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.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:01

If you've been considering a job, or considering a career change, or if you don't love your career right now, then you literally and figuratively can't afford not to dedicate the time to doing something about it.

Introduction 00:17

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

Today, it's just you and me talking about how to find the time to make a career change even when you are insanely busy. And the reason that we've wanted to do this type of episode for a really long time is this is one of the biggest things that stops people again and again and again if you are wanting to make a career change. Finding the time, making the time, prioritizing the time, those sounds like they should be easy, and we all know they're not. And I don't want you to have to feel bad when it isn't easy, and instead, I wanted to be able to give you some ways to be able to find that time, take back that time, and do something about it here. Okay, so here's the reality. That to do something different, of any kind, you know, whether you're making a big career change, or whether you are training for a marathon, or whether you like to do anything different in your life, you literally and metaphorically have to stop doing something. It doesn't happen, like, think about it, if I'm going to spend my time in different way, I cannot do that without stopping doing something that was already in existence. It simply is not possible. Right? Okay. So now, the challenge here is that most people in the world, they get to this point, they get to this realization, and that's where they give up. And I totally get it. I mean, if you're listening to this right now, chances are high that you are a really busy person, you might have lots of responsibilities, you might have obligations, maybe even other humans depending on you, I have three little humans. So how on earth do you layer in something new, like making a career change to a new job, or you know, a new company or even a new industry with so many people out there saying, "finding a new job is a full-time job in itself", is no wonder it sounds so intimidating, and it starts to sound impossible. And then many people just give up at this point, continue to live in toleration, continue to say, "Well, you know, I guess that this is good enough." So in this episode, I actually want to give you a variety of ways, some you may have heard of, and never thought could actually work for you, and others you probably haven't heard of before in the way that we're going to talk about them. And I want to give you this variety of ways. And we'll call them techniques tools so that you can make 5 to 10 hours a week of space for your career change. And then it becomes very, very possible for you to do something about it at that point. I'm even going to share some of the more advanced techniques that I've personally used when trying to make time and space or some of the ones that we teach in our career change boot camp program as well. So before we get into those, though, I want you to truly understand what the cost, the actual cost, not just monetary cost, but also other costs as well of not doing this, not making the career change that you want to, when you're in a situation and you know something needs to be different going forward, not doing something about it or accepting it and living in toleration. So here's some really interesting pieces and a different way to look at it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:03

First of all, we've seen internally that changing jobs or changing companies is the absolute best time to increase your salary. We've seen lots of 10,000, 20,000, 40,000 dollar increases with our clients when they've changed jobs. And you've even heard some of the stories on the podcast, although we don't typically share in the episode how much they made before and after. If you've heard them on the podcast, most of the time, not all the time, they've usually made a pretty significant salary shift. But let's say that you're not getting a $40,000 increase. And let's say that you get just a 10% increase. Let's just use this as an example for a moment. You just get a 10% increase for your salary when you make this change. Let's do the math on that. If you made $50,000 per year, I know you probably make more than that, you probably make a different amount, but let's just do the simple math on $50,000 a year. So let's say that you make 50k per year, and you get a meager 10% increase, which is fairly common and relatively easy to do when changing jobs. That means that's $5,000 more than you made after making that change. $5,000 more. Okay, now, let's say that you spent 10 hours per week for four months working on that job change to be able to make that happen. Okay, what does that $5,000 more translate out to? That means that that's $31.25 per hour that you just made because you spent 160 hours working on making that job change, 10 hours per week, over spread over four months, translates to $31.25 per hour. What's crazy is that at $50,000 per year, which you know, if you make more than that, if you work around 40 hours per week, you're actually only making $24 per hour. And this means that your time is actually more valuable per hour when you're spending at changing jobs than working on the job itself. Okay, and this holds true as well when you do that same math, you know, at $100,000 as well and make it at just a 10% increase. It still is more valuable making the job change, spending your time on making the job change than it is working in the job itself, too. Crazy, right? Okay. And by the way, this isn't even counting future annual earnings at your new rate because I found that what happens is most people continue to take that raise with you over the years, wherever you go, they typically don't go backwards. And if we consider that you might have an additional 20 to 30 years before you retire, then that means that the 160 hours that you spent making a career change is now worth at least $625 per hour or a total of $100,000 over the next 25 years. And that's again, if you're just making a $50,000 a year salary. If you're making $100,000 a year salary that doubles, then, that makes that when you're looking at it spread over across those next 25 years, then it's worth significantly more, literally double that amount. Personally, I've done this, I've tracked this because I'm a total nerd like this when it comes to these types of things and really optimizing time. And I tracked this for about 10 years or so when I was working for other organizations. And the additional income I made from making career changes and getting raises each time, it made me an additional $200,000, little over $200,000 actually, during that time from just two job changes. Crazy, right? Only it's not really that crazy, this is something that happens all the time, only we don't think about it in these types of contexts. And this means that if you've been considering a job or considering a career change, or if you don't love your career right now, then you literally and figuratively can't afford not to dedicate the time to doing something about it. And this holds true whether you make 50k, 100k, 250k a year, the time that you spend changing jobs is likely more valuable to spend that way because it's the very best and easiest time to negotiate a raise. And why is that? Well, we've found that that's the time where you have more power in the negotiation process than any other time. Okay, so here's the crazy thing about all this. We just cited all that math and everything like that. And a lot of times people at this point are like, "Well, you know, it might take me longer to change industries or occupations or figure out what I want to do or anything else." But what we found is that, especially when it translates to raises, because that's the other thing that pops up too, it's like, "Well, if I'm changing industries, I can't really make as much." But we found that most of the time, this actually still holds true even when you're changing occupations or industries or jobs or roles to something that's new to you. We've seen that again and again and again and again. Are there exceptions? Sure. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you want to go from lawyer to beekeeper, then yes, you might experience different results. But most of the time, what we see is that people that want to keep their salary high and use the transferable skills that they enjoy are able to do so when that's what they're seeking out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:41

Okay, so the question comes back, of course, to how do I make the time to do this? In this episode, I want to give you some of the best ways that you can use to create an extra five to ten hours a week of time that you didn't have before that now you can devote to making a career change. So sometimes our episodes are not incredibly tactical. We delve really deeply into a lot of psychology and other pieces that have a tendency to stop people from making career changes, and some of the transformation that takes place during that process. A lot of times when you hear these stories of people that we've worked with on the podcast that have worked with our coaches, worked with our team, gone through career change boot camp, a lot of times, they're not the same person, in many different ways, when they started working with us, compared to after that transition, and there's a lot of psychology that goes into that. I love that stuff. But that's not what we're going to talk about today. Instead, we're gonna be fairly tactical here. And I want to give you some really specific ways, that way, at the by the end of this episode, you can say, "Hey, I want to pick one to two of these that I can use to get back time, so that I can devote it to making this career change." Because if you really want this to be a priority for you, then guess what, you're gonna have to do something about it. And I want to help you be able to do those things in order to make the time, make the space in your life.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:08

Okay, so here's one of the things that behind the scenes in our career change boot camp program, some of our other programs, too, we use these methods. So we start out with, how can we actually plan better. How can we actually plan better. So there's two pieces to this that I've seen that are really, really simple. One, this is absurd. And you may have heard of this one before, but very few people actually take the time to do it because they don't realize the sheer amount of value that it can have. Okay, and that is taking a time inventory. So this can be really very simple. And an easy way to do this is, as you're going throughout your week, just keeping the journal, keeping an Excel spreadsheet, whatever is your style, it doesn't even matter what it is, that really doesn't matter. I have used a Google Sheet, I've used literally a notebook and a piece of paper, and capturing where you're spending your time, especially not what is on your calendar, especially those things that are taking you off of your calendar, or off of your routine, capturing what that looks like and understanding where your time is going. That is a huge hairy deal. Every time somebody does this and does a great job of it, and is capturing those pieces, and not just the actual things that you're doing, but even the decisions that you have to make that are taking time away from you, then inevitably, there are always pieces you realize that you can remove, or do differently. So this starts out with a time inventory. So that's one suggestion.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:56

Another thing that we use that is a variation of that, skips over the time inventory, we call it creating the master schedule. In this exercise of creating a master schedule, think about it as creating how you want to spend your ideal week in terms of time for whatever it is that you're doing right now. So for example, that might be, I want to make the space and time to change jobs, change roles, identify what it is that I want to do, what creates an ideal career for me, and then be able to make the space to make that happen. So going through the process of detailing out what your week looks like. And almost thinking about this as a time budget. A time budget in which you plot every 15 minutes of your day for one week. And then that makes up your ideal week at the end of that exercise. Okay, this can be really simple, we don't have to overthink this at all, you can literally draw this out on a piece of paper on one side and put the times or the hours of the day, down the left-hand side, and then on the top divided into each day within a calendar week. So seven days in total. And then draw in and write in, again, imperfectly where you want to spend your time. So for example, that might be getting up at 6 am each morning, and then what's the first thing that you do before you go to work. What do you want that time to be spent on? So this does not sound super complicated. But unless you understand the value that you're getting out of it, you may not actually want to spend the time doing it. Inevitably, here's what happens. First of all, we've never had a big go through this exercise and be like, well, I found no value out of that. We've had many people that have hesitated to do the exercise and said, "Ah you know, that seems like one that, you know, people that really haven't figured out calendarisation, or budgeting their time or anything, that's one that they should do." And instead, what we've realized is that when people go through and take the time to do this, they find one of two things– they either find that they just have tons of things jam-packed into their day, right now. And it's really difficult for them to create time, and then it becomes just super, super relevant to them to make sure that every minute or every hour is spent valuably on things that they want to or that they're going to have to get rid of something, or the other realization is more along the lines of, "Wow, I actually have more time than what I realized. And I'm just not using it in the way that I thought that I could." So we usually see one of those two extremes. I've got less time or more time than I have realized. Either one, whatever conclusion that you come to ends up being valuable. So for master schedule, this is something I actually use. I've used for, oh my goodness, probably 10-12 years now at this point in time. So that thing that pops up that we've been told in the past by some people look at and go, "Oh, that's for amateurs." We respectfully disagree. We believe that much the same way that you see somebody running along side of the road, that is training for a marathon, and you think that "Wow, that person doesn't need to run. They're really, really fit." They're fit because they run, or they're fit because they take care of themselves in that way. And they do that all the time. This is the same type of concept here. You know, somebody who has time and has created time for the things that they believe or most important at any given time are, because they do things like this, they go professional in the areas where it counts. So that's perfect example. I do master scheduling, I have done one, at least quarterly for the last probably 10 or 12 years, can't remember exactly when I started. Either way, this helps you understand what and where you want to spend your time on and creates that ideal for you so that you can then put that into reality. Because if you haven't identified what is the ideal, it's going to be really difficult to try to model that day after day in reality. So this is not intended to keep track of like every appointment that comes up, if you have hair cut, you know, two Tuesdays from now, that's not the way that you're using the master schedule. This is literally a one-week version of how you want to be ideally spending your time. Is everything going to go perfectly to that? No, absolutely not. But it does help going through this exercise helps you understand the difference between where you're at, and where you want to get to. So we use this method and we use this exercise all the time in our career change boot camp program. It is so incredibly helpful to realize where your time is going, and where you have those pockets of time.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:04

Okay, so this is one place to start because it helps pave the way for just how much time you actually need to create or free up or make use of or what you already have maybe that you didn't know you need. Maybe you've got already three hours of time that you just didn't realize that you had in there. And now you only need to find an additional two or three or five hours. Okay, so let's talk about another really useful set of tools here. And we're gonna put these into a category. And this is outsourcing and automating. The things that you don't have to do yourself. We've alluded to this on one other episode on the Happen To Your Career podcast. But I think that this is one of the most underrated things that you can do is identifying and either outsourcing or automating those things that don't require you unless you absolutely love them. So were talking about things like laundry, meal prep, lawn mowing, occasionally, I mean, if somebody else picked up the kids. All of these pieces, unless you are absolutely loving them, then there may not be a reason to keep them in your schedule. They're things that take up time that are not necessarily adding massive amounts of value that somebody else easily could be doing. So let's talk through some of these pieces here. So I have kids, mentioned that earlier, I've got some small humans, and one of the things that we have found is it takes a lot of time to run them around. It absolutely does. Especially where, you know, they're into sports or into taekwondo. My son plays hockey, my two other kids play soccer. You've got all these different things. We've got tournaments, we've got games, we've got school activities, you name it. You might have those too, if you have small humans running around. And if you do, something that can be super easy to take the time to set up, even if you don't want to do something extreme, like, I've considered hiring a driver at different points in time. And we haven't done that, however, what can be the next step down that might be super easy to do for you, and also incredibly effective is set up a carpool. We found a lot of times that other parents of other kids are going to the same places at the same time, all the time. Taking the time to set up a carpool, or have somebody else pick up the kids or trade-off. I do it this week, you do it next week, all the kids got to get to the same place, they're coming from the same place, you know, it's often with a small amount of upfront planning can save you that back and forth across town at least once a week. Which that back and forth cross-town, even if you're in a small town, you know, it can add up to if it's just 15 minutes one way, 15 minutes another way, or 10 minutes one way like that's 20 minutes each time, half an hour each time. If it's longer across town, that can add up to hours in a given week, which gets spread across the month. So something that's really easy to do. There's a great example there. Let's say that you don't have small humans. Well, what about if you have lawn mowing, meal prep, all of those types of things, cooking, planning out meal for the week, all of those types of things can be outsourced. And in some cases, automated. Lawn mowing is a great example. And you might think some of this stuff is actually really expensive to pay someone else to do. It doesn't have to be. We found a neighborhood kid to mow our lawn for $20 each time, and he would have done it for less. But $80 a month and never ever have to think about the lawn again. I don't have to think about it. Occasionally, I talk to him and say "Hey, can you mow it a little bit longer? But that takes all of 15 seconds." But I've taken this a step further too. We have a guy from our church who's a teacher who comes to fertilize our lawn four times a year, the house is sprayed for bugs four times a year as far as outdoors go, I don't enjoy mowing the lawn, I don't enjoy spraying for bugs, and I don't want to spend my time that way. And it's taken away from the things that I can be doing that are more valuable for me to spend my time. In this case, it's my work, or it is spending time with my kids or family or traveling, or other things like that too. In your case, it might be freeing up that extra time in order to allow you to focus on changing jobs and taking advantage of the increases that have a tendency to come along with that too. All right. So here's another thing too, I find that so many people have not taken the steps to set up everything on direct withdrawal, or auto pay or created an automated finance system. This is something that if you haven't done, taking the time to do it once now may take you a total of five hours, but then for the entire rest of your life, it just becomes small tweaks. And you never have to do that, again. Never have to write another check again. You never have to, and yes, there might be exceptions, yes, I know I'm gonna get some emails where it's like, "I'm still gonna have to write a check about dadada-" save the email instead. Let's focus on the bigger picture. And then that instead, you end up freeing up many, many, many hours over the course of month, year, and future years, as well. So that's another area that you can get into too. And by the way, if you want to get really good at outsourcing things that you don't have to do, you can go take this up to three five notches here, you can hire an assistant. And I have learned that some people have real hang-ups and mental barriers about hiring an assistant. Some of these are around time worth, some of these around having other people do tasks that you've grown accustomed to doing yourself, and some of these are other types of hangups too. But I've personally done this, even by hiring a virtual assistant when I was in HR leadership. And we were down some team members at the time, and I even had this person help out with the non-essential tasks or tasks that didn't require passing along sensitive information from the company, which are way more than what most people realize. And at the time, I even did this with my boss's blessing, and the company paid for it. It gave me back about seven hours per week, which was pretty cool. But you can do the same thing for you as well, personally, it doesn't necessarily have to be paid by your company. But you can get back this time too. And people often wonder what can assistant do for you. Well, they can take all of the little things off your hands that you don't even realize they're taking up your time, like, calling and scheduling appointments and putting them on your calendar and calling and sitting on hold for customer service departments or ordering items. I can't tell you how much time prior to having an assistant that either myself or Alyssa would spend ordering items or researching items or trying to determine what is the perfect item. And then a lot of times, now, I can have an assistant actually do all that research, send me the options, I can look at that, and then they can do the ordering. Booking travel is another one. Finding and calling the repair guy to come fix the dishwasher. All of these little tiny things, researching things I need to know about my son's hockey camp, whatever it is, there are likely that you have 20, 30, 40 things that are taking place in your given month that you don't need to do yourself that somebody else could do. So yes, I realized that for some people, this is going to come off extreme. And sometimes people get hung up about the value of their time here. And you might think I pay 250 or 300 dollars a month for a virtual assistant to work part-time 15-20 hours a month because I could just do it myself. And that's the hang-up people get into. And I've been there. I totally understand that, felt the same way myself. But think about what that saying about how you feel about your time if you don't believe that your time is worth more than 15 or 20 bucks an hour, you may have a hard time convincing your next employer that you're really worth the extra money that you're going to be asking for them, right? So it comes back to that mental perspective too in what you believe about your own time that doesn't get considered. And also is, potentially, costing you money as well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:48

Okay, so here's another great one that you can do– batching things together. Taking the time to recognize what gets done throughout the week, and can be batched together that takes less time, overall, when you batch it together. So here's an example. Getting the mail. I realized and Alyssa, my wife, realized that we were getting the mail every day. First of all, very few things that were really important actually came to us in the mail, lots of it was junk mail, the vast majority of it, I'd say 90 plus percent of it was junk mail. And the occasional time where we got something that was important or that we did want to see, well, it really didn't matter if it's at an extra couple of days, right? So what we started doing at that particular time is going through it once a week just getting an email once a week and then sorting through it and the tossing everything in the recycle bin or even every two weeks. For most people, nothing life-changing is coming in the mail anymore. And the extra minutes you gain back by not getting the mail and sorting through it every day is much more valuable than knowing three days sooner, that you're pre-approved for yet another Black Label MasterCard. Okay, other things that you can batch together that take less time when you do them all at once. Ordering household goods, or better yet, automate them like we've talked about before setting them up on subscription. Or what about meal planning in a given week, creating a menu ad at the beginning of the week, and even batching together trips for the grocery store. Instead of making multiple trips throughout the week, can you do a better job of planning the meal and allowing yourself, yes, it takes more upfront thought and time and everything like that, but batching it together might save you an extra 2, 3, 4 trips throughout the month to the store. Okay, so there's a few examples of how you can batch things together. Here's what I would encourage you to ask. As you're going through, and as you're doing that time inventory or you're thinking about your time start to recognize what are those areas where I'm spending my time on that pop up more than once throughout the week. Or more than once throughout the month? Is there opportunity, and likely there is, to be able to batch them together in some way? Or as we talked about earlier, can we automate them? Or can we outsource them in one way or another? Okay, I want to give you another area here too. Eliminating the small things that take time on your to-do list. Completely removing this from your life. I love doing this by the way. It appeals to my maximizer and strategic strengths if you're using the StrengthsFinder verbiage, both of those are something that I love. It also appeals to my nerdiness about how I can enjoy just four more seconds today than yesterday. A recent example of this was we realized that our once really nice cooking pans had a lot of use over the years. And now every single time we use them it takes so much longer to clean by hand. And we might use these three or four times a week and although it only takes a couple of minutes to clean the pan, neither Alyssa or myself like doing it. So it was extra time that could have spent spent elsewhere. And time that we certainly weren't enjoying, or what would happen a lot of times is we simply wouldn't do it that night. And then it would sit in the sink for the next 24 hours and become an irritation, which ended up taking away our mental bandwidth. And we'll talk more about that here in just a minute. So instead, we realize that it would be actually less than $75 to replace the pans. Why? Well, because we don't need the whole huge set of pans that we had, and instead just got two pans that are the type that we use most often, and that clean up in seconds. And over the week, this gives us back about 10 to 12 minutes each week. And I know I know, I know, I know, 10 to 12 minutes does not sound like a lot, it really doesn't. And it isn't, except that when you realize that you probably have lots of 10 to 20 minutes, or 10 to 12-minute weekly items that are sucking your time away minute by minute. And if you can just find and remove 5 to 10 of these, it starts adding up to hours every single week. Every time we find one of these, we always say the same thing. We always are like, "Ah, I wish we would have done that months ago.", "I wish we would have done that years ago." Okay, now here's something that's really important to know. It's important to note here that the actual time taken by tasks, and that's one category, and then there's a whole nother category of mental bandwidth and stress that impact your ability to function productively with the small amount of time that you have left over. Now, here's an example of this. We constantly have things that we want to donate to Goodwill. And we made a conscious effort over the last couple of years to just try and buy less stuff. Because we kept noticing the same pattern like we'd buy it, a kid would use it, we'd use it for a short period of time, and then nobody would ever use it again. So we just now buy less stuff. And actually, that ends up saving our time over the long run for a variety of different reasons. And in this case, even though we buy less stuff, we still find that there are those toys, the kids no longer play with or clothes that we no longer wear, or it just don't work anymore. And once we decide we no longer want these, what used to happen is we would pull them out, and we'd set them aside in the corner of the room until we would go to Goodwill and drop them off. Now this doesn't sound like a big deal, except that it might be two or three weeks until we were planning on making another trip. So then every single time I would walk past those, and we think, "Wow, that looks messy over there. We've got to take those to Goodwill." And then I'd spend the next 10 minutes irritated that the house always felt messy, whether it actually was messy or not. You know, that's what was happening. And so we realized this was sucking up our mental bandwidth. Simply because we hadn't actually done anything about it. And because it was constantly a present. I might walk by that pile 5 or 10 times a day. And that ends up becoming not just an irritation, which is a lesser quality of life, but also ends up capturing my attention. When my attention and bandwidth could be focused on something that is more enjoyable or more productive. And again, this is getting into the nitty gritty. But by not addressing these things, it feels more stressful. And that's what starts to add up to the, at the end of the day, I don't have any energy to be able to focus on doing something like making a career change, too. So all these little things have a tendency to add up. So in this case, here's what we did, we decided we don't want to look at those anymore. And every single time we're looking at them, it's a bad situation, it takes away that bandwidth. So we created a staging area in our garage. Really, really simple solution. And now every single time we have something that we want to give away, then there's an oversized laundry basket that sits there in that staging area and collects all the donation items until we make the next trip to drop them off. And our kids know that that's where those go, we know that that's where those go, we've got a place to put those it's not in the corner of the room, it's not taking our attention. Now I spend literally zero minutes a year thinking about it or being irritated about it. It's just something that happens on autopilot. And it can been completely removed from my time and attention.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:19

Okay, so you have some of these right now too. Here's what I would encourage you to do in order to find these. As you're going throughout your day, pay attention to those things that irritate you, and write them down. And that's likely where you're going to find those areas that you can do something about that are stealing your actual time and also your energy and bandwidth as well. And then create a solution for the ones that are capturing the most of your attention and check them off one at a time. And what you're going to find is you're going to end up getting actual time back as well as mental bandwidth and energy back too. Both of which are important. Okay, so we've gone through a huge list of examples here. What I would encourage you to do is go through and just choose one or two of these to start with, so that you can create more time in your given week. And then you can read devote that time to be able to make a career change. This has got to be where you first start, this sets the foundation for nearly everything else to happen later.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:35

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 audiobook, which you can access right now in second.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:24

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

Speaker 2 36:30

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.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:46

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?" What happens then? Then what? How do you take control of your career when you're already 10, 20, 30 years in?

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:19

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.

Amy Dickerson 00:01

I was stuck in that mindset of, "But I have a degree. I really should be working on my degrees." I thought I couldn't make the connection. So the imposter syndrome kicked in that you don't have the skill set to do it.

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 00:42

What happens when everything you thought that you wanted to do for a career isn't? You go to school, you get an education, maybe even a master's degree, and then realize immediately upon graduation that what you got your education in it just isn't going to be your ideal career fit. So then what? Was it all a waste of time? How do we move into a new field? So many questions.

Amy Dickerson 01:10

We all have got that thing that no matter where you drop me, it doesn't matter if I work for this company, that company. If I work in nonprofits, I work in for profit. It doesn't matter if I'm working with my family, or if I'm over here just volunteering. If you give me an opportunity to do that thing, that is my thing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:31

That's Amy Dickerson. Amy is a coach on our team and someone who made her own career change. She went to school for physical therapy, got her master's degree, never actually worked in that field– that's right. Seven years of schooling, and she never worked as a physical therapist. Why? Well, when she began looking for work after college, she quickly realized that her strengths were pulling her in a completely different direction. She knew that she wanted something different, but that didn't make the change easy. Amy struggled with untangling her identity from being a physical therapist as well as a major impostor syndrome when she was trying to enter this brand new field. Okay, fast forward, and Amy has now been a career coach for many, many years. She's got lots of wonderful experiences. She's actually one of the few people that I know that has been doing coaching since before it was popular. She's an expert in helping people pinpoint their unique strengths and showing them how they've been unknowingly using those same strengths their entire life. As you can guess, she's also pretty amazing at helping people with detaching their identity from their careers and overcoming impostor syndrome. In our conversation, Amy uses her own career journey to explain how, even when you think you have no direction, and you're wondering what's next, your strengths can still help you discover what you're really meant to be doing. So this is the point where we get to jump in. Here's my conversation with Amy. She's taking us back to a pretty pivotal point in her life when she realized she didn't want to be that physical therapist.

Amy Dickerson 03:06

Well, my bachelor's degree is in health sciences. And my master's degree is in physical therapy, actually, which is a very, very competitive program to get into, and an extremely challenging program. At the time that I actually went into school for it, it was only... you only went to the master's degree at that point. That eventually changed it to a doctorate the year after I graduated, which made complete sense because you went to medical school. No one told you that you were going to go full-on medical school. But as a physical therapist, you literally have to know everything that the doctors know. You have to be able to read X-rays, read MRIs, PET scans, all of that, because you have to do a separate evaluation than what the doctor does to confirm that what they believe they're seeing is what you see as well. So yeah, I had no idea I was going to go full-on medical school. But if you think about it, so therapy is a form of coaching. So I've always had that coaching thing in me and it's ironic how I ended up coming right back around the coaching, I call it my story to Nineveh. If there's anyone out there who's ever read any biblical stories, one of those stories people tend to read is the story of Jonah and the great fish, or the whale as some people refer to it, but it's the great fish. So in that story, you know, God tells Jonah, "Hey, I want you to go to Tarshish and speak to the people and this and that." And Jonah was like, "I'm gonna find going to Nineveh." So he went on over to Nineveh, did what he wants to do, ended up being swallowed by this fish, you know, praying to God, "Get me out of the situation." Gets spit out, gets some stuff together, and then finally, he's like, "Okay, I guess I'll go to Tarshish now." So as I grew up as a child, and you probably had a bit of this growing up too where, even as a kid, people will always come to you for advice. And as a child, you're just growing up. You're a kid. You're not thinking about what you're doing, and all that, whatever. But I always had a keen awareness of problem-solving, trying to find solutions to problems, because I always wanted to see people be happy about living life. I always, you know, had an appreciation for the spiritual side of things, and for the fact that if we made it here, then hey, there's got to be a reason why we're here. So early in my life, I would have these philosophical problem-solving conversations. I mean, I'm nine years old having conversations with adults. I was like, "Wait, what's going on here." But it continued, of course, as I grew. But one thing I didn't recognize about myself that I actually just learned about myself in the last two to three years, is that impact. So, therefore, people's emotions, energies, all those things, they impact me. And I always knew that as a kid, but I didn't know it had an actual name. So I thought I was crazy. So I would never talk about the fact that I could move through a crowd. And I would literally feel energy change emotions. So because of that, when you're having conversations with people about life and things, whatever, for me being the impact, therefore, I took on a lot of the emotions that they had. So for me, I emotionally invested sometimes more than the person themselves did. And because of that, over the years, it became heaviness. Heaviness. Heaviness. So by the time I graduated high school, I was like, "I don't want to do anything that has to do with any form of counseling. I don't want to have toxic. I don't want." So I completely just push it away, push it away, push it away. And slowly over years, I really had already started doing it. So I had decided years before that, "I liked the idea of teaching, and I kind of liked the idea of being in the health space." And I had discovered physical therapy. So I decided, "Oh, this seems like a really good fit. I think I'm gonna go for physical therapy." So that's what I did. Once I went to college, started University of Michigan– go blue, that's right, go blue out there. And got a scholarship, but they didn't have my full major there. They didn't have physical therapy in Ann Arbor. So I had a plan to switch. I was going to use as much as my scholarship as possible, and then switch to another school that had the program. And I ended up at Oakley University and that's where I got my degrees. So the year I graduated, actually, was the first year we had ever experienced a hiring freeze. Yeah. That had never happened before. And they have been kind of moving across the country at the time. So right at the time we graduated, it was hitting Michigan. So when you graduate, of course, you don't graduate as a full therapist or full doctor where, you know, you always have to go take your exams, get your license, all that. So when I first graduated, I was trying to do things with my student license, but nobody was really hiring. And I just wasn't as well connected, healthcare-wise, with people in my community. I just wasn't connected like that to be able to find someone who can help me make that kind of move. My sister, ironically, which I didn't even know when I chose physical therapy, my sister who's 20 years older than me, she was an occupational therapist. I didn't even realize it. So she tried to help, whatever, but it was just a tough time. So basically, at a certain point, I was just kind of like I'm exhausted from school. I'm exhausted from looking, I'm just exhausted. I'm gonna just step back, take a break, and I'm just gonna do a little temporary work, and then come back around. So I went to the temporary field and just kind of worked here and there. And I ended up at the, what was at the time, the leader in outplacement services, the company that actually began the outplacement industry. And for those who don't know outplacement is, when people get laid off from their jobs, they end up getting connected to a company that will help to coach them and counsel them through that process to help them get their resume together, interviewing skills, networking skills, negotiating all of that to help you move to your next position. So I ended up doing a temp stint there and I really enjoyed it, connected really well with the staff, but I did my few weeks and then I was off. So in a few months later, I decided to just reach out to the company just because I really enjoyed the people that I worked with. So I just sent an email, "Hey, how are you guys doing? Blah, blah, blah." I got an email back that said, "Oh, my gosh, we have been looking for you. Where are you? We have an open position and we want you. Get back here." So at that time, I was no longer working with the temporary agency. So I was like, "Oh, wow, this is amazing." So that's how I ended up getting connected into the world of outplacement which then led me into career coaching of those, again, in the beginning with that I really didn't want to go into coaching, or at that time it was called consulting.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:37

Tell me about that. What was it? Do you remember what was in your mind back then where you're like, "Yeah, I don't know, I don't really want anything to do with this."

Amy Dickerson 10:45

Yes, we actually have a name for it now. It's called impostor syndrome. We didn't have those words, then. So here I, again, I am someone with a master's degree. And I just really loved the work that was being done. And so although I knew I had this degree, I just was drawn. So I didn't really care what I was doing there. So I came in, in the admin position initially, but my boss saw early on how I worked with the clients, and how I helped them to really pinpoint what it is that their strengths were, and what they really brought to the table for the company. And the way that I helped them to focus on those things, it really craved a shift in them a little bit more quickly than they had been seeing with people, and giving them that confidence to be able to get back out there and to work that job search process. Because as you and I know, and probably some of the listeners know, looking for a job is a job. So you have to really get out there and be prepared for. So after observing me, he came to me one day and said, "Hey, yeah, so I'm going to be sending you to consulting training." And I just jumped back, "What? No."

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:11

Absolutely not.

Amy Dickerson 12:12

"Absolutely not. No, I don't want to be a consultant. No, no, no." And he said, "Oh, yeah, you're going." And it was kind of like the way he said it was like, oh, wow, there's no arguing here. He's gonna make me go. And he did. And I did complete the training. But like you said, that first reaction, I think because I looked at the other actual consultants, and these were people who have been working in corporate America for 10-15, sometimes 20 years, these were people who had held certain levels of executive positions, they may have been people who have worked in HR. And so looking at that, and then comparing my background, although I have this amazing degree that was extremely difficult to get, and it's highly respected, it wasn't this particular field per se. And so for me, I didn't initially connect the coaching aspect, the teaching aspect, the training aspect that I had developed, the observation skills that I had developed in physical therapy, I didn't exactly initially translate that to what was being done with career consulting, which is ironic because that's one of my very key traits. When I help people, it's one of the things that I'm able to do, I'm able to see those kind of hidden ties between where they are and where they want to be. So it's so crazy that I couldn't do it for myself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:50

So let me ask you about that. Do you think that if we go back before, for a little bit, I fully understand what you're saying that, "Hey, I couldn't see this for myself. I couldn't pull this together for myself", which I absolutely understand. We, almost all of us, have that blind spot for ourselves until we can connect it together externally, or we have somebody else that's helped to connect it for us in one way or another. So I get that part. What I'm curious about though, is at the time, do you think that person who sent you to the training and everything, do you think they saw that, and that part of the reason why they chose to do that?

Amy Dickerson 14:32

100%. He told me 100% that he could see that my ability to be able to do those things and see that and other people and also just my natural... I just always had a natural propensity to ask the questions once people told me, "I really would like to do this. I really would like to change this." I really... I would just, always in my life, even when I was younger, I just started asking questions. Well, what is it exactly that you want to do? Well, what do you have now that you think connects with that? Why is it that you want to go in that direction? What do you feel like is moving you and so on and so forth. So I was doing this because it was just my natural talent. But I didn't know, I didn't recognize it as a talent. ,

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:25

Yeah, this is actually a thing that other people don't normally do.

Amy Dickerson 15:30

I had no clue. I had no clue. And so because I didn't see those things, again, I wasn't able to see how I connected. So therefore, like, I was just mentioning that whole imposter syndrome. You know, I couldn't look at my natural skill set. I was thinking of things in terms only of education. Now, I'm Gen X. I don't know about you, but I'm Gen X. So Gen X were the generation that is the transitional generation. We saw how things used to be, we lived through certain transitions, and we saw where things were going. And so there were a lot of things told to us about, "if you did this, then this will happen." It was like computers before computers that if then statement, they go to. If you see this, go to that, you know that. So growing up in that, there was a certain expectation, and part of that was you go to college. So during that time period, it was really pushed for us to go get higher education. And so because of that, I was stuck in that mind frame that mindset of, "but I have a degree, I really should be working on my degrees." And so I couldn't make the connection. So the imposter syndrome kicked in that, "You don't have the skill set to do this. You don't have the capabilities. Yeah, you've been talking to people. But in the end, you're able to look at these resumes, and yes, you've helped several people get jobs. But no, you don't have the skills."

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:05

This is one of my favorites. And also, I think still to this day is one of the most fascinating things. I know you've seen this too, not just for yourself, but for other people that you've worked with, the idea that the skill sets or the potential or whatever else it is is there. But the only difference is that we can't see it in one way or another. And I think that for a lot of our listeners and clients shows up in the questions that we get over and over again, where it's like, "How do I take my existing experience and then convince other people to be able to, like, yeah, accept this experience in a new industry or new whatever else?" And what I find is, in some ways, although it's a very different line of thinking, and it comes from sometimes this imposter syndrome type of thing that we can't necessarily see about ourselves, it's actually, in some ways, like the wrong question. I think the better question is like, "How do you go forward even though it's uncomfortable? And even though you can't see necessarily everything for yourself, or see how it relates, how do you just uncover the pieces that relate so that you can get to where you want to go in one way or another?" Just curious of your thoughts on that set of ideas.

Amy Dickerson 18:30

Well, let me just say, to me, that's one of the hallmark reasons why the expression, "everyone needs a coach" is so real. Everyone needs a coach in some form or fashion. Because part of it is the environment built around you. You're so used to moving in that space, and you've invested so much time, effort, belief, faith in these things that it's not so easy to begin to pivot, and to look at things in another way, in a different direction, and believe that you can head in a different direction. You know, there's so much of a big deal made about how much money you spent to go to school to get that skill. There's so much made about when you work at the corporation, and you've worked there for 15 years, and if you just hang in there another 15 years...

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:34

Just another 15 years, just most of the lifetime.

Amy Dickerson 19:38

That's what it used to be, right? You retire with the gold watch and the plaque and this and that. And anyway, the point is that we have a lot of other voices that are telling us how we should think about our situation. But what we don't realize sometimes is that those other voices that they're speaking those things because they actually are admiring the way that you're thinking. But they're scared just like you have a little fear. They're a little scared too. And so if they care about you, then they want the best for you. So they think in terms of safety, and security. And because of lived life experiences, there's automatically the thought of, "Do it this way, do it this way, and do it this way. Don't do it this way. Don't do it that." But part of what people are leaving out about this is that we're built as individuals will certain things that are in us from the beginning. It's just built in us. And I believe in the way I talk about it is that we all have a function in life. We all have got that thing that no matter where you drop me, it doesn't matter if I work for this company, that company. If I work in nonprofits, I work in for profit. It doesn't matter if I'm working with my family, or if I'm over here just volunteering. If you give me an opportunity to do that thing, that is my thing. The thing that no matter where I go, no matter what I do, somehow another, I always find myself heading in this direction, always into volunteering, if there's an opportunity. I always end up, you know, someone asking me to use my skill. That thing, I call it your function. So no matter where you drop the person, at some point, they're going to start moving in their function. So if we start focusing on that, that thing that's within us, we're automatically, again, going to get pulled and drawn toward the things that align with that. You know, it's like when we look at a magazine, we pick up a magazine, and we're flipping through pages, we always stop on some page because it's interesting to us. There's something on that page that draws us that we want more of, we want to read more about, we want to know more about. So it's like that, we're going to get drawn to it. So I think that there's a lot of just fear, and trepidation with this. And so that's why having a coach is so helpful because the coach has no, they have no investment in how you turn out besides being successful– achieving the goal that you set out to do. You know, they're not your mother or your father where they need you to look a certain way so that they feel a little bit of success. They're not your friends who need you to work in a certain field so that you can make a certain level of money so you can do all the things that they want to do too, and you can be on our level. We don't have as coaches that other thing that we need you to go a certain way. Where do you want to go? What do you feel is drawing you? What do you feel like is moving you, pushing you, calling you? That's what we're going to help you to uncover and get there. And that's all that makes a difference for us.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:05

I think that is a rarity in many people's lives to have that, let's call it unbiased. That's not quite the word I'm looking for. But an unbiased person who is really just there to amplify your goals and your wants and your desires and all the things whether it's career or otherwise. And I'll say that, and you and I have had this conversation before, this part of the conversation before, but I use that as a strategy for every area of my life. So I have a therapist, I have a trainer, I have a set of coaches for various different areas that are coordinated with every single one of my goals. So they're not all coaches necessarily, but they are people that are there to help amplify what it is that I'm trying to accomplish in the world. And it is, oh my goodness, in some cases, it literally makes whatever it is that I'm trying to accomplish in any given time or any given year possible. In other cases, it just makes it far, far easier, or allows me to see the things that I can't see or never would even imagine for myself, especially in the area for, like, I don't know, health as an example.

Amy Dickerson 24:19

Yes. The thing that I would have never imagined for myself. You know, and that's where it makes the difference is that sometimes people can't even see, imagine, feel, but they just don't really believe it's realistic. And the environment around them sometimes doesn't support that either. So what you just discussed about, "I have a coach for this and a coach for that", and maybe it's not a formal "coach" but that's the role of that person.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:53

I have a person. I have a team. I have someone that is actively helping me propel this foreword in every single way.

Amy Dickerson 25:02

Propel. That is like the secret that people are not. It's the secret that somehow getting past us in our lives because we start off with coaches in our lives– our parents are our first coaches, our family members, teachers, of course, obviously, if you play sports, you have actually a titled coach. But we have these people in our lives all along. And then somehow another we get to adulthood. And then it's like, the world is like, "Okay, let all that concept go. You get out there and you pull yourself up by your bootstraps."

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:40

"You know everything, you do everything by yourself, you just somehow like..." Yes, agreed. It's this really odd dichotomy in many different ways. It doesn't make any sense when we talk about it like that, however, it is how we functionally operate sometimes in society. But I want to go back and ask you about something here because, you know, speaking of the word functionally, you had talked about, like, the function and often will refer to that, and I hear on the podcast is the truest sense of you, or what we often will call signature strengths. And I wanted to ask you about some of yours that have showed up. Because definitely, you know, you're talking about when you were a kid, and you're having philosophical discussions with other people, that's not normal. And that's wonderful. Like, I, as a kid, I remember, as a weird kid, but I remember different points in time just like crying because I was like, seven or eight years old and it's like, "there's only so much time left in the world." And like, who does that? It's like a seven or eight-year-old kid, right? Yeah. So I think that what's really fascinating is looking for those significant differences that even show up so young sometimes. And for you, let's talk about a couple of those examples. How did... Let's take empathy and being an empath and being able to really sense and respond at a different level to other people's emotions, feelings, and emotional needs. And I think that what I heard you say earlier is that like, there was a point in time where like, "that was a thing that was happening. I couldn't control. I didn't even recognize that this was a thing that I could do. And it just felt like this massive burden." And often we'll call that the shadow side, or the dark side, or sometimes even anti-strengths, but the shadow side of your strengths. So I'm curious, what happened along the way for you to recognize that, "Nope, this actually a strength. This is actually a wonderful thing about me that allows me to live out without my function", as you call it.

Amy Dickerson 27:52

Yes. Well, I will say, I always knew, even as a child, I always knew that it was a strength. However, because no one else talked about this kind of thing. I thought something was wrong with me. But as you said, I had no control over it. It just was what it was, it was who I am. And, again, like you said, because I'm getting into these conversations and things. And I saw people get results from the conversations we would have. I knew that it wasn't a bad thing. I knew that was a positive thing. I felt like it was definitely a God-given thing. Because again, I had no control over it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:42

Do you remember one of those times? I'm curious, like, where you had one of those conversations and then it's like, "oh, this is real, like they're getting something out of this." What's the first time you remember that?

Amy Dickerson 28:53

Well, I will say one thing that comes to my mind is something that will happen commonly as a teenager. You know, as a teenager, trying to get along sometimes with your parents, not so easy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:06

As it turns out.

Amy Dickerson 29:07

As it turns out. And so I will have friends, of course, a weakened to these conversations, somehow another, I can always see past the teenager view of things. And somehow I could see the parent more as an individual person than just playing this parent role. And so because of that, there was always an awareness for me that sometimes when someone was dealing with a difficult parent or difficult situations because the parents maybe had difficult situations that they've been dealing with either actively right now in this moment, or as they grew up or something, and it has impacted how they respond to situations, to words, I was always very aware of words, and how you had to be careful sometimes. And the specific word you would choose with someone. You can still get the message across. But some words would inflame people, it will set them off, we call them now trigger words. You know, somehow had a sense of that. So I will try to talk to my friends sometimes in the sense to help them kind of see that your parents could just be reacting because of other things that are going on. And being at home, it's just easier to blow up at home and survive that than to blow up on the job. And so that was the idea that I had. So it helps my friends sometimes be able to calm down when things what happened. And I will even share with my own situation with that. So my mother and she's been gone for nine years now. But my mother coming up, she wasn't necessarily a lovey-dovey mother, she wasn't the hug you, kiss you, all that kind of tack, whatever, which, of course, now I have become the fourth one. But she, I was very aware that she cared and she was here to make sure that I was taking care of them, the last of seven children, my parents had seven children. So you know, she just wasn't that kind of person. And sometimes I've looked around and other kids, and I'd see that in their parents and their relationships. And they used to be like, "Wow, I wonder why doesn't she kind of feel that way?" And something within me always knew that, "Well, it's not my fault." Because you know, sometimes as a kid, you'll take that on. And you'll think, "What did I do? What did I this, what did I?" But somehow another I had a sense of, "It's not my fault. Not sure why, not sure what happened, but it's not my fault." And she didn't talk a lot about her past and growing up or whatever. But there were some things that when she would say something that gave me the idea that there were definitely some challenges and some things that even tragedies. So anyway, when I got to the U of M, I remember one particular time going home, and just a little bit of the... there was just something there where she seemed almost upset with me that I'm getting this opportunity, I don't know, it was just something. And when I get back to campus, I will spend some time thinking about it. And something that came to me was, you know, just that, "You know, maybe she didn't get all the love that she needed to get as she grew up. And so, therefore, she doesn't know what she was never taught. If she wasn't taught it, she doesn't know how to give that out in that way." So I decided at that point that I was going to let go of whatever anger and whatever I had against her. And instead, I was gonna give her all the love that she should have received that she did.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:06

I love that.

Amy Dickerson 33:06

So when I start going back home, I will start hugging her, I will start kissing her on the cheek, I will start teasing her, I will do things, like, sitting her lap, lay all back on her, whatever, she would just start laughing like, "Oh my gosh, if you don't get all of this off of me." But so from there, and over the years, as we, you know, as I continued to grow up, and we both continued to grow, eventually, our relationship changed. And we ended up having a really, really great relationship. And my mother passed, she was 82. And about a year before she passed, she said to me one day I was at the house, she didn't go through illness for a couple of years at that point, and she said to me, "You know, just that, I really thank God for you. I really, truly don't know what I would do without you." And I was so shocked and taken aback, I did not say, and she just said, "I mean it. I mean, I really don't know what I would do if I hadn't had you." And I just couldn't respond, you know, even now it's like, "Okay, keep it together, and you're on the podcast. Don't melt." But you know, it definitely was kind of like, "Oh, thank God that I made that change. And I had that awareness." So again, things like that I would do over the years and help people with but, again, I didn't really see it as a skill or as a special talent or gift. It was just something that was just me and that I would share.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:41

I love that. Let me ask you this with our about 60 seconds or so left here. What advice would you have for other people that want to find that special talent or, again, what will often call signature strengths and really want to begin to transition to using that in, not just more of your life, but particularly your career?

Amy Dickerson 35:02

Yes. Well, knowing your signature strengths then helps you to be able to understand where those strengths would be valued. So that's the first thing I would say is to begin to, hey, of course, reach out to a career coach. But reach out and do a little research, read it online, take some assessments and just see where do we typically see where those strengths are really a positive and help to move business, help to move people, help to move situations forward because of that skill set. And when you kind of connect to that, that will begin to open up your mindset and your world, your options on what you do that you really bring that someone somewhere would benefit for– a person, a company, whatever. So I would say, look further into that and really see how you can, you know, we use the expression lean in, but yeah, what professionals will allow you to lean into that and utilize that. And as you get a chance to do more and more of it, you will begin to grow and grow and flower out with those strengths. And then you'll begin to see how your very strengths, whatever you consider your "weaknesses", you'll actually begin to see how your strengths can help bolster those and support you to continue to grow because that's what it's all about, in our time here, it's about growth and continued growth.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:38

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 37:30

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:37

Today, it's just you and me talking about how to find the time to make a career change even when you are insanely busy. And the reason that we've wanted to do this type of episode for a really long time is this is one of the biggest things that stops people again and again and again if you are wanting to make a career change. Finding the time, making the time, prioritizing the time, those sounds like they should be easy, and we all know they're not. And I don't want you to have to feel bad when it isn't easy, and instead, I wanted to be able to give you some ways to be able to find that time, take back that time, and do something about it here.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:23

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.

Introduction 00:05

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:30

Right now, as I'm recording this, it's April. What that means to us internally is that people who are contacting us right now to make a career change will likely be starting their new job, not three months from now, not four months from now, but in the first quarter of next year. That comes as a shock to many people. The average timeline of an intentional career change, well, it's often a big surprise. So we decided to put all the information into one bonus episode and break down the anatomy of an intentional career change over a 12-month period. But first, let's talk about what I mean when I say intentional career change. And this type of career change is where we're optimizing for life fulfillment, inclusive of work. This is not just finding out what's wrong with our current situation, and then honing in on that one thing, and then finding a new job that has that problem. And here's what I mean by that. This is the way that most people think about career change. Most people think I just need to go figure out the right type of job or occupation, or, you know, my boss isn't great so I need a place with better leadership, and that's gonna solve all the problems. Or it's just the organization. This organization is not a new fit. So I just need to find a new company and do the same job. Or maybe I just need to find more knowledge on this and so I will enjoy my job more. Let me go get some training on this. And then, of course, I'll be happier. If you've listened to more than one episode of Happen To Your Career, you might already know that this, as it turns out, is the furthest thing from the truth. When we're talking about intentional career change, it's never just one thing. One thing different is never the answer. The tricky thing is here, we're wired as humans to think that one thing is going to be the answer. And if you try all of the one thing, eventually you'll get to the right answer. We're very good as human beings at diagnosing simple problems. We're pretty terrible at diagnosing what are called complex problems, where there are many, many variables, and many, many things that need to be different. And career change, especially intentional career change, solving for that, that's a complex problem. You have to isolate many different variables and make decisions about how each and every one of them are going to impact you. Okay, so this can be quite challenging, as you might imagine, especially where most people are thinking about, like, "Oh my goodness! How on earth am I going to narrow down this anyway?" Even when we're thinking about just the one thing that's different. So this means it requires a much different, much better way to approach career change that is not identify the occupation and the transition to that occupation, and then do all the job searching stuff, instead, a far better way to approach it is recognizing there are all of these different variables and the really wonderful thing is that all of these pieces that we need to figure out, well, it turns out that we actually have pretty great data and research for, not all, but many of these. 50 years ago, 100 years ago, not really the case. But now, in today's day and age, we actually have a lot of the research to support what it is that creates more fulfilling work more frequently.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:52

Now, here's another thing that people don't think about. Even when we figure out all those pieces, even when we write it down on paper on purpose, we're likely going to get pieces of it wrong, the first time around. Our best guess is still not going to be entirely accurate. So we actually need to build that into the process. What we found is that every single person who makes an intentional career change successfully goes through the same milestones. They do it in different ways. There's different tactics. There's different approaches. But everybody actually still walks through the same milestones over and over again. Four milestones in particular that relate to intentional career change, and then what we call milestones five, and six, well, those help people continue to refine and pivot what work and intentional work looks like for the rest of their life. Today, we're going to cover each of those milestones with a particular focus on the first four that relate to this intentional career change. And by the way, if you've already read Happen To Your Career: An Unconventional Approach To Career Change and Meaningful Work, we do actually cover these milestones in there. So be sure to check that out if you want to learn even more about these. But the thing that we don't cover in the book, and the reason these milestones are so important is that career change is a very nonlinear process. And we don't necessarily cover the timelines that are associated with this very squiggly line, two steps forward, one step back set of events that happens. The milestones turn this process, the squiggly line process into something that feels a bit more linear. It gives us the ability to understand more about what's likely to happen along the way. And we can get behind it as humans because it aligns more with how our brains actually work. So you're probably thinking, okay, we're talking about timelines, "How long will an intentional career change actually take for me?" The reality is there's no source out there that we have been able to find that fully represents how long an intentional career change takes for the average person. My observations are that most people in this world never make, like, they just don't ever make an intentional career change. They don't take control of their lives, they move forward from what comes to them, and they get a job offer, they say, "Should I take this or not?" Instead of the other way around, saying, "Hey, here's the life that I went to live, and the life that I want to build. Here's the work that supports that life. And instead, I want to figure out how I can do that in the real world." Most humans on the planet will never accomplish this. And the ones that do, my personal observation and experience is that it often takes years. For me personally, it took actually seven years. What we're going to do in this episode is we're going to use a different set of data. I want to help you understand what we see, which we do actually have a lot of wonderful data from the last 10-11 years or so, about our clients and how they move through these milestones. So I'll help give you frames of reference. But I want you to recognize that if you don't have help, and you're trying to go this alone, what we've seen is often that it takes years. If you do have help, then it can take it down to a number of months. And we're going to talk about what a transition looks like over a specifically a year or timeframe. So our clients are people who are set on making that intentional career change that we mentioned earlier. And it's important enough to get some type of help, to invest in living more intentionally. Just assume that if you don't have help with this, it's probably gonna take longer than all these timeframes that we talked about here.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:43

So let's really quickly outline the milestones in the process. Milestone one is setting the stage for your career change, we'll come back to this here in just a moment. Milestone two, is where you begin profiling your ideal career– reading a hypothesis of what or an educated guess of what you believe ideal looks like for you. Milestone three is experimentation, where we validate and get some road signs that we're heading in the right direction. Milestone four is where you take everything that you've learned, and we build a plan in order to make it happen. A lot of people would refer to this as the job search stage. And that's where many people are most familiar. They're less familiar with the first three that actually allow you to make an intentional career change and intentional choices once you get to that job search or more tactical type of stage. Okay, milestone five, I mentioned that this usually comes after intentional career change. Well, milestone five is learning to thrive and work that fits. Milestone six is evolving in your ideal career. Now, a lot of the time, this becomes a cycle as you pivot, evolve, and learn what creates a great fit for you. So we're going to go over each one of these in a little bit more detail. And I'm going to help you understand what it takes to move through each of these milestones on average for what we see for our particular clients over and over and over and over again.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:13

Okay, remember I mentioned milestone one. Milestone one usually takes around one month on average, give or take. So Milestone One is all about setting yourself up for success or setting the stage for your intentional career change. During this milestone, you identify your purpose for change, you set your life and circumstances up to make your career change a priority. You begin doing things like building your support team or creating extra time and bandwidth to be able to focus on this thing that temporarily in your life is more important in order to make everything else possible. It also involves identifying the obstacles proactively that might slow you down and creating a plan to address those obstacles. I want to give you an idea, here's a few of the actions that we have our clients take during that first milestone. For us, when we're working with them, we onboard them into this process to think about career change differently and spend a small amount of time upfront in doing the work that allows everything else to happen. So they're going through, and they are doing everything since they have our help, they're choosing their coach, they're completing a coaching session call, they're having a kickoff session with their coach, they're doing that kickoff conversation, their coach is clarifying on paper on purpose what specifically the goal is so that we have a great understanding and even better understanding of what we're heading towards, and what are the elements that we need to consider beforehand. So another example of that is we're going through and we're building a plan for inevitable success, or what we call a plan for when it gets hard. And we're thinking through in advance, "How are we going to handle it when it goes wrong? What do we need to change now?" For example, like what do we need to change in terms of our life and expectations from other people, temporarily, so that we can for a short time focus on making this life change. So this milestone really is all about setting up your life so that you're able to commit to this life altering journey that you're about to embark on. I mentioned it takes one month on average. So for example, if you started today, then you'd be working through milestone one, one month from now, you'd finish working through it approximately one month from now. I'm recording this in April, so that would mean in May.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:46

Okay, Milestone two. I mentioned this is profiling your ideal career, or what we call creating a hypothesis of what you believe your version of extraordinary could look like. We often separate this into what we call minimums, what you must have, or ideals. Ideals are what you really want, and what would create your own personal version of extraordinary. This milestone also tends to take between one to two months. For some people, it's more than that. But what we see is, on average, it's approximately between 1-2 months. So usually people are moving through this milestone during end of month one and going into month two, and working through month two as a whole, sometimes, into month three. That said, if you're starting today, and since I'm recording in April, I'd say that you would be working through this milestone during the month of June and potentially into July. This is where you really start digging into your strengths, you're setting your minimums, your must-haves for what we call the seven elements of meaningful work, which are all of those pieces that tend to matter most as relates to higher level of fulfillment, higher level of meaning that relates to your work. And then using all of that knowledge to create a relatively large list of the decisions you've made that matter more than anything else so that you can create a profile or picture of what your ideal career is, and your personal version of ideal. So during this time, you know, a lot of our clients they're going through a number of exercises in order to figure out and get to the bottom of what are those individual pieces. A lot of times, you can't go straight there, right? In Milestone Two, it doesn't work if we say, "Okay, you tell us what you want." And you just sit down and start listing things. That's not how it works for almost anybody. So instead, we use a series of exercises and questions that we adapt to each individual. And then through that series of exercises and questions, that exposes what people really need in each area of the seven elements of fulfilling work. For example, you know, one element has to do with what do you need as relates to flexibility and autonomy in your life because although we all need some level of autonomy, that doesn't mean it's the same for each individual person. And it's also true of what you value most. You know, people talk about your values, which sounds really ambiguous. But as it relates to careers, then if you understand what you value most in your life, that gives you the ability to then say, "Okay, where can I and how can I use these in my work setting? Ranging from what organizations and the people are those organizations, how do we have shared values? Or how am I not get into a situation that conflicts with those values because that feels terrible?" In all of those cases, this is where we're making those micro-decisions to clarify on paper on purpose in the form of that ideal career profile.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:05

Okay, Milestone three, experimentation. This involves validating your new direction before you do the work. This usually takes place in months, three to five, you know, if we're looking at a year timeline here, not to your timeline to transition, but your timeline in terms of like what happens over the course of a year for somebody that we're working with, well, then months three to five are often where we're taking that hypothesis, that ideal career profile, and then we're saying "Do we actually have the right version of where we want to go?" And what almost always happens through that process is, as you start testing those parts and pieces in the real world, you get feedback and learnings that cause you to reiterate, and continue to iterate on your hypothesis, or ICP, that ideal credit profile. Okay, so then, what we see is that when you intentionally design what we call career experiments, it allows you to get encouragement about whether or not you're heading in the right direction. For some people, for example, you know, we have somebody working with us right now. And she's testing several different industries that she suspected could be a good fit, could allow her to make the right type of impact that she wants to make in the world. And as she's going through it, she's recognizing that, "you know what, it actually might be less about the industry and more about the individual organization itself." So that's causing her to hone in on a different area in a different way than what she would have when she started the experimentation process. This means instead, that we're now directing her to focus on finding organizations that align with the type of impact that she wants to make and what she values the most. And then once we have that list, which she's building a list initially of 20 organizations, then that allows us to go to the next step, that allows us to identify and meet people in those organizations, so that we can say, "Yeah, you know what? This truly does align" or, "You know what, I thought this organization was a great fit. Turns out, it's not. Now I can cross them off the list. And that's okay." To some people, this experimentation, when you look at it from the outside, can seem like or feel like you're taking steps backwards. Because this industry that in this client's case, she thought she wanted to move into, it turns out, she doesn't. But that's actually great news, it's wonderful because then she gets to stop wasting time thinking about it, and instead move on to what is actually going to be a great fit. So the career experiment milestone ends to take a minimum of two or three months. This is one of the areas that, for some people, can take shorter, and some people can take far longer. Now, these experiments, which we have an entirely different episode, you can actually go to Episode 261, or search designing career experiments in your podcast player, or on Google, and it'll pop up, you can listen to it, it'll give you an idea of a variety of different types of career experiments. Or you can get the Happen To Your Career book and it gives you a variety of examples and stories that go along with it too. In any case, these career experiments can involve building targeted relationships and getting to meet people that are actually in certain roles or certain organizations. Or it can involve being able to test certain types of work by actually going and doing small portions of the work itself. Or it can be any number of other things. We have some types of experiments that are more common than others that we found just work for certain people in certain situations. However, the possibilities are literally endless.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:59

Okay, Milestone four. For many people, this begins in month six, sometimes month five, and often will continue until you accept your offer or opportunity and make a shift in one way or another. Milestone four is where you take everything you've learned about what creates an ideal situation and everything you've learned through experimentation. And then you get to apply it and focus on what is the most strategically useful way to get to where you want to go. So this is the most tactical milestone. This is where things like interviewing and negotiation and possibly even resumes, although it doesn't always require resumes, enter into the process. The benefit of doing all the work upfront is that when you know exactly where you want to go, it's a lot easier to go and ask for it. Because for some people in milestone three, experimentation, they've now been able to go through and get to know an organization and they've now validated that this organization could be a great fit, and they already have relationships, and it becomes so much easier to be able to go and talk to some of those people and say, "Hey, look, I'm actually really interested in this organization. Now that I've met a bunch of people here, and I know what you all stand for. And I would love to work here. How might we make that happen in the future? What could that look like? What advice would you give me?" It puts you in a completely different situation to pursue work in a very, very different way, a much more organic way, I would say, a much better-fit way, not just for you, but also for the organization that you may be serving in the future, too. Is it harder? Yeah, absolutely. Does it create a better fit more frequently? Yeah, absolutely. So that's just one example of how that might work. In other cases, it could be more traditional interviewing, and in going through a more traditional process for applications, but not always. The benefit here is that when you know where you want to go, so much easier to chart a plan to be able to get there. And it's so much easier to be strategic about it and effective about it. Our clients, usually, as I mentioned earlier, arrive at this milestone in month five, month six, or someplace around there. Since we're in April now, that would typically be like October-ish. And you'd be working through the "job search" or tactical portion of the process for a few months, and then on average, accepting an offer in December, and starting at the beginning of the year. So if you're listening to this, and it's not April right now or beginning of May, then you can just add eight to nine months from where you're at currently. And then that'll take you approximately what we see on average for our clients to accept their offer, and begin to make their transition. And in fact, what we see is that we have a huge number of folks that ended up accepting their offer between month eight and month ten. Actually month, like 7.85, or something on average, I forget exactly what it is, but someplace around there too, you know, month ten.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:18

All that's good information. But what I want you to take from that is two things. Number one: to make an intentional career change, it's very different than when you're just searching for a job. Most people, like if we're helping get a job, just any kind of job, then like that's a two to three-month deal. That's really easy compared to what we're talking about. The other thing I think to point out is that once you have arrived in your role, once you've accepted an offer, moved into a new role, new organization, whatever it is, made a career change, it's not over. Just because you have the right situation, doesn't mean that you can operate well in it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:00

Milestone five is where we're at now. That is what often happens in months 10 to 12. So now you've entered the world of fulfilling work, you're in much, much better alignment. Milestone five is learning to thrive in work that actually fits you. And this usually rounds out your year of career change. A lot of times, we continue working with people after they found their role after they have accepted the offer after they have a start date, a lot of times we'll continue working with people in order to onboard and go into the new organization in a far different way than what they may have in the past. What that might look like is, let's just say you started your new job in January, over the following few months, you'll be educating and training the people that you're working with to honor your boundaries, to help them understand how to work with you best, and often to get over the first initial learning curve of behaving differently in work that fits. And it is a behavior change. And that's what most people underestimate or don't anticipate along the way. So that first 90 days is especially critical because that sets the tone for upcoming years in that organization. It also sets your earnings rate as well because a lot of times there's opportunities to go into that new organization or even in negotiation to be able to pre-negotiate how your earnings may transpire over the course of the upcoming four, or five, six months or even you know, a couple of years beyond that. And most people sort of just are like, "I'm going to get an offer and I'm going to accept the offer and I'm going to move along the way" and they miss the opportunity to be able to do things very, very differently in order to cultivate a situation that continues to improve and continues to become more ideal for them and continues to fit them. Okay, so let's say that you, it's January, you're into that work this time next year, you're in a new job, you have confirmed that this role is truly ideal for you. And by the way, think about that for a second. One year from now, your life could be completely different, you could be entering a new role, entering a new situation, and literally training your co-workers on how to best operate with you and around you in a way that's good for them and the way that's good for you very, very different way to think about it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:36

So I would be remiss if I didn't mention Milestone Six, final milestone. It's about evolving your ideal career, continuing to iterate on what ideal looks like for you. That is a continuous cycle. A lot of times, people don't necessarily do the entire thing over again, but that evolution continues to happen. They're in a stage of refinement now, at this point. But here's what happens when people hear about these milestones, they often think, and sometimes they say to us, "Ah, Scott, I already have so much on my plate. I have kids, my kids have activities, I already have friends I don't want to lose touch with. My job is taking 40, 50, 75 hours a week. What on earth am I going to fit this work in that you're telling me is required for intentional career change?" And that starts to feel a little bit hopeless in one way or another. So let me help you understand some options. I think option one, this is always an option, you can hear all that and you could say, "You know, I'm just gonna continue settling for the rest of my life. I know this should be a priority for me, but I'm just actually not going to do anything about it. And I'm just never going to do it. And it doesn't sound like the greatest thing for me, or it's not worth it." And if that's good for you, then, that's your choice. It is still a choice. You could do what I did. I did it by myself. I painstakingly moved through figuring out how to make an intentional set of career changes. It took me approximately seven, almost eight years to figure this out. You could probably do it in less time. Maybe it takes you, you know, instead of seven years, maybe it takes you, I don't know, four years or five years, something like that, whatever. That's a possibility. You could do it alone. You can get help with it. Obviously, that's what we do as an organization. That's one of the reasons that we produce podcasts in order to provide that help in a variety of different ways and provide how to think differently about these sorts of things. Part of getting help would reduce down that time. What we see is that when you get help, these numbers are what we just talked about in this episode, on average, does it fluctuate? Is it different for each individual? Yeah, absolutely. But that 8 to 10-month period of time is what we see for our clients who are getting help and going through the process of identifying, on paper on purpose, what an intentional career change could look like and making that happen in the real world. Those are the average timeframes. What I don't want you to do is I don't want you to lock yourself into that. I do think it's important to recognize what the averages are. But for some people that can be longer, and for some people that can be shorter. I think the important part out of it is there's not one magical situation where one day you're gonna be able to all of a sudden fit all of this work that you perceive in, it is a lot of work, you've heard that on the podcast, in order to do anything intentionally. That's why most of the world is on autopilot as it relates to their career and just accepting what is coming in front of them. But also, everybody has different challenges. Everybody's challenges are different. And the reality is that we all have different challenges around bandwidth, and time, and other things. So you just have to make the decision to move forward imperfectly. And however long it takes, how long it takes, if it only takes you four months or five months, that's great. But if it takes you a year or even two years, so far, we haven't encountered anybody that's like, "Oh, yeah, I wish I didn't take two years on it. I wish that I didn't ever, you know, proceed forward." Instead, what people often say to real people, you've heard them on our podcast, they say, "You know what, this was way harder. It took longer than what I thought. And also, it was totally worth it. My only regret is that I didn't actually start sooner or that I didn't, you know, encounter this more intentional way of living until later in life."

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:35

So that's the thing I want to leave you with. If you're considering a career change, and you want to have an accepted offer before the end of the year or early next year, that means you need to start right now. Imperfectly, even when you don't have the perfect amount of time, even when you don't have it all worked out, making progress is way more important than getting it all figured out. The last thing I'd leave you with is if you want help in this, you know, there's variety of ways that we can help, certainly some of the podcast episodes that I mentioned here and the resources that I mentioned here, definitely, you can go to the show notes and take a look at those, and click on the past episodes. And certainly, you can listen to those. If you want help making this change, we actually only have 18 spots left for the month of May, and 22 for June. These tend to fill up pretty quickly with people wanting to make a change before the end of the year. So if that's something you believe that you're interested in, I would say reach out to us sooner rather than later. You can email me directly Scott@happentoyourcareer.com and put 'Conversation' in the subject line and we'll figure out the very best way that we can support you, or you can go click the link in the show notes that is happentoyourcareer.com/schedule. Any other way we can help, don't hesitate to email and ask. Thanks for listening. Until next time, I am out. Adios.

Bob Kalish 00:01

When you look at a timeline of your career, let alone your life, but let's just say your career, you know, as I'm reaching my 50s now, what did I want to do with the last 10 years?

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

Why is it that so many career changes don't work out? You make the decision to move from one role to another, but a few weeks or months go by, and you find yourself just as unsatisfied as you were in your last job. No good, right? Over and over again, we've heard from people who made unsuccessful career changes before reaching out to us. And it turns out, that when we break down what caused that lack of success is that they didn't necessarily experiment, or put in the time to experiment before jumping into a new role, a new company, a new industry, or something else. They just took a job at face value and expected it to be better than the last without a lot of evidence that it would fit them. This is why we recommend designing career experiments. Not only do they allow you to figure out what you really want without having to commit years to staying with another company or another role that potentially is not a fit. But this process, as it turns out, is far different from just showing up to a new role and expecting it to be rainbows and butterflies.

Bob Kalish 01:50

So as you're going through this experimental phase, you're going to see a lot of that transparency if you keep your eyes open, and say, "You know what, I wouldn't fit in that organization. I'm going to probably move on and glad to know them" respectful of their time, but it's just not what gonna serve me right now.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:10

That's Bob Kalish. Bob had been a concept chef. And he'd been in the same organization for 24 years, but he had begun to feel unfulfilled. And like, he just wanted to do something different. But he wasn't sure what that was. We got to work with Bob, and he did a lot of self-development work. He began learning about himself, what he really wanted, while simultaneously, learning about what could be next for his career by designing career experiments. In just a moment, you're gonna get to hear my conversation with Bob about some of the experimentation he's done. And I want you to know that there are infinite possibilities for what types of experiments to conduct or how to conduct different experiments. Also, we've observed that there are four types of experiments that we recommend most commonly because they're highly effective for more people. We dig into these four particular types in our book: Happen to Your Career: An Unconventional Approach to Career Change and Meaningful Work. But in this conversation with Bob, you're mostly going to hear about two specific types of these experiments. First, the social goldilocks. This type of experiment works similar to when Goldilocks tried all the chairs and all the beds and tasted all the porridge and all the balls. You're going to hear how Bob had a ton of different conversations with different people in different organizations in different roles, so he could learn about those organizations, and quickly find what's too hot, too cold, and just write for him for that next chapter of his career. He's also in the process of conducting what we would call a paid research experiment– where he's testing out a role on a temporary basis and getting compensated, well-compensated, for his work. So here's my conversation with Bob. He's telling me a little bit about his initial decision to make a career change.

Bob Kalish 04:01

When I remember when I had the conversation about, you know, I was going to step away from my job. And I was like, "I'm not really sure, but it might affect our work, our quality of life a little bit", and he was like, "Go for it. You're not happy. Go for it." He didn't care. He just wanted me to be happy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:18

That's amazing. That was your son?

Bob Kalish 04:21

That was my son.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:23

So tell me about that. Because it seems like your son was a pretty large part of some of the catalysts in one way or another if I understood correctly.

Bob Kalish 04:34

Absolutely. In different ways on I got into thinking about a career change, I was thinking about how I could influence him, maybe in saying that it's okay to change jobs around, you know, through your career. And it turns out that he was happier for me that I was making the move because I was coming out of a job or leaving a job that I had for 24 years invested in. So after 24 years to make a change, and people be happy about it was encouraging.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:09

That's amazing. Prior to you realizing that he and other people would be happy about you making that change, what did that feel like for you?

Bob Kalish 05:21

Well, I think there's a duality, right? And as far as my personality type goes, there's always going to be devil's advocate, right? So it's just me, that's how I prove things out. But I could have easily said, "I'm gonna just keep going. It's a steady-state thing." But there's something inside of you that you can't ignore. And when it's time, you either act or you don't act. I chose to act and see what's behind the other door.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:53

So that's really interesting. Let me ask you about that. Because I have seen it so many times, and I have, in some cases, been the person who doesn't act or maybe ignores it too long before I act, might be more accurate. So what do you feel like when you got to that point where you realize that you needed to change? What do you feel like caused you to act or allowed you to be able to do something about it?

Bob Kalish 06:20

I would say there's a couple of different things at work. It was the steady decline of fulfillment, okay, alongside the desire to be a better employee, to be a better father, to be a better husband, be a better person, I just felt like I was ready to grow as a person. And I couldn't really do that without changing that piece of my life. Now, the reality is, I also discovered, you discover a lot along this process, and I also discovered... I wasn't a very good communicator. I didn't tell people what I needed to be successful at work, in particular. And so how would they know? So I really learned so many things from the company that I worked with for 24 years. But at the end, things change. And I realized, not at the time, I needed you and your company to point this out as to why I was unhappy. I could not figure it out. And eventually, it just came to I wasn't working with any of my strengths. And the StrengthFinder kind of was a big point, a turning point for me. Not the biggest, though, but one of the biggest.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:43

Well, you had worked in the restaurant industry for, as you said, 24 years, right?

Bob Kalish 07:49

Well, 24 years at one company.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:51

Oh, 24 years at the same organization.

Bob Kalish 07:54

Yes. And we went through the private-public, private equity, private... like, well, just through the wringer over the years. It was a national brand. And at my last responsibility with that, I was a corporate chef/concept chef. And so I had stores from Boston to California.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:17

So I've been really fortunate to, over my career, get the opportunity to work with a few concept chefs. But what does a concept chef do for people who might not be familiar?

Bob Kalish 08:28

Wow, that's a big question. Yeah, I know. It's not what you might think if you're not familiar with how restaurants run, but I wasn't in the kitchen cooking every day. Let's just say that. You know, as you look at different responsibilities, food quality, food safety, purchasing, marketing, it's really cross-functional, working with facilities, developing menus, developing people, opening new stores, making sure you're hitting financial budgets, motivating people, you know, it goes on and on and on. And I was like, wait a minute, at one point I was just, not so long ago, 24 years ago, I was a sous chef, and you work your way up through and it's a wonderful thing to work through. Because you get to learn all the way through, right? And until you're in a position where you realize the people in the organization, the guests in the building and the business are all a balance that you have to, kind of like, juggling on a unicycle.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:34

Juggling on a unicycle. I love that. That is a perfect mental image of that. Well, let me ask you this, then. Once you realized that you needed to make a change, and you started acting, you had mentioned just a minute ago that one of the biggest keys was strengths, however, you also said it was not the biggest key. So tell me about that.

Bob Kalish 10:05

Well, I guess, when you're looking at things, I don't know, I don't want to get too deep on here, you know, with you right here, but every second counts, right? And if you pause for a second, guess what? That counted, right? And, you know, it's a combination of that. And when you look at a timeline of your career, let alone your life, but let's just say your career, what do you want to do with, you know, as I'm reaching my, into my 50s now, what did I want to do, right? With the last 10 years. Because I've already did that been there, right? What do I want to do next? What's going to fulfill me? And it just kind of keeps building momentum. Building momentum. I'm not looking for my legacy part of my career. But that's what I find myself in, not about me, but can I leave it better than what I got, right? And for the most part, I would say, we're going to try and hopefully we can influence one or two people. And I think that would be a win– one or two people. If everybody could influence one or two people in a way to make it better, you're winning.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:22

You know what's strange about that, I find that if you really set out to strongly influence one or two people, then most of the time, if you do a great job at that, it tends to influence so many more, which is strange how that works. It's very counterintuitive. But something else that you said just a minute ago really struck me too. You talked about how, in some ways, every second counts, and I can resonate with that. I mean, I was a weird little kid. So I remember when I was seven or eight years old, basically, in tears because we only have so many years left. I know that's a strange little kid. But that's how I thought about it in many different ways. It's still how I think about it to this day. And I think that what strikes me when you're talking about that is, it seems like the questions that you were trying to figure out were about, "How do you want to spend your time, in many ways, for the upcoming years?" Is that how you thought about it? Or tell me more about all this.

Bob Kalish 12:24

Absolutely. And one of my biggest influence in my life is my wife. And I remember her saying to me at one point, and this was when we were in our 40s. She said, "Hey, let's think about where we want to retire to." And I was tired. And you know, that's so far away, right? And I was... So the response I gave, "I don't know. What do you think? In the mountains, the beach?" And she goes, "No, what country?" And I was like, "Oh my god, I'm gonna have to think about this." You know, she's that person in my life that makes me think of the bigger picture. So I've always looked at my life as kind of a timeline that you don't know when it ends, right? So you've got to, you know, I know at some point I want to retire. When I first came on, my goal was simple, Scott, when I first came on and signed on, I wanted to just get that last patch of my career to retirement. If I had to drag it across the line on my back, that's what I was gonna do. And one of your coaches changed my mindset so quick. And she said, "Well, what if you were doing the things you love to do with the people you love doing it with, why would you want to retire?" And I was like, oh boy, much like my wife thing, "What country?" I felt like, you know what, I probably wouldn't want to retire if I was having fun with the people I wanted to have fun with doing the things I wanted to do. So all of a sudden, my mind started opening up again.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:59

That's a great takeaway. That's a wonderful takeaway. And I think that leads us down the road of something I wanted to talk to you about. It seems like part of that takeaway happens through the process of experimentation. And I know that's something that before we started recording, we said, "Hey, we want to get deep into sharing what you've done from a career design and career experimentation standpoint", because I think you've done a really nice job. So I'm curious, would you be willing to share a bit about how you started thinking about experiments and then what you did initially, and then what that has led to now?

Bob Kalish 14:37

Yeah, absolutely. Originally, I thought this was weird.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:42

You're not the only one.

Bob Kalish 14:43

This is awkward. Not because I didn't like to talk to people or what, you know, it's not traditional, right? Nobody does that. It's something you have to learn to feel comfortable with for sure. And then you cannot forget it. You know, then it's just part of your DNA and speaking with people and experimenting. I spoke with a lot of different people in organizations through and I think my BS detector is really high. And as I spoke with people I could really figure out quickly whether I wanted to be part of an organization or not. I could really quickly determine whether they're "cultural on the wall", match their culture in the building. And I think, I don't know, the ratio was probably, I don't know, 20:1, 30:1, I don't know, before you got, "Whoa, this is really interesting." But through that, you're learning what you don't want to be so that you can learn what you do want to be. You don't know what that is, or good is until you see what that is, right? Getting out there and filtering through and seeing how people are happy or not happy, you know, reading people. And so as you're going through this experimental phase, you're going to see a lot of that, that transparency, if you keep your eyes open, and say, "You know what, I wouldn't fit in that organization. I'm going to probably move on and glad to know them, respectful of their time, but it's just not what gonna serve me right now."

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:26

There's so much buried in there. I want to just unpack that for just a minute. First of all, for a little bit of context, it sounds like you're referring to probably one of the most popular types of experiments that we'll often run, we call it the "Social Goldilocks", where you get to have lots of conversations relatively quickly with different people, different organizations in order to glean everything that you can and make some decisions about, "Is it the right organization for me? Is it the right set of people for me? Is this the right type of role for me? Etc." And I think something that stood out to me and just how you're talking about that is, you're saying, "Hey, it's not just about what their answers are, it's about how they answer. Am I getting the sense that they're actually happy? Am I getting the sense that they're feeding me a line of BS?"

Bob Kalish 17:17

I guess the best thing about the experimenting phase is there's really nothing to lose. And once I figured that out, it put me in the driver's seat, and I was going to be myself. I wasn't going to, I could have gone through the interview just fine. I go to interviews or conversations or an answer to any way they would have liked to hear. I chose not to. I chose to be myself and tell them the things that I was up to and what I had planned because it's a partnership. And I wouldn't want to go into any relationship with falsehoods, right?

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:58

Yeah. What advice would you give to someone who wants to be able to bring more of themselves and have more of themselves show up in those conversations? Because we all know that's important, right? Like, if I ended up getting an opportunity, if I've chosen to not be myself, then ultimately, I get hired for being somebody else, which doesn't help any, right?

Bob Kalish 18:20

Yeah, I think there's two things: identifying what is true to you, what is important, and showing discipline through the conversation. It's about weaving yourself into the conversation. It's not about going in there and demanding or telling them what you're going to be or what you're going to do. It's more of the conversation and how you weave it into the conversation. It should be natural. If you're talking to the right people, then they're asking the right questions. And that conversation isn't just, I don't know, I guess checking off boxes for them. That might be an indicator, right? I got that feeling from a few people that they immediately thought I was looking for work with them. And I was just experimenting and talking with them. And they were like, almost trying to press an interview. And I wasn't ready. And frankly, I didn't want to. After a short conversation, there's some people, you know, you don't want to waste their time, but you cut it off as soon as you can because you don't want to waste their time and you don't want to waste your time. But you leave it friendly, of course. And you're glad to meet them. It's just not a fit for you right now.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:38

Do you remember any of those conversations that stood out? That went particularly well where you feel like you did a great job of showing what was true to you and then showing some of that discipline in the conversation to be able to, insert it where it is organic, as opposed to just telling them, hey, I don't know, whatever the opposite would be, I guess. But tell me about one of those conversations and what you remember about it and how you did that.

Bob Kalish 20:06

I guess to come to mind: one was a very large company, and I was speaking with somebody in the organization. And I spoke about some of my passions. And they said, which really surprised me, like, wow, we never really thought about that. That might be something that you could cultivate through. And this is the coaching part. I was talking about, "I'd love to be a coach at some point, you know", and they said, "Well, we have a lot of chefs. And that might be something that's really interesting to us down the road. But, you know, we don't really have that position right now." You heard that before, right? We don't have that position. And like, that's great, but maybe down the road. And knowing that I had some work to do before I was their coaching. And it's one of the things that I'm actually moving toward is, you know, how do I get myself in a coaching position? Is that teaching? Is it actual executive chef coaching? Is it that position of helping that one person, like, we spoke about earlier, how do we do that? And how do we build a business model from that? Something you would probably be one of my connectors for, right? It's not easy. A lot of work.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:23

It is. Yes. It is a many year project for sure. So that's interesting, too, even just that one conversation that you're describing to where you are... I heard you say that you presented your passion or something that you were excited about rather, and in this case, someday doing coaching for chefs, or for that industry. And I think what's kind of cool that you described is that they responded to that, sounds like, emotionally, like, "Oh, wow. There could be something there." And then that's a level of feedback for you. Well, at the same time, it sounds like you also took away from that conversation, too, "Hey, I'm gonna need to collect some more experiences in order to do this in the way that I want." Both are really valuable pieces of feedback even though it sounds like for that organization, like nothing panned out beyond just exploring, right? One of the things that I wanted to ask you about too, is, you have done a really nice job, not just with some of the, what we might call "initial level experiments", like the social Goldilocks, what we just talked about as an idea of being able to connect with lots of people for short periods of time, and then be able to gather lots of information to make decisions about "Is this organization right for me? Is this role right for me?" That's a really common one that we do. And it's really valuable for many people. But it's not the only one. And I think that you've done a really nice job also doing other types of experiments where you're going into a role, what we might call "paid research" in one way or another if you're not completely sure this is something you want to do for a very long period of time. Can you tell us a little bit about what led up to these other types of experiments for you, and how they worked? And how you got to them?

Bob Kalish 23:14

Sure. Well, as you go through the process, you just start trying to think of everything possible that you could possibly do, and then scratch them off the list, right? And consulting came up. And I was like, "You know, that might be a great opportunity for me to look at things in a different light." I think what I liked about it was not being emotionally attached to one thing for too long. And, you know, go in there, get the job done, move on to the next thing, there's a certain freedom about that in my mind that I enjoyed. I thought if, while I was consulting, I could make a positive influence in the dynamics in the kitchen, if I could get the conversation going, if I could remove frustrations from the team, then maybe that might be something that would actually fulfill me– one case at a time, one job at a time. And so I kicked around the idea quite a bit. And yeah, I spoke with a larger company about consulting and just didn't get a great feel for it. Like, probably a little bit too much desk kind of stuff and not enough people. I spoke with a very successful consulting chef out of Texas, and, you know, very generous with his time. I was respectful and it was one of them five minute conversations that ended up being 35-40 minutes. Those are super, super helpful. And it got me a little closer to home and said, "Okay, that's something that interests me. But maybe not enough coaching yet." So that's kind of how I ended up where I am now in the experiment.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:08

That's so interesting. So then what ended up leading to the opportunity that you have now? Because right now you've been experimenting for roughly the last six months in a consulting role, right? How did that happen, Bob?

Bob Kalish 25:23

Yeah. Tight-knit community. I was fortunate enough that I connected with a regional restaurant tour. And I went and talked to him. And he's like, "What's going on?" And I've known him for 20 years. And I'm like, "Hey, well, this is kind of the..." you know, he goes, "Well, that's really interesting." And I was like, "Yeah, you know, it's tough to get started." And he's like, "Well, I started..." He said to me, "I started my career consulting. And we have a nice little portfolio now of restaurants, six concepts." And he said, "Why don't you start consulting for me?" And I was like, "What a wonderful idea to get started." And I mentioned a few other things that I was interested in as well, the transparency that we had talked about earlier. And he was interested in that. And so as I was telling you earlier about weaving things in the conversations, this is the ultimate. I not only was able to speak with somebody, which is always the best thing, just talking to somebody is always great, whether it leads somewhere or not.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:32

It creates that connection, right?

Bob Kalish 26:33

Yeah. But not only did we find a mutual need, an opportunity with each other, he saw a vision that I had, and was willing to even extend a hand and say, "Hey, I can help you with that, with connections. I have a dream about writing a book." And he's like, "Well, I can help you with that as well." So I started putting some connectors together. And all of a sudden, I found myself in a great situation with people I respect, everything that I kind of mapped out and put, I guess, everything's a filter. And all of my super strengths are one of the filters that people have, that organizations have to pass through for me to accept them, right? And we're not, you know, there's the bare minimum stuff that we talked about– the money, the benefits, whatever, you know, whatever the bare minimum is, all that needs to be there, it is important, right? But for me, it's not the entire package. It's just, that's just what needs to happen. And I think most people when they're looking for a new job, and air quotes, they're looking at just that package, and then hoping everything else is going to fall into place, the culture and being a valued employee and working within their strengths. But guess what, chances are, they didn't set themselves up for success. And what are they going to do next time? They're going to look for more money, right? How much is enough, Scott, right? Like, there's a balance act is all I'm trying to say. There doesn't have to be a cap on happiness, and salary or benefits. They're not mutually exclusive but they're all part of a package that you have to get together in your mind.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:25

What did you hope to learn from this particular experiment that you're... and I know, you actually have multiple experiments going on at the same time, which I think is super fun. That's very much how I live my life. Like its continuous experimentation, all the time, and that creates the variety that I need personally. But for you, when you set out in this and said, "Look, I'm going to accept this consulting role with this group. And it really sounds like a great opportunity for me", what did you hope to learn from that?

Bob Kalish 28:53

I wanted to, first of all, I wanted to see how I could influence an organization that consultants generally aren't like. They're coming in and they're telling everybody what they did wrong, right? And that's the perception. The reality is for myself. I want to come in and help. And I want to... I've been in their shoes before, and I want to relate to them. By the way, one of my signature strengths is relators.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:25

I am not surprised at all, Bob.

Bob Kalish 29:28

Yeah, I want to build their trust. And I want them to feel the victory. It's not my victory. I want them to feel victory. And I wanted to, part of the experiment was, to see if I could accomplish that. And the return on investment, frankly, that was super important to me early on in the experiment. I feel like I've covered that return on investment over time and over again. So that's not as much of a pressure for me right now. Even though I'm looking for opportunities to help the business in monetary ways, I know that what I've brought is enough that it wasn't a mistake bringing me on, let's just say that. And there's plenty of other opportunities for us to work in the future together too. And you can take it off in chunks, as people can handle it. Too much too fast, it's gonna lead to failure. But a steady line of that, of a strong foundation, is what I hope to provide for this group.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:32

That's interesting. So it sounds like part of your goal was to be able to prove to yourself as well, that you could deliver this type of value and do so in the way that you want it to show up. You and I sound like you've met some of the same consultants over the years. These are my expectations, which is amazing. And so what did, you know, now that you're six months into this, what do you feel like you have actually learned compared to what you hoped, or what surprised you?

Bob Kalish 31:04

I think what surprised me was needing to develop the self-discipline not to drive the initiative myself. And trying to create an awareness and a foundation of how you roll something out in a way that's going to last. It's not a quick email to the team and saying, "Hey, we're doing this now." It's the reasons why and what it really takes to have a successful rollout. And to take ownership and accountability to a rollout. That's something that was natural to me, and the follow through. And now I'm whispering in the background to somebody saying, "Hey, you might want to do this." "Hey, follow up with this" and let them take the responsibility and accountability.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:55

That's really interesting to you, for yourself. Part of it is, it sounds like, been developing self-awareness that you need to work differently than what you have in the past. So that's pretty amazing when you think about it because you're actively getting to contribute, while, at the same time, that you're getting these learnings, as well as developing how you want to do this in the future too. You're very much building the airplane as you're flying it, which is kind of wonderful.

Bob Kalish 32:25

That's fair. Yeah, I like it. The second thing I really wanted to get out of it was the interpersonal relationships with coaching people on how to be better bosses, leaders, whether it's suggesting a culture book to them at the appropriate time. I remember one of the chefs saying, "I'm frustrated. I can't seem to get these guys to listen to me right now. It's like, we're scattered" and I was able to suggest the book to them. And hopefully, we're in process of in reading that and what accountability looks like and why people struggle with getting their work done. And just taking another view, and evaluating leadership. One of the things that Megan and I talk about a lot is being a trail guide. It's something I stole from her unapologetically, I think she's stolen from somebody else. But, you know, if we could be a trail guide, I don't really know about mentorship anymore. It's a very long process, mentorship, but if we could be trail guides to each other for short term, for short time, maybe it's a long time, who knows. I think that fits better for what the way I look at things. If I could help trail guide somebody, and by all means, use resources around me to help get the things. I think there's a synergy in the community about that, that I like the way that feels, better than mentorship.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:53

Yeah, I agree. Mentorship is really interesting... It's an interesting word in itself. But I think it brings a lot of connotations for what people think of mentorship, and not all of them are useful is what I found out over the years. So I resonate more with the trail guide mentality as well, even though I've had many very wonderful mentors in a variety of different ways. But yeah, I can totally appreciate that. The one other question that I really wanted to ask you, we've got many people who have listened to this and we'll be listening to this that have made the decision to make a career change. But you and I both know that you don't just necessarily do all the work on paper, and then find some level of fulfillment in your next step. That's a rarity. Often it's where, I don't know, we'll throw in some analogies here. Like it's where the rubber meets the road is going to be the where you get out and get to interact with people and get various different types of experiments going so that you can have inputs coming in and recognize that, "Oh, hey, the type of culture that I thought I wanted isn't exactly what I wanted. I can now refine that. I now have a different level of knowledge and input to be able to do that." So my actual question for you as someone who has really changed a lot of their thinking around experiments is, what advice would you have for other people that really do want to find some level of fulfillment with their work and decide how they spend their time in a way that's good for them? And what can they do through experimentation?

Bob Kalish 35:34

Well, I think what they can do through experimentation is open up their mind to therefore open up doors, right? That's what they can do. That's the biggest thing that will come from it. I think the toughest part, maybe through is, getting yourself ahead of where you really are and saying, "Oh, wow, this might lead to a job", you know, and before you set out everything because that leads to disappointment, right? You have a false sense of building into something. Ultimately, yeah, you want a career that you're going to be happy with. But you can't make that out of something that's not there. And that experiment, getting rid of the "no's", so you can get to the "yes" can be a long process. It could be a short process. The first one might be the one, right? And you hit the fastball. The first pitch fastball, you have to hit it, right? But that chances are, that's not going to happen. And I wouldn't recommend that because you're probably going to miss. The timepiece is important. You can't put a time on it but the timepiece is important because you learn so much overtime– you evolve, your mind changes, at some point, it's going to lock in. And then filters are going to be established, and the process gets quicker, the more times you do it, and it becomes easier. And the first time it's so awkward, it just feels weird. That's all I can tell you– get over it. Just get over it, get to the next one, and that'll feel less weird. And it'll feel less weird after that. And then it'll be natural, and you'll be able to represent yourself in a way. And probably get closer to that, yes, every time you're doing it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:27

Walking. Learning to walk probably felt weird when we were one or two, but we just don't remember it. So every time do something new, worthwhile or not, it's gonna get to feel weird. So I really appreciate that advice.

Bob Kalish 37:42

My sister told me along the way, like, real change is real hard.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:48

Yes, as it turns out.

Bob Kalish 37:49

Yeah, there was times that resonated, for sure. But it's so worth it at the end. For me, it unlocked everything. I'm the best version of me I've ever been in my life right now. And I have a ton more to grow, for sure. But just knowing that I'm the best version of me, that's a big win, Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:15

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 39:07

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

Speaker 3 39:13

I was stuck in that mindset of, "But I have a degree. I really should be working in my degrees." I thought I couldn't make the connection. So the imposter syndrome kicked in that you don't have the skill set to do it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:25

What happens when everything you thought that you wanted to do for a career isn't? You go to school, you get an education, maybe even a master's degree, and then realize immediately upon graduation that what you got your education in it just isn't going to be your ideal career fit. So then what? Was it all a waste of time? How do we move into a new field? So many questions.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:52

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.