Kelly Poulson 00:04
So I have started to do audiobooks a little bit more so that when I have a long drive or when I’m at the gym or whatever it is, I have the ability, instead of me watching reruns on Netflix or whatever which is also easy for me to do, I’ve been listening to books much More.

Introduction 00:28
This is the Happen To Your Career podcast, with Scott Anthony Barlow. We help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what does and make it happen. We help you define the work that's unapologetically you, and then go get it. If you're ready to make a change, keep listening. Here's Scott. Here's Scott. Here's Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:52
How many people put down, read more books as one of their goals and failed to read all but maybe two of those before the year ends? If you’ve ever had read more books on your list of things that you want to do, want to accomplish within the given year, then this is going to be an amazing episode for you. And you know, quite frankly, we all know that reading is important for many different reasons. It's important for our minds, it’s important for our life’s potential. There’s a huge amount of studies out there, linking everything from reading more fiction or more frequent fiction on a more of frequent basis to your, yeah, increases in empathy and emotional intelligence all the way to some studies that link potential income, right? But here’s the thing, often sitting down to actually do these, sitting down to actually read, getting move to the bottom of our to-do-list almost every single time, right. And, we know that, it can be relaxing, we know it can provide those moments of refuge from our busy schedules but it also takes a tunnel of mental energy and even bandwidth. But here’s the thing, what if I told you that, there are ways to do this, there are ways to make it much easier, there are ways to be able to make reading fit seamlessly into your life, without tons of tons of extra effort and that’s exactly what we get to cover in today’s episode. How to make it easy to read maybe even two or more books a month and still get everything else done? And by the way I have with me the perfect person to be able to help with that, none other than HTYC career coach Kelly Poulson. How are you, Kelly?

Kelly Poulson 02:35
I’m doing very well, Scott. Excited to have the conversation today.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:38
So here’s a little bit of a back story. First of all, if you want all of Kelly’s back story and how she has created the work that she loves with her own life and how she came about working with us on HTYC team and everything else, then you can actually go back in the archives and listen to her episode. However, the reason I wanted to chat with Kelly about this, it seems like inevitably every single time or close, maybe not every single time, but close to every time that you and I talk, books come up some places, some place along the line. Is that fair to say?

Kelly Poulson 03:13
I would agree with that. Yes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:14
She's nodding vigorously along with it. You can't see it, but emphatic yes. Plus, we’ve learned that well, I don’t know, we’ve exchange book list and all kinds of things. I have added immensely to my book, to my personal book list based on conversations that you and I have had. I was like “Oh my goodness. I have to read that one.” So this is an ongoing thing and both of us wanted to be able to help you if you have this as a goal for either this year or any upcoming year. How to make this actually possible for you and, but wait there’s more, make some recommendations on what are some of the top books for your career as well as some of our personal top books overall and maybe even what’s on our personal reading lists. Let’s dive into this. Here's a question for you, Kelly. I don’t think you and I have ever talked about this, but have you ever set goals around reading in any capacity for yourself before? I don't know that I had until, maybe a couple of years ago, but has that ever been a thing for you?

Kelly Poulson 04:18
I don’t think I had. Which is weird because I set them probably around every other aspect in the world.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:23
Yeah, that’s why I was wondering because we’ve had many other conversations about goals and all kinds of other areas. And I think that, although not everybody has dumbness, I think it becomes a thing, it becomes a new year’s resolution list sort of thing where you can, like, “Ah, you know what? I just want to read more but we haven’t made it a priority.” So, I did for the first time, do that, and this was two years ago. This was in 2017, I believe. Right for the first time I ever said any kind of reading goals or whatsoever and decided I wanted to read 24 books in a year, right? Which sounded massive to me at that time because although reading had been a big thing for my life, I spent several years growing this business and decided that I wasn’t that reader as much quite frankly during that time. And I knew that I’d have to think about how to go from reading like 2 or 3 books a year making a massive adjustment to reading 24 books in one year. Cause it used to be, I don’t know how it was for you growing up, but I used to read like sometimes a book every a couple of days, or sometimes even a book a day when I was a kid. What was it like for you? Where did reading start for you, Kelly?

Kelly Poulson 05:36
Gosh. I don’t know if I remember. I remember I used to devour books all summer. So whether that was trying to avoid being out in heat or whatever. I remember, and it’s not uncommon now even when I’m going on a vacation to polish all five or something like that. It’s like it’s such a part of when I’m off, I guess, that’s when I’m reading the most.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:56
When you’re away from the rest of, I don’t know, normal life, normal schedule?

Kelly Poulson 06:01
Right! Whatever that means.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:02
Yeah, whatever that means. Yeah, I totally agreed. So, one of the things I think that I want to make sure that we’re covering today is, one: How you’re integrating reading into your life because I think you and I know both do it in different ways or have done it in different ways, for sure. Just like you pointed out, that, hey, where you’re finding that you are reading the most or have the or maybe even have the ability to read the most is when you are aware from whatever the normal see is. Went from one extreme to the other and went from reading virtually no books after getting used to reading tons of books to flipping the switch and going backwards. So, this past year, let say 2018, I think I read, right around 50 books or so? Which may or may not sound like a big number, I have no concept, it was big for me going from nearly zero to 24 to 50. But curious, how frequently did you go through books?

Kelly Poulson 06:59
Yeah… All I can say is, I can always tell on a vacation. Whenever I go somewhere with those people I might actually, French joke: I always have a candle loaded, I, and another book maybe and maybe another sort of option on my person at any time usually, I feel very worried Gilmore and that if you were Gilmore girls. But I know I’m on vacation for sure it’s not uncommon, I will say, “Alright I’m going for X amount of days. I have to double the amount that I think I’ll read because it will be so infuriating if I don’t have enough for a while I'm away. The rest of the time it can really vary and it depends on how into a certain book I am or how busy, you know, the business is or, I also have the different switching when I’m listening to the books versus reading, there’s a different experience there in terms of how many simultaneously. So I’m just one of those few people that wouldn’t start a new one until I finish the one previously and I realize that it doesn’t serve me any longer.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:56
You know… That’s actually a great point, an incredibly great point. And I just want to repeat what you’ve said because I think people might miss out. So the number one thing is, just making sure that they’re available. Making sure that, if for you it sounds, like, you need the book and then you need the on-deck book and then you need whatever comes behind the on-deck book and then even some more after that to make sure that you’ve got the job done and that they’re available and you don’t run out for all intents of purposes and it sounds like such a small thing but I found that, that’s actually really really important. When I have small pockets of time to read in one way shape or perform it will talk about where to find those pockets here in just a little bit. If I don’t have that, all the tendency to do something else or could’ve chosen to be able to read and whatever it might be. Speaking of those small pockets, one of the biggest hacks that I’ve found, especially if you’re listening to this right now, I’m guessing that if you are listening to a podcast you probably enjoy consuming information or content or entertainment or whatever your category of choices through audio means. And that’s actually one of the biggest hacks that I’ve found personally. I used to read everything in a physical book and actually still really love reading physical books. But, I found that after I had kids and, I don’t know, started a business, and started travelling.... it became more difficult to do that. And instead, found that I can load up my, go to audible.com, and load up my Iphone with tons of books and do just like you’re talking about where I’ve get the book and I’ve got the on-deck book and then I get the book behind the on-deck book as well. So, I’m curious about that for you. Do you mostly read physical books or what works for you, what do you prefer?

Kelly Poulson 09:53
Mostly the, as you mentioned, when life changes, I notice that I was reading last the first year when I left my full time job where I was in the house and taking a train every day. So I have started to do audio books a little bit more so that when I have a long drive or when I’m at the gym or whatever it is, I have the ability, instead of me watching reruns on Netflix or whatever which is also easy for me to do, I’ve been listening to books much more. So I’m glad that I tried it because I think I tried it years ago, and didn’t like the English whoever the voiceover was. Did you turn for it? And then walked away and I’m glad I came back, because it certainly made a difference in my ability to learn.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:37
Yeah… I think you and I have had that conversation before, not in a recorded fashion where, narrator, especially for fiction books, can make such a difference in some ways.

Kelly Poulson 10:47
Absolutely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:48
I found you’re just looking at that as a profession, like voiceover artists, some of the ones that do such an amazing job or actually really in demand and really incredibly well paid to. It just makes such a different for the book like, if you go, if you start out listening to Harry Potter, as an example, and that’s your standard, that’s kind of very very top. So, if you go and you listen to JK Rowlings and Harry Potter then they’d done a really nice job. And then you try and go and listen to some other type of fiction book and like, “Oh my goodness! This is, like, I thought this is what all the books were gonna be like” and it’s yeah. So maybe, don’t start there with the, you have listened to…

Kelly Poulson 11:28
My suggestions, if the author read it themselves, I typically like that or especially when it’s someone’s life story obviously it’s worth compelling coming from them, that was probably my most successful audible kickoff was when that was the case.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:41
That’s a really great point, actually I really love that too. If you are just starting to get into listening to books on audio and you want to pursue this as a hack for your life, I think it could be a great hack, that because you can just pull out your Iphone and, you know, on the way to work or on the train or wherever you happened to be, listen for 15 minutes or 20 minutes. But, make sure that if you’re apprehensive about it, maybe start with those author read books or something else along those lines. I don’t know if you do this ‘cause I don’t think we have this part of the conversation before but, do you speed up your listening times?

Kelly Poulson 12:24
I didn’t until I was half way through something, actually recently. And it was taking so long. And I think I scanned a lot so I can get through things quickly and I thought a kind of world am I still listening to this, love the book, don’t get me wrong. But, so then I played around with it ‘cause I think you do need to have… gradual, right. ‘Cause I think, at first, I went too fast and the voices sounded like a chipmunk and that’s not your intent. Now if you really wanna learn you don’t want me to speak through it. So I played around a little bit with the pace and I have started to do that more regularly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:57
Very cool. So, the backstory here; if you haven’t used an audio player to listen to books before, most of them allow you to choose to listen to it on different speed. So you can listen to it on normal, speed which would be 1x or, you know, 1.5x which would be, one and a half speed, or 2x and some even go up to 3x. The one’s like audible as an example. The voice was still sound similar it’ll just, so one sound like “Alvin and the chipmunks” necessarily. But, it will speed up the voice overall. And if you want to pursue this, this is probably the one thing, one of the biggest things that allowed me to read 50-ish books this past year instead of 24, is getting very used to listening to it on 2x or even 2.25 speed. And to your point Kelly, it takes a little bit of working up in finding your own preferences because just listening to the books and just accomplishing, you know, reading the book is not necessarily gonna be that useful for most people. Most people want the entertainment or education or what you’re gonna get at out of the book along with. So, what I would recommend if you’ve never done that before is start out on 1.5 or 1.25, something that's less than 2x speed but if you stop and think about it, if you can consume a book in 2x speed and that’s exactly half the time. So it literally takes less time to be able to go through a book and at this point I listened to about at least a book a week, is what I found on 2x speed. And it can get through most of them really really fast. But I wasn’t able to internalize the content and how I gradually worked up to that 2x speed, I had trouble doing that. It sounds like you’ve had your own preferences on that too.

Kelly Poulson 14:55
Yeah, 2x is intimidating. I'm not there yet. But now I have a new goal.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:59
Now you have reading goal, right?

Kelly Poulson 15:01
Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:01
First ever reading goal you heard it here first. Okay. So here’s another thing that is really incredibly useful that sounds counterintuitive, as well, is I found, and you can tell me your thoughts on these too because everybody is a little bit different but for the most part, when you’ve got stake in the game or when you’ve got invested interest then you’ve got a higher chance of following through if you have a particular goal and right now, we’re talking about readings, so, one way to create stake in the game for myself was buying an audiblement membership or buying the books outright so that I felt like I had something invested into it and that was really really incredibly helpful.

Kelly Poulson 15:42
Yeah. I don’t have an audible membership. Hopefully you’re gonna accept me for that. But, the accountability piece I get you right, like the financial investment similarity to team book clubs even though I know they’re very old school. If I commit to a book club, I’m the kind of person that I can’t just show up with a bottle of wine and pretend like I read it, like I will read every last page because that’s the commitment that I made.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:07
Yeah, absolutely! And I think that it’s going to be different for every individual person and typically for things like this, you’ve got four different categories that people fall into with where you feel accountability. By the way, great resource on that, go back to our episode with Gretchen Rubin where we talked about ‘The Four Tendencies’ and there’s lot of data and studies and research on these but Gretchen defined it so well into those different four categories or what motivates you or what causes you to feel accountable based on where you place importance and expectations. But otherwise though, you know, a value on what’s gonna work for yourself, if it’s going to work for you to join the book club, if it’s going to work for you to make your habit cost money in one way or another, then… by all means do it. And if you’re unsure, then experiment with a couple of things. Another thing that has going back and combining it together with the availability and then also making the habit cost money, that’s work really while for me, is being able to.. as soon as I hear about the book, just buy it. That has been something that has worked incredibly while for me. What I used to do, is I used to keep a big long list on evernote and then, maybe, I’d go back to the list and get really complicated. I'd prioritized it and now at this point particularly, if it.. I don’t know if you do this for fiction books but I definitely do it for non-fiction books, if I hear about it and I wanna read it, I just buy it and then there it’s waiting for me in my audio queue, so that it’s always available plus I have the extra incentive for me that I’ve spent money on it so I’m going to find the time, make the time to listen to it. How do you think about that, or what else do you do in order to feed your habit of reading? I would say you are in a different stage compared to what some people might be; some people are, like, trying to figure out how to read more. In your case, it’s more of a lifelong habit in a lot of ways and how did you continue to feed that habit?

Kelly Poulson 18:04
Well, it sounds like an old school Scott version. I have an amazon list that’s incredibly long but I don’t buy them when it happens, which is, you know, and then I also have a few tools: one of which is relatively known and I cannot remember the name of it, so hopefully I will and we can add it later. But basically it checks for availability on hoopla which is where I get library books through my local library. So it will tell me if something’s in my amazon and I’m about to buy it if it’s available for e-read there, it’s just makes extension that I added so then it tells me whenever it’s available, and that was in the last, it was probably in January reading related thing and has made huge difference because a lot of what I would’ve purchase exists out there in the library, and I just didn’t, wouldn’t have thought of it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:53
And that’s such a great point too. And yeah, if, so that’s an extension that works with hoopla? Is that just what I heard you say?

Kelly Poulson 19:00
Well, it does for me. But I think it works with most library systems. That happens to be the one that’s connected to my library.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:09
Cool. So, by the way, for everything that we’ve talked about and then links to, you know, links to all the resources that we’re talked about you can go to: happentoyourcareer.com/271 (cause this is episode 271) and everything that we’re talked about will be right there in a nice, easy to read format. But, hoopla overdrive there’s several out there as well that are very very useful too. Let’s say that you are not in the position where you want to or can spend the money or maybe that isn't that helpful for you. But still want to pursue this as a goal, then both those are pretty amazing options. Found that most libraries have all of the books. Not maybe, not all of them but a good portion of anything that want to read whether it’s, even if it’s more obscure they might still have one copy available.

Kelly Poulson 20:01
More than you realized.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:02
Way more. Yeah! So definitely utilize those two. We find that, especially for fiction books we check a lot of those out from the library, so we have like way too many on our audible account that are nonfiction and then we have tendency to listen to on car trips when we go as a family, we listen to whatever book it is that we’re excited about or the family has mentioned. And a lot of time for using overdrive which connects up to our local library. So, yeah… Great suggestions. See if you can find that Google extension, by the way.

Kelly Poulson 20:37
I'm sure I will, yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:38
Okay cool. We’ll link that up and make sure that you have that there too. That way, we can find what might be at your library as well. Here are quick recap of what we’ve covered to make it easier as well. So having those books on deck, making sure that they’re available and instead if you’re finding trouble actually, like, sitting down with the physical book or anything else along those lines, try listening to books instead. And, you know, using something like an audible account, finding what’s going to work for you and potentially even making your habit cost money or finding a way to make it more accountable for yourself, if you got this as a goal. And then, even if it doesn't cost money, being able to use, especially, for the availability, using things like hoopla or like overdrive or like other pieces of technology that can connect you to the books in one way or another. Whether it’s free three or library and all you have to have is a library card or whether it is something like audible. Okay! So we’ve got all of those pieces. Here’s what I’m curious about though. I’m curious about what you have encountered over the years, Kelly. That you would recommend for some of your top career books. I’ve got my own list here, we’ll talk about that in a minute here, but I’m super curious about, what have you found to be most useful for yourself or for other people for your career?

Kelly Poulson 22:04
Sure. So, one is a very recent and I wonder how people will received it as a career book so I recently finished Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” and that I thought when I think about the people that we work with regularly and the process that they used and how they come to flourish and in terms of what how they find what there’s most interested in and build that network and meet people, she did that on her book, in my opinion. So through her whole life you get to see all that worked for someone that’s so high profile and in with, you know, the background that she has, so I just figure with… for me, reading it thinking like “Oh, my clients’ still want one of these things.” That was just really cool to see in someone who we all know of, and how it worked effectively for her.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:53
Awesome. I have not read that.

Kelly Poulson 22:56
I recommend it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:57
Cool. What's next?

Kelly Poulson 22:59
I think this one was last year{23:00], “Weird in a World That’s Not” so I tend to gravitate towards authors who were very draft. Who, you know, it’s no beats speak or anything like that. I have a very variable tolerance for that kind of thing. So she, this woman, Jennifer Romolini, tells her story and how she patch things up in her career and how she’s learning different things and has a lot of practical advice but still a human being, and I think often when it comes to career books, she finds some matter very, either one into this spectrum than the other. They’re either all advice and there’s not a human being or they’re all story and there’s not anything that you can actually take, like actionable. So I think she did a very solid job of, you know, making it okay that you’re gonna batch something up and that, it doesn’t end it and here’s how you keep it and find the next thing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:54
Very cool. Very cool. And number three on the Kelly list of top career books.

Kelly Poulson 24:02
So I would probably say the “The New Rules of Work” that’s by Kathryn and, what’s her name, Alex, the folks of Muse. They did a book that is broken into pieces so it’s all throughout the course of your career, so some of it is exercises where you gain insights in that kind of thing and tactics. And then, some of it is a little bit more about what’s in the world, how to successfully navigate things and then how to plan your next. So, I just think that’s probably more on the tactical side of things than stories though they give great examples and drafts and, you know, email samples that people can use. So I think that one, I’m a fan of it as well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:41
Yeah. We had, by the way, we had if you want an additional reference to that. Back on episode (let’s try to look up here really quick) but we had Kathryn Minshew on, geez, probably about a year ago or so. You can go ahead and Google “The New Rules of Work: Happen To You Career” and it will pop right up there, Google Kathryn Minshew, spelled M-i-n-s-h-e-w and then Happen To Your Career, it will pop right up too. But, really what they did is they covered a lot very very broadly and then gave a lot of good tactics. They didn’t certainly go incredibly deep into every single one. So if you’re looking for a really deep guide on one particular area that’s probably not it, if you are looking for a good overview where you can reference different pieces and, you know, pull out a script or pull out something else, then I would say that’s a great one for that.

Kelly Poulson 25:45
I agree. I think that they went very broad, but helpful, for sure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:49
Yeah. Very cool. Any others on your top career books list?

Kelly Poulson 25:54
I assure you I’m not picking people that you had on a podcast but I also know that you had, right, the author of “How to be Everything”

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:01
Yeah, Emilie. Emilie’s becomes a good friend over the last 4 or 5 years, I guess it’s been, I think I’ve known her for about 5 years. But yeah, that is a great book especially for people that are interested in many things or suspect they might be passionate about more than just one thing, right? What's the name of the book?

Kelly Poulson 26:22
“How to be Everything”. How to be Everything. She introduces the concepts of multipotentialites. And I had plenty of scenarios with clients who even hearing that that’s a true thing, that it exists and they’re not alone, really love that and her whole story about how you don’t have, it’s not as though, we’re not me it’s just anymore where you pick one job and that’s what you do for the next 20 or 30 years and that’s perfectly acceptable and you can do 5 different things, simultaneously, if that’s what lights you up. So I can get the permission and then she tells her story on how she navigated her career.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:54
Yeah. Emilie is phenomenal. She’s been on the Happen to your Career podcast two times now. So she’s a repeat cast, in fact, and we have brought her back when she wrote the book and will absolutely recommend it. She is back in Episode 220, so you can go to: happentoyourcareer.com/220 and then it will pop right up, as well. Any others that you have on your mastery books for careers?

Kelly Poulson 27:24
Not necessarily. I mean, I think for the career piece a lot of it ends up being autobiographies or biographies can be really valuable too and we overlooked that sometimes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:34
Yeah. You know I found the exact same thing too and I was thinking about my own personal list and recommendations for careers, I actually, I didn’t put any autobiographies on the list but I have found those incredibly useful for that same purpose because everybody goes through, not the same journey, but the same milestones in the journey, if they’re really looking for fulfillment or more purpose or higher impact or career happiness, life happiness and all the things that go along with it, everybody has the sort that hit the same milestones along the way and have some of the same “aha”. It may happen completely different ways but I found that really very helpful too. So I’m glad you brought that up. And I’m curious if you’ve read any of these, as well. One of the books that I had on here is “Drive” by Daniel Pink, who we’ve also had the podcast actually, a while back, but he does such a masterful job, pulling together different pieces of data and research and putting it together in a way that is actually useful and entertaining because for most of us, reading through research is gonna be dry and boring, then quite frankly, not all of that helpful to pull out, you know, a couple little tiny nuggets that are gonna be really useful. So, Daniel goes through and he takes all that and puts it into a really 3 particular categories that just make a difference and move the needle in finding where your motivation and purpose and ultimately fulfillment comes from and what are the levels that impact that. So if you want to know more about that, absolutely put “Drive” on your list. Another one is, I think several of these would not think about, most people would not think about them as career books, “Total Money Makeover “ by Dave Ramsey, so most people look at that and go “that’s a finance book” however, have you read it by the way?

Kelly Poulson 29:27
I have not.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:28
So here’s the thing that I found, is that your finances are directly linked to your career in many many different ways, and you and I both know this. First of all, if you have other goals besides just to work , the amount of finances that your bringing in from you career, if that’s your main source of income, have a tendency to influence what you can do in the world because money is a tool and in many ways, most of us have some kind of need for it at a minimum but also for us to accomplish of the things, money becomes a new great tool to be able to make that happen. And what I found is that, if you can create more money for yourself, or you can understand how to completely remove what you might owe, in terms of debt or other things like that, and then make all of your money work for you, for lack of a better phrase, then it creates additional clear options for you. It takes away, and removes a lot of those situations for people feel like they’re stuck in certain scenarios or feel like “I can’t leave a job that I hate because I’m making a hundred and fifty thousand dollars and I’m worried about whether or not I’m gonna make a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the next job” and it just eliminates the ton of that. And if you have a whole bunch of savings and you’ve done a nice job there and you don’t have any debt, you don’t owe anybody or anything, it just creates two things that I found for myself and my life and my family’s life, one, is it creates a whole bunch more options. Second thing is, it creates a whole bunch of additional energy that when I have a ton of debt, I didn’t realized I was being consumed, I didn’t realize there was tons of mental bandwidth and creative energy that was being consumed just by having those extra pressures there until it was gone, and then I was like “Oh! Oh! This is what life can be like.” So Total Money Makeover is a really great blueprint to remove any kind of debt and also be able to make those additional options work for you in your life and be able to create savings that all those we should do but don’t necessarily know how to do, or thinks it’s possible for ourselves. Another one, have you ever read “Purple Cow” by Seth Godin?

Kelly Poulson 31:45
I have not.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:46
Oh my goodness. I think you would enjoy this. It’s a short read, it’s a marketing book, it’s intended to be a marketing book, but I have found it to be so amazing for careers because it forces you to look at things through a different land. So, the pretext for it is, Seth Godin is talking about marketing and products and all the things like that, but you could just, every place has a marketing you could enter your career Into it or what you do, or advancement or anything about your career that you want to accelerate. So, he tells a story at the beginning of the book, where he and his family were driving through the countryside in the UK. And if you’ve ever been in the countryside in the UK, especially as you get up more North, it’s very grassy, there’s lot of cows, lots of sheep and, you know, some kind of rolling field in some ways. And, at first, he and his family were like “Hey! There’s a cow. Oh, there’s a cow.” And then they start seeing just tons of tons of cows, and at some point they are like “Yeah… This is.. Okay, we’ve seen it. We’ve seen one cow, they all look the same.” Alright, it’s not amazing anymore, it was pretty at first and it make some point that that’s really what life is like and also in what marketing is like or being able to stand out amongst others, everything kinda seems the sames after awhile, everything seems sort of vanilla or, you know, or chocolate-vanilla type choices in some ways. And he said, “You know what, you know what it would be really amazing, you know what people would talk about, you know what would move forward in life, would be, if we saw a purple cow. That would be something.” And, so he goes on to be able to showcase how do you actually stand out in a sea of what is normally, you know, vanilla. And I found that to be so incredibly effective for any in all areas of your career from getting new jobs to getting promoted within, just by anything you want to do. So, all the same concepts, although it's talked about in the marketing framework, are really helpful there. “Grit” what about this one? Have you read “Grit” from Angela Duckworth?

Kelly Poulson 33:55
I have. Yes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:55
Okay. Alright! What did you think? Obviously not on your top 5, but curious what you thought overall.

Kelly Poulson 34:02
Oh, it was good. I mean, I think there’s a lot.. there are similar time frames, I suppose. There are a lot of people riding about this topic with different tips on it. So I also, you know, like, read growth mindset and all these different things. So I feel like I appreciate every individual's slightly different tip on it. I remember I enjoyed it, I won’t tell you that I remember specifics cause I don’t.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:24
Okay, so here’s what I thought and I don’t think you even need to read the whole thing on this one to get the most useful pieces out of it. So, the full title by the way says it all: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. And she does such a great job helping you to understand what really makes a difference for being able to accomplish things that you want and become greedier and also what makes a difference in terms of developing passion within your work. A lot of people talk about passion in the context of finding passions, I kinda hate the word passion in some ways because it gets tossed around and is so loosely used like “Ahh.. If only I can find my passions” and…

Kelly Poulson 35:09
What does that even mean?

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:10
What does it even mean? Exactly! Exactly! So she breaks down all the scientific evidence around her, around passion and how it actually works. And it really is much more of a case of developing passion not finding it, like you go treasure hunting, doesn’t work that way. So, let’s put it together in a way that becomes much more useful if you’re reading it for those purposes. The last one is, there’s probably 2 or 3 books that could fit in here, “Stumbling on Happiness” have you read that one?

Kelly Poulson 35:41
I have not, but I've probably... there's so many books on happiness as well that I'm a fan of.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:45
Yeah, there are a lot out there. Okay. So the reason I could’ve said the couple of them in here is there are actually a variety of good books on happiness. A lot of them reference the same research, the same studies, a lot of it goes back to the founder of positive psychology whose name is Dr. Martin Seligman, and even though they all link back there a lot of them approached it in completely different ways. So one of my favorite was Stumbling on Happiness whose by psychologist, Daniel Gilbert, and if you listen to this book I think it’s so much better, it’s read by the author and he has just such a dry witty ironic sense of humor and I don’t think it comes across as well if you just read the book through the text. But when you listen to him, you’ll be like, it is a hilarious book on top of being incredibly useful for understanding what makes a difference in our day-to-day lives or happiness. So, looking for a book on understanding career happiness in particular but also overall happiness, that’s a great one that I’ve found. Okay! How about non-career books? And then also, what the, a masters of couple out here, what would you say didn’t make the career book list but you still think deserves an honorable mention just because it’s such a great book in one way or another?

Kelly Poulson 37:13
I intertwined them so much so it’s like mere impossible for me to even think about them differently. Well, I know what’s coming, didn’t make the list, right. But they part two, Atwood's “Handmaid’s Tale” it’s coming out this year, so I’m excited about that. I think that it would be an interesting one especially...

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:31
I’m not familiar with that. What is the…

Kelly Poulson 37:33
So Margaret Atwood's the woman who wrote Handmaid's Tale, which is now the ever extremely popular, I think award winning Hulu show.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:41
Oh, okay.

Kelly Poulson 37:42
And now this book is coming out and.. and then theory, I’m sure has nothing to do with the one of those, I’m sure she is the part of the Hulu thing, kind of like Game of Thrones, right? You don’t follow one to the other because they’re probably quite different from each other, so we’ll find out. So I’m excited about that one for sure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:03
Alright, much anticipated then. Much Anticipated. For me, a couple that hadn’t made my career book list but I would’ve absolutely recommend, number one would be, and a lot of people have read this but if you haven’t or even if you wanna read this the second time, I think would be really useful: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and a lot of people I heard of like “The 10,000 hour rule” because that was the book that made that statement popular and it doesn’t come from, actually fun facts, doesn’t come from Malcolm Gladwell, it actually comes from the guy who researched it but Malcolm made it popular through that book. But it’s such a great book for understanding how success happens or can happen, and the point that I took away from that was like, in some other ways, that you can engineer your own success in the areas that you want to even though that wasn’t the entire intention of the book. The other one, I absolutely love the Lord of the.. I’m a total nerd this way, I love the “Lord of the Rings” series. I would always put that as an honorable mention in some place, personally. Actually I just re-read it with my kids.

Kelly Poulson 39:20
Yeah. Very cool.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:21
Yeah, which I hadn’t read in a while so we went through the entire series and then we often won't let them watch the movies or anything until they’ve brought the book for maybe semi-obvious reasons if you enjoy reading that all. But, we just read that recently and I didn’t realize until going through it, this is probably the third time I’ve read that series, just how masterful it is in storytelling. And I have found that being able to tell great stories in one way or another is an incredibly useful career thing but also it just, I don’t know, probably makes it more enjoyable for you to be around with other people too or at least for them from their perspective. So..

Kelly Poulson 40:04
Absolutely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:04
Plus it’s just freaking awesome set of books, in general. Alright! So those are my list. Anything else that you would add that didn’t make the cut, any place else that you’re just like “Hey. It has to be on here, would not be complete.”?

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:19
It’s another.. It hasn’t existed yet. Ben Folds is coming out of the book.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:26
Okay. Alright. Tell me about this because I love Ben Folds but I didn’t even realize that he was coming out of the book.

Kelly Poulson 40:32
Well see, I’m a total nerdy super fan and I think it’s September 2019. But it's his story. So I watched his Google Talk recently, and he was referencing it. It’s his story but I think what’s fascinating about him, he often does VIP things that it shows where you haven’t “asked me anything about music” section with him. And I’ve attended those and I actually walked out with all these notes thinking like “Oh my gosh! I need to write about this like it’s so inspirational.” And one of the things when I went to the last one was somebody asks him, you know, like, he can play the drums, obviously plays a piano, can sing, can write, and how does he identified in terms of his talents and his careers, and he said, I forget exactly, I’m seriously sort it was song writer first, drummers second, piano third. And I just kept thinking like “mindblown” how everyone in the world sees him as he’s very talented piano player and that’s third in his own thought process of, you know, what he’s meant to be doing, which I just thinks it’s really interesting ‘cause you just never really know what else is out there, who everyone in the world sees him as X but for them it’s really about Y.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:38
That’s interesting. That’s super fascinating. I think in some ways that actually ties back to the multi-talented, multi-passionate concept that we’re talking about earlier with “How to be Everything” an Emilie Wapnick’s book, as well. Okay. So, now I’m excited for this too. And on that note, I’m gonna encourage you to develop your own list, you can take our recommendations but quite honestly, this entire episode is about: How do you read more for the things you really want to know about or enjoy or educate yourself on or being entertained by. So, take some of our tips, figure out what’s gonna work for you, experiment with them and then take some of our book recommendations and, again, develop your own. Go beyond that and find the one’s that you’re excited about because I found that more so of what we’ve just talked about, like finding stuff that you’re actually legitimately excited about or looking forward to, is probably even more powerful than any of the tips and hacks we’ve discussed as well.

Kelly Poulson 42:39
Absolutely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 42:39
Kelly, thank you so much for jumping on here and nerding out about books, for the last 35-40 minutes here. I really appreciate it. And you can find anything we’ve talked about including book recommendations even of few that, you know, will add to... we have on our list but we didn’t even discuss yet and some other one’s that we’re looking forward too as well, we’ll link all of those pieces up at happentoyoucareer.com/271, you’ll see all over there. And by the way, we have so much more coming in store for you, next week right here on the happen to your career podcast.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 43:18
Because if you're not willing to, or you're uncomfortable with having that kind of a conversation, you're never going to have people with who you can do coaching for it's going to be a business for you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 43:29
Alright, all that and more coming up right here on Happen To Your Career, next week and we’ve talked about tons of books, and if you love to read I’ve got one of the things that would be really incredibly valuable for you to read too. If you’re ready to create and live a life that really is unapologetically you and live more in your strengths and spend more of your time working in your strengths, check out our ultimate guide to using your strengths to get hired, find your signature strengths and do what you love and what you great at and how you can bring value to the rest of the world in your organizations that you’re working with. You can do it two different ways, we’ll make it super easy on you. One you can just text us, text MYSTRENGTHS to 44222 or you can visit hiredforstrengths.com. We’ll see over there. Alright! Until next week. I am out! Adios!

Kristy Wenz 00:02
There are some things I like about it. But it's kind of been alone and doesn't get very exciting. And it just there was really no upward mobility. It kind of lost its bluster to me at that point.

Introduction 00:16
This is the Happen To Your Career podcast, with Scott Anthony Barlow. We help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what does and make it happen. We help you define the work that's unapologetically you, and then go get it. If you're ready to make a change, keep listening. Here's Scott. Here's Scott. Here's Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:40
What if you were literally stuck in your job? Not because you couldn't leave and not because it was a terrible situation, by the way, I'm using air quotes for terrible, but instead, because if you left, you didn't know what else you do.

Kristy Wenz 00:58
I had this doubt that I would be taken seriously in a different industry, because it really was an industry shift for me. So I was very scared about being taken seriously. And are they just gonna think you know, I'm just some nut that just wants to do this just because I have no experience.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:14
That's Kristy Wenz. She started a marketing and communications company a while back, yeah, a number of years ago. And at first, it was awesome. It was everything she wanted, it was challenging her in all the right ways. And then one day, she found she was hitting the snooze button. And she'd never done that in her entire life. She knew she was going to need to leave, she knew she was going to need to do something different. But seriously, what else would she do? If not this, then what? And that's where we got the opportunity to meet her. Here's her story of exactly how she went from listening to this very podcast, and all the way to getting her own job offer, created for her, working in wine and tourism and most of all, writing and communications. Here's her story.

Kristy Wenz 02:07
I am officially the chief communications officer with winetraveler.com. And it's sort of a hybrid of roles that kind of involves operations as well as kind of a chief of staff angle, and obviously, the communications piece. So it's really kind of a self created role that I designed with the CEO of the company. And it's been fantastic so far. I've been at it for about a month here and things are going really well. I'm very excited and thoroughly happy for the first time in my career, perhaps in my life.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:38
No small effort on your part, I know that we got to take along for the ride and participate on the journey. But you've done some really amazing work. And we're going to talk about what went into that both the good things and maybe the harder things too at the same time. But let me first of all, just say congratulations, because I don't think you and I have actually talked since it has happened other than over email. So.

Kristy Wenz 03:00
Exactly, exactly. The official. After I rang the bell, got to ring that awesome bell. Pretty awesome. Yay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:08
And here's the thing that I wanted to ask you about first, why was this such an exciting role for you? What about it really lined up with what you wanted? Because you did some amazing work identifying what would create an ideal career for you. But this lines up in so many different ways. So what are some of those ways?

Kristy Wenz 03:25
Oh, there's so many. I mean, it really kind of ticks all my buckets. I love travel. I love wine. I like history and culture. So I knew that that had to be a part, right, I wanted that to be a part of whatever I did. I also needed something that was going to be flexible and allow me to work remotely, kind of on my own hours. And I put in a lot of time, but it's at my schedule, which is wonderful, especially as a mom. So that was a huge piece for me. And it's really allows me to do all of that, I get to write, I get to be a manager, I get to jump in with ideas. I have a seat at the table and work with a dynamic group of people that are really amazing. And that was important to me as well. Just working with like minded people, people with similar values, and kind of have the same goals and missions that I did. And this really everything fell into line. And I honestly did not think it was possible even six months ago.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:17
Isn't that crazy?

Kristy Wenz 04:19
Yeah, it's insane. But it all really came together and fits everything so far.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:24
That is so amazing. And we hear that same thing too, like, you know, when people enter our world, they hope it's possible. And I think that you did too. You had this hope that could be a reality. But a lot of times, you know, as we get the opportunity to meet people, I don't know that we entirely believe it's possible. It sounds like that was true for you too.

Kristy Wenz 04:42
Exactly. There was definitely the hope that it would be possible and even if, you know, I got some of the pieces that would have been better than where I was. So hopefully that there'll be something that I could take from it but not expecting really to have all my box checked off of me that really just kind of blows me away still like pinch myself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:59
I know. That's so phenomenal. But it wasn't like prior to six months ago and even before that, you know, this was far, far from a reality. And what I'm curious for you is, first of all, what led up to even wanting to make this change in the first place? Because you haven't always done this exact same sort of thing, certainly in this way. So where did first of all your career started? What sent you down this path to eventually wanting to make this type of change too? Help me understand that.

Kristy Wenz 05:28
Yeah, absolutely. So I actually started in-house marketing decades ago, and then eventually led to public relations, and I worked for a small boutique agency. I liked it at the time, it was exciting, it was new, I learned a lot, I made some fantastic connections and ended up staying in that industry for 20 years, and eventually owning my own business in that industry. So it was interesting to have my own company and be able to design that in a way that fit my lifestyle. But it wasn't satisfying enough for me, if that makes sense.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:58
In what way? I'm curious.

Kristy Wenz 05:59
I eventually kind of learned as much as I could learn, kind of hit a wall there. And there was no way for me to advance anymore. Like I take on new clients and new projects who still had diversity. But it was in an industry that, frankly, was is not very exciting to me, there are some things I like about it, but it's kind of been alone and doesn't get very exciting. And it just there was really no upward mobility. It's kind of bluster to me at that point. And the thing that held me to it was the flexibility that I had, I was able to work from home and work with people I wanted to work with in terms of my own company, clients were a different story. But the flexibility is really what kept me going, it was able to work from home, be with my kids while they were young. And that just really made a huge difference in my life. And I wouldn't trade it for the world. I mean, we had some amazing vacations, we had, you know, time at home with the kids. And so it really... been able to kind of keep up with my career and have a role that I was content with, I wouldn't say happy with but I was content with. And then about 2015, I really kind of started to realize, you know, this isn't really what I wanted to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:06
What caused you to realize that?

Kristy Wenz 07:07
I had an opportunity to go in-house with a client a couple days a week. And the first year of that was it's so thrilling and exciting. I was creating a marketing department, they had one but it was really, you know, low production, low morale, they were losing people left and right. And so I got to come in and own something and turn it around and turn it into a successful program. And that was, I loved it. I was you know, out with people in downtown. And that was all very exciting. But again, in that same industry that I was kind of getting tired of. So I knew that I needed something more. And this gave me a little bit of that. And so I kind of wanted to start exploring. And that time we were actually leaving for a sabbatical in Europe. And I knew I was gonna be gone for seven months. So but this would be a great opportunity to kind of really explore things, come back and know what I wanted to do. And present didn't happen. And whenever there was high expectations of I'm going to have that aha moment. And I'm going to come back and know exactly what I'm going to do. And I did.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:05
Well, let me ask you about that though. Because we encounter a lot of people that want to take a sabbatical and feel that same way going into it. For the ones that do actually go forward, they feel that same way. Like if I just create the time and space, then I'm going to get that aha moment or that clarity or then I'll be able to immediately come back. But almost all of them that we talked to, you know, before and after that have done that, just gone on and done that without anything else and there kind of have the similar type experience. They don't have the clarity or don't have the aha moment, if they're just going over there expecting that to take care of itself. So I'm curious, what your experience was and why you thought that was that you didn't come back with that aha moment?

Kristy Wenz 08:47
It's a good question. I don't know why I didn't come back with it. I mean, the experience is definitely amazing. I wouldn't trade it for the world. That was difficult being in foreign places with small kids. And as a family, the four of us were always together all the time, really didn't have any breaks from each other. So it was a really intense kind of experiment as a family. And I wouldn't trade it for the world. We met amazing people and so many fantastic experiences, learning about different cultures and histories. So we have a lot of amazing things out of it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:15
Intense is the right word, by the way. That is, Alyssa and I use the same word when we have traveled with our kids in the past for, you know, a month or six weeks at the time. Yes, it's amazing and also intense.

Kristy Wenz 09:28
Right? Yeah. And there are moments you wouldn't trade for the world. And then others you're like, why are we doing this? Are we insane? It's just... it was nuts. But it's almost like hitting pause on life for a minute. You know, we kind of got to take a break from all of our responsibilities, and schools and activities and things like that. And we really just got to hit pause and be together. So that part was amazing. I expect that I would have more time to kind of dive into my inner workings and figure out exactly what I wanted to do and do some, you know, major thought work and what areas I really wanted to come back and what I like. And I did do some of that. It kind of was able to pull out of myself, things I knew needed to be a part of my career, like I knew I wanted to write, I knew I wanted to communicate with people, I knew I wanted to somehow be involved in food and wine and travel, if I could, because I love how it brings people together. So I knew that that needed to be a part of it, I didn't know what it looks like at all. And so when I came back, and I found myself doing my same things, again, you know, back at my same job that, you know, or same routines, that's when it really kind of hit me that I didn't have that aha moment, I'm still I'm back to where I left, and I don't want to be here. And if that's what it turned ugly, for me. To be honest, it was not in a good space. It was, you know, I had some depression, I had some resentments, and anger. And it all stemmed from the fact that I didn't figure it out. And I'm still here at home ever gonna get out of this place. And so it got ugly for a little bit. And it was a struggle. And it took a while for me to kind of get a hold of myself and say, "Okay, I need to do something about this, that I can do something about this." And I would have starts and stops, and I go get some books and read about things I could do. And then I would start to do some things and get sidetracked and then just be like, oh, it's just a waste of my time. Anyway, I've got too much going on. And, you know, it's easy to distract yourself. So I found myself getting involved in things that weren't fulfilling, but kept me busy. And for the next, I would say, until the spring, really, I have lots of starts and stop. And then I hit the point this spring where I just decided, time's up, I've got to do something. And I'm the only one that can make it happen. When people around me can support me and I can find resources to help me but I need to take that step and stay committed to it. And I did. It's been fantastic since.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:48
Do you remember if anything, was there one or a series of things that caused you to eventually have that realization that, hey, nobody else in the world is going to do this for me. And I need to do it and stick with it. And what finally happened that caused you to have that? I'm going to call that an aha moment. But maybe it actually wasn't.

Kristy Wenz 12:06
Right. Yeah, it was probably more of a somebody's beating me over the head moment. Before I actually like realized what was happening. I gotten so stressed to the point it has started to affect my physical health, of having back pain and neck pain and all kinds of random pains. So then started worrying that I was sick, into this whole cycle and it was stressed, it was just really stressed. And so it really kind of took a hammer over the head to pick my body to just had to say stop, for me to step back and say, nope, this is... I need to address it, or I'm going to end up sick and miserable. And I really didn't want that. So it was combination of that. And then I was doing some dabbling in some part time work. And that wasn't going where I wanted it to go. And I just had this moment where I was on a trip, I was doing things I like, was traveling, I was working in food and wine, but it's something still wasn't right. And I was on one of the trips, and I almost just started crying as I was walking down the street. And that's completely unlike me. And I thought it's time like everything is just lining up. This isn't working, we need to actually sit down and make a decision. And my husband, took a weekend away in March, I think it was and talked about things. And we had been saving up and kind of getting ourselves in line for me to be able to take some time and do some research and really figure this out. And so we decided it was time to do it. And it has so happened. And this was kind of a weird, coincidental thing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:31
It always is. It seems like.

Kristy Wenz 13:33
Yeah, exactly. I had reached out to you in 2015. I remember and did initial work on what you want in your career and had since then been signed up to the emails, but I believe they were going into my spam or I hadn't seen them in a long time. And honestly, after that weekend away with my husband, it popped into my inbox again. And it was the bootcamp email that it was the last day to sign up for bootcamp. And I was, "what?" like, there we go and talk to my husband. And he's absolutely, "Do it. Just sign up." And that was it. So there were a lot of things that led into it. But it was that email just showing up that day, right after we had had that conversation that it was just like, Okay, this is time I'm on the right path.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:12
Well, I think what is amazing about that though, Kristy, is it was not a small series of events that led up to you creating the right time and space for you to be open to owning it in a completely different way than what you had before and looking at it through a different lens than what you had before. And...

Kristy Wenz 14:31
Exactly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:32
All honesty, like it looks different for everybody in terms of like the journey to get to that point. But you've done a phenomenal job in getting to that point. And clearly, it was not always easy. And many times it was rough to even get to the point where you were ready to look at things differently.

Kristy Wenz 14:47
Exactly. It's a mind shift. I mean, you really have to be ready to kind of change the way you think about things in a lot of respects. And that's not easy to do. It's definitely not easy to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:59
What do you think was the hardest part for you to have that mind shift? Or what do you think was the element that was the most impactful, but maybe difficult for you in terms of what that mind shift actually looked like for you?

Kristy Wenz 15:15
I think the hardest part was convincing myself that I could do it, that I was smart enough to do it, and that I was capable enough to do it. Because I had been doing the same thing for so long, I had this doubt that I would be taken seriously in a different industry, or kind of, because it really was an industry shift for me. So I was very scared about being taken seriously. And are they just gonna think, you know, I'm just some nut that just wants to do this just because and I have no experience. That was the biggest shift, I think, in my mind that I had to and going through the program, it really helped me to kind of outline all of the accomplishments and all the things that I have done, and look at them in different ways that they don't just, I don't know which step it was, but where you have to list out all the things you've done. And then it wasn't just about stating your responsibility. But as a result of that responsibility, what came from that? What successes did you create? What impact did you have? Once I started to draw all that out, it was really kind of able to see, well, I could apply that to all these other different industries as well. It's not just this industry. And I actually have done a lot of things. And once I started to put it all down, it really kind of helped me to see that I do have value and can bring value to some, to a new company and a new industry that I have ideas and intelligence and thoughts and I can apply it all somewhere else. But I think it was just getting over that fear of doing something different and doing something out of my routine and not something I had normally done or even thought about doing. So getting over that fear was probably the biggest shift I had to make. And I remember going through it, it would... when we had to write you know, what's going to be the thing that derails you through this process? I knew it was going to be fear, at some point that that was going to get me. And it did. There was a probably a good three or four week period where I really just kind of avoided the program altogether. It was like, nope, no, I don't know what's gonna happen and just kind of started to go in that stop mode again, and had a call with my coach. And after I hung up the call, it was like, I just felt that energy and excitement again, I was like, no, I got to keep moving. Like, I just have to keep the momentum going. It's when I slow down, that the fears can start taking over my thoughts, I just have to keep going. And I did. And it was shortly after that, that everything else manifested and the job offer and all that stuff. And it all came together very quickly after that. But again, those starts and stops and the fear can just really start to get into the thoughts and into the mindset when you're not moving forward. When you're slowed down, it's easy for that to kind of take over and fill you with the self doubt again.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:42
What you just said, I don't know if people as they hear that will realize how meaningful and impactful that actually is. And I just want to take a moment and repeat it because that's one of the things as we delve into the science behind this stuff that causes people to propel themselves forward and actually do things that they previously thought were impossible. And one of the things that you just said was, it was the continuously moving forward and rolling forward that allowed you to move past the fear. And we talk a lot behind the scenes on our team about how do we help people build momentum? And how do we get rid of all the things that stop them from building that momentum, because momentum is the surest way to allow you to move past fear. But it's also when it stops, the surest way to allow those fears to creep back in. And it sounds so simple, but and certainly there's more to it than just that. But it's one big element that we've seen as people feel like they're moving forward and are actually taking steps forward, even though they're small and creating that momentum, then all of a sudden, yeah, well, not all of a sudden, but it gets you there.

Kristy Wenz 18:50
Right. Yeah, and one way or there may not be a straight road, but it's certainly going to move you. When I read something somewhere at some point in all my research and it was something about, it can't catch the wind until you hoist the sail. And that just stuck with me like I've got to have my sail up so that I can touch it. And I have to, no matter how small the step, I have to keep doing things every day, whether it's just updating my LinkedIn or contacting somebody that I worked with a long time ago that I can reach out to and connect with, again, just all those little steps, just even if it was just one thing a day to be able to kind of, you know, just putting one foot in front of the other and keep moving. And there are days that was hard. There were days you know, you were faced with rejection, and it made me want to go backwards. Like somebody would say, No, I don't want to talk to you about that. And you know, we can't take personally but it's hard not to.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:40
Yes.

Kristy Wenz 19:41
And so those types of things are in there too. So it's hard you need to say "Okay, no, but this other one works. And so I'm just going to keep moving." And but it's not a straight line and it's not easy. And you do face those rejections and those moments that don't make you feel good, but I was a big believer in celebrating every little small victory, no matter how small, even if it was just calling someone I was scared to call like, that was a celebration because I picked up the phone and I did it. So I made sure to kind of reward myself along the way for the little steps too, because it made a difference and kind of reinforce the positive things that I was doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:17
What did you do to reward yourself? Give me a couple examples of what you would do big or small to reward yourself. Because I think that's important. A lot of people don't think about that being a vital part of the process.

Kristy Wenz 20:29
Oh, exactly. Typically, it would involve opening a good bottle of wine, usually the ones that we've reserved for special occasions and be like, this is a special occasion, I'm going to do it. Going for a massage, going into a spa, just little things I could do that way. Even just getting outside for a walk in the middle of the day just to you know, if it was sunny outside and just go be in the sun. And, but anything or in things that I would enjoy that would make me happy that I normally wouldn't take the time to do because I'd be so obsessed on trying to find what I wanted to do or getting lost in it and just kind of taking a few moments to, you know, allow myself to do something I really like and enjoy the moment. So it's combination of a lot of different things. But I would say the most common was digging into our wine cellar from our trip to Europe and all the bottles that we had saved. And that was a lot of fun to kind of go through along the way as well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:15
I am a fan of that type of celebration. Sounds like you and I celebrate similarly.

Kristy Wenz 21:22
Yes, yep. And I think my husband enjoyed it. He was along for the ride. So he wasn't complaining about opening those bottles.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:28
Like, "Another bottle? Well, okay."

Kristy Wenz 21:31
Yes. Every success, definitely worth it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:35
Oh, that's fantastic. So I'm curious, you know, through this entire journey, I would love to talk to you about, you came back from your sabbatical knowing a few of the elements that you wanted to carry forward with you into your next role. And I think it's important distinction here. Because just like you said earlier, like you stayed a long period of time, because you didn't want to give up that flexibility. But when we work with people, we think about it for a different mindset. We're thinking about it as how do we carry forward the things that we want to keep with us like that flexibility? And then how we bring into it, those other things that were missing in one way or another after we identified with them. So you came back, identifying a couple of those pieces, and then did some great work to identify the other pieces that you need too. But then once you had identified that, what did you do in order to begin to experiment with where you could create this type of career or where you would belong?

Kristy Wenz 22:29
Good question. I kind of went down a couple different paths. At the time, I was writing a monthly article for one traveler. And so I was already kind of connected with them. And I knew that they were had a lot of things in the works, a lot of plans, and the more I would talk to them, the more I would kind of give feedback and engage with the CEO, and we'd have a lot of great conversations. So that door was already open. However, I really... I did not envision anything happening there. Other than I was just contributing articles, which I enjoyed doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:00
It always sounds obvious in hindsight.

Kristy Wenz 23:02
Right? Yeah, exactly. And I didn't even know if they would have any available positions. Because it is a startup, it is the very beginning stages being kind of the company that it is. And I wasn't even sure what opportunities were there if there were any. And if I would even be considered for that. That one started more is a kind of a subconscious Goldilocks experiment, I guess. I think it's the Goldilocks ones.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:24
Yeah, and for a little bit of context, for people who may not know what that is, you can go back and listen to our designing experiments episode on the podcast. But within career change bootcamp, one of the things that we do is we help people validate the road that they're going down. And the Goldilocks is being able to talk to a variety of different people in organizations and like this chair is too big, this corner office is too small, that sort of type of thing. And being able to find what is the right fit by getting continuous feedback and building relationships.

Kristy Wenz 23:53
Exactly. Yeah. And so I started doing some of that with him. And then I also started doing it with some of my clients, my existing clients and talking with them about different roles in their organizations, and talking with people that are in communications for, in the industry I was currently in, and just really kind of feeling people out and getting a sense of what's out there. I also connected with some people that really have been mentors over my career, and kind of like cheerleaders and talk with them about, what are some ideas you have that maybe I haven't thought of? Because there's just things out there that you don't even know exist, or they're maybe already been in your consciousness. So how can you think about them if you don't know. And so in talking to other people that you know, they would give me ideas that I could consider and from that, I started to pull out the ones that would get excited about or the pieces of each of these roles that I found rewarding or that I knew I would enjoy. And then a picture started to kind of take shape for the first time in my life of exactly what I wanted to do. And I always told my kids, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, you know, I still don't know. But going through this, I really was able to kind of create that vision of who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. And when I would think about it, the excitement I would feel, and it was just tangible. And so I knew if I was on the right path, and a lot of it had to do with just kind of testing the waters and talking to lots of different people, and kind of just working through this whole process of exactly, down to the minutiae of, you know, do I want to commute? Do I want... how many hours a week do I want in the office? Is it important that I have... that I manage people? Or how am I going to work? And that was actually one of the biggest concerns for me is, can I work for someone being, as I've had my own company for such a long time?

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:34
Yes. Are you employable anymore?

Kristy Wenz 25:36
Right, exactly. Like, am I going to be able to be an employee? Or, you know, how is that going to be to have that kind of relationship again? So that was interesting, kind of testing all of that out. And it just really it was a matter of going in and just like you said, Is this chair too big? Is this chair too... like, what the fit for me? And I was able to really kind of define everything after that process.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:57
What was one of those conversations that stood out in your mind that you had along the way through the social Goldilocks type experimentation that was particularly helpful? And I'm gonna ask you, what made it so helpful?

Kristy Wenz 26:08
Oh, that's a good question. It's about my conversations. I think, probably the one that had the most impact on me with one mentor, in particular. And she was former clients, and the one that I had actually gone and worked in-house for a few days a week. And she had been my superior in that role. And I just really respect her, I mean, her whole career path, she has really created for herself and continually created positions for herself to get her where she is. And she's huge champion of supporting people along the way. She won't, you know, you don't like your job, she wants to help you find something that you will like. So she really always had a positive kind of inspirational effect on me. And we went to lunch one day, and I told her I had started this process, and I had no idea where it was going to go and what it was going to look like. And she just really reinforced for me, she's like, "Well, here's all the things I think you're good at. And which one do you like?" And so we really kind of talked about that. And she just started naming all these different roles and companies and like, have you thought about this? Or how about that. And so she really kind of opened my eyes to more possibilities that I hadn't even dreamed of, like, I've never thought about that. And you know, she, why don't you talk to this person? And so she really kind of opened the door for me to see that there's a lot out there that I hadn't even given thought, and just what those possibilities looked like, and she kind of pushed the momentum angle too. She was like, you know, "what's your timing?" And I said, "I don't know", you know, we've kind of set aside a year for me to explore. And she just looked me straight in the eyes. And she said, "You do not take a year." She's like, "You don't wait that long." She's like, "Keep going." She's like, "You need to do this now." I'm like, "Okay. I'll do it, I'll listen to you." And she was just, she said, "Don't wait. Trust me, just don't wait. You've got the momentum, go." Okay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:55
There's that momentum again.

Kristy Wenz 27:56
Exactly. And I left, so energized after that lunch. So I think that was probably a, you know, one of the most inspiring conversations that I had just that, don't wait, and here's all the things you can look at, and the world's your oyster, just go, you know, there's a lot of opportunities out there. And she was. She was a cheerleader through the entire process. And if I get stuck, I'd send her and she was very open about that, too. You know, if you get stuck, shoot me a note, and I'll push you, you know, she's like, whatever you need, I'm here. And so that really helped. And it just kind of that validation too, that what I was doing was that I wasn't crazy that I get stuck, that everybody gets stuck, you need people in your corner to cheer you on, it was a great conversation.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:34
That's amazing. It becomes evident as to why that was such a helpful conversation too, in terms of the exposure, as well as all the challenges. And then on top of that, being able to understand, you know, some of those different places that you could be a fit, because that's one of the things that you said you struggled with earlier is trying to see, what you do or what you have done and some of the things that you're great at and have experience in, can translate into other areas. And we get so many people coming to us and asking for that exact same thing. But what people don't realize is that so much more of it, nearly every one of us realize this is actually translatable.

Kristy Wenz 29:13
Right? Yeah, exactly. And that actually just reminded me one of the other big things that really kind of helped propel me forward, was the... at one point we had to go and ask people in our life, colleagues and family and friends and people that have managed us, that we've managed and different people to give five characteristics of, what they think our strengths are, which is a difficult thing to do you know, to call and ask people these questions and kind of embarrassing and you feel a little kind of like, oh, I just want them to say nice things about me. And one of those things like nope, just gonna do it. Just going to ask and see what happens. And then collecting the list of the responses and looking at it was really interesting and eye opening. The amount of crossover and it was from people in all areas of my life from people that I work for, people that worked for me, you know, my family, people that I just acquaintances or have done projects for, volunteer work, the similarities that came out and all of their responses really, were eye opening and things I hadn't thought of like things I didn't think about myself like, "oh, really?" like, "Huh. Okay. That's an interesting" you know, like everybody talks about how approachable I am, that's came across in every single response. I just thought that was, you know, there are things I wouldn't have thought on my own, you know, because it's hard to think about your positive, I know I'm a hard worker, I know I am on time, and I get jobs, you know, you can think those things. But coming up with going beyond that, it's hard sometimes to think that way about yourself. So it's really interesting to see the responses. And that helps you guide to where, "Hey, where are my strengths, so my passion is going to collide?" And so just a really interesting kind of path to go down and see, and it was a great way to kind of look back and, you know, when I would get stuck to go back and look at that, like, okay, these are, you know, that's right. These are people in my life, think these awesome things, I can do this. And so it was really encouraging part of the process, I think, as hard as it was to ask for those things. It was a really great part of the process.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:12
Well, when you do other things that most people are unwilling to do you get results that other people aren't going to get. So, that's some good evidence of that. And that's actually, you know, speaking of the momentum we mentioned several times earlier, that's one of the reasons why we, with all of our students in any capacity, we build that in a lot of times into the beginning portion of the process, because it creates some of those initial "whens" and a different lens to look at things through. Early on, which then does help carry you as you're getting into some of the latter stages. So I'm so glad that you experienced that as well. But here's the question that I have for you, since you went through such a range here, of going from, hey, I'm in the mind space, where I'm not sure if I'm ever gonna find this flexibility again. So I don't think I can do anything different all the way to completely flipping it. And I'm going to decide what I actually want in my life. And then I'm going to go and get it, which is the polar opposite end of that.

Kristy Wenz 32:17
For sure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:17
What advice would you give to other people that are maybe closer to that fear type space, where they're like, I'm not sure if like, I've got a great, not what I want, necessarily, but it's good thing going for myself? What advice would you give them to move past that? So that they can experience what you've experienced with being able to decide what you're going to do and go and get it.

Kristy Wenz 32:21
Good question, I'd say to, again, celebrate those small steps. And because every door is an opportunity, every exchange is an opportunity. I look at it this and I still think about it too, you know, there's a chance that this role I'm in now could end up not working. And that was kind of scary, too. But it's the process works. So I know I can do it again. And I don't want to think of anything is the end, you know, it's always a journey, it's always a process. If this isn't the end, that's okay. It's still... it's an experience on my journey that's going to change me and shape me and open new doors that I didn't even think were possible. So I think just really understanding that, you know, there's things out there that you don't even know where possible until you start to take those steps, because I seriously could not have envisioned this six months ago, you know, we had an exercise of, you know, create your perfect day. And I couldn't have envisioned this. I mean, I had ideas, but you know, there's no way I could have made this up at that time in my head. But each small step just really introduced me to another person, that introduced me to another person or, you know, gave me an experience where I was able to say, "oh, wow, I really enjoyed that" or, like doing this. So that's interesting, and just kind of pulling, learning something from every experience, every encounter, every exchange, and looking at it, and just seeing what works and what fits. And kind of I guess, being a curious learner along the way, it was really helpful to remember that this is a journey, and it's not an end. Our lives just keep moving forward, every you know, I look back and I look at all the things that I've done, I couldn't have imagined any of them really. And so it's just remembering that it's not a road to an end. It's just all part of the journey, I think is helpful. And I would say just ask, just do it. That was so counterintuitive to my own thinking.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:26
In what way?

Kristy Wenz 34:27
I never would have just asked, you know, I can't ask for what I want. Why would I do that? If it's not available to me, why would I ask for something that's not available? And my coach just said, you know, "Just ask. Why not just ask? What are you going to do if you don't ask?" And that kind of hit me. Like, if I don't ask, it's not gonna go anywhere. And if I do ask and it doesn't go anywhere, it's still the same spot. So it's not going to hurt. And it was a very big change for me to just ask. And it's been incredible. I mean, I did just ask, and it works. And there are times I asked, and I get a, you know, counter response. But it's a response that you can engage with them and start the conversation. So it's never a bad thing to just ask, hearing 'no' isn't an awful end of the road thing. It's an opportunity for conversation, a chance to ask questions, you know, and a chance to turn it in different direction, whatever it may be. I think just ask, and don't be afraid to ask. It's scary. It's terrifying, because nobody likes rejection. But just be able to say it out loud and ask for what you want and not be afraid. I think, you know, once you do it a couple times, it gets a lot easier. But it's something everybody I think, if you just do it, just ask, and I think it'll, it opens just so many different doors.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:42
That's amazing. We have definitely found that when you ask for what you want, there are a surprising amount of times that you're more likely to get what you want.

Kristy Wenz 35:50
Yeah. It's funny how that works.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:52
It is so funny how that works. I love those simple types of logic though, because those allow me to be able to move forward and do things like this. And you've done a phenomenal job here. And one of the things I hear all the time that I just want to commend you on, because you didn't allow yourself to stay in that space, I hear people say, I'm not the type of person that asked for what I want. And you have, through this process, been able to become the type of person that asks for what you want and there's so much buried in that, that we're not going to be able to even get to or even touch here, in terms of what that journey actually looks like. And I know it's not easy. And I'm just so proud of you that you've gone through it and done such an amazing job, really great work.

Kristy Wenz 36:33
Well, thank you, I do have to credit the program, too. I mean, the way you guys have it laid out, it makes it... I don't want to say easy, because it's not easy, but it makes it easier to move through the process. Because the steps are laid out in such a way that it's clear and it really covers a lot of different basis. And so it just it makes it easier, just that extra support to help you move through the process. And it's awesome program.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:55
Well, thank you very much. And thank you so much for taking the time and coming on and sharing your story. I know that so many people are going to listen to this and pick up different pieces that they haven't thought about before. So I appreciate you taking the torch and carrying it and helping people be able to do things differently than what they knew were possible. That is amazing. I really appreciate it.

Kristy Wenz 37:17
Absolutely no problem. And always happy to... if people want to reach out to me, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm happy to share advice or you know, give encouragement. There are a lot of people in my life that pushed me along the way and opened doors and paid it forward. And I'm happy to do the same. I think it's the community that we're in, high achieving job changers. It's an awesome community. And if we can help each other, I'm all for that. So open to doing that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:41
Absolutely amazing. And we'll link up your LinkedIn into the blog post that goes along with this episode so that you can find it on Happen To Your Career, too. And I want to just say thanks again, so much. Very, very much appreciate it. And you've done phenomenal work.

Kristy Wenz 37:57
Awesome. Well, thank you too. I appreciate it. It's been a blast.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:01
Hey, Kristy was a podcast listener. And I know that there's so many people out there, they're in the same place as she started out where they want to do something different, but really aren't sure what, they really aren't sure exactly how, and maybe you're in that exact same place. And if that's the case, then I want to encourage you to keep listening, but also take actions along with it. One really easy way you can get started taking baby steps, right down that road is with our eight-day mini course, or eight-day figured it out mini course, to help you begin to get clear on what you want in your new career. Two easy ways to do that, you can visit figureitout.co that's figureitout.co or you can simply text happen to 44222. And then, we'll send you all the links and you can get started right away, making it happen for yourself. Hey, I also just want to say I so appreciate you taking the time to listen and rate and review the podcast. We've had so many people that have done that. And it just really means the world to us. Plus it helps other people be able to find the show in the future too. This one comes from gratitude elzie and says, "if you feel lost about career happiness, this is the podcast to listen to. I'm so glad to have chanced upon Happen To Your Career. The host is a joy to listen to" thank you very much. "He offers great insight about all kinds of career advice through interviews with people who have gone through all kinds of career changes, you can tell that he's genuinely interested in helping people" I'm glad that comes across. Those are my words not theirs. "But this podcast exude positivity, compassion and practical advice. If you're feeling lost about how to achieve career happiness, this podcast is your guiding light." Thanks so much for taking the time and making the time. We have so much more coming up for you next week on Happen To Your Career. We've got another surprise in store for you.

Dan Chevelle 40:02
And so all of this came together and I was just like, this is what I'm meant to do. And as many times as I was bullied and made fun of I just knew, I just knew it. I knew it. I knew it. And I just put so much energy. I was working over 100 hours a week, nights and weekends, I would comment on every single blog that mentioned personal branding. I was just so dedicated to it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:25
That's Dan Chevelle. He will be here, next week on Happen To Your Career to help you understand how to make work more human. Until then, we'll see y'all next week. I am out. Adios.