that's also when I learned that I might not have a great network right now, and I might be brand new to a place, but how can I build a network in an industry, or in a location, or in a role where I have zero contacts from the ground up, and realizing that a network isn't just something you already have, it's something that you can go and actively build in a new field?

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:45

Let's talk about that for just a moment. Because you and I both agree and have had those experiences where that is very true that being a network isn't just something you have, but you can grow, you can build those relationships, you can cultivate them. There's lots of ways, not just one way, but many, many ways to do that. And what I'm curious about is, what's a particular time or situation where you found that to be true? How did you go about beginning to grow your network?

Laura McLernon 07:16

Yeah, I think back to the word networking, like, if you were to Google image search networking, you would see like people in business suits like handing business cards to each other.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:26

Very awkwardly but with huge smiles. And that's...

Laura McLernon 07:30

Exactly. Right. And I think that's the image that I had back then and I hope that people have cleared from their minds. Because networking is a lot of times done in an online space now, yes, in-person networking events still exist. But something like LinkedIn is an extremely powerful tool to be able to find people who have profiles that you would be interested in talking to. When I say profile, not just their LinkedIn profile, but having a similar background to making a similar career change, maybe you have something in common with them, like they came from your same undergrad or same hometown, and just being able to have that as a directory of people that you could possibly reach out to, and ask them questions about their career. So that's what I found. It's not just about going to a networking event and passing out a business card. It's about being able to find people and ask them questions, and really be able to conduct strong informational interviews and learn about what's their career been like, how did they made a switch from one industry into another.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:30

Tell me about one of the times where you've done that.

Laura McLernon 08:32

Successfully or unsuccessfully?

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:34

Both. I love the answer it was gonna be successful except for you throwing that out there. So now both.

Laura McLernon 08:42

Alright, so with the successful one. So I just found that coming from a mentality or coming from a position of... I'm doing personal career research, right? It takes the like, "I'm looking for a job" pressure off the table, and someone is much more willing to answer questions about themselves when it's in like a light-hearted, "I'm just doing personal research setting." So I use that opportunity to reach out to people and ask them questions about, "Why did you like working at this company? What is something that you did in making your career switch from this seemingly unrelated profession into the one that you're doing now?" And it was through those conversations that sometimes I did find like, "This isn't a space I don't want to go into. I don't like what they had to say. And it doesn't feel like a good fit or picturing myself doing their job, I don't think I would like it."

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:32

What's one of those spaces that you decided, "No, not for me."?

Laura McLernon 09:36

So like my default when I was doing my job search was let me stick to market research and just try a different setting. And that was like the obvious one because it's what I had done and I already had experience in, and in talking to someone who worked for a large market research company. Their job sounded a lot like the one I had and like the grass isn't greener within the industry. So I was like, "Okay, I can like close this avenue. I don't need to go down there anymore. Let's try a new one." And the field I ended up going into after that was working in the Sports Fitness technology area. And I'm a runner, I've run marathons. And so that, for me was something where I was like, "Okay, this might be interesting to see what it would look like to work in this space." And through that when I actually did in-person networking, because I had found myself a bridge job at a running shoe store, a bridge job is like one that, you know, you're not going to do for forever, but gets you from point A to point B. So I was working at a running shoe store, and I would talk to all the sales reps when they came in. And I would inevitably, like end up asking them about like, "How they got their job, what they like about it, what they don't like about it." And so that got me really interested in working in that industry and what it might be like to work in one of those positions.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:44

Very cool. Let's talk about your marathon experience first. I'll tell you that my mom tells me it's around, like, mile 19 to 20-ish or so where she has run a lot of marathons. I've never run, I've tried half marathons, but she says that's the exact point where she starts to question, "is this going to happen where your body just starts to give out in some ways or another?" So first of all, I'm curious what that point is for you.

Laura McLernon 11:14

Honestly, it depends. Like I've done three marathons and I think it has a lot to do with like how the temperature and weather is going that day, and how the scenery is around that time. If you get like a good crowd, like there's a lot of people or like, it's great scenery, it probably distracts you from that. And I think when you get into the boring parts or where they're kind of sparse, or you're like running like a Chicago Marathon, you're running to this industrial wasteland type area, you're like, "This isn't very inspiring." So I'm starting to think more about the pain I'm feeling. But yeah, it's interesting how, training-wise though, I always try to do like negative splits. So in the first part, I started out slower and saved my energy so that anything I have left, I'm dedicating to the last half of it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:55

So that's the other reason I bring this up. Because what I found is that making an intentional career change where the goal is meaningful work that compensates you well, that is a great fit for, not just your work life, but your all-around life. And from a holistic point, it fits. And if that's your goal, I found that it is very much like training for and then running a marathon in many, many different ways. So I'm curious about that for you, you've run more marathons than I have, as it turns out, so we'll go to you for the voice of experience here. What would you say is similar about it? What do you believe is different?

Laura McLernon 12:38

Oh, yeah. So I would tell past career coaching clients all the time, "It's a marathon, not a sprint", right? We've all heard that analogy. And it really is. When you do a career change, you have to prepare yourself for long-term thinking, in terms of being able to know that this isn't going to happen overnight, you're not going to find that one answer in Google and then be able to move forward and push through quickly. It's going to take a lot of time and dedication, each and every day, or a significant number of days of the week, to spend a little bit of time doing those things that are going to help move you closer to the career change. So you know, when you see someone run a marathon, that's months and months of preparation, it's also clearing their schedule to a lot of time for that. It's also making sure that they're doing the things like giving their body proper rest and nutrition. So I would say it's the same thing with career change, you know, you see someone make a big switch from one industry to another, one job to another, and that took months behind the scenes of doing the work to discover things about themselves and then be able to conduct personal research, personal experiments, and then move closer towards maybe even an interview stage and then landing the offer.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:52

As a complete side note.

Laura McLernon 13:54

Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:54

Have you ever run one of the Rock and Roll marathons, perhaps?

Laura McLernon 13:59

I've done a half with them, but never full.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:01

If I ended up running a full any point, I would love to do one of those just because, what you mentioned earlier, the scenery, as you call it, in this case, I think they do a phenomenal job of putting together this overall experience. All the ones that I've run with them have been... they just have bands every, sometimes every quarter mile. And you got so many people that are cheering you on and everything and it really carries you. And I think that is also, in many ways, like making a large career change where if you have that group of people, and they are carrying you forward in many, I don't know, figurative and sometimes literal ways, then it gets so much more, if not easier, at least possible.

Laura McLernon 14:53

Yes, absolutely. Because just like in a marathon, occur change. There's going to be times where there's not a lot of activity, or like you feeling stuck, or you're hitting a brick wall, your body locks up. So we're using the marathon analogy here. And so having people around you, cheering you, seeing that they've done it, this is a trusted experience that you're going to make it to the finish line that can make all the difference and feeling like there's a light at the end of the tunnel when you're having those moments of doubt in the process.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:23

At what point did you realize that coaching was a great fit for you?

Laura McLernon 15:30

Yeah. So fast-forwarding to a job after the one where I worked in the fitness technology space, I found myself living overseas in the Middle East. And I took a job where I was helping people that were transitioning out of the military. And my job was to help educate them, get them set up for success with their VA benefits. So like things that are entitled to them once they leave the military. And one of the benefits that I talked about the most was education benefits or GI Bill, it's a great education benefit. And so inevitably, we would have these conversations about their next education, which would lead us to end up talking about career. That wasn't necessarily part of the job, but that became part of it. Because how can you not talk about your future education without talking about your career? So it was a moment where I was talking to someone about their education and career after the military. And we ended up getting really sidetracked and talking about career and this person had like, really relevant military experience to the civilian world. She had worked in broadcast casting, telecommunications, and I just started like talking about ideas, like, "If you have this kind of experience, you can do something like this, this, this, this, this or this." And it was like this lightning bolt moment that hit me that was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm having so much fun with this conversation. Like, this is really cool." And just to see how what I was telling her wasn't obvious, like, it was also a lightbulb moment for me that, "Hey, this is hard for people. This natural ability that I have, and this skill I personally have had to build as a career changer, this could be helpful to other people." And that's kind of when the clip for me that this is something I was interested in pursuing– full-on as a career coach.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:15

How did you, from there, begin pursuing it full-on, as you said? What were some of the next steps you took?

Laura McLernon 17:22

So I knew in the back of my mind, it was something I wanted to pursue. And when I left that job, I was like, "Okay, this is my opportunity." And another thing that was interesting about that job was I had worked remote for the entirety of my career, and this job was in person. And I had this like, things stuck in my mind that I have to work in personnel because I loved doing that in that job. And so then I kind of gotten this retro, I was like, "Oh, but I have to work in person, and I want to do career coaching, that's really going to limit my opportunities." Like I need to be okay with this remote thing. And I think that that's something that I've talked to my clients about in the past, too, is that a lot of times, we get one idea about our career, and we get stuck on it. And like we have these different 'must' in our mind. And really, when you dig deeper, it's something else. And what I was really craving in my career was one-on-one conversations, not necessarily being remote or in person. So I thought to myself, "Okay, I want to do career coaching in the one-on-one setting. Am I even qualified to do that?" That was like my next question. I have done job searching myself, I know a lot. And for the past two years, I have volunteered for an organization where I had helped people through resume reviews, like LinkedIn reviews, so I was doing it on the side as a volunteer, so kind of like a career experiment itself. And so I was like, "Okay, I need to find a remote career coaching position." And I also kind of want to work part-time because I had my daughter at the time. And I want to work with people one-on-one capacity. So I did use Google searching, like, only in like, lightwaves. Yes, to be like, "Where can I do career coaching in this capacity? And am I qualified?" And what I ended up finding was naturally not through Google searching, through LinkedIn job posts, okay. And this is something I tell people, looking at job postings can be helpful in doing research, but not with the mentality of, "I'm gonna apply for this job" just being like, what's out there. So I would type in the word career coach, and different organizations would pop up. And I kept seeing that one of the organizations that was hiring career coaches was coding bootcamps for profit education, where they needed people to help their new graduates transition from one career into the other. So I was like, "Okay, this is an interesting space. Let me explore it more." And so that's when I did my deep dive and I came up with a list of who are the 20 players in this space. And then I went further and be like, "Okay, who hires remote, who's like remote first versus who's in person?" You know, obviously, if they're in-person in New York City, I can't work there. So I then made my list even smaller, and then I started doing the networking aspect of asking people like, "Do I need to have a certification to work at your company? What kind of profile do you look for in hiring career coaches? Do your coaches work part-time? What kind of hours do they do?" And I ended up finding the company that I worked for. And I did an informational interview with someone that worked there. And they said, "Look, we're not hiring right now. But I'd love to just chat about what we do." And so I did. And it was interesting to hear, it was interesting to hear about the way they worked with their students, one-on-one, how people were making these life-changing career switches from seemingly unrelated professions into software engineering. And, you know, I thought, "Wow, this would be a space I would love to get into." And I was lucky enough that two weeks after that call, they sent me an email and said, "We have created a position. Would you be interested in applying?" And of course, I said, "Yes." And it went from there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:47

So let's talk about a couple of pieces of that, that works. One of the things that I have found myself saying many times over the years is, instead of going and looking for what opportunities are out there, necessarily, find the place that you want to be and then put yourself in the position so that a position can be created for you, or put yourself in the position so that when somebody who can help you or hire you has a need, you're the first person that they think of. And I think that's exactly what you did. You went and, initially, you limited down to these 20 organizations could be a good fit. And then you started going through an investigating. And after you were investigating, you found out information and some of them didn't work. Now, in some cases, people might look at that as a failure. "Oh my goodness! I have to cross this off the list. This didn't work. Oh, my goodness." Yeah, it's actually great. That's fantastic. Because it allows you to hyperfocus what you did. And then from there, it allowed you to be able to say, "Okay, how do I focus on these relative views and find out what would make me an amazing candidate? And do I even want to work in these places?" And then it sounds like, at some point, you've scheduled conversations with people to go in. And one of those turned into exactly that spot where they created a role and said, "Hey, we really think that you could be it." Does that right?

Laura McLernon 22:17

Yes. And I will say in that process of doing research, you know, playing with that list of 20, it's great when you can cross them off because you can't go work for 20 companies, right? Like you need to be pointed and intentional, there's gonna only be one. So in that, the first thing I did to get that list down was I was like, "Who doesn't hire remote?" Okay, now we're down to about 10. And then I kind of, you know, wanted to know more about what they did, their quality of work. And so I went on a website that gave reviews of these schools. And so I was reading what students had to say. And you can see that some students had great things to say about their career team, and also the coursework. And so that was something that I said, "Okay, this is really good to know, this is good information." So when I was in the interview stage, it was just a very easy thing to do to look back at my notes and pull up the fact that, "Hey, I've read about you all on this website where students gave reviews, and I love seeing what your students say." And I don't think many candidates do that type of thing. They don't do that level of research. But I did it for the interview, I had already done it when I was looking at the companies. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:22

Okay, so we just went through that in approximately three and a half minutes, that whole process, if you will. Also, you and I both know that even though it makes for a really nice, linear three-and-a-half minutes, it's not always that easy compared to what it sounds like. So my question to you is, what do you feel like some of the biggest problems or challenges that you've experienced in working with clients? What pops up along the way? And what can we do about those?

Laura McLernon 23:54

Yeah, so I think that one of the biggest mental switches that I really drive clients to change early on in the process is looking for a job, change that to personal career research, right? Because if you come at someone with the, "I'm looking for a job" mentality, or like "I need to get out of my current job" mentality, it's hard because they don't know who you are, or like if they can help you or not. And so it makes for a really awkward conversation. So something we touched on earlier with the like, bad informational interviews or bad outreach. I think I kind of started with that mentality. And so coming at it with the personal career research mentality, it's great because like the person can help you, they already know that they can help you by sharing their story and sharing their experience. So that makes it easy for you to learn and for them to share what they need to tell you. And I've just found that even if you learn something that you don't want to do, that is very valuable research to you, too, because it's helping you point in the direction where they could give you a tip of like, "Hey, if you're really not interested in this particular space, I would suggest this one or look over at this company" and you never know where some of those conversations can lead you, or help point you in the right direction towards your next helpful conversation.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:17

In the last 10 years that we've been doing this at HTYC, I found that phenomenon, kind of fascinating, really, that as soon as we flip the switch into, "I am researching. I am experimenting. I'm collecting information. I'm in that type of mode", then all of a sudden things become possible. That's a really, really fascinating thing. It becomes possible to then actually learn what is great for you versus just trying to fit into what you perceive is available out there. But then the other thing that is really phenomenal too is as soon as you start to get some of those inputs and sets of feedback that allow you to really clarify what is right for you, then you start being able to see where those opportunities are, and then it becomes possible to make or create or find one of those opportunities where it wasn't possible before. So it's this really weird situation because everybody knows that they're supposed to do that, like, "Hey, we'll get into experimentation, and I'm going to experiment and collect information." But it's easy to say that, it's much more difficult to, as you said, flip the switch into that mode.

Laura McLernon 26:32

Yes. And one thing I tried to illustrate for clients is the fact that you already have these skills, and you do it in other settings. So let's say that you decide that you want to sell your house and move to a different neighborhood, like you would ask a lot of questions, right? You'd be like, "Where could I find a realtor? What's the housing market looking like? How can I find a mortgage lender in it?" And you ask all these questions, and you do all this research in the same way that you would for your career. But somehow a career like people pump the brakes, and they're like, "I can't ask questions about that, or like people don't want to talk about that." And you'd be surprised how excited people are to talk about themselves in their career.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:10

This really... I was gonna say really fascinating study, but that's not quite the word I'm looking for. Interesting at best. But there's this study that looked at how much time we research various types of consumer electronics, like TVs, or, you know, iPods or computers or things like that, and then comparing that to the time that we spend researching our careers or other large life decisions. And it was actually really kind of saddening when you look at the data, most people in the entire world who spent way more time researching the huge flat-screen TV compared to all of those other large life decisions. But what if we flip that? You buy all the TVs, have to pay somebody else to research the TVs for you. But to your point, those skills are there, it's the same thing. It's just different activities.

Laura McLernon 28:03

Exactly. I thought you're gonna bring up the other research that relates to that when you do informational interviews, and you talk to people, and you get them talking about their career and about their life, they've done like brainwave studies. And when someone talks about themselves, it's like the same components of their brain lights up as if they're on like, crack cocaine. Like people love talking about themselves. So if you can drive them to talk about themselves, and their career, like, it's actually like a brain pleasure experience for them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:32

It's one of the reasons that when we are getting people to talk about themselves that they have a higher positive association or higher chance of a positive association with you, and you didn't have to say anything. So ask a few questions. No, don't use that for manipulation, use it for good. But it is definitely a tool in the arsenal because it helps you collect information while at the same time as creating the beginnings of these really wonderful relationships.

Laura McLernon 29:06

Exactly. It's a win-win.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:08

It is a win-win. The other question I wanted to ask you, too, is when you're talking about research, or you're talking about experimentation, it's easy for us, as we mentioned earlier to say, "Hey, that's the mode that I need to be in." But what have you found actually works for yourself or other people to actually be in that mode? Too different, subtle differences, but it can be really challenging from a mindset perspective because we all feel like, "I need to know the answer so that I can go find the answer", which sounds insane. And it is insane. But that's what we do. Like I need to have it all figured out so that I can then go ask questions and look really good to give this person who I'm talking to something to... I don't know.

Laura McLernon 29:51

Right. Yeah, great question. So I think that like a lot of times, like, I need to have the answer first. I think that there is definitely some self-discovery you can do beforehand before you start investing quite a bit into time into something. And then of course, through conversations, right, that's like very low time commitment-wise. But something else that I kind of stumbled into in my volunteer life was I found myself a volunteer position where I was doing career coaching. And it was the same time I was working that job where like the conversations would gravitate towards career. And it was through that volunteering where I was seeing volunteering, maybe five, seven hours a week that I was like, "Okay, I'm actually like gaining experience in this. And I do like this." And it was one of those volunteer commitments where if I found that I wasn't enjoying this, or this wasn't something that spoke to me, I'm sure I could say, "Hey, I volunteered my time, thank you very much." But I kept volunteering with that organization because I enjoyed it. And in my work life, I was doing my job. And conversations would kind of go into career, and I would talk about it. And so within my, you know, eight to four job, I was also having those kinds of conversations and immersing myself in that. So I found a way to kind of do it a little bit at work, and then outside of work. And in my career coaching for software engineers, I would always encourage my students, whenever they graduated from the program, to seek out volunteer coding opportunities. And some people would say, like, "I just spent a lot of money in the school, you know, it's hard for me to think about working for free." And I tell them, "Look, all you have to do is commit for, you know, tell the volunteer organization, I can commit seven hours a week for the next two months", and they're like, "Great. Free coding, free Software Engineer sounds good." And you get something on your resume. And then on top of that, you get to immerse yourself in the field and see what it's really like to work day in, day out. So you know, those all take a little bit more time. But if there is a way that you can find some of those volunteer opportunities, that can be a really great way to immerse yourself and give yourself a timeline of a start and an end that you're going to do that. So it's not like this is ongoing forever.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:06

Those projects, well, honestly, I think that's one of the best things about projects is an indefinite commitment. It's a potentially a lower period of time that you're committing to, it's not forever. I think that's a different thing about projects.

Laura McLernon 32:23

Yes. And that's what I think a lot of people have a hard time deciding to do. It is like, "How can I make room for this?" Like, for infinity, it's like you don't.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:34

Sometimes not even that. Well, let me ask you another question, too. If you were to go back to where put yourself in the spot where before you knew all the things that you know now, maybe even back to that first career change that we were talking about at the beginning of our conversation, where you're like, "Okay, I'm pretty sure I need to make a career change here. Not really sure how", but put yourself in that mindset for just a minute. What would you advise people to do that find themselves in that place where they know that they need to make a change, they're unsure where to start, what advice, encouragement, what would you guide them to do with them?

Laura McLernon 33:13

Yeah, absolutely. So I think the first part would be just giving them the self-assurance that like, this is very common, and you're not an outsider, or you haven't failed, like, this is something that a lot of people go through. So normalizing it, number one. Number two would be, just letting them know that self-discovery is very important. And this is the time where you can take a step back and say, "Look, I've got to think beyond the skills that I'm doing in this job and think about who I am as a person, and what are the unique talents and abilities that I have, regardless of what job I'm in." And then the next thing I would tell them is just have conversations, have these networking connections where you can build relationships with people who are working on things that you think you might want to do or that you're interested in, but really just don't even know how to get there. And through that personal research and asking those questions, you're going to start to get a couple ideas of what to do next.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:24

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:16

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

Speaker 3 35:22

I had just tried so many different things trying to find my niche, trying to find my thing, you know, that I was made to do, and I just never found it. And I just felt like I've been looking for so long and trying for so long, and I've never been able to find it. So it must not be a possibility for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:40

As you're listening to my voice right now, that means that you have experienced some kind of setback in life, maybe many setbacks. And what I've learned is that it's not really about the setbacks. It's about how we react to those setbacks that makes the difference between either reaching our goals or letting them slip away. Now when it comes to career change, even high performers are bound to stumble across a few obstacles before ultimately reaching their new career. In fact, I would say that high performers even will encounter more obstacles because they're often reaching higher. Turns out this is exactly what happened to Sarah Hawkins.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:22

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.

Jorge 00:01

If you don't know where you're going, every path is good for you. And when you have a path that you choose, then you can focus all your strengths and your resources towards that path. That was a feeling that never had failed before and it was amazing.

Introduction 00:22

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 00:47

If you've had a successful career, you may not even realize that you're on autopilot. That is until one day something changes. Maybe it's something in your personal life. Maybe you're part of a round of layoffs, whatever it may be, you realize your career has unfolded around you and you've never really stopped to think, "Is this really the direction I want to be headed? Is this the type of work I want to be doing? Is this how I want to spend my time?" Then what? How do you take control of your career when you're already 10, 20, 30 years in?

Jorge 01:18

It was very exciting to, for the first time in 40 years of life and 20 years of career, that I find something that I wanted to do. Previous to that experience, I was more of a whatever opportunity comes my way I will take it and that'll be it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:41

That's Jorge. Jorge is from Colombia and has worked in the technological space for over 20 years. He began his career in sales, moved to working as a translator converting Spanish documents to English, which eventually led him to traveling the world working as a partnership professional. When Jorge was surprisingly let go from a company for the first time in his entire life, he began to reevaluate in his career, his identity and wondered if he was on the right track. He was offered a new job less than two weeks after being fired. But for the first time in his life, he wasn't sure if he wanted to continue to pursue his career in partnerships. So he reached out to us and began working with our team to be intentional about his next career move. He was ready to take control of his career and figure out what type of work would feel more meaningful while also fitting into his life and allowing time for his family. In just a moment, you're going to hear our conversation where Jorge walks through how he conducted multiple experiments, multiple career experiments to pinpoint the path that was right for him. He did such a great job figuring out what would fit him best that ended up with, not one, but multiple job offers. And ultimately, he had to figure out which to choose when they all seemed like a fit, which was another challenge all in itself, right? Let's get into our conversation. Here's Jorge going back to the very beginning of his career.

Jorge 03:07

When my career started, when I just graduated from college, I was just a newly electronic engineer out of a public university in Colombia in Bogota, Colombia, and I wasn't sure what I was going to do, and mothers do what mothers do. So she started to put a little bit of pressure. And I was not in a hurry to start my career, but she did what she had to do. And I had a very close group of friends. And one of them had a company, it was a family company, where they were offering solutions for automation for factories. So basically, what they need was a salesman. And the agreement was a freelance contract, in which I basically earned what I commissioned. And I started to meet every factory, going from fabrics, plastics, brakes, selling these automation solutions. These were actuators, pneumatic, some stuff like that. And it was a great experience because I was outdoors, I was meeting people, I was meeting challenges, meeting many ways to produce solutions and things that people were using. So it was great. After that, I was contacted by a company that needed someone that who translate documents from English to Spanish. And I said yes, and I started just working again per contract. They pay me by based on translated. And after, I don't know, when you were 25 manuals being translated, they say "Hey, you know what, you well translated all these manuals. We need an instructor that actually helps us to onboard many of the instructors that are going to be part of a new project. So would you like to get out of your country and come to Canada, and then go to Venezuela?" And that time that Venezuela was having business with a lot of countries. And I did that. I went to Canada, I learned how to use the systems then went back to Venezuela, and teach a lot of courses in power electronics, IT, and Radars (Air Control Radars). And it was a great experience. It was amazing. I got out of the country, I met many people. And I was teaching and exploring what else I could do with my career.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:53

That's fantastic. So then you were in Canada. And what happened next? Where did you...?

Jorge 06:01

I went to Venezuela to actually do the work, just onboard the instructors within the system, just teach them how to use the systems. And so they could replicate that with the several cohorts that they were going to use the systems. IT, power electronics, and air control radars. So that was very interesting. And of course, I mean, I met them. And this was the state-owned, non-formal education of the country. So technical education. So basically, all the electricians, air control, traffic personnel, IT, like at the level of support, and stuff like that. So these were technical roles. So they needed to train the next generation of those people. From there, when I left that company, I started to work again with by the chance of luck with multinational organizations. And I went to a big project from Lockheed Martin with the Colombian National Aeronautics organization for the change of air configurators in the country. That was a big experience, it was a one-year project that taught me a lot. When I finished the project with Lockheed Martin and the Civil Aeronautics of Colombia, the next transition was to a big seller operated in the country, the biggest one in the country, which is a regional operator is owned by a family, the same family, you may know them, Scott. And I entered into the wrong department. During department basically, as an engineer, I had to make the test, the technical test to ensure that the connections, the signaling, the voice, and the data was working fine. So any user of another network will run into our networks and our users will run into theirs. So basically, if every test was okay, we sign an agreement of collaboration in which we allow that and both companies will gain revenue out of that. So that's the basic partnership deal. Later I knew that that was going to be my first approach foreign ships. And that will define later on my interest to work and develop in the partnership space.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:32

So here's what I'm curious about. What was the role that you were in or the situation that you were in that led up to you making this most recent career change?

Jorge 08:43

I got the opportunity to work for a big company that is the leader in detection technology. And for that role, I had to do a bit of a mix between project program management and partner management. And I did both things with, I will say, success within the organization. And everything was going okay, the numbers were going fine, the projects were being delivered, but the pandemic hit. The pandemic hit and things started to change. The supply chain started to become slower. The raw materials become more scarce. And the different demands for equipment was starting to become less and less. Let's say that volumes lower down and the company made the decision to cut some roles. I was in it. And that put me in a situation that I have never been before. I had several career transitions, but this was the first one that it was forced on me. I mean, I was let go. So it was the first time that I was fired from a company. And being the first time at mature age, because I was fired when I was 42 years old, for me, it was a scare, it was scarier, it was challenging. And much of my identity was tied to the role. So it was very difficult to actually absorb the experiments. So I came to the conclusion that I needed help to actually make that integration and to understand and move forward, I was not going to be able to do that myself. So that's where I started to look for options, coaching options, and a couple of companies came up and Happen To Your Career came in a podcast, and you were discussing precisely that, how to make career transitions and how scary they were and how you kind of know where to get help from. That conversation made me decide that Happen To Your Career was the place that I wanted to seek that support. So I reached out and I started to make the career transition. But the funny thing is that I was fired. And two weeks after I was fired, I was offered another role in a startup to develop partnerships. So I said yes because I wasn't sure at the time that I wanted to pursue, that I wanted to continue to pursue my career in partnerships. But I liked it. So I said yes. And during the exploration phase of the Happen To Your Career process, I found out that partnerships was the thing that I wanted to do. And I was in the right space. The only thing is now, okay, now it was a great realization. So okay, great. For the first time in several years, I know what I want to do. And now it's only a matter of finding where is the right place to do it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:17

So I'm so curious about that. Because, first of all, you and I both know that is not a small amount of work to get to that single realization that, "Hey, this is where I want to be." This is where I want to spend my time in terms of what functionally you want to be doing, working, etc. So that's awesome. And kudos to you for the amount of work that goes into that, even get that realization. And I heard you say that, at that point, it was more of a question of "where". Where do you want to do some type of partnership? And, what I'm curious about, though, before we go into the "where" is what allowed you to realize that partnerships was right for you.

Jorge 13:03

Yeah. When we started to make the strength assessments, several things came up that were very interesting, like the social aspect of my personality, how I wanted to help, contribute, collaborate. The other thing was the leadership, the leadership aspect, and how to bring that cohesion, that cohesive vision to teams.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:28

Sure.

Jorge 13:29

And then I started to kind of do that exercise where you make your interest, your strengths, and your passions, and where those kind of intersect. And I started to kind of link that to different options of roles that may feed those intersections better or less. And I remember that we did this with Phillip. And it was like, five roles. One of those was product management. The other was served as the labor management, sales manager, partnership management was there. And we started to assess several companies that had those roles. We didn't close immediately, we just opened the options. And we started to explore what companies may be needed in those roles. And based on the descriptions of the responsibilities and the challenges of those roles, we started to see what interested me the most and we made the checks that week. And it was not something like above just came out of nowhere. It was just that week after a week we were discarding those roles that were less and less interesting to me. And at the end of the day, the lease was clearly that partnership roles were the ones that actually feel the most expectations on my list. And I was like, "Okay, let me explore a little bit more of these." So I started to explore more, what was on the space, who were doing this type of roles, in what companies, what was the progression of these roles? And I was like, okay, so this is what I want to do now. And then I started to just focus on those types of roles.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:28

That is pretty great. So here's what I'm hearing, you initially started out with your strengths, and then defining what it is that you want. And then from there, as you started getting into what we would refer to as career experiments, one of the, it sounds like one of the exercises that led up to that along the way was our, well, we've got a couple of different names for this exercise, but in particular, it's like your strengths, passions, and excitements, etc, that exercise allowed you to realize that it was more in this area of relationships, partnerships, people, and that interacting with people in that particular way. So then when you went into experiments, later on, it sounded like you had five potential areas that you had identified. And then every single week, as you got more and more information, as you were identifying smaller scale experiments that allowed you to chip away at each of those five roles, or five ways to contribute, we'll call it, and then you kept finding that you were left with the partnership's type of roles. Is that right?

Jorge 16:38

Yeah, exactly. And for me, the approach was, what roles would actually include the most of my interests? Because I tend to see things in a potential way. I like to see things in a variety. For me, variety is important.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:56

Yes.

Jorge 16:57

So the roles that were including most of those things, those were that actually we started to keep. And in those that were less, we started to trim away. So it was a list of roles in which partnerships, the partnership that was included. And then we started to chip away those that led that reduce that variety. And partnerships just paid the bill.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:27

I appreciate that. Because a lot of times, it's not obvious how this happens. And to your point, it was many, many weeks, where we're chipping away at the marble in order to come out on the other side with the statue that is sort of shaped like partnerships, in one way or another.

Jorge 17:45

Exactly. And I started to make calls, I talked to product managers. I started to get to colleagues that were doing sales. And I started to try to understand how would I fit into those rooms. And it cannot always, every conversation that I had with them, it was like, "But I can do that where I'm standing." And "But I can do that with what I'm doing." And if I develop this skill, or if the field keeps progressing, as it seems to be progressing, I'm going to be able to be exposed to these other things. So that level of potential that the role had during the experimentation, which is, it involves also research because you do a lot of this by research and experimentation is also by research, ducking and finding out that it was also affected.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:43

Very cool. So you went through a variety of different types of experiments. And I think to be clear, it wasn't just you set up one experiment, and then boom, you had an answer. And voila, skated off into the sunset. It was an entire series of experimentation that even got you to this point that we're talking about right now. So what do you feel like for you was most surprising or most challenging during that process? What did you find?

Jorge 19:16

Well, just, I mean, the most surprising thing was just realized that I ended up when I started. That was the most, like, surprising thing. But at the same time, it was very exciting to, for the first time in 40 years of life and 20 years of career, that I find something that I wanted to do. Previous to that experience, I was more of whatever opportunity comes my way, I will take it and that'll be it. But now that realization come, it was different because focus is key.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:59

That is really cool for so many different reasons. But it sounds like this was almost a dividing line, if you will, in your life where you are now for your career, pursuing things in a much more intentional way where you're seeking it out, as opposed to evaluating what is coming your way and saying, "Do I want to do this or not?" One's very narrow focus in terms of its binary, it's yes or no, do I want to do this? Which is very different than saying, "Okay, I'm going to go and I'm going to identify where in the world, what organizations, what opportunities are available for me to do what I want to do in the way that I want to do it." Which is the new stage of your life that sounds like that you've entered. Is that right?

Jorge 20:50

Yeah, that's correct. That's correct. It was a very different approach. It was the vital line. It changed the way I see how my career will develop in the next few years. It gave me, I don't want to say like purpose, because I kind of had before, like a general purpose, you know?

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:15

Yeah.

Jorge 21:16

I have been working in my career since 10 years ago. I made a conscious decision on upscaling every year and looking at ways to become a better contributor to my career as an engineer or as a commercial person. But it was more of a "what is on trend, what are other people doing? Okay, I'm gonna do that." This time around is different. This is okay. This is under my terms, under my conditions. I'm going to upskill myself, and I'm going to continue what I was doing 10 years ago, but it is going to be focused on this goal, on this framework, or on this picture.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:02

But I think it's, I mean it's very much the difference between intentional and what's available. Nicely done. That's not a small feat at all.

Jorge 22:15

One of the things, one of the conversations or recurring conversations that I have with my friends and my family, is how it only took me four years of my life discovered what I wanted to do when I grew up. So it is not a lesser thing. But it cracks everyone I tell this story, because, okay, it took you just 40 years. Cool.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:43

Now, the reality is I think most people are in that place, it's just not socially acceptable to talk about it.

Jorge 22:51

It might be.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:53

Yeah. So I mean, I really think that's awesome. And obviously, I'm highly biased. So there's that too. But I wanted to ask you about this other piece of your story, too. Because after you did some initial experimentation, after you validated that partnership, and that type of interacting with people and that type of relationship building is right for you. After you have that validation, it eventually led to multiple job offers, right? If I understand correctly, four of them. So, what I'm really curious about is for people on the outside looking in, help us understand what you were evaluated. And when you got to the point in time where you had multiple offers coming in, and they rarely all come in at exactly the same time on the exact same day. So, emotionally, it can be up and down as you get another one and another one. But help me understand what you were going through at that time and how you evaluated what would in fact be right for you.

Jorge 23:56

Yeah, that's cool. And just for clarification, it was not four just three.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:01

Okay.

Jorge 24:02

Three offers.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:02

Three offers.

Jorge 24:04

And it was, I think it was a wave, you know. Most likely the job market has these waves, in which there are a need for certain types of skills and there is a search, and if in a lot of words and then it goes down. So when we started to, we were clear intention, we were clear on the path that I wanted to take. So now it was time to focus. So what organizations are looking for this type of role? In our mind, it was clear that he was tech companies, software companies, technology companies that we wanted to focus so I decided to network, apply, and an interview. And although that process led to the first wave of three companies selected me to go to second and two of them or to the third stage, and then silence, nothing happened. So I was like, oh my god, what is wrong here. So then it was a low, and like, downward spiral or trend that nothing happened. And we just kept having conversations, kept connecting, kept sending emails, kept sending applications, and all of a sudden one came back. And they interviewed me and they passed me to the second stage. And between second stage and third stage, it took them a long time, and then another came up, and they say, "We want to move very quickly." And they moved me very quickly, up until third stage. And at that point before third stage, and final offer, another company came in, "We need you, and you are a perfect fit. And this is the offer." And I was like "Wait, wait, wait." Let me process this because I mean two other processes that are well-advanced. And I need to take this one step at a time. So they say "Don't worry, this is a structured company, a structured process, but you seem like a very good fit. So I'm going to schedule you for the two phases because I know that you're going to need them. And we are going to go through the adding and we're going to talk." So I went through the two phases, like in a week or something. And then when this company, this last company made an offer, I was going to say to the other two that, "Okay, I had an offer. Okay, you guys want to continue this or not?" But I was going to do that with the second company. And then I received that offer. So I had two offers. And I was like, "Okay if I have two offers, wouldn't it be cool if I had the better one to just compare the whole three?" And that's what I did. And I call the dealer one and they say, "Yeah, your offer is ongoing. But it's going to take time. If you can give us the time to give you the offer, then..." they told me, "you're not going to regret it." But the other two started to, you know, that they already extended enough. So it is started just press and press and press so I can have gain time, like two weeks or we can have to study the offers. Phillip came into the picture, we reviewed them, we kind of compared them, we matched them to the strengths and what I was looking for as an ideal, and we waited. That we want to make this to wait more and expect that there are one or do we want to just take a decision. So I say I want to wait. So let me test one more time if they're willing to extend the offer or not. And they wanted two extra weeks. So I said, "No, it's not going to cut two extra weeks to try an offer." So I say "Thank you, not thank you, I'm not going to be able to wait for your offer." I declined that. And I remained with two offers. With those two offers, I compare them. One was very interesting, but it was in a NASA field, technology field. So the chances it was a very, very good offer, but the chances of new technology and the new space, it was risky. So the second one was in a very established industry ripe for digital transformation. It had several factors that appealed to me. But as usual, you have some doubts, but at that point, you cannot... I mean the time of experimentation ends. And sometimes you need to make a leap of faith. So with the information I had, I chose the third one that they offered. And here we are.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:09

First of all, that it's challenging to, if you haven't been in a situation where you have two or three or four offers, then it's hard to appreciate the almost up and down sort of roller coaster type of feelings. It really is. So it's a really wonderful situation. It also creates desirable problems where you're trying to evaluate, "Hey, do I continue to talk to this organization?", "Do I not?", "How well does this line up?" And to be able to make ultimately decisions with limited information. However, I think here's the thing that a lot of people miss that is really really cool about your situation. At this point, you had already gone through no small amount of work. So you had already decided that, okay, functionally, in partnerships will align much, much better with where you want to be spending your time. And then you'd already gone through some measure of vetting these organizations. So you had at least an inkling of an idea that these organizations could line up with what you wanted. So it wasn't as if you're evaluating three offers that just had come to you and said, "Hey, all right, we really want you to, we really want you to be here." And you're like, "Well, I don't know, maybe." It was a you-sought-this-out and then got all the way to three different offers that you'd already validated to some degree, what that they had portions of what you were looking for. So that's really cool. I just wanted to acknowledge that upfront. And so in that situation, if other people find themselves with multiple offers, what advice would you give them? What helped you through that process? What advice would you give them overall?

Jorge 31:02

I will say that, in that situation, or in any situation, that you have several alternatives to date, there has to be some inner conviction, inner values or core values that serve as a core that you go back, without that, every single decision in your lives gets complex and complex. And I think that reviewing those core values, reviewing those, that purpose that you have, helps you to assess the decisions and make those decisions, assess the opportunities and make the decisions. But even in that case, you may not make the right decision. And that's okay. Because what you have is a core value, you are so open to re-evaluate your own purpose and core values, but also to accept that whatever expectations you may have, when you make the decision may change. And those changes may not be bad. It's just another opportunity to grow. And to continue that experimentation, which in life, I think, and we were talking about this, and we were discussing where we started to talk, I guess that is a main component of life, just continue to experiment, and continue to test life experiences in life.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:30

Well, I think what's really fun is that as you accept, like, I don't know, you did all of this really wonderful work. And as you got to the point where you had multiple offers, and then used all of the information that you had accumulated to make an educated decision about which way to go, is that as soon as you accept that, that new role, that new opportunity now becomes the next experiment. And then you get to see, and I think you've done a really nice job with us over the last six months, you get to see...

Jorge 33:03

That's a great way to put it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:08

I think that for people who are way back where you were before you made this most recent change, and they are wanting to make their first intentional career change, what advice would you give those people about the career change? Or how to even think about this more intentional way of living or working?

Jorge 33:34

I think that if I'm not sure if I'm qualified to give advice, but I'm gonna give my best. If anything is, you need to have a curious mind with yourself. And that is not always something that it comes across as something you need to do. Most people tell you to be curious about the world, but few people tell you be curious about yourself. So I think that if anything, be curious about yourself, be curious about what you want, and can, and excel, and will excel to give to the world because every single one of us has great potential. So if anything, just be curious about yourself and be willing to explore and be willing to discover that potential to that experimentation that you so great described as the next step. Just continue experimenting.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:39

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:32

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

Speaker 3 35:37

If you come at someone with, like, the "I'm looking for a job" mentality, or like "I need to get out of my current job" mentality, it's hard because they don't know who you are, or like if they can help you or not. And so it makes a really awkward conversation.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:52

When you're trying to step into an entirely new career, relying on your current network doesn't always cut it. And it's a situation we see all the time. You're really excited about diving into a new industry, a new role, but you feel like you're starting from scratch when it comes to building relationships or building a network, and you have no idea where to begin. And your familiar safety net of connections no longer applies. So how do you begin to create new meaningful connections from scratch without seeming extremely awkward or like you're using them to get a job?

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:33

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.