Alissa Penney 00:03
Ask questions, search for answers. You don't always take kind of that first to answer that gut instinct. Sometimes your gut isn't exactly right. And you have to dig a little bit deeper to find real quality tangible answers.

Introduction 00:25
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 it 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 00:49
One of the most valuable soft skills that I've built over the last 20 years, doesn't have anything to do with communication or negotiation, although that's been pretty valuable too, but it doesn't have anything to do with any of those pieces. In fact, most people don't think of this as a skill at all. But that's where most people would be wrong. Because practicing this and becoming better at it has allowed me to stop myself from settling so many times in the last 20 years. Now, unfortunately, it's also not very easy. What is it? It's the skill of paying attention to your gut feeling and intuition. Here's how it usually works. Let's say that you've been ignoring that feeling in your gut for months, and even years. Maybe it's about your job, maybe it's been about how you're raising your kids, or even the fact that you might be settling in your relationships, whatever it is, now is the time to learn to start paying attention to it. Why? Well, because science and research tells us that your intuition is very useful for letting you know when things are off, it's very good at that. So choosing to ignore that feeling is likely to your detriment. Now, of course, there's also limitations to your gut feeling and intuition. It can only take you so far, because it's not great at helping you understand why something doesn't feel right. It's also not useful necessarily for getting you to the exact right answer instead. But it is a great indicator for you to stop, reevaluate and choose a different direction.

Alissa Penney 02:28
I would say maybe not a skill, but definitely it's a level of self awareness that I definitely didn't have before. I think you could just go off of your intuition all the time, if it's really not a level of self awareness that helps propel you forward. I think sometimes it can really hold you back. And for me, I needed to get that level of self awareness where I could look at myself and say, "this isn't right, I have to do something different."

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:52
Alissa Penney decided to stop ignoring those feelings just 18 months ago. Since then, there has been no looking back as she completely changed her career and even started her own consulting business. Here's her story, and where she started out in her career.

Alissa Penney 03:06
So I actually started out in the HR career field as an intern while I was going through grad school, had no idea what I wanted to do for a career, and an internship opportunity came up and I said, "That looks good. Okay." So I went for it and I loved it. I was at a manufacturing facility. And I got to work with a lot of the folks on the manufacturing floor in a way that I didn't realize you could work with individuals in a work environment. My prior work experience really didn't have me in that kind of a role. Knowing that I loved it and getting to learn a lot about how HR works. The company that I worked for, had an opportunity to take that next step up. And so I said, "Okay, I love it, and I want to work there and it's great." And so I actually moved across the country to take that position, worked there as a senior HR generalist and analyst for the hydraulics division of this company in the Americas. So I went from an internship position and just went for it. Big jump for me. And I needed to reassess that position after about a year and had to take a step back and say, "Okay, I think I went too quickly." Reassessed ended up finding a position with a municipality, which was very different from corporate HR in the public sector versus the private sector. I'm sure you know that you have to work with citizens in a way that's very different than you work with employees.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:36
How would you describe some of those differences? I understand this because I've had a lot of experience in being in and around both sides. My mom worked in municipalities. I think I told you one of the first times that we met, but I've also worked a lot on private organizations, but I'm not sure that everybody necessarily understands really what some of those differences are. And what that actually means.

Alissa Penney 04:55
A lot of it is because you were in place or so customer facing, citizen facing, you really have to be very specific and the kinds of folks that you hire, and then the way that you train those people, a big challenge for a municipality is also budget. So not only do we expect you to meet the needs of our citizens, but also we probably can't pay you a lot to do it. So you have to find, right, you have to find really creative ways to engage with your employees. And you really have to be that innovative HR professional that the business needs. And when I took that role, I was actually very lucky to have a mentor for the first city that I worked for, for four years, who also had a manufacturing HR background. And so we were able to really, I guess, kind of create these innovative strategies because manufacturing in municipalities can be really similar because you're doing hard work, you don't get a lot of things, people are probably mad at you, you've got deadlines, and how can we make this happen. So I would say definitely the biggest, those are some of the biggest challenges, but it makes you creative in a way that isn't budget restricted, which is really what I enjoyed. And I got me back into really loving doing HR again, in that particular role.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:12
I think that's one of the things that I appreciated about you when we first chatted is that we're finding ways to be innovative and finding ways to be creative. And I thought that was so cool. And I think that served you well, since too, as you've moved later on, we'll talk about this later, but into your own business. But what caused you to want to change from that situation where you had that mentor, and you were working in that municipality, and for all situations, like there were a lot of good things, right?

Alissa Penney 06:45
Absolutely, I really enjoyed it. But as anyone who's worked in HR probably knows you have a little bit of burnout that happens when you're in a role for a certain period of time. And so we kind of started to feel that at the end of my time with that particular municipality, but then my spouse had a job change. And so we moved cities. So I had to leave that job. And I ended up working for another municipality. And I got to work as an assistant HR director, kind of over that whole department. And just the environment was so different. I started going through, I think some of the same things that a lot of people go through, where you start kind of dreading going into work. And don't feel like you're being utilized in the way that you know, you can be best utilized. You go in, you do the bare minimum, and you just don't feel that same resonance as you did with maybe a previous career or you just aren't doing the things that you used to really enjoy. For me, I really started to realize that I needed to make a drastic change when I had a big health scare. After not very long in that position, maybe about eight, nine months into that position, I actually started to go through periods of not being able to see where my vision would just cut out. And they weren't sure what was going on. And they said,"you've got to make changes, you were incredibly stressed. Your medical information is just not... it's not good, you have to make changes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:15
None of this is good. Also the not seeing part. Yeah. I'm curious though, I've talked to a lot of people that have had your similar periods of time. And I've experienced that for myself too, mine resulted in, you know, almost anxiety. They were anxiety type attacks along with a whole host of other things. But I think that every single person I've talked to, the experience has been slightly different. And what was that like for you? What was going through your head back at that time, if you can recall? And, what were some of the realizations that you had?

Alissa Penney 08:49
I remember vividly. The whole situation, really just realizing I have to change, I have to do something differently. I'm not getting the fulfillment that I need with this position. And also, I'm having these health issues because this position has added so much stress into my daily life and I don't have a good outlet for it. And so I realized that changes needed to happen. And sometimes that means you have to take that position that you're really excited for and walk away, and reassess and do something different. And for me, I remember being very scared that if I didn't do that, I had doctors tell me that if you don't sort this out, you could go blind. And you can be without your sight for forever. So that was a very big motivator for me to take a step back.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:40
Yes, as far as motivation goes, that is one way to do it.

Alissa Penney 09:43
Absolutely. Same with anyone, I think with a heart condition too. You have to make these changes if you want to continue to have a quality of life, a life worth living. So that's why I made my decision, really.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:55
What do you think was your biggest learning through that time period? And I know we're joking a little bit back and forth. But I mean, that's pretty scary. And it's definitely something that is serious, to put it mildly. So I'm really curious, because I know that the one thing I've seen from you is that every time you've had a hard situation in your life, you have experienced some kind of growth through that. So what do you think were your biggest realization, biggest learning?

Alissa Penney 10:23
For me, my biggest realization was that the work that I had been doing didn't have to be the work that I continued to do, that I actually did have a lot of control in a way that I didn't previously think that I had.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:36
Really? That's interesting. In what way?

Alissa Penney 10:38
Well, for me, I could walk away, very lucky to have a supportive spouse who said, "you know, this impacts both of us. So walk away if it's not working, walk away, and we can reassess." And for me, no, I know I've mentioned it to you before but I have a very type A personality where I need to feel a lot of control over situations. And so even being able to walk away really was a relief to know that I could make those choices to reassess and sit down and go, "okay, what can I do to adjust?" You know, I still want to work, enjoy working, I like the work that I do. So how can I make this happen in a way that I get to do what I like to do, what I do best, and really help the people that I have a huge passion for helping municipalities, underserved employees, nonprofits, that kind of thing. And knowing that I had resources that I could find, reached out to actually stumbled across this podcast during that time frame and said "you know what, I don't have to do this by myself. There are people who can help me through this." And that was really helpful to me, and it made me feel a whole lot less stressed. I think that I would have felt otherwise. So yeah, I think it's kind of an odd reaction, but for me, knowing that I had control it did just go a long way to relieve a lot of that pressure that I had put on myself, I don't have to do this by myself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:07
That's so interesting. I think that's actually fascinating too. And I feel like that's one of the, I don't know if that's really a skill, I was trying to think how I'd even describe that. But so like, in my situation, when I went through that period, I felt like I needed to have some level of control so I went and talked to my boss. And then my boss fired me and then I was like, thrown back into have been, you know, that sort of helpless type feeling and not being in control and everything else and I essentially have like a really short period of time and small, just next to nothing savings, to try and do something about it. And in some ways, I don't think that's cured me of wanting to feel in control, but it's caused me to figure out what I can influence in my life and I think that, that's such a powerful learning to realize like where you have more control or influence in your life and I, that's not really a skill, but it's like, how would you describe that because you've been through that now? So...

Alissa Penney 13:02
I would say maybe not a skill, but definitely it's a level of self awareness that I definitely didn't have before. And being able to look at something and I've gotten this feedback multiple times, ask questions, search for answers. You don't always take kind of that first answer that gut instinct. Sometimes your gut isn't exactly right. And you have to dig a little bit deeper to find real quality tangible answers. You know, because I think if you just go off of your intuition all the time, if it's really not a level of self awareness that helps propel you forward, I think sometimes it can really hold you back. And for me, I needed to get that level of self awareness where I could look at myself and say, this isn't right, I have to do something different. And understanding that sometimes you do have to ask for help. And you have to be okay with asking for help when you need it, and just know that that's okay. Because a lot of times, I think we beat ourselves up for asking for help and feeling like I can't do this on my own. It did really help relieve me of that stress, to be honest.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:11
That's such an important point. And you know, one of the things we've talked about on this podcast before is when you hear somebody say something, even if there's a lot of wisdom in it, you can take that advice, then often you don't realize initially the layers of wisdom underneath that. And I think that's really what I'm hearing from you, I think that's one of those concepts. You were talking about intuition and your gut feeling. And I think the conclusion that I've come to both looking at the studies and research around it, but also just from working with a lot of people in this area and seeing just from an experiential level is that your gut is really good at telling you when things are off, it is not necessarily as good at leading you to the exact right answer. So, it's almost like you should not ever ignore your gut feeling. Because it's giving you an indication on sometimes levels that you may not fully understand about what is off, but it doesn't always necessarily lead you immediately towards the right answer. And that's part of what I think I hear you saying.

Alissa Penney 15:19
Right. You know, for me having that intuition, I think you're exactly right, it does help you kind of put that pause in things where you go, "okay, something is off." But then it's interesting, because I've actually read, I've read a lot with a lot of the pause that we've had in some of the work that I do normally. And there's actually a lot of psychologists talk about the difference between your emotional brain and your logical brain. And so your intuition is your emotional brain, but then you have to say, "okay, logic brain, what do I do with how I feel?" And that's really where kind of they married together. And that for me, is what's been really fascinating and I think that really speaks actually to my love of data and...

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:04
Not surprised.

Alissa Penney 16:05
I don't think anyone is surprised to hear that probably I love numbers of data and analytics because you know something's wrong. How can I find and pinpoint exactly what's wrong? Because then I can prescribe it, I can fix it from there. Those are the things that I think about a lot.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:22
Yeah, me as well. This is not what I thought we were going to talk about at all. And I want to get back to some pieces of your story. But I want to continue to explore this for just a minute. Another layer underneath that I think is really important is you said something along the lines of, hey, that only takes you so far. And one of the weird places where we've seen that show up again and again, I don't know that everyone is aware of this because we do it a lot behind the scenes and we don't talk about it on this podcast a lot, but we train career coaches, we train coaches and that's one of the pieces behind the scenes that we have that's a segment of you know, Happen To Your Career in our business. And one of the crazy things that we see again and again, is we see people that are more naturally coachee type people that come in. And you know, they ask really great questions. And they are in some ways because of their strengths and interests, they're sort of predisposed to be better at being a coach. Right? However, also many of those people, not all, but many of those people are highly intuitive. And we find that, that intuition to your point, only takes them so far. Once you understand, for example, techniques around coaching, and you're aware of how to put them together, you know, for yourself, then all of a sudden, you can be a great coach instead of just a highly intuitive coach. And there's two differences. So that's an example that like, pops into my mind. But here's what I'm curious about for you, what prompted you in the first place to want to do something for yourself? Tell me about where that started to enter the picture, and how you were thinking about that in the early stages?

Alissa Penney 18:04
Absolutely. It wasn't necessarily my intention to do what I do now. But I actually had a really great conversation with my previous boss and the position that I stepped away from. And she said, "you know, you have a lot of these skills. Maybe when you get things settled down, maybe when you start wanting to get back into the HR world, you should consider doing consultation." And at the time, I was not at a place to hear that information.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:34
Whatever.

Alissa Penney 18:36
Right. I would like to leave and never look back. I got a lot of time to sit and think about it. And really what kind of led me to that conclusion is knowing that I could control my workday and my schedule, and I could control clients and work with people who really wanted me there. Because of that, I think that's the biggest barrier for a lot of HR professionals is having to work with people who, you know, don't want to let you in the building, you don't get to go to meetings, you don't get invited to things and you're constantly having to fight that makes you so tired. And so getting to control a little bit more, there's that word again, 'control'.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:16
It just keeps popping out. It's all over the place, right.

Alissa Penney 19:17
It just keeps popping up for me. With having my high levels of stress in my previous roles, I knew that I needed to be able to control, not just the kind of work that I would do, but also a little bit my work environment. And so I'm able to do things and structure things in a way that's really beneficial to me. So that way, I can in turn, make that more beneficial for my clients because they're not getting me at, you know, 50% or 60%. I'm able to bring myself 100% at my best place. And so knowing that by taking a step back and reassessing, I could get to that place to be that person and that professional that I really wanted to be. At the end of the day, it was really just invaluable for me to understand and recognize and then knowing that I didn't have to kind of muddle through all of that by myself, again, just as really a relief for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:09
Tell me about that. When you say not having to muddle through all that by yourself, what do you mean by that?

Alissa Penney 20:14
Well, I had never really considered consulting before. And I never considered that it was such a drastic career change. Yes, it's still HR but it's a very different facet than what I was doing previously. You know, you have to find people who want you to be there. You have to find people who are looking for exactly what you do. And how do I do that? I've never had to look for clients before. I've never set up a business before. Do I start out as a contractor? What's the paperwork involved?

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:43
All the questions.

Alissa Penney 20:44
I had a million and one questions and I think I filled a couple of notebooks full of questions. And as I would get answers, you know, I'd make a lot of annotations and footnotes, but you know, I needed some guidance in that direction. But I also knew that because it was available, it wasn't quite so scary. It didn't have to be this big, life altering change that I did on my own. And I felt just more comfortable and more confident that, okay, I can make this happen because I needed to reduce my levels of stress. It was just very helpful to have someone to kind of guide me through that process, not necessarily hold my hand, but definitely some one who could say, "maybe we should think about this in a different way, or have you considered this instead, or based on what you're saying, probably you should move in this direction, that's going to be really helpful and beneficial" it was written what it needed.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:35
I feel so fortunate that we got to sit front row and have the opportunity to help through that. And you have done a great job in terms of spending your first, going from essentially nothing to your first eight months now you've had a few clients and partnerships. And I'm going to guess, then take a shot in the dark and say that, that was not easy to get to that point. Eight months, just to give people a background, I've personally worked with a few hundred people, helping them move through the starting stages of a business and making it profitable and getting first clients and everything like that. And eight months for some industries is relatively fast. Like that's not a small feat to put it mildly. So here's what my question to you is, what have been some of the most difficult pieces that you didn't anticipate through that process of getting a business in this case, a consulting business up and running?

Alissa Penney 22:39
So that one's a tricky one.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:41
I only ask the tricky ones, you know that, Alissa.

Alissa Penney 22:43
I know. I know it. It wouldn't be fun if it was easy. I think for me, it was, you know, putting myself out there and allowing myself to be okay with people telling me no or not hearing back from people, that was very difficult. You know, I had compiled a list of potential clients and I reached out and I heard back from, I think over about 200 people on that list, some of whom I've worked with before, because it's a very small world here. And I heard back from two people, and they weren't the people that I had known. And so that was very difficult. And, you know, I settled, spent a lot of time with my coach, and I said, "am I doing this wrong?" It's just really questioning myself, you know, am I even going in the right direction? Have I made a horrible mistake? I think was the hardest for me was to realize how much you have to continuously put out there, and just how comfortable you have to be with hearing 'No' or even worse, hearing nothing at all. That was very difficult. And then just realizing that something that's on my schedule isn't necessarily what's on somebody else's schedule and timetable, and maybe now is not the right time to reach out and you need to reassess and rethink. It was very difficult for me to get comfortable with that, but I absolutely feel a lot more comfortable with that now than what I did eight months ago. That's for sure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:09
So for other people who have been considering, or maybe are in the beginning stages of doing their own thing, or building a business that they want to, what advice would you give them in order to move through the difficult process of becoming more comfortable with those types of things? Because whether it's not hearing back, or some other type of challenge that you're going to face, it's gonna be difficult in some way. And it's going to require a level of discomfort. What do you think?

Alissa Penney 24:37
I would say, learn how to be comfortable with silence, and learn how to be very patient with yourself with whatever it is you're trying to tackle. It's very cliche to say but, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day. And if you have this dream that you want to move forward with doing, you know, in my case, it was building a business. I don't know of any business that is immediately successful overnight. And as much as I really wanted things to move forward, I'm sure a lot of other people have that one, that desire as well. Sometimes you just have to learn how to be comfortable being where you're at, and recognizing that where I'm at today isn't where I'm going to be in six months. You know, I went from panicking to, I don't have any clients, I've been doing this for a couple of months and, you know, that this isn't working out to, you know, a month after that, real type of panic for me. I had three people reach out to me. And overnight, almost, I had these clients and so it's okay if things take time, and they're going to take time, even though I only have a small number of clients now. I know that this time next year, things are going to look very different. And as long as I stay consistent, and I maintain my patience, it will be okay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:56
It's so interesting how quickly things can change. That's something that continues to fascinate me to this day. And you're right, a year from now, it's going to be drastically different and then a year from then, it's going to be drastically different. And I think one of the things that I see again and again, is that it's really difficult to look and say, oh yeah, this is going to be okay a year from now and then to go forward knowing not exactly what okay is going to look like and not knowing exactly what result you're going to get. We, as human beings, have a tendency to not want to go after something, whatever it is, you know, career related, you name it, fitness, it doesn't matter, whatever category. But unless we are sure of the result and the reality is there aren't very many guarantees in life. So what has helped you be more okay with that whole phenomenon?

Alissa Penney 26:59
Well, there's two things that I constantly repeat to myself and they're kind of cheesy. One thing is if I wait until I'm ready, I'll always be waiting. You know, I was not ready, I was nowhere near ready, but I did it anyway. And looking back, I don't really understand my mindset at the time thinking, of course you were ready, you're as ready as you're going to be and sometimes you just have to take that leap and go for it. And then the other thing I think I've mentioned this to you before, but being bad at something is the first step to getting good at something. Even if you're going to start something, you're probably going to be bad at it. And you're going to learn a lot, because you're going to go "oh, no. I'm very bad at this thing that I've done. How can I make it better?" And that's how you hear all the time. Learning from your failures, the important thing but no one tells you how to learn from your failure. You really have to be okay with not doing well. Because at the end of the day, even if you don't do well, you can take a look at what happened, and say, "here's how I can improve it and make it better for next time." And that's how you know, you're always going to be in a different place, you know, six months from now, a year from now. And I do think it takes a lot of guts and determination to continuously be comfortable doing that and assessing where you fail, because it's not comfortable. I don't think anyone likes failing and not doing well. I don't know, there's also a little bit of comfort and knowing that it's not just me, other people have done this and I've also done that badly. And that turned out to be very successful. So, why can't I do it badly and then learn and be better?

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:53
I love that. Absolutely love that. One because it's true. Two because I think it's a helpful lens to look at this through versus any of the other lenses that have a tendency to pop into our mind as human beings like, "oh my goodness, I can't do that because (insert your reason here.)" If I'm going to choose a way to look at it, I'm going to choose one that helps me rather than a different way. So I so appreciate you sharing how you have thought about it, too. What else surprised you, as you were going through the process of building a business? What did you experience that, maybe you didn't anticipate that, it was different than how you thought it was going to be in reality.

Alissa Penney 29:45
I would say for me, learning how to adjust the way I feel about my need to control things.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:56
In what way?

Alissa Penney 29:57
Well, you know, I can't control my day to day, I can't control my clients to or if and when clients happen. But there are things that I can control. And so instead of focusing on these things that I used to, I've adjusted and say, okay, I can't control this piece, but I can control how I react to it, I can control myself and I can, I don't really know of a great way to put it. But basically, I'm able to be comfortable with the areas that I can control. And I've learned to be more okay with the things that I can't control even though this felt six months ago, a year ago, like really big things. That really surprised me, because I'm not known, then my spouse could tell you, my friends could tell you, I'm not a very flexible person in some of those ways. And so learning how to be flexible and how I approach situations and how I approach, you know, my business and how I do things, it was a pleasant surprise, for sure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:17
So I've started multiple businesses and my personal opinion has been the first year is the hardest part of the journey. So for all intents and purposes, like you've now done, what I believe is the hardest part of the journey, like zero to one client is the hardest part or... and it doesn't mean it's without challenges for what takes place in the future when you're growing or scaling or whatever, you know, if you decide at some point to bring on, you know, employees or team or whatever, it doesn't mean it was without challenges, but you've kind of been through in many ways, the most difficult part in getting started. What advice would you give people that are maybe back at that beginning stage and they're thinking about getting started? And, you know, they're in that place where you were not that long ago, 8, 9 months ago, and what would you want them to know? What advice would you give them?

Alissa Penney 32:13
I would say, it's going to be hard. Don't let the fact that it's hard keep you from doing it and keep you from pushing forward. Because there were a lot of times when I, you know, didn't know what was going to be happening, or I don't know if I can keep doing this. And it did, it got really hard. And I'm still, I'm almost all the way through my first year, a few more months. And I know that it's still going to be hard. There are days that are going to be very difficult. But just because something is hard, doesn't mean that giving up is the answer. And so really having that perseverance, and my spouse calls it "sticktoitiveness".

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:07
I love that. Borrowing that.

Alissa Penney 33:10
Yeah, you can patent it. But yeah, just being able to have that resolved to continue to keep working when things are hard. Because it will be very hard. I'm not gonna lie or sugarcoat it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:33
Why do you feel it has been worth it for you? You know, from, I'm guessing based on our conversation before this, and what your coach has shared with me and everything that even though it's been hard, this... you still feel like that this is the direction for you. So I'm curious, that must mean that you feel like even though it's been incredibly difficult that it's been worth it. So I'm curious, is that accurate? And if so, why has it been worth it for you to go through all these things that are really difficult in order to have this in your life?

Alissa Penney 34:14
Yeah. For me, it really feels worth it because it's allowed me to have the freedom that I really need to where, if you work in an office, you work for somebody else, it's really difficult to if you need to take a break, or if you need to adjust your projects, or if there's things that you don't enjoy doing, you don't really get that choice. And so for me, it's been worth it. Because I do get that choice, you know, I get to take the projects that I really like, that really resonate with me and I get to help other people achieve their company's goals using HR strategies. And for me, you know, it just... it kind of warms my heart a little bit to be able to do that. And that's really where my passion lies. And so getting to constantly pursue the things that I'm passionate about, for me is worth it. You know, and like I said, it does give me a lot of freedom where with my health stuff, you know, if I need to take some time away, you know, to go resolve some things. I can do that and not feel guilty. You previously, I was made to feel very guilty about taking care of myself. And for me, it definitely is worth it to not have that feeling of guilt constantly hanging over me, you know, maybe I do work at seven o'clock, eight o'clock at night because I had stuff going on during the day, but I don't feel bad about that either. But having that flexibility and freedom for me has made it more than worth it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:53
I so appreciate you sharing that and it means a lot for me. One, to just get to have this conversation, you know, eight months later or so. And you've done such an amazing job. And yeah, we've talked about it being difficult and everything else along those lines. However, you know, I really think that you've done a phenomenal job in making this happen for yourself. And I just want to say first of all, congratulations. And second of all, thank you for taking the time and making the time and coming on and sharing your story with all of us.

Alissa Penney 36:28
Absolutely. And now a lot of people are probably in the same place that I was in, that you were in. It's normal, almost, or it's very common. And just because it feels normal, or it feels common doesn't mean that you have to continue going down that same path. And so I'm very thankful for the opportunity that I had to get to work with, you know, a career coach to help really assist me in that thought process and get me to where I am now essentially, because I don't think I would be, even my spouse during this whole process mentioned that, “you wouldn't be where you are now without the guidance that you've received.” So honestly, both of us are thankful for it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:18
Happy spouse too is a bonus. That's not something we have ever, you know, advertised on our website or put into our marketing or anything like that. Maybe we should be.

Alissa Penney 37:31
Happy spouse, happy house.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:33
Happy spouse, happy house. Yes. It's happening now.

Alissa Penney 37:38
Yeah, there you go.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:39
Well, seriously, you've done a phenomenal job and I so appreciate having you here. And I want you to keep me posted with how everything is going, you know, as the next year happens and beyond.

Alissa Penney 37:52
Absolutely. It'll be an interesting year. Certainly, it'll be an interesting next couple of months. Just with everything going on globally, but, you know, all we can do is stay agile. Realize that we can't control that but I can adjust where I'm at and we'll make it happen.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:16
Hey, many of the stories that you've heard on the podcast are from listeners that have decided they wanted to take action, and taking the first step of having a conversation with our team to try and figure out how we can help. And if you want to implement what you have heard, and you want to completely change your life and your career, then let's figure out how we can help. So here's what I would suggest, just open your phone right now and open your email app. And I'm going to give you my personal email address, scott@happentoyourcareer.com just email me and put 'Conversation' in the subject line. And then when you do that, I'll introduce you to the right person on our team. And you can have a conversation with us, we'll try and understand your goals and what you want to accomplish in your career no matter where you're at. And we can figure out the very best way that we can help you and your situation. So open up right now and send me an email with 'Conversation' in the subject line; scott@happentoyourcareer.com.

Speaker 3 39:24
Stop looking at things so quantitatively, like, where am I at in a company? How much money do I make? And you start looking at things more qualitatively, like, how much am I learning? How much am I growing? And you start thinking of things that way, you start becoming so much more productive in how you approach things.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:44
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.

Liz McLean 00:01
You no longer have to show up as two people. A lot of people that work in jobs that are not a fit, right, they have to... they find themselves rallying to be someone else at work than they necessarily are in other places of their life, right? They put on this persona.

Joshua Rivers 00:19
Today, we're kicking off a week long series, we're calling "Where Are They Now". Starting tomorrow, you'll hear from five different people we worked with who have made successful career changes. They initially share their story on how they made their career change in the first place, but then they came back on the podcast a couple of years later to share the long term results they were able to realize, and you can hear those stories starting tomorrow over the next five days. But today, to start this series off, you'll learn the top three lessons that are common among all these folks that you can implement into your life right now so you can set yourself up for future success.

Introduction 01:04
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 it 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.

Joshua Rivers 01:28
Career change can seem scary and difficult. Because even if you know that you need to make a change and you're committed to doing it, you still don't know what will actually happen or how things will pan out, unless you have a crystal ball, in which case we have a lot of questions for you. But we've learned after helping thousands of people make career changes, that there are patterns and indicators that actually help you predict how it can impact your career, and even your life. So today, we're doing something a little different. Two of our awesome coaches, Phillip Migyanko and Liz McLean are taking over the podcast to share the top three lessons from past clients who have made successful career changes over the past nine years. So let me step aside and hand the microphone over to Phillip and Liz.

Liz McLean 02:16
Today, we are here to talk about some of our learnings over the past nine years, right? So the top three to four things that we've learned and surprising things that when people come on the other side of figuring it out and doing meaningful work, right, to get to fulfilling work, what impacts has on your life from a greater perspective, because there are things that you don't realize, like you get into a new job, and you're like, "You know, now I like my job." But there's so much more that happens. And so we're here to talk about three of those things that we see, and that we've learned for the past nine years. So wanna kick off number one, Phillip?

Phillip Migyanko 02:53
Yeah, totally. I can totally kick off number one. And it's, you know, we work with so many people and we know this is a huge factor, especially after working in nine years, just hearing it again, and again. But one of the biggest things, and this might not come as a big surprise for the listeners out there, but it's really, you know, the level of confidence and this comes from working in your strengths, getting that positive feedback, but mostly that increases your level of competence, right? If you're working in a subject matter that you care about, you're getting that positive reinforcement about what you're doing, how it's helping, and the overall impact that you're having. And we had an example of somebody kind of like this, but in that process of the career change aspect, and you might have heard her story, this is Vicki, and if you haven't heard that episode, I would highly go and suggest that you check it out, it's somebody that I personally worked with. And in Vicki's story, you know, understand the whole... the concept there, it was much more about the experimentation phase about had the learnings that not only impacted her career change, you know, it wasn't really about leaving the job for her, it was much more about the learnings that she had years and years after that, or really kind of the learnings that she had from building those kinds of relationships, and really taking those levels risk, but really, in her story. So everybody that we work with, they go through this experiment type of phase, where they're trying to figure out what they're looking to do and what a really good phase of it looks like and all that stuff. And what happens for most is they get really, really nervous, they're like, "Oh my gosh, I have to go out experiment. I don't know if this is going to work." And then there comes inevitable point where, this is where Liz and I talked to many, many of our clients, we go, "alright, the best untapped resource of this whole process is really people." So we have you do the really scary thing that most people think is networking. But I don't like to call it networking. I like to think of it more as building relationships. And so what that means is you are usually sending out messages to people and what I find is that most people usually come this process and they were trying to send messages that are kind of generic or they do them on LinkedIn, it doesn't feel as scary, it feels more safe. And so...

Liz McLean 04:58
But not as effective.

Phillip Migyanko 05:01
That's the moral of the story there folks, not as effective. And so we try to think about it as, how can this be the most effective? So I was pushing Vicki, during when we were personally working together, spoiler alert, this is where I push all my clients, and how can we send personal videos. So that's what we had Vicki do. You might have heard her story from here, in the podcast, she found this wonderful Treasury podcasts that was the line of work, she went into doing Treasury, and we were listening to those podcast episodes and we found VP level directors of large organizations. And so we were thinking, "Alright, what can we do to make ourselves stand out from others?" Exactly. So we had her send personal videos to each one of those people. And, you know, I mean, to be really transparent, not everyone responded, and that's okay. But we had one great response, which was from one of these VP levels, I was like, "Oh my gosh, Vicky. This is great." This is so personal, and everything they did like this before. And what that happened for her is that it tangibly drove up her level of confidence, meaning, she did something that was difficult, that was kind of uncomfortable, and that later rippled effect into all of the other conversations that she had, where she was sending loom videos to every single person and getting the type of results. Now, that later happened, because she got the opportunity she was looking to get by getting a connection of a connection through one of those personal videos that she sent. So it's really bringing it back, it's more of an example of the process and how it impacted her long term, instead of just getting the job and how she really viewed that networking error, building relationships doesn't just stop when you get the job, it kind of keeps going through that process and it impacted her level of confidence that she can now have conversations with people that she wouldn't have had before.

Liz McLean 06:52
Yeah, that is a great story. And I think that that is a common story for, you know, getting this challenge right, getting meaningful work, which is really difficult thing to do. It's... people don't realize there's a lot of work, and it's a lot of fear and mindset work, right. And the way that we get that increasing confidence is by doing the thing we didn't think we could. And then for her to get that reward from just that one person, the impact, and then she showed up, I'm sure she showed up in lots of places in her life significantly more confident, right. Now, just send me these messages, these loom videos, it's not...

Phillip Migyanko 07:29
Yeah, and it definitely impacts other places, right, when we are able to do something that's really difficult, that's where that confidence piece comes from, that impacts so many other things. But yeah, that's definitely number one. But I know you've got a second one. So what's the second piece of this?

Liz McLean 07:45
Yeah, so we were talking about number two being that you no longer have to show up as two people. I'm gonna go to my own story here. Most people we work with, there are a lot of people that work in jobs that are not a fit, right? They have to... they find themselves rallying to be someone else at work than they necessarily are in other places of their life, right? They're put on this persona. When I was in a job that wasn't a fit, we onboarded somebody and I trained her, and we're now friends. But at the time, she had this impression of me. And then a few weeks later, a month later, we went out to a happy hour, she saw me at a happy hour, and I was interacting with her there. And she said, "You know what? I like you so much more now." "Wow, you didn't like me before?" She said, "Well, you were too nice." I was like, "Wow, what do you mean?" And what was happening was, as I was showing up in such a way that was overly nice, no really helpful, and I am that, but she's like, "Yeah, no, you're a sour patch kid" because she saw me at the bar, and I was professional, but she saw me at the bar just be more my authentic self, right. I have a little bit of a dry sense of humor, I will challenge people and I will question people a lot. So she's like, "Oh yeah, I like this version of you better. I like the Sour Patch Kid, like, I like that you're sweet but then you've also got a little bit of a bite your personality, if that makes sense." So that's my own personal story of showing up differently.

Phillip Migyanko 09:13
Well, you know, it makes sense. And I imagine a lot of you and even our listeners where they spend a lot of time basically spending two different lives, one at work and one at home or in other places. And it takes so much mental energy to try to do both of these different things. And when we are talking to people, especially in the "Where Are They Now" series years later, and also what we know for people when they are are in opportunities that are fulfilling, whether in their strengths is that they're no longer trying to separate both of these things, and that you're really thinking about it and one of our values at HTYC is just one life. And when we think about this as an organization, and we continue to talk with thousands of thousands people and we work with clients every single day, we try to go, "Well, what if you didn't have to kind of separate both of those? What if you were one person over here, one person over there? And what could that look like? And how can we make those types of things happen?"

Liz McLean 10:10
I feel like being a human, one human is challenging enough on its own, like just do that, like, rather than trying to be other personas, so yeah. But so we're mindful of time here. Do you want to go on to number three?

Phillip Migyanko 10:23
That's probably a good idea. Number three, is, this is where we talk about the most with people, but it is always a little bit different. So really, number three is the difference between good versus great. And what we mean by that is, this is how most people operate or when Liz, myself or anybody at the Happen To Your Career team is just talking to somebody who's kind of in this phase where they're not doing great work, and they have great co-workers that might be like, "well, you know, the people I work with, they're good. Like, they're nice."

Liz McLean 10:56
"I stayed so long because the people are good. That's why we're here. Like, that's what keeps me there. That's why I stay."

Phillip Migyanko 11:02
And you might be saying that to yourself right now, or am I be, "Well, things are good enough right now." And I mean, I don't know if that can be any better, because that's really just for people who have this, those are people who went to school, those are people who have really good connections, those are people who blankety blank kind of thing.

Liz McLean 11:20
For a lot of money, that's another thing.

Phillip Migyanko 11:23
Yeah, I hear that one a bunch.

Liz McLean 11:24
Yeah. And they're like, "Well, who am I? And then who am I to ask for more? And I just should be grateful for what I have." And that yeah, and there's sometimes there's guilt, like, "Oh, I've done so... all my friends around me, like, say how great, you know, how good it is I have it, why would I try for something more or great?"

Phillip Migyanko 11:42
Yeah. And so what happens with each one of those examples that Liz and I are giving right there is that people accidentally settle. And when you accidentally settle, you kind of just take this mediocrity, for lack of a better word, and that aspect of your life, but then in other aspects of your life, potentially, too. And so what we specifically mean with good versus great is, and I kind of alluded to it in the last one, but between all these three, the through line is like what if... what if you could work in a job that was aligned with your strengths? What if you could be in a place that was really aligned with your values? Those types of things. And basically, what happens if we didn't settle? And I've got a client right now who's thinking about this more specifically, and really the 'what if' questions, and really thinking about this as a, well, no rules apply. So his name is Rob. And Rob is really working with this idea of like, "What happens if I would just work with my friends?" Which is a really simple and easy concept in theory, but in practice, like, no one says that. I never hear many people say that, like, I mean, we never really hear anybody say that, even with our client who talks about that.

Liz McLean 12:56
It doesn't even occur to people. I don't think and even for Rob, right, from what you told me of the story Phillip before we got on this call was like, it's such a simple thing but it was like a revelation, lke, could I? Like, what if? You know and keep going.

Phillip Migyanko 13:12
Well, yeah, it's a concept about, what if I could work with my friends? And if you stop me think about that just for a second, there aren't really any rules around there. I mean, you could work with your friends, or you could work with people that you could see yourself, being your friend. And to make this a really, really real example, when we bring on people here at the Happen To Your Career team, we'll often like, when we, you know, we're fully remote team, we have people that work across the country in the world, and we get to have a, every so often, we get a chance to see each other in person and we're always challenging each other to go, "Alright, if we were to add somebody else to our team, could we see them kind of sitting at the table with us? Can we see them having fun with us when we do our events? Could this be somebody who's going to laugh at our jokes? Could this be somebody who we're going to actually have fun doing this fun work with?" And for a lot of people like if we think of it that way, it's... we are taking the rules off of what we are told how work has to be and what needs to be and for a lot of the people in the "Where Are They Now" series and you'll hear those types of things, it's... well work doesn't have to look the same way that it did before. What if you could work with your friends? What if you could have a life that you wanted?

Liz McLean 14:25
What is fill in the blank for my work, right? And then also the what if like, the no rules piece, like when we talk about with clients here is that like, what if you don't have to go to standard path to get there? Or what if there's more than one way? What if... Yeah, I think to say that accidentally settling and I think because you get to a point in your life where you are so busy and you don't realize you're doing it

Phillip Migyanko 14:50
And it comes back to the concept between all three of these points, which is that each of these decisions they are mutually dependent, meaning, that each of them, kind of, are dependent on each other, that they're not mutually exclusive, right, it's the opposite of that. How do we make sure that you are intentionally using both of your time, your energy and the choices that you make about who you choose to bring into your life, even from a work perspective? And that's a huge concept, right? You might be sitting there going "What? Like..."

Liz McLean 15:20
I get to choose?

Phillip Migyanko 15:21
"I get to choose? And that they're not just assigned to me or the person who works there?" Or that you are choosing the type of person you want to be in life, not just between work and other places, and you get to choose the types of really hard things you're looking to do, the mountains you want to go after. So that's going to help open up other doors to what you didn't think you were possible even if it raises that level. So it comes from that aspect that each of these decisions both have ripple effects externally, the people, the work you do, the people you work better in your life, those types of things, but they're also ripple effects internally, and that kind of sounds woowoo on both ends.

Liz McLean 16:01
You'll show up in all the places in your life like that, right? At your home relationships, it will impact your friendships. So well like if you are settling the type of job, you might also be showing up and saying like, "Oh, well, you know, these friends I have, they're good. You know, but could they be great? Are they really aligned with who I am now? Like, oh, I've changed as this person. And these people don't quite fit me the way they used to, but they're good." You know, you might do that another asset. So that's yeah, that's the mutually dependent part. And how you're doing this with your work, maybe how you're doing with your life, too. For good or for bad, right? And there's... when you flip the script, and you start saying, "You know what? I don't want to settle anymore." And what for my work, you might be saying in the other parts of your life, "I don't want to settle here either."

Phillip Migyanko 16:47
And so many people who think they're crazy where going, "I think... am I crazy for not wanting to settle?" Or things like that.

Liz McLean 16:53
Yeah. And we look at it saying like, you're crazy for saddling, like, people are crazy for... and not crazy, because that's terrible. But it's just like, it's, we don't want people to do that.

Phillip Migyanko 17:04
Exactly.

Liz McLean 17:05
Cuz you don't have to.

Phillip Migyanko 17:06
And so that's the perfect way to wrap this up. So just for those three things that we've learned over the past nine years, the most surprising things that, you know, people learn and how it impacts both your work and your life, once you get to that wonderful opportunity that's created amazing and meaningful work. So number one is that it basically increases your level of confidence, meaning that you can go and do more difficult and harder things after that, that you didn't think that were possible, it increases your level of the things you were thought that would be possible. And in both work and other areas of your life. Yes, the second piece is alright, so you don't have to separate between work person and life person, you could be the same person in both. But you can not have to have disparate energies go into basically two separate lives. You can make up for one person. You're doubling down on one, and reinforcing the person that you want to be and are. And the last one is really the act of not settling. The difference between good that settling and great that, "what if I could have XYZ?" all those types of things. And how can you start incorporating the things that you would want in your life and in your work that you don't even think are possible? Because at Happen To Your Career every single day, we help people do the impossible and how you get there. What you need to learn now is that it starts with those questions about what if those things could happen. So thanks so much for recording this, Liz. It was so much fun.

Liz McLean 18:38
It was fun.

Phillip Migyanko 18:38
Glad we could kind of impart all of our knowledge over to our amazing listeners. And yeah, this is super fun.

Liz McLean 18:46
It was a lot of fun.

Phillip Migyanko 18:46
Awesome. All right. Well, on that note, we will talk to you all later.

Liz McLean 18:50
Bye, everybody.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:52
Most of our episodes on Happen To Your Career often showcase stories of people that have identified and found and take the steps to get to work that they are absolutely enamored with, that matches their strengths, and is really what they want in their lives. And if that's something that you're ready to begin taking steps towards, that is awesome, you can actually get on the phone with us and our team. And we can have a conversation to find the very best way that we can help. It's super informal. And we try to understand what your goals are, where you want to go, and what specifically you need our help with. And then we figure out the very best type of help for you, whatever that looks like, and sometimes even customize that type of help. And then we make it happen. Really easy way to schedule a conversation with our team is just go to scheduleaconversation.com, that's scheduleaconversation.com and find a time that works best for you, we'll ask you a few questions, as well. And then we'll get you on the phone to figure out how we can get you going to work that you really want to be doing that fits your strengths, that you love, and you're enamored with. Hey, I can't wait to hear from you.

Speaker 4 20:16
Yeah, so ultimately, they ended up kind of blindsiding me and saying, "you know, we're gonna part ways" and I was like, "wow, that's surprising. Considering I am literally the face of your sales organization."

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:28
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.