Laura Morrison 00:04
I couldn't figure out what else I should be doing. So I stuck with it. And so I had, you know, college degree, master's degree, a few years in the work world in engineering consulting, and the whole time never really felt like it was a good fit for me.

Introduction 00:23
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 00:47
What do you think people stay in roles that don't fit? Well, turns out there's quite a few reasons. But here's some of the things that we hear over and over and over again, is that I don't want to let down the team, I really want to make sure that this project is finished. And I you know, I'm setting my company up for success. I don't know what else I wouldn't be doing for that matter. There's lots of different reasons. And that's why Laura, actually spent nearly a decade in a career that didn't fit her. She figured being really good at math and in a family of engineers meant she did enjoy that field too. But as the years went on, it just never felt right.

Laura Morrison 01:34
For a while that felt like a good fit. And it felt like something I could be passionate about. And then over time, it just wasn't anymore. But again, I was in the same position that I had had kind of in college and beyond where I didn't know what else to do. And so I just kind of stuck with it kind of only half thinking about what else I could be doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:55
I think we've all known someone like Laura, when it comes to spending way too much time in a job. That's just not a great fit, to say the least. And one of the things that we see over and over again, is that just because you're great at something, just because you're good at something doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to love that thing. And the really interesting part is that, if that's you, you're in that situation where you're doing something that you're pretty good at, then getting out of that feels very impossible. So how do you begin a career change, when you don't even know what you should be doing, and you've had a lot of success? Well, let's start with Laura's journey.

Laura Morrison 02:39
I'm starting a new role in Product Management at a company called the Predictive Index. And they do behavioral assessments with the goal of hiring the right people, and in their words, inspiring them to greatness. And what I'm really excited about that is you know, someone like myself, who wasn't engaged as an employee, means I understand that pain. And so what I'm going to be doing now is actually helping people and companies inspire their employees through different tools and understanding more about the people. And that's really exciting for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:13
As you listen to this conversation with Laura, you're gonna find that we get pretty deep into how you can find your strengths, how you can learn about new career opportunities, and even options for your career, and even build relationships so that you can land, not just a job, not just even your dream job, but really a job that truly fits at a company that you're excited about. And I think you're gonna love that. Also, see how you getting outside help can often lead to your "aha" moments or your big breakthroughs and what that actually takes. And then you can learn that, as it turns out, you're not alone in your career change process, and how you can take some next steps there. All of these fundamentals that you can learn about yourself, and what you want in your life can not only help you land that next job and the role that actually fits, but also help you make pretty large changes for yourself, your family, and every everyone in your life in the future. It's pretty cool. So take a listen for all that plus more, you're also going to hear about a different way that you probably haven't heard of to approach the interview process that is much more genuine, than all the things that you think you're supposed to do in an interview. You'll see what I mean, as you listen.

Laura Morrison 04:31
I think this is a struggle for a lot of people. But you know, in high school, you have to figure out what you're going to major in, in college. And you don't really understand what any of that means. And so, for me, I was good at math, and I had some engineers in the family. So I went into engineering. And I did fine, but it always felt a little off to me and I couldn't quite figure out why. And I couldn't figure out what else I should be doing. So I stuck with it. And so I had, you know, college degree, master's degree, a few years in the work world in engineering consulting. And the whole time never really felt like it was a good fit for me. And so, you know, my first career pivot was actually into sustainability consulting. After a few years working, I went back to grad school with the goal of pivoting, and I landed myself at a really great company that I was at for eight and a half years. And I was excited about it, because sustainability is forward looking. So it was a startup feel company, which I was looking for. And I had a lot of freedom to grow really quickly. And so for a while, that felt like a good fit, and it felt like something I could be passionate about. And then over time, it just wasn't anymore. But again, I was in the same position that I had had kind of in college and beyond where I didn't know what else to do. And so I just kind of stuck with it kind of only half thinking about what else I could be doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:05
So I'm super curious about, first of all, what do you feel like changed? Because I mean, you were excited about at one point.

Laura Morrison 06:14
Yeah. I think in the beginning, a new challenge is always exciting. And then I think, in that eight and a half years, I have four different roles. And the new challenges and the new role were exciting. But the length of excitement I had from just learning something new, kept getting shorter and shorter. So I think that's one thing that changed. And then by the end, I didn't actually feel like I was learning that much anymore. And for me that if I'm not learning, I'm not engaged. And I work with a lot of people who are really passionate, and I almost found myself having to pretend to be passionate, when I wasn't really feeling it. So that was pretty hard on me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:59
That's interesting. What was that, like? Clearly, it was difficult, but feeling like you had to pretend to be passionate.

Laura Morrison 07:10
Yeah, it was tough in it. You know, by the end of this past role, I had 10 people reporting to me, a lot of them were early in their career. And I wanted to do a good job of inspiring them. But because I wasn't inspired myself, it made me feel like I was being inauthentic to kind of hide the part of myself that wasn't engaged, that wasn't super passionate about our work anymore. And so it just, it basically zapped all my energy, where I would kind of put on this kind of extroverted, fake smile at work every day, and then come home and be unhappy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:53
Do you remember when you started to realize that?

Laura Morrison 07:57
Oh, I hate to admit this, but it was probably three years ago. And I, you know, at the time, our company was going through some management changes. And, you know, there are other life things going on, you know, I was trying to start a family. And all that combined was just exhausting. And so I think I knew that it wasn't a good fit. And I've known that for a long time. But again, without knowing what to do next, or even how to think about what to do next, I just felt really stuck.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:29
That is... I think that is one of the biggest problems that many people have especially high achieving people that had gotten into a role similar to you where they were excited about at one point, and they have lots of responsibilities. And you know, something's changed along the way. But you don't necessarily know what to do next. What were some of the things that you considered or tried? Because you've been thinking about this for years? About making a change and doing something, but it sounds like kept coming back to that point, where not entirely sure what to do next. So what were some of the things that you considered or thought about or tried along the way?

Laura Morrison 09:16
Yeah, you know, it's, a lot of it was staying within the sustainability field. It took me probably a couple years of passive looking and talking to people to figure out that there weren't roles in that field that I was interested in. So I looked at, you know, what does it mean to do my role, but not as a consultant, but embedded within a product organization, for instance. And I talked to, you know, I would go to sustainability, networking events and talk to people in those roles, and I just wasn't getting the excitement. I think it excited me for a little bit. And then a lot of the reason that didn't work is a lot of those kind of product manufacturing companies aren't based in Boston, and I wanted to be in Boston, so it kind of took a look opportunity off the table. And I guess the other thing I tried to do is look internally. So at my own company, we do sell, or my old company, I guess, we do sell software. And I talked to a bunch of people for a couple years about product management in the software that we sell. So that's basically the role I'm taking a new company, but I was talking about doing it at my old company. And, you know, the team, the software team was in Germany, so and it was also having a lot of trouble. So it just never really worked out. You know, I talked about doing more marketing at my old company, and again, the marketing team was having some struggles. So it wasn't, it really wasn't gonna work out. I think maybe if I had stayed another year, I could have pivoted in my existing organization into one of those roles. But, you know, at that point I was ready to actually just kind of make the jump and leave the company.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:05
What made you feel ready to be able to make the jump? And what actually took place? Was it just the combination of all those conversations and realizing, "hey, it's not gonna happen here."? Or was it something else? What made you feel like, hey, at that point, I was just ready to leave.

Laura Morrison 11:25
You know, I think what... I think I knew I was ready to leave for a long time. But what actually made me take the steps to leave is a little bit different. And so, you know, I was on maternity leave for seven, eight months or so. And I met a lot of working moms as part of that, and had a lot of career conversations with them. And one of them recommended to me a career coach who was based in Boston, who's an older woman who'd been working at Radcliffe for, you know, years and years, and had her own private practice. And I actually finally decided to kind of invest in career coaching. And so I had one session with this woman, and I had like a mile and a half walk home. And the thing that really stuck with me is that it was the first time I'd ever heard that there were tools and processes to help me figure this out, that I didn't have to just think about it and look at job postings, but that I could do other types of work to think about what I wanted to do next. And she said something to me about, I can't recommend a book for you. It's very personal, but find a book you want to read about career change. And that's your first bit of homework. And my reaction was, I don't like reading, really. But I love podcasts. And I had this mile and a half walk home where I was really excited. And I found your podcast. And so I listened to it on my way home. And then I kind of binge listened to it for a week, which I think the point where we talked for the first time, and all of a sudden I heard all these stories and tools about things that I could do that didn't. It was okay that I didn't know what I wanted to do. I could still take steps to figure out what I could do next.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:06
That is interesting. You know, I didn't actually realize that's how it happened. That is fantastic. And now, not that long later, you're on the podcast. And...

Laura Morrison 13:17
Yeah, one of my personal goals.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:20
Yeah, check. Before we hit record you were talking about, you built this list of national parks that you wanted to go see, and you just basically go to Yosemite. So now you've got several things checked off the list. Way to go.

Laura Morrison 13:35
It's awesome. Thank you. Feels good.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:38
Absolutely. So I have so many questions, because I think that there's so much for other people to learn too, that are in that same space or have been in that same space where they aren't sure what to do and want to know what to do next. And you were kind enough to bring us along for the ride and allow us to sit co-pilot on this journey. And it's been a bit of whirlwind. How long did it take from when you found the podcast to accepting a job offer?

Laura Morrison 14:10
Oh, boy. Okay. I think it was probably April or May that we first talked and I accepted a job offer about a month ago. So whatever that math is...

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:24
I was trying to do the calendar math, too. Is it about...

Laura Morrison 14:29
Six to nine months probably, right?

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:31
Yeah. Right in seven-ish months someplace. And what... you started listening to the podcast, had this realization that hey, there are things that I can do. And then you talked to us, and you ended up joining career change boot camp, and we started getting the opportunity to be able to help you along the way. That was just the beginning. I am curious, in going through this process. What were some of the apprehensions that you had, as you said about growing and figuring out, hey, here's what I might want to do. And then ultimately, moving through each step.

Laura Morrison 15:22
Yeah, I think, I mean, the biggest apprehension, I think, is that what you don't realize is when you're in a spot, where you're unhappy, and you've been unhappy for a while, you lose some of your confidence about everything that you've accomplished. So, you know, from the outside, someone looking at my resume would be impressed. But I was looking at it, and I hated it. Right? I wasn't proud of anything that I had been doing, because I wasn't happy doing it. And that didn't mean I didn't understand that it, there were some impressive things on there. It just didn't feel like me. And it didn't feel impressive to me, because I didn't enjoy the process of doing it. And so I think a lot of that lack of confidence is like tied into kind of the anxiety of trying to figure it out. Right? What if there is nothing for me? What if I'm always unhappy at a job? And I think there is this whole mentality out there that that's normal to kind of be unhappy in your job. And I was trying to get to the point where I was maybe resigned to that being the case. I also think, you know, in the process, I had my daughter and I took a lot of time off. And that will, you know, maybe I want to be a stay at home mom. And I quickly realized that, kudos to everyone who does, but it's not for me, I need a lot more adult conversation, a lot more intellectual stimulation from my work. And so that was like another kind of thing I explored, I guess, job I explored, that wasn't the right fit. But there's a lot of emotion tied into all of that, right? It's not just, unfortunately, it's not just the check the box exercise...

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:09
It would be so much easier for well, as it works out.

Laura Morrison 17:11
It's so much easier. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:13
We probably wouldn't have this podcast if it was as simple as that.

Laura Morrison 17:17
That's right. So that was a big apprehension for me. Going through the course, you know, the first few weeks are a lot about self reflection. And I love that. And actually, it's part of the funny story about my new job is that as I was doing strengthsfinder, in career change boot camp, I was kind of talking my husband's ear off about how I loved behavioral assessments and how I wish I could talk about them all day. And, man, I wish that was a job. And then you know, a few months later, I found basically that job, which is pretty awesome. But then, you know, you get into the part where you really have to be vulnerable. And you have to kind of go and talk to people and try to meet new people. And there was definitely a lot of apprehension around that as well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:03
So it's, first of all, I love and I've heard variations of that story so many times, and it just makes me so happy that we get to be a part of any of those stories where in this case, you, at one point, were talking your husband's ear off about, Hey, I just love this self assessment type thing. And it would be super cool if I could do something like this and be able to be immersed in this world all day. And then now you're going to be and absolutely love that. And I'm so proud of you for going from that end to the completely opposite end. Because that's not an easy thing to do as we're going to talk about. That said, what was most difficult as you started flipping from the internal and reflection side, which is often the way that we'll work with our students and clients, we will go through those internal side and really get the best hypothesis of what's going to be great for you. But then at some point you have to flip into, okay, how does this match up with the rest of the world? As you were going through that section, what was hardest for you?

Laura Morrison 19:22
You know, I think I had this idea of the company culture I wanted, right? I'm a casual person. I like wearing jeans to work. I like flexible hours and you know, wanted a ping pong table in my office, which is just kind of a funny indication of the type of culture I was looking for, right. And but I didn't know what work I wanted to do, right. So it's great to have a good company culture and I had that before, but it's not enough because I wanted to work that was actually exciting to me as well. So that was the hardest part is to think about the work, but also as you and Lisa would keep pointing out as, figure out the work later, like you just have to start somewhere, start talking to people, start learning about what other people do. And I think for me a huge mental barrier, as well is that I felt really naive about what type of jobs are out there. And I felt insecure about how little I knew about what other job opportunities were out there. And so the process of having to talk to people about what they do and what it actually means, as well as continuing to listen to the podcasts where people were sharing stories about the work they do. That step in itself just really helped me understand what opportunities there were, even though some of them I dismissed pretty quickly. Yeah. Does that answer your question?

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:49
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a common thing. And I've heard that quite a bit of feeling naive about what types of jobs are out there. And I think that, that I don't think anybody knows all the types of jobs that are out there. We've got exposure to a whole bunch of them just because of the nature of the type of work that we do. But...

Laura Morrison 21:13
I've got to say, Scott, maybe you know all the jobs that are out there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:17
Not all the jobs but...

Laura Morrison 21:18
Yeah, exactly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:21
No, it would be... that even might be easier if we did to help people in that way. But if only there was a list, that's another thing. If only there was a list, I could just go through and pick and it isn't that easy, because even if we knew all the types of jobs, there's still other elements and other variables that come into play. And it becomes this somewhat complex problem of picking out the variables that are most useful and relatable and relevant to you and how you work. And I'm curious, what was it about this process of going and talking to people because from getting to know you just a little bit through the program and having chatted a couple of times, and having had the pleasure of helping you negotiate. It seems like you benefit a lot from conversation.

Laura Morrison 22:14
Yeah, I do. Yeah, I think, you know, one of the, I'll go back to that kind of first session I had with this woman who's local to Boston, this career coach, and her approach was a bit different than yours. And I didn't love it, because she wanted me to read a book about each career option, which as I mentioned, not the best way for me to learn, it also is a big time commitment. And she wanted me to do that before I talked to anyone, because I, you know, when you talk to people, you're taking up some of their time, and you want to be knowledgeable about what you're asking. So that didn't feel great for me, of course, I could have done it. But I wasn't excited about it. But I know that I learn best by talking to people. And the opportunity to talk to all these people in different roles, added a ton of value to me, I think, one I got to see a little bit about company culture, depending on if people were willing to talk to me or not, which is kind of a funny thing. And I also will, now always talk to someone who's looking and wants to talk to me, right?

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:24
It changes that perspective, doesn't it?

Laura Morrison 23:24
It does. Yeah, and I was actually hiring someone as I was looking to be hired right in my current role. And so it put a different lens on it. But, you know, I think I was really nervous about talking to people about making sure that I had something intelligent to say or had good questions to ask. So I did a lot of preparation, which is kind of my style to over prepare, when I'm anxious about something. So...

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:36
What type of preparation would you do or you're gonna...

Laura Morrison 23:54
Yeah, well, I'd looked at their LinkedIn profile. And I would come up with a list of questions that I wanted to talk to them about. And for people who don't know, I mean, the idea is like a 15 minute phone call, which is really not a lot of questions. But I would have probably 10 for every person I talked to, and I would try to make them personal. And I would try to make sure I knew where they went to school, what common interests we had, anything like that, that could help me relate to them. Because while I really like working with people, I have trouble with that kind of first introduction part. I get really nervous, like walking into a room and introducing myself to someone new. But if someone introduced me to that person, I'm very comfortable. So there's this kind of hurdle that I needed to get over to be able to have all those conversations where I could ask these questions. And I literally would ask questions, and sometimes they would ask about me or ask how they could help me. But most of the time, they just told me about what they did, day to day, and I think I talked to probably 20 to 25 people. And that's a lot. That's a lot of kind of time and hours to learn about what other people do. And it made me feel less naive, right, about what all the opportunities are, it made me feel much more empowered to make a decision about different types of roles that could be a good fit for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:19
What were some of the things that you learned through that portion of the process?

Laura Morrison 25:24
Yeah, I think I learned that, for me that my network and using people I actually knew to get connected was really helpful, that the cold calling part was hard for me. And I would, so what I would do during these conversations is I would take notes, and then I would go back and read through them and highlight kind of the pieces that resonated with me. And one of the questions that I really liked asking was kind of, what makes you great at your job. And then when I would hear people say, things that I'm interested in, you know, can relate to people, kind of ability to make decisions quickly, without all the information. Yeah, just kind of a list of things that resonated with me, or that I was excited about and kind of highlight those. And then I would see that, you know, the product management role actually could be a really good fit for me, because all of these people are saying things that I'm good at. And that I enjoy doing, which is also I think something I learned through the process. Maybe not through those phone calls, specifically, but through the whole career change boot camp, is that there's a big difference between things you're good at and things you enjoy. Sometimes they're the same, but they're not always the same.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:44
Yes, very much. And we're absolutely encouraging people that center in and lean into those that happened to fall into both categories. And it sounds like... it was interesting for me, going back because you were working primarily with one of our coaches, Lisa Lewis, I would get tidbits, she would either send me an email, or you would cc me on something and get tidbits into what was going on in the different steps along the way. And I would say that it wasn't necessarily always an easy road for you.

Laura Morrison 26:55
Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:31
I'm curious what you felt like were some of the most challenging parts. And I know, we chatted just a little bit before we hit the record button here. But I'm particularly curious about what you'd mentioned to me about going into a role. And getting out of that, because I think that that is real, that's human. And to some degree, we all do that sort of thing. So tell us about that and then what worked for you.

Laura Morrison 28:00
Yeah, you know, I think having a program that I was following was really important to me, because I needed the homework. And I needed to check the boxes as I went through the weeks. And where I spent the most time was in this test drive method, right, is having these phone calls. And so what would happen is I'd spend, you know, two to four hours, and I'd research all these people. And I'd get introduced, and I set up phone calls. And then all of a sudden, I'd have, you know, four phone calls in one week that I was trying to juggle with you know, naptime on Fridays, and work time Monday through Thursday. And I'd have like, get it all in and get... have the conversations that take the notes up great. I send follow up emails and follow up thank you notes. And then after doing four or five of those in a few weeks, between the scheduling and the talking and the follow up, I was just tired, right? And so like, okay, I did that. I know, I'm supposed to have three more phone calls this week. But I didn't have any lined up. I didn't even know who the next people that were going to be talking to were. And so I would often then kind of have a week or two where in the back of my head, I would know I would need to do that again. But maybe I would take a break and go on vacation. I'd say that I was too busy. Or sometimes I would do some of the other homework that I felt more comfortable in. Some of the internal stuff like going back to my signature strengths or even skipping ahead to look and think about my resume. And I think you know what got me to keep going back, I think one like I said is having this course where I knew I had other things I needed to do. Knowing that I was accountable to Lisa, my coach, but I think for the first time really being accountable to myself to get this done and a lot of it was just like, alright, I don't want to do this right now. But I'm going to suck it up. And I'm going to sit down. And I'm going to spend four hours on a Saturday working on this and moving forward. And then you get another flurry of phone calls and follow ups and scheduling. Right? And then it kind of happened in many cycles like that, I would say.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:19
And it kind of sounds like almost the flurry of phone calls and scheduling and everything that came along with it was almost the dose of motivation to keep going or to pull you back in to some degree. Am I reading that right? Or how did you feel about those? Because it sounds like you're...

Laura Morrison 30:39
Yeah, it's a little bit of both. I think a lot of it is, those conversations were really energizing for me. But I would still leave them being like, well, I still don't know where I'm going to work next. So I'm happy that I'm talking to all these people. I'm learning all these things, but I didn't see the end goal. And so I think I tend to be push myself to be more extroverted than I am. And so I think there was an element of those conversations that was draining for me as well. So it's a little bit of both, but knowing that the conversations are good, made it easy to be like, okay, I took a week off, let's get some more on the calendar.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:21
Very cool. And with those conversations, and initially, as you went into those conversations, you'd said, hey, I still don't know where this is going to end up leading. And clearly that was uncomfortable for you. And there is some of that discomfort type reality that when you're going through and trying to identify what is a great situation for you, and what is a great career opportunity for you, that there... sometimes it is hard to see that light at the end of the tunnel, no matter whether you have a system and whether, you know, we've had many other people go through it before. It's still when you're in the thick of it can be challenging. So what point did you start to see that light come back?

Laura Morrison 32:10
Yeah, it's interesting, because I, you know, there were a couple people I spoke with, and their companies were interesting, and they have job openings, and they were offering to help me get my resume in the door. And I kind of said no, right, I said, you know, I'm not sure this is the wrong fit. But I'm not sure it's the right fit yet. And I don't want to apply to something I'm not super excited about. So like, I need some time, I need to figure that out. And that was hard to do as well, because I wasn't particularly happy. The idea of an end was tempting, right? At an end, that could be really cool and I'm sure it would be a great opportunity, but maybe didn't hit the lifestyle choices I wanted or the day to day work that I wanted. But so I think what changed is that when I started talking to people at PI, I was not just excited about the company, or the people, but all of a sudden, the role sounded exciting, too. And I talked to a lot of people there. And they were, like everyone I talked to was so willing to give me their time. And they're kind of openly tell me about what the day to day was. And I just, it was such a great group of people. I mean, I got introduced through a friend of a friend and the kind of head of marketing they're, like, easily handed me three more names of people I could talk to on the team. And that in itself was kind of an indication to me of how generous kind of the culture is. Because when you're busy, and of course, startups and everyone is busy, right, especially at a startup culture, and when they're willing to not just give you their time, but also time with their team members and other other colleagues. I think that says a lot about the company. So all of those things combined, started getting me excited about a job at PI specifically, which was kind of the light at the end of the tunnel but then also of course a little stressful because if that's... after all this and I've talked to all these people, if that's the job and the company I'm excited about and I'm putting kind of some eggs in that basket that puts a lot of pressure on myself to hope that it works out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:31
Yeah, and I remember that switch flipping there, where you sent me the email and Lisa too and said, "Okay, I found this company that I want. And now what?"

Laura Morrison 34:34
How do I get it? Exactly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:46
And what did you end up doing? Fill in that's part of the story for people because essentially at this point, as I understand it, this was your number one company at the time, where it's like hey, I like this, I want this. Let's make this happen. So what happened at that point?

Laura Morrison 35:07
Well, I think, you know, a lot of the conversation that I had with you and with Lisa was really helpful to say a couple things, you know, I think you were really helping me understand the right way to approach the conversation, how to continue to build a partnership to really actually make sure that I wasn't... like that I was actually excited about the role while building this partnership and relationships with the hiring manager there. And I think what Lisa did as well was, you know, I mentioned before that, because I wasn't super happy with the work I was doing before, it made it hard for me to feel confident in myself. And so she really helped me kind of remind me that I had a lot to bring to the table, and that I would be a good fit, not just for me, but also for the company that I could do a lot for them. And because I'm so passionate about it, that's, you know, one of the reasons that I'd be a good fit there. I mean, the PI whole thing is about engaging employees, right. And when people are engaged, they bring a lot more to the table. And so being able to be myself and show how authentically interested I was was kind of the primary thing that I focused on through the hiring process.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:29
How do you recommend, having just been through this, I think what you just described is very difficult in terms of being able to be yourself or at least be confident enough to be yourself through that hiring process and share that part because it is some level of vulnerability. Right. But, what advice would you have to other people that are getting ready to go through that or are going through that?

Laura Morrison 36:58
Yeah, you know, I think if you found a role that really does line up with what you're looking for, and something you're excited about, and the strengths you bring to the table, then it's much less important that you know how to answer a million behavioral questions. And much more important that you get yourself in a headspace to be yourself and be the competent version of yourself in those conversations. It's a lot easier to say than it is to do, right. And I think Lisa, maybe had a tip, I can't remember if it was you, Scott, or Lisa about you know, listen to a song before your interview that gets you pumped up, or I think Lisa said, watch a video of your daughter, like, just do yoga, go running in the morning, do something that calms you down, right. Or if you're a calm person that hypes you up whichever way. And I think that was a really valuable advice. And I think I did a mock interview with Lisa. And I had prepared all these answers. And I've been kind of I like writing. So I write down a lot of things that sound great on paper. And then as soon as you try to say them, you kind of stumble over it and it doesn't come out, right. And she was pointing out to me that I would switch from myself to like the interview version of myself. And the interview version of myself is much more boring. And so just that in itself, like after that I actually kind of stopped preparing for the interview, and started thinking more about how can I be myself with these people? Like I had been on the phone calls, because I was comfortable there. So how do I go into an interview and figure out how to just be myself?

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:51
That is suitable. And I'll even distinguish, you mentioned earlier being the confident version of yourself. And that is... that I think is a small but critical distinction too. Because we can go through, as humans, all of these head games where it's just like, I'm just not competent anymore, or I'm just not a confident person anymore, or whatever else. But I don't think that that is true. And I don't think that is helpful for any of us to be able to tell ourselves because we all have just like you pointed out a place where we can be a competent version of ourselves. And that's the both genuine plus helpful version to be. So that's interesting that you started preparing for focusing more on being yourself rather than focusing on doing the "right thing."

Laura Morrison 39:46
Yeah, definitely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:49
Okay, so we just covered a lot of ground here over seven months. How does that feel looking back? Does that feel like a long time? Does it feel super quick? I'm always curious about that.

Laura Morrison 40:02
You know, I think I had a goal for myself starting in January that I'd have a new job by the end of this calendar year. So that's exciting, right?

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:10
And you did it.

Laura Morrison 40:11
I did it and I set that goal. And I was like God, years a long time. So it's a little bit of both, it's in the trenches, it felt like a long time, I knew it wasn't going to be a month, right, two months. I knew that I needed to do a lot of the searching internally to figure out what I was looking for before I could find it. So I think, you know, parts of those seven months or so felt long. Usually, actually, the parts where I wasn't alone and wasn't doing much, I think, for me action and moving towards the direction speeds things up, or at least made me feel better about the time that it was taking. But now looking back on it, I mean, the difference from where I am today, versus where I was at the end of the year is incredible, not just in the fact that I have a new job. But my mentality about my career, about my potential in a career, kind of the optimism that I gained through the process, yeah, it feels very different in a very good way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:19
So what is... it is a completely different place. And it's been super cool for us to be able to see some of those changes along the way. But what do you feel like that is meant for you, other than some of the additional optimism that you have going into 2018 here, what do you feel like that's meant for you?

Laura Morrison 41:41
Oh, it means a lot. You know, I think, having just had a daughter, which is amazing. Of course, she's almost two now, I guess I can't say just anymore. I think for moms, in general, that you tend to shift all your focus away from yourself, and now on to this kind of little creature that you brought into the world. And it's amazing, but it's also really hard to find time for yourself, to take care of yourself. And I think for me, the career part is what I put most on hold. And again, because I didn't know what I wanted to do. But partly because I felt hard. And I was focused on something else. So now to be able to be kind of a mom when I'm home. But then the idea of going to work and being happy at work too. It's all... it's just a very different way. Yeah, it just feels very different. Right? If you're going to leave your house, leave your kid with someone else, you'd hope that you're doing something fun while you're out of the house. Right. And that's something that I really didn't have. And now, I'm really optimistic that I'll have that going forward. And I'm also optimistic that now, it won't take me three years if I am unhappy again in the future.

Scott Anthony Barlow 43:05
That is, you know, when we get the opportunity to work with people, I know that that is what, initially people are very focused on, the change that's now. I think personally, having done this for a while and being able to witness a lot of changes. I think that's the most valuable part in the long run is just knowing how and having the confidence to be able to make changes for when something else in life changes. Because it will, I mean, it absolutely will. And it's going to be something, that's going to be, you know, a promotion opportunity, or it's going to be, I don't know, your boss leaves or there's going to be something there, right?

Laura Morrison 43:51
Right. Of course.

Scott Anthony Barlow 43:53
And that is so cool that you feel prepared for, when that happens the next time around.

Laura Morrison 44:00
Absolutely. And I think that's where some of the optimism comes from. I feel empowered to kind of be in charge of my career again.

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:09
Woohoo. I didn't have anything else to say that is what I wanted to add right then and there. That is amazing. I am so proud of you. And Lisa, so proud of you. And we've shared your story with our team already. We do that behind the scenes for every single person that ends up hitting their goals or getting the results that they wanted to, we share that around on, we use Slack for Team communication. So we have a woohoo channel. That's where your story got shared as soon as it happened. So woohoo to you too, and now you get to share in that as well. And you have just done a phenomenal job. And before we wrap it up, I'm curious for... if you're reaching way back to a year ago, where you resolved that and you made the commitment, hey, look, I want to... this is the year. I've been thinking about this for a couple of years now. And now I'm gonna do something about it. This is the year. What advice would you give to people that are in that spot that are just setting down this path to be able to make the change?

Laura Morrison 45:17
Yeah, I think, you know, it took me a few months to look for outside help. And that was the thing that I needed. I think, particularly as someone who has been successful, it's hard to admit to myself, it was hard for me to say I couldn't do it by myself. You know, I'm smart person, I should be able to figure this out. But as soon as I, you know, had my first career coaching experience, it completely turned around my approach to finding a new job. And it completely gave me the power back and the tools that I needed to do it. So I think, you know, if you know exactly what you want to do, well you're probably not listening to this podcast. But if you don't, just know that there are a lot of tools and resources and people out there who can help you. And for me, that made all the difference.

Scott Anthony Barlow 46:10
That is amazing. Well, I am so glad that it did. Thank you for letting us hang along for the ride and getting to help you at every little point, it was a ton of fun.

Laura Morrison 46:22
Yeah, thanks, Scott. And you and Lisa, and the whole team has been a pleasure to work with. And I, like I said, I've been talking to everyone about your program. And I just think the best of the work that you do and the tools that you put out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 46:35
Well, we very much appreciate that. Thank you for spreading the good word. And keep it up. Do not let us stop yet. That is phenomenal. Laura, thank you so very much. And congratulations, again, moving into your new role. That is amazing.

Laura Morrison 46:52
Thank you, Scott, I really appreciate it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 46:55
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 a '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 it up right now and send me an email with 'Conversation' in the subject line scott@happentoyourcareer.com

Dan Pink 00:04

This question about that people tend to ask younger people like, "What's your passion?" And I really dislike that question. Because I think when you face that question, there's sort of this obligation to give a really profound answer.

Introduction 00:23

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 00:47

What if you could get more done by simply knowing when to do it? Or what if I told you that finding the career you're passionate about isn't really all that it's cracked up to be? Or what if I showed you that science says that something much bigger than passion leads to career happiness? You might be scratching your head a bit, but today, we have some mind bending ideas on exactly these subjects.

Dan Pink 01:12

Passion is a sort of emotion and sort of state that is very, very hot and not enduring, not something that's sustainable.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:20

That's Dan Pink. He's a New York Times bestselling author of several books, including "Drive" and "When" both are about human behavior, both are about business, but come from different perspectives. By the way, he's had a massive impact on my life. I remember my days as an HR director ordering cases of his books, because I knew they'd be transformational for anyone I could get to read them. Dan has this really powerful way of helping us figure out our best work and when the best time to do it is, in fact, he wrote an entire book on the impacts of timing on success. But that's not the only reason that we have him here on the show and why I wanted to talk to him. He's also got a really interesting, varied career, including being a speechwriter for Al Gore, and many other policy and politics types positions. And I would actually love to go back before the books, predating the books. And in fact, I'd love to go all the way back to law school, because you're not a lawyer at this point, as it turns out, so take us back there a bit. And I'm super curious, why on earth did you even decide to go to law school in the first place?

Dan Pink 02:32

Okay, fair question. I don't want to torture your listeners too much. But in order to answer that question, I think you have to go back into my upbringing. I grew up in the American Midwest, middle class kid, son of parents who were very deeply concerned about economic security. And throughout my childhood, this message was understandably beat into me about you got to do something you can fall back on, you gotta make sure that you take care of your economic security. And what that meant in the time that I was growing up was things like, becoming a doctor, becoming an engineer, becoming an accountant, becoming a lawyer, like having that kind of skilled profession. And because the nature of I don't know, my parents said, basically, I just assumed, like, my whole... I mean it's weird, my whole childhood that that's what I would do. It's really weird. I've recognized that in retrospect. And so I did, and it kind of a mindless way. And I got there and I really didn't like it. And I left for a little while, I ended up going back partly through risk aversion more than anything else. And it's not only am I not a lawyer now, I've never been a lawyer. I graduated from law school and never practice law and never clerked for a judge, never done anything like that, instead, started working in politics, because at the time, that's what I was interested in.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:52

So what prompted you to go through the rest of law school and then not become a lawyer? There was probably a bit that happened in between there, I suppose.

Dan Pink 04:02

Well, yes. And no, I mean, there are two parts of that question. I mean, part of it was, I mean, so what prompted you to go through and what prompted you not to be become a lawyer? To me at some level, those are two different questions. One of them is what what prompted me to go through is probably just a sense of just bad reasoning, saying, "Oh my God, I've already sunk this much time into it, I might as well finish." Or probably at another level, "Wow, I really look like an idiot if I started and didn't finish." That's it. And then in terms of not practicing, that was actually an easier decision. Because here's the problem, Scott, that I made. And if there's a lesson that other people can learn on this it's that, I think a lot of times we make assumptions about how the world works, or how careers go or what professionals are like, and a lot of times your assumptions are wrong. I mean, truly, I mean, I feel like an idiot in retrospect, I have no idea what lawyers actually did. And like I never spent any time in a law office. I never actually spent a day with a lawyer. I never talked to a lawyer about what she did for a living. I actually never even went to a law school class to check it out before going to law school. And that's a huge mistake. I just assumed what it was going to be like. And once I realized that what lawyers actually did, my view of it was, "Okay, great. This is, you know, skilled profession, but I don't want it this bore, I don't want to do this for the rest of my life." And so that was actually an easy decision not to practice law, because in the same way that I wouldn't want to spend the next 30 years of my life, you know, cleaning gutters, that's not interesting. But that's how I felt about the practice of law.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:33

So what happened post law school then? It was an easy decision, but then something happened post law school.

Dan Pink 05:40

I graduated unemployed, and I was one of the very, very, very few people who graduated from law school, unemployed. And again, the way that sort of the anthropology of law schools is it's a haven for people who are deeply risk averse. And as a consequence, a lot of people have jobs, their post graduation plans lined up, like literally over a year in advance, everybody had a job, either clicking for a judge or working for a law firm or working in government or working for public interest group or whatever. And I did not. I graduated unemployed. And at the time, I was deeply interested in politics. So I started looking for political jobs. And I ended up working on some campaigns, some political campaigns where I was getting paid, like a ridiculously small amount, I had massive student loans, massive student loans. So I was fortunate that my law school actually had a loan forgiveness policy for people who made very little money. So I was well beneath the threshold of that. And so that took a little bit of the sting out of it. And so that's what I get, started working in politics, working on campaigns.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:45

Why politics? Why was that interesting to you at the time, or what?

Dan Pink 06:49

I'm not sure why, but it was. I was really deeply interested in it. I was interested in it as on two different levels. One was that it was a way to make an impact to do something that affected the world. But equally I have to say it was also really exciting and interesting. And it was like a sport. It was like a game. It was like exciting. It's contest. It's... you're strategizing, you are trying to win. And so the sporting aspect of it, I liked a lot too.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:20

As you got into it, how is it different than what you anticipated?

Dan Pink 07:26

That's a great question. And I think that's one of the things that had me leave eventually. As I got into it, what I realized is that the... I looked at those two things, but there's two parts, there's the sporting aspect, the game aspect to it, and then there's the impact aspect to it. And what I found is that it was mostly about the sporting aspect. And that actually, for me, at least lost its thrill after a while. And you wonder, like, what's the point of this exercise, that the tactics, and it was all tactical, there's very little strategy is basically all let's just do things for some short term tactical advantage, after a while that loses its appeal, if you're not doing something in the service of something bigger and found that the service is something bigger ended up getting crowded out, not because of the people I worked with, the politicians I work for necessarily, but because of the system is just its isn't designed to prize short term tactical, rather than long term strategic and designed to prize the quick, small, fleeting victory rather than the harder, more enduring victory.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:35

So I'm super curious about that. For those folks that haven't worked in politics or been around politics before., what's an example that you experienced of that?

Dan Pink 08:43

You know, I worked back in the days when people read newspapers, so...

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:47

Oh, that's way back then.

Dan Pink 08:49

So you know, somebody would write an article about something that somebody I was working for said or did. And then the seventh paragraph was a sentence that was ambiguous about whether it was positive or negative. And we'd have to have an hour long conversation about whether it was positive or negative, and then another hour long conversation about how to respond to it. When in fact, it's like, Okay, this is really meaningless is really short term. No one's going to care about this in three hours, let alone three days or three years, why are we wasting our time on this? Or even things like me used to drive me nuts. Unfortunately, in some of my jobs, I didn't have to do this. But for, you know, I became a speechwriter, the principled politician is going to go up before a group of people had some kind of speech. So who has to be acknowledged? All right. Well, should we acknowledge so and so. Meaning that you know, "Paulo, it's great to be here at the National Association of rutabagas. I'd like to thank national rutabaga association president, you know, Jean Fernandez." Like, who do you have to thank and acknowledge from the podium, I mean, that just struck me as like the most absurd, like the amount of time spent on that kind of nonsense was just... it was just absolutely absurd. Those are two small examples from that part of my life.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:00

I'm guessing elements of that caused you to leave. But I'm super curious then, you know, as you became a speechwriter, what were some of the elements that you really truly enjoyed out of that experience?

Dan Pink 10:11

Oh, what I liked about it was that something actually happened to femoral though it was. So you would write something and then you would see something that you came up with. And it was quoted a newspaper or seen on TV. And people responded to it. That's super cool. A lot of times, like in the policymaking process, the policy was delayed and delayed and delayed and sort of not being finalized. And what ended up finalizing it was the fact that somebody had to give a speech announcing it. And so there was a tiny insight into policymaking and a tiny impact on policymaking. And also, it's just very, very fast paced environment. It can be exciting at times, turn on the TV, and they're talking about stuff that you're involved in, which is cool.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:59

I'm super curious, because in some ways, at least on the exterior, it seems like the fast pace of that is drastically different in some ways than life as a writer and author, maybe not for book tours, or anything else like that. But.

Dan Pink 11:16

Oh, God, yeah, totally. For speechwriting at a certain level, once you get to the cabinet level, and the presidential, vice presidential level, it's like being a doctor but it's like working in an inner city emergency room.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:32

You're always on call.

Dan Pink 11:34

You're always on call. And what you're trying to do is stitch up the body so they don't die on your watch. That's what it's like, it's that kind of atmosphere. It can be exhilarating. It can be exhausting. But it can also be exhilarating.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:43

What caused you to leave that then? Because you're having some of that exhilaration, certainly there was elements that you didn't like, but what actually took place that caused you to move down the road or to take those actions to leave?

Dan Pink 11:56

There were several things. So number one was that I mean, not even... I don't even want to rank them because it's not like they're linear. It's like they all work together. So one thing was, at the time, I was in my early 30s. For the end, I was in my early 30s. And I looked down the road, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and people who were doing what I was doing, like what were their lives like in 10 years, 20 years, and I didn't like that at all. I didn't like what I saw potential it might be coming, which is basically a person who's you know, career political, professional, deeply, deeply cynical, and entirely tactical, I didn't like that at all. That's one thing. The second thing is that it's a very demanding job. And again, this is such a long time ago, it was really pre widespread use of mobile phones. So I used to have a pager, that pager was like being tethered to the job. And I think that the people who you're working for need that kind of commitment, they need the kind of commitment that you're always going to be ready to help, you're always going to be on call, I actually think that's the kind of people you should hire. And because my wife and I had had a baby, I was thinking God, you know, I don't know if I want to be on call all the time. So that was a factor. Another factor was that, again, this has nothing to do with politics. But another factor was what we're talking about before the balance was so much on short term tactical advantage and nothing on anything more enduring. You know, and then even more important, I sort of, you know, as you learn about yourself, I was very fortunate in that I had some good bosses, but I realized that I didn't really like having a boss period, there was not very much autonomy in that kind of work. And then another factor was that, and this is where it sort of makes a little bit more sense in retrospect, like so many things. From a very early age. From the time I was in college, I was always "writing on the side" I was writing magazine articles, newspaper, op-eds, that kind of thing. I did it in college. You know, in college, I was a pretty hardcore social science person, pretty dedicated, hardcore student. But on the side, I wrote, believe it or not, I won a short story prize in college, completely antithetical to the hardcore mathematical social science that I was doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:17

Yeah, absolutely.

Dan Pink 14:20

Law schools, I was writing articles for newspapers and magazines on the side, probably spending more time on that than on my actual law school work. When I got into the workforce, I was also I was writing book reviews for magazines, and even when I got into other kinds of jobs where I wasn't allowed to get paid understandably, because of ethics concerns, I was still writing for magazines and newspapers on the side. And that's when I was a slowly thanks to my wife in part I began to realize that what I was doing, "on the side" is what I should be doing for real. I became a speechwriter in a pretty random half assed way and that I just... somebody asked me to do it once and I did an okay job. And then they asked me again, and I did an okay job. And then suddenly that was what I was doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:08

As happens. Yes.

Dan Pink 15:09

Yeah, exactly. I think that's common in a lot of enterprise. It's not as if I set out to do that. And but I never sort of when I was growing up, or when I was in college, oh, I'm going to grow up and become a writer. There are plenty of people who are like that, there plenty of people who know from a very early age that they're going to be writers. And I think I discovered that a little bit later in life, not at an ancient age, but at a later age than most people, I think, you know, early 30s, I realized, this is what I do. Like, here I am killing myself, at midnight working on an article that I'm not going to get paid for. This might actually be something that I like doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:45

So here's my question about that, then, Dan, because I think it's always obvious in retrospect, but I love digging into people's stories, because there's always seems to be some element that is there. It's never like, I had this epiphany and I was going to be a beekeeper. And that was it. I'm a beekeeper now and boom, everything was great. There's always some element there. So at what point, I heard you say that your wife was critical to that. But was there a particular point in time where you had that realization? Or the switch flipped? Or what was it that really...

Dan Pink 16:21

I'm with you, Scott. I don't have epiphanies. I mean, I just don't think life generally doesn't work that way. I think it's a slow hunch. It's a gradual realization, it is taking three steps back and looking at your pattern or behavior and say, "Holy smokes, this is what I do." I think that's what happened with me, but goes to something I've mentioned before. In, you know, other I think I mentioned this in some other interviews, or in some speeches or whatever, which is that, this question about that people tend to ask younger people like, What's your passion? And I really dislike that question. Because I think when you face that question, there's sort of this obligation to give a really profound answer. And I think it's a hard question to answer. And I think it's the wrong question, though. I think the real question is, what do you do? You know, look over your own behavior, what do you do? So go back to your beekeeper example. I don't think people wake up one morning and say, Oh, I'm going to be a beekeeper. I think what they do is they say, Why do I spend so much time like, following these bees around them? And like when a bee is in my backyard, I take a picture of it, I look at it, why am I reading this article about bees? Why do I look linger in the grocery store and look to see where the honeycombs? If it's a switch, it's more like a dimmer switch. It's not like an off-on, it's not fine there at one zero. It's more gradual. And I think that at a certain point, when that if you take a step back and watch what you do, I think that reveals clues. So even now, after spending a long time as a writer, if you were to say to me, you know, is writing your passion, I would say, I don't think so. Because writing is really freaking hard.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:59

Yes, it is.

Dan Pink 18:00

There's some days that I hate it. But it's what I do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:04

So let me ask you about that for just a second, then. Two questions here. And maybe they'll take us to different completely different places. But I'm curious when you say that, and I completely understand that. But I'm not sure that is always obvious what is beneath the layers of that, like, my impression of everything that you've said so far, is that overall, you enjoy writing and being an author and the byproducts of that, and what goes into that, and it's something that you've done for a very long time, even when you weren't getting paid. Break down some of those layers for me a little bit in terms of what do you mean, when you say, "Hey, no, it's absolutely not my passion, it's really freakin hard." Help us understand a little bit more of that. Because I do think that there is this misconception out there that when you find the thing, or you are the beekeeper, whatever it might be, then you're just going to enjoy absolutely every element of it. And I know you actually talked about this in one of your books too 'Drive'. But break that down for me a little bit in terms of what you mean by that.

Dan Pink 19:07

It really depends on what we mean by enjoyment and what we mean by passion. I think passion is just the wrong word. I really do. I think that is passion is a sort of emotion and sort of state that is very, very hot and not enduring, not something that's sustainable. I think that what gives people satisfaction in their work is a sense of challenge. And remember, challenge can be frustrating, because sometimes you're not up to the challenge. So I think it's a sense of challenge. And I also think that it's a sense of contribution as well. So if I get an email from reader or see reader at an event or something like that, and they say, I had an experience last week, I was in Nashville, at a bookstore. And these two people came up to me, man and a woman, you know, maybe in their late 50s, early 60s, and they said, "We read a book of years ago called 'A Whole New Mind' and it really changed the way the conversation we had in our house with our son, we realized that the fact that he wasn't this hardcore, left brain quantitative person was okay. And that he had these other skills. And then because of this book, he decided to go to the Rhode Island School of Design. And he went to the Rhode Island School of Design, and now he's in his late 20s, and has this flourishing career as a designer, and everything. And it's all you know, and I don't know if that would have happened without your book." Okay, so that basically kept me in the writing business for two additional weeks. And so I think that's a better way to look at it. What is challenging? What do you do because it's part of who you are? And what do you do that makes a contribution?

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:46

So now that you've been doing this for a while, we know that you don't enjoy every single element. So...

Dan Pink 20:52

No way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:53

Yeah, no way. And I don't think that's true for any...

Dan Pink 20:56

I think it's too far. You know, what, like, I like baseball. Okay. Yeah, I bet it's super cool to be a professional baseball player. But you know what, there's a lot of being a professional, a major league baseball player, that's a total pain, right? You have 162 games every season, you finish a game at 12 o'clock at night, and go take a shower and then got to take a plane to the west coast and play another game, your body takes a beating, you have to concentrate every single night, you have to stand up there every single night as if you're a hitter, and face somebody throwing a projectile at you 95 miles an hour. And some days, like you're just not in the mood to do that. But what do you do? You get up and do your job. And so if you look at like a major league, a baseball player or major... or an NBA basketball player, now, is baseball your passion? Well, I don't know. But it's my job. It's what I do. It's my challenge. It's what I do. It's what I care about. So again, I don't want to split hairs here. But I think it's a very, I think professionals care about challenge. And they care about contribution. And they care less about passion. At some level, passion and contribution are focused in very different directions. Passion is all about me. And contribution is all about other people. And so I just don't think that... I really don't think that professionals care about passion.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:05

Love that perspective, I don't think I've heard it put quite that way before.

Dan Pink 22:09

This is going to be plenty of people. And believe me, there gonna be plenty of people who are going to be emailing you saying, "This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm a professional, I'm passionate about bird watching or whatever." And, you know, "I'm a professional surfboarder, and I'm passionate about surfing." But my guess is that professional surfers there many many days when surfing, even though they like surfing, it's who they are, is a total pain.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:32

I don't think that that is dissimilar from a lot of what we teach on this podcast at all. However, I still find that as people listen to the show, I do continuously get those emails. So I appreciate very, very much you breaking it down in that particular way. And I love especially the piece about contribution versus passion. That is super interesting to me. And I think that's probably true for many things in life, when you're focused on other people, as opposed to just yourself, those are the kinds of the things that carry you forward. And those are the kinds of things that make you feel connected to it. Those are the kinds of things that give you meaning. Those are the kinds of things that ultimately get you where many people want to go in a lot of different ways, too. So that absolutely resonates with me. Here's another question for you that I'm curious about. Let me put it this way. I get emailed all the time, about 'Johnny Bunko'.

Dan Pink 23:32

Really? Okay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:33

I do actually. And it makes sense, considering the context of our, you know, what we do our company and our podcast and everything else along with it. But I've heard you say in a couple of different places and read a couple of different interviews where you've said things like, Hey, this is... I think I came out before it's time in some way, or I really didn't consider this book to be a very large success. But I find that the emails that I'm getting about it, the people that are like, "Hey, have you read this?" They listed as, you know, their top 10 books, many times. So one, I'm curious how you think about this book now? And I wanted to ask you about that.

Dan Pink 24:09

I'm very proud of that book. Because I think it's incredibly original. I think it's an original book. And I think it's a book that's been helpful to people. If you look at the raw numbers, it hasn't sold as many as my other books. I don't consider it a failure. I consider it really inspired experiment that I was proud of and that I enjoyed doing. But they didn't put the same numbers on the board as another book, which suggests that maybe it's the format of that book is somehow has less of a wide appeal than other kinds of formats.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:39

It does seem the way that people put it to me in email format or talk about it to me in conversation. I would almost equate it to like cult following a little bit. Almost like a movie that had...

Dan Pink 24:52

I like to hear that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:53

Yeah.

Dan Pink 24:55

Yeah. So it's like office space or Arrested Development. And those are... I'm happy to be in that Troika their, Office Space, Arrested Development and The Adventures of Johnny Bunko.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:04

Perfect. Let's put it into that category. That is very much seems where it probably should be. I like it quite a bit. I would like to spend a few minutes talking about when though, because I've read the whole book about...

Dan Pink 25:16

Thanks.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:17

One... Yeah, absolutely. I thought it was amazing. It was interesting to me. It had a different feel than some of your other books in a few different ways. And I'm curious, you know, as you were writing, how did you approach this book differently than some of your past?

Dan Pink 25:32

Well, this book is about the science of timing. And the idea behind it is that we tend to think the timing is an art. We make our timing or when decisions based on intuition and guesswork, but what we should be doing is making them based on evidence and science. And so the way I approached this was by doing a very deep dive into the science. And it turns out that across dozens and dozens of fields from the social sciences, like social psychology and anthropology and economics to the biological sciences, molecular biology, medical sciences, anesthesiology, chronobiology, endocrinology, that you have all these scholars in different fields are asking very, very similar questions unbeknownst to each other. So they're asking, you know, what's the effect of time of day on what we do and how we do it? How do beginnings affects us? How do midpoints affects us? How to endings affect us? And what I found is that if you go wide enough and deep enough into this research, you can begin to piece together the evidence based ways to make better smarter shooter decisions about when to do things. So the way I approached this book was very much through the lens of science and or even more broadly, Scott, I guess, on this book, I really began this book with a question, I didn't really have a theory of the case. So in other books, I've had an argument in mind that before I went out and went whole hog on the book, I basically I validated the argument said, well, wait a second, I'm going to write a book that's going to make this argument. Whereas in this case, I came in with a question, because I was just frustrated myself. It's like, basically, I wrote this book, because I wanted to read it. Because I wanted to make better when decisions in my own life. So I went in with a question. And the science led me to the answer.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:12

That's very interesting, because as I read through it, it felt very much like back to back to back to back answers stacked up of questions that I had.

Dan Pink 27:22

Oh, good.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:23

About this, or questions that I didn't even know that I had, but was immediately curious about. So I really appreciated that, in reading through it. And it felt very... I think stacked is the right word. It felt like every single chapter that I got to I had 10, other things, maybe not literally 10, but a number of other things that I could use immediately. And that was fantastic.

Dan Pink 27:45

Well, thanks, I appreciate that. And also, you know what, the other thing I'm trying to do here is I'm trying to just broadly, I'm trying to say, the other books as well, or some of the other books is... give people some insight into the science, but also try to use those insights to give them some tools to do something different in their own lives. And for me, one of the frustrating things about some books is that you read a book about big ideas or science or whatever. And it's interesting, and it's worth reading. But then you say, Okay, well, so what can I do with this? And the author doesn't stoop to tell you what to do. Because he or she will say, "Oh, no, I'm not going to sell you myself by giving you advice." And on the other hand, you have a lot of these really, really, really empty calorie books that are all about advice and exhortation. And they're thin and you say, Okay, well, how do you actually know this? Like, what's this based on? And so, for me, the ideal is, can you give people some insights into the science, into the human condition? But can those insights yield things to actually live your life a little differently? And so that's what I tried to do in a lot of my previous and a lot of my recent books.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:53

I think that especially and when you very much succeeded in that. I've always appreciated how you translated the science into something that's usable. Yeah, absolutely. One of the things I want to have you share a bit with our listeners, because I found it so incredibly useful. And I've always been fascinated by this. And some of the studies I've read in the past too, but I think it's in the very first chapter, if I remember correctly, where you're talking about when you're essentially most effective, for lack of a better phrase, but how to find your daily win. And one, can you get a little bit of context around that? And then two, you go into what you call "The Time Hacker's Handbook" at the end of each chapter, and can you share a little bit about what you prescribe to find your daily win?

Dan Pink 29:35

Oh, sure. So what we know about the day is... and it's very obviously a very important unit of time. It's something that is natural, that it's physical, we were on a planet that is turning. So unlike a second, which is something that human beings have made up or a week which is something that human beings have made up, a day is actually real thing. And each day has a rich body of science tells us the day has a hidden pattern. In general, we move through the day in three stages of: peak, a trough a recovery. Most of us move through it in that order, peak in the morning, trough in the mid to late, early to mid afternoon, recovery late afternoon and early evening. Now people who are strong night owls, that's about 20% of the population, it's more complicated, they tend to move in the reverse order: recovery, trough, peak. But what we know from a whole range of study is that that's pretty much the pattern, peak-trough-recovery, and then you go one layer into the science. And what you find is that our cognitive abilities don't stay the same throughout the day, they change throughout the day, that's a big deal. And the best time to do something depends on what we're actually doing. So let me unpack that, because that goes to the time Hacker's Handbook, which is the section of the book that has all the tools, tips and takeaways. So during our peak, which for most of us is the morning, that's when we should be doing our analytic work. And what I mean by that, that is work that requires heads down, focus, and attention. Writing a report, analyzing data, the work that requires that locked down focus, during the peak we're most vigilant. And that means that we can knock away distractions. So for me as a writer, and as someone who's not an owl, I should be doing my writing in the morning, getting rid of the distractions, doing my writing in the morning. During the trough, which for most of us is the early to mid afternoon. That's not good for very much. And actually, there's a lot of data showing it's a very dangerous, like the early to mid afternoon, a lot of bad stuff happens, you have an increase in traffic accidents, you have a massive increase in errors and problems in medicine, you have kids scoring far lower on standardized tests at that time of day than in the morning. But it's really a massive drop off in performance in the early to mid afternoon. So instead of trying to do our analytic work then, we should be doing our administrative work, you know, answering our routine emails, or you know, that kind of thing. And then finally, the recovery is actually a pretty interesting period. During recovery, again, which for most of us is the late afternoon and early evening, our mood is higher than in the trough. However, we're less vigilant than during the peak. And that actually is an interesting and powerful mix. When we're have an elevated mood and less vigilance, that makes us better at what social psychologists call insight tasks. Those are tasks that require more conceptual thinking, less mathematical thinking, a little bit more kind of wider scope, kind of thinking, think about something like brainstorming. And so what we find is that if you move your analytic work to the peak, your administrative work to the trough, your insight work to the recovery, you're going to do a little bit better. And in fact, there's research showing the time of day, just time of day alone explains about 20% of the variance in how people perform on workplace tasks. So that's a pretty big deal. The science is pretty clear on this, that science gives us very clear guidelines but it doesn't say, "Hey, Scott. You should start working at 8:30 in the morning and work for 43 consecutive minute" you know, doesn't say that, right? But it gives us these broader design principles. And we don't do anything with that. And so in our own work, so you have people like me, who do their best analytic work in the morning, and then spend the morning answering routine emails and watching ESPN highlights and then get to the trough and try to do their harder work. And it's really hard for them, or you have organizations that schedule meetings, and without any thought about, "What kind of meeting is this? Is this an insight meeting, is this an analytic meeting?" "Who's going to be there? Morning people, afternoon people." And so the big, big problem here is that the science is very clear that when matters, it matters significantly. And yet, in our decision making as individuals and inside of organizations were completely unintentional and neglectful about issues of when.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:50

That is amazing. And it's been helpful to me in particular too. As I've been experimenting with schedule, and different tasks, different times, I've so appreciated that. And I wanted to thank you for taking the time, speaking of time, and since we've been talking about contribution, your contribution in the books that you have put out to the world. So even though you were trying to answer a question for yourself, I still found it very, very beneficial.

Dan Pink 34:17

I appreciate your saying that. And let me just add one more thing about that on like book writing here, too. Because I really appreciate your saying that. And the reason I jumped in is that and I think it's a lesson for entrepreneurs. I think it's a lesson for managers, I think is a lesson for writers and I think it's something else you said at the very end of it, Scott, was also really important and ties into this. You mentioned this idea that you've been experimenting with schedules, you're on schedule, alright. And that's really... that's like, in some ways, the meta takeaway of this book, which is that what we should be doing is we should be much better observers of our own behavior. William James, who was the essentially the father of modern psychology. He has this line, it's always haunted me in one of his books where he says, "most of us go through life." And here's this phrase, "only half awake." Only half awake. And that's always haunted me. And I think that the solution to being more awake is to be, just as he's doing, like, observe our behavior better and try stuff. Like experiment with stuff that in some ways, we need to take a more scientific approach to our own lives. And so what we can do in terms of the day to day rhythms is like be pay more attention. How am I feeling at this time of day? How good am I getting this kind of work at this time of day? And then as you're suggesting, Scott, do some experiments with that, well, what if I move this over here? And this over there? How do I feel now? And that is actually a way to be more fully awake. Because you're observing your behavior more, and you're trying experiments. And I think what's tied to that and forgive this rant here for a moment is that, the way that I think about the books that I write is very much the way you're suggesting, which is that, if I'm wondering about this question of when, then other people must be too, because I'm not that special. And I think we have this tendency to think of ourselves as like, so wildly different from everybody else. And there's a lot of research on this. So a lot of research that when we ask ourselves, it's like, oh, you have somebody, are you extrinsically motivated or intrinsically motivated? And give me some examples of that. And so I'm very intrinsically motivated. And here's examples of how I've navigated my life on that. Well, what about other people? Oh, no, no, no, they're totally extrinsically. You know, did you peep to that research? Other kinds of things, you know, if you found a wallet on the ground, would you, you know, try to return it to its rightful owner? Oh, of course. What other people? No way. Everybody else is so dishonest. And my view is that, you know, I pick topics that I'm curious about, partly because I know what's going to be a better book. But also I just figure, if I'm curious about it, that means other people are going to be curious about it. And so and I think that that's true for managers. So if you think about a manager saying, "Well, I don't like being treated this particular way. Maybe I shouldn't treat my people that way." All right, or an entrepreneur saying, "Wow, I'm really frustrated by this particular industry, or this particular service, I will share like something better, probably other people are thinking that same thing." And so I do think that it's important sometimes to extrapolate from our own experience. And while we'd like to tell ourselves and our children, oh, everyone is so unique, and everyone is so special. And they are at some level, I don't want to diss that entirely. But I also think that it's important to recognize that all of us have a lot in common. So if you're experiencing a frustration, if you have a question, the odds are very, very, very, very good, that lots of other people are having that frustration, or harboring that question.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:59

Thank you for the rant, first of all. And second of all, thank you so much for, jeez, I was thinking about this a little bit as we were talking here, but you have... through your books and through your work, I've taken away so much over the last couple of years. So I so appreciate you taking the time and coming on and sharing that with our listeners too. That way they get a bit and a taste of what I've been able to benefit from over the years. And that is super cool, super fun for me to be able to share your knowledge with everybody else. And 'When' by the way, I haven't seen any place that sells books of any kind that you can't get it from, and was in a few bookstores when I was in Austin, Texas. And it was very prominently displayed so you can't miss it almost. But I would say since you can't miss it, pick up a copy. I absolutely enjoyed it immensely. But the full title is "When The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing" Thank you so much, Dan. I really appreciate it.

Dan Pink 39:00

Scott, it's been a pleasure talking with you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:02

If this is not your first episode of the Happen to Your Career podcast, you probably heard somebody on here that their first step to work that they absolutely love that fits their strengths, and they're excited about was going through our free eight day mini course to figure out what fits you and we've had now well over 30,000 people have that as their beginning step to identifying what they want in their lives and you can do the exact same thing. And if you're interested in that, it has some really amazing questions to get you started in becoming clear on what you want and what you need in your career and it's a great way to kick it off and determine what is most important for you moving forward. You can learn what you're great at so you can stop wasting time in your job and start working in your career. Even identify some of the internal blockages that are keeping you from fulfilling work and wealth and career success and begin narrowing down what you should be doing for work that's fulfilling to you, all you have to do is go to figureitout.co that's figureitout.co and get started today, enter your email and viola, we'll send you the very first lesson, head on over there, figureitout.co or you can text HAPPEN to 44222 that's HAPPEN to 44222.

Laura Morrison 40:38

And I couldn't figure out what else I should be doing. So I stuck with it. And so I had, you know, college degree, master's degree, a few years in the work world in engineering consulting and the whole time now that I really thought like it wasn't a good fit to me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:52

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

Eric Murphy 00:02
This was one of those decisions that was like the best decision of my life. You know, I think this is gonna be one of those pivotal decisions for something that's that special to me like, so a couple months of work for something like that is absolutely 10,000% worth it.

Introduction 00:23
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 00:47
Hey, I want to share something with you that might be surprising to hear. First of all, you'll know from hearing hundreds of other conversations with people who have successfully made career changes on the podcast that it can be a pretty all consuming thing, it takes time, takes energy, right? So, you know that you don't want to be in the work you're doing now. And if you haven't figured out what you want to move to instead, and you're already burned out from working super long days in your current job, well, that whole career change thing can quickly end up taking a backseat. makes it pretty challenging, right? But what if I told you that it is possible to figure out new career, that's perfect match for your values, your interests, all of those pieces, even if you don't have the time to make a career change.

Eric Murphy 01:39
I just working 13 hour a day. Like crazy, stressful 13 hour day. And I'm just burnt out. Now that was just my normal job, not even the actual job search.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:51
That's Eric Murphy. He was working as an engineer for a gas company. And that role looked great on paper. But over time, he realized that the company he was with, no longer felt the right fit. See, since he started working there, his values and shifted, which changed how he felt about the job, how he felt about his employer. And by the way, this is something that's really common as people move through their careers, what you want when you're, you know, 25 isn't the same thing you want when you're 35, 45, 55 beyond, right. So he knew he wanted to work for an organization that gave back to the world. But when he came to us for help, he didn't know how to figure out the right career fit. And he definitely didn't know how he is going to make the time to do it. Because he's already working 10 to 14 hour days and a lot of cases. In our conversation, you're going to hear the steps that Eric took to get clear on what he needed from his work and his next opportunity and how he targeted companies that aligned with his career needs and most importantly, how to work alongside his demanding schedule.

Eric Murphy 02:58
I guess the more people will get to know me as, I think about stuff like a lot. A very existential, philosophical, thoughtful dude. And sometimes maybe to fall, but it's also what I guess drives me and I started this job. And it was about two years in and I realized that was very good job, or it was good job with good people, it didn't fit my values. So the reason why I live is to, it sounds cheesy and corny, but is basically to make the world a better place. And I have found, I saw this video about this thing called effective altruism about two years ago, that kind of changed my life and changed the way that I look at things. And it's basically how to effectively make the world a better place. And how a lot of people do that is by using their career capital to give to effective charities. And the company I was working at, I was making a decent amount of money, but I also worked at fossil fuel company. And I care a lot about climate change. So that was a challenge for me. And I wasn't exactly the best fit. So I was looking for a career where I would be a better fit, and also be able to achieve my goal of effective altruism. So that's why I came to you. It was to find a career that fit my values and had a word culture that also fit those values, but to where I could pursue my personal goals of making enough money to get to charities, basically.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:44
That has fascinated me as we've gotten to have conversations, over the last few months here and from everything that I know about you, it was kind of a, I'm gonna use the word juxtaposition, mostly just because I want to use the word juxtaposition.

Eric Murphy 04:58
It's a good word to use.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:59
But it really kind of described your situation a little bit in that, like you're there, you're earning good money, you're making decent living and you've got friends and all this other stuff that is really, really good. But at the same time, it's like pulling at who you are because, you know, you have this passion for renewable energy, you have passion to, as you said, change the world. And I've seen you make good on that with how you act and how you behave and how you, you know, spend your money and all kinds of things along those lines. So I believe that you walk the walk when you say that or walk the talk or what however you describe that pick your cliche, right?

Eric Murphy 05:36
I do the best I can. Nobody's perfect, obviously. But what I found that my current job that's about to switch over to a new job was just wasn't sustainable. Because there's a, I don't know the exact statistic. But I've heard people that are altruistic to the point of self sacrifice to the point where they just give and give and give would not thinking about themselves in compared to someone who gives altruistically, but still focuses on what they need. The second person that focuses on themselves as well as other people get better in every measurable metric. So what I found at my other job was, it just wasn't sustainable. And it just wasn't a good fit, and it wasn't gonna work out too much longer. So a change had to be made.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:31
So let's jump to the end here. For a second, you've just recently, really recently accepted a new position.

Eric Murphy 06:41
Yes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:42
Tell us a little bit about what that is, and what you get to do. And how you feel about that?

Eric Murphy 06:49
Well, I guess I'll start with the last question, how I feel about it. I feel super excited. There's a little bit of nervous mainly because I'm moving to a new city. And I think everything and probably because I also re-think things a lot. But it's awesome, I'm very excited to go, get this new job there. What they do is they pretty much are experts in building code, fire code, structural code. And essentially what they do every single day is review plans. And basically make sure that buildings comply to code, which what that translates to me is making sure that buildings are safe, which is very, very fulfilling to me. And the company culture is, I got to go out there for three days to meet everybody and meet the owner.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:47
And they saw me out there and...

Eric Murphy 07:49
Yeah, the company culture was like nothing I've ever experienced. And that was one of the main things that really told me about this job. In addition to that, the mentorship that I'm going to get from my future co workers and the owner of this company is second to none, I'm going to learn so much and be able to have so many skills that are going to basically make me much more marketable in the future. And it's definitely an awesome company and a company that I have, honestly, right now I have intentions to spend my career at. So that's a very exciting, very awesome thing. I get to live the companies in the Bay Area. And so I get to live in a place I've always want to live, like you said, before the ocean, sort of Golden State Warriors, and I'm a little bit more excited about them right now. But yeah, I'm excited to live, the company is a very good fit for me, and specifically the people at this company are kind to support me to grow into the person that I want to become which is awesome.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:05
Okay, so I don't know how it seems to you. But I'm looking at this just as a whole entire situation. So you're in a job that really didn't line up with a lot of your values. Maybe you thought it did when you originally joined and everything along those lines. But as you got more information, went over time realize that there was a disconnect there.

Eric Murphy 09:24
I would correct that just a little bit. So it lined up with my values when I first signed up for a job, but unfortunately, I got this job right out of college. And I changed a lot from when I graduated college to now. So my values changed. Not that it's a bad thing to want to go to work and provide for family. It's not a bad thing whatsoever. But for me, I wanted to work in your career intentionally that, like I said, my goals and my dreams was to make my small impact on the world. And once my values changed, that's when this job didn't line up my values anymore.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:09
So that's a really good distinction, though, I think, because that's what happens for people. I mean, and that's truly even a better way to say it. And I think a more accurate way to say it, because as you go through life, like everybody has stuff that causes them to change slightly and value stuff more like one thing versus another. I mean, that happened for me, we had little kids, and all of a sudden, guess what, I valued completely different things that I did before I listen, I had kids. So yeah, and I think that's truly what happens, it's a little bit of a moving target too in terms of what you learn about and what you value. And as you learn about yourself, and as you learn about all those other things that go along with it. So great distinction. So you're there, you realize that your values have shifted the company no longer aligns. And then now, you want to go to something that's completely different. And that you and I talked about from the beginning, you wanted to go to very likely a different city, completely, and even different state. And then, now you've actually... you've done that, you've been able to make that transition completely different city, completely different state. And I would say just knowing a little bit behind the scenes that it hasn't necessarily been easy.

Eric Murphy 11:31
No.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:34
Fair to say, right?

Eric Murphy 11:35
Yeah. It's very fair to say.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:38
No, I was just gonna say... so where did that start for you like when you started thinking about this and when you started, we started working together. And you began making this transition, how were you thinking about what this transition would look like?

Eric Murphy 11:54
So one, this for me... For me this transition it's been like, it's, I think, about a year and a half in the making. And you didn't come into the picture until probably halfway into that. Which I think you were the final, once I enlisted your services, you're the final push to actually make it happen. So thank you for that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:29
Yeah, absolutely.

Eric Murphy 12:31
Yeah. But it was about a year and a half ago. The one challenge that I had was... the job that I had was a very good job, as you know, my parents would define a good job.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:52
What do you mean by that? I'm so curious.

Eric Murphy 12:54
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. What I mean by that is, it was super stable. And it was even though it wasn't like, as I said earlier, it wasn't sustainable. It was not something that I should give up lightly. It actually gave me the advantage of really thinking about where I was going to go to for my next career, which, to be honest, I think that was my first mistake in going into this career in the first place. One thing I learned from you, Scott, is not every... most jobs aren't going to be a good fit. Like you have to pursue and look for the best job, that's a best fit for you and that just take something that's "a good job" becaus yeah, that, otherwise, you're going to spend several hours a day working at something that isn't optimal for you. So yeah, it was a very, very long process and a lot of work. One of the biggest challenges that you remember is, my old job was very, very demanding, and the type of job search that was required to find a really good job, that took a lot of work. So it was like having two jobs. There's, I remember, I distinctly remember days where I called you, I was like, "dude, I just worked a 13 hour a day". Like, crazy stressful 13 hour day, and I'm just burnt out. And that was my normal job, not even the actual job search.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:59
Yeah, and that was interesting in itself, because I remember talking to you at the beginning and you're like, no, you don't understand, I am working a lot. Like, okay, all right. What does that look like? Can you describe it to me? It's like, well, I'm going in at this time and I'm pretty much solid straight through and that's one of the things that we ended up talking about too is like, where is the time going to be coming from in order to actually make that happen? And then, how do you focus on the most important things, versus just anything in order to make the job change and make it in a very effective way? And I think you did a really, really nice job about that. So, but it was a progression over time. So where did that start for you? And how did you feel about the process as you jumped into it with really, really limited time? And then how did that progress for you as you went along?

Eric Murphy 15:37
I think the biggest thing, I think you probably agree with me on this was just practice, because the reality is, things didn't go perfect every single week. And they're, what we did for our job search was, it was a lot of work and there certain weeks, I think the progression came from getting better at that job search from doing it every single week. And learning how to prioritize, prioritizing is huge. Basically learning every single week, what works most effectively, and then focusing most of my limited time on what worked. And every single week, it kind of progressed, so more efficient, better. And it eventually started coming into getting opportunities like offers. And yeah, it was, it didn't, I guess, I would describe it as it wasn't like instant gratification, because the type of job search that we did, which is it's how it has to work was, you put in a lot of work on the front end, and the better opportunities come up on the back end, it wasn't like you put in an application and you get a call two weeks later, it was you put a lot, you lay the groundwork, you lay the foundation, and then things start coming, opportunities start coming on the back end. And yeah, I think the progression came in is basically learning how to lay that foundation more efficiently, and learning how to basically subtract everything that wasn't working.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:24
I think the foundation really started with being very, very clear about what you want, because we did a lot of work upfront. And you did a lot of work, I guess I should say, upfront to be able to really understand very clearly, hey, what's in that great fit type category and what's not in that great fit type category. And I think the reality like for me looking at you and how you progressed, you probably could have gotten the job in like three weeks. But it wouldn't have been close at all to what you wanted, and what what you figured out for yourself about what you wanted. So help people understand a little bit about what that process was like for you in defining what it was that you wanted, especially as you had kind of these reservations about what you valued and how you evaluate spending your time and all that stuff got meshed together?

Eric Murphy 18:22
Definitely. So, one, first off how Scott's career coaching works is, very first thing he does is establishes what your strengths are and things like, so what your strengths are is basically obviously things you're naturally good at, that is applied to the word strength. But also, I think, tell me if you disagree with me, but I think things that you're passionate about also aligned into strengths. That is basically, what Scott basically does is, he tries to... he puts you through all these Strengths Finder tests, or I shouldn't say he because it's more than just Happen To Your Career, more than just Scott. But they put you through these strength finding tests. And what they're doing is trying to identify a career that you will excel most in. So something that is naturally good for you. So when you get into this career, you flourish as opposed to working against something, working against your weaknesses, I guess. So that's the first step that we identified. And we kind of develop the picture of the type of career that I want to go after. And another thing, tell me if you disagree with this, some I learned for myself as we're going through pursuing a career, at first we had a very defined I want to go after this, I had a very defined I want to become a solar engineer. But then I learned even though, solar is awesome, I learned that it's the analogy I use is like how I date people is, I like to have... I like to focus on, like important things, but still keep it broad like, I like to, if I'm going on out on a date with a girl I like to have, she has to be a very good person, that challenges me to be a better person. Like that's a very important relationship quality for me. I don't like that things like, she doesn't like the 40 Niners, we have the same kind of work. If you have a point where I would say like pointless dating standards like that, but the thing that I fear about having standards like that is essentially, I'll get to miss out on some, I'll probably miss out on some really awesome, non 40 Niner fans who can be a great person to date. And the same thing with a job. Like, I think I learned to focus on what is really, really important in job fit, but then be kind of open minded about the things that are super important. One of the challenges is finding exactly what those important things are, which Scott helps a ton out with. And I think that was the first stage of my career.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:33
So what were those most important things for you, Eric?

Eric Murphy 21:36
So eventually, I developed the top three. And one is, a job that fits my values. So day to day is very important for me to work in a job where I felt like the work I was doing was contributing to my community, was making the world a better place. And my new job that it does that, it definitely fulfills that for me, just talking over with them and basically looking at they... when I was with the job, they're showing me examples of... one of the things they really clicked for me was they're showing me this community in the bay area where there's an explosion that caught... that basically caught fire to some houses. And because in San Francisco, a lot of this particular community, the houses were very, very close together, which is not the fire code. Which one of these houses were built fire code was probably not even...

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:46
Fire code. What?

Eric Murphy 22:47
Yeah, probably wasn't even in existence at that time. But because they're so close together, a couple houses caught fire, and it went from one house to the next, let's spread like crazy, which made it much more difficult for the firefighters to fight this fire off. And it also cause much more damage and probably killed more people because of it. So knowing that my job has a direct influence on things like that, is very fulfilling to me. And I feel like it's very contributing to the community. So one job that fits my values. Two, a job that is life sustaining. And that's a very broad category for me. So let me define it a little bit. So life sustaining. Part of it is to, one, make sure that I'm not starving to death. And, but also doing the things that I want to do with my life. Doing things like effective altruism, doing... it enables me to live the life that I want to live and...

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:58
Learn at the same time. You also like to go to concerts and you've got a thing for vinyl and...

Eric Murphy 24:05
Yeah, love music, all those things. So it's, yeah, it's basically a job that enables me to live the life that I want to live. And it's, I think that this particular one that's always evolving for me because there's, like, that can't be perfect, because if I had 100% the life that I want to live, I'd be like, I'll work 10 hours a week. Just and make a million dollars. Like, you have to be realistic with it and make basically prioritize things and make sacrifices of the things that are less important. So, that's number two. Would you say that's pretty clear?

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:54
Yeah. And I would say too that, like, whatever your, I mean, your ideal lifestyle is gonna be different than Eric's here, but whatever it is, it becomes a progression too, and, you know, if you want to work 10 hours a week, and you want to make, you know, $1.7 million a year, there are ways to do that. And lining that up with your other values and things along those lines. Like that is a possibility. It may not happen in five months necessarily. But you know, if that's what you're after, like there are certainly ways to make that happen.

Eric Murphy 25:35
Good caveat. As another thing with Scott teaches you, is how to think out of the possibilities are endless. Yeah, that really teaches you to think that way, which I'm still working on.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:51
No worries, man, like what you have already done is downright amazing. And so these two categories, like far and away, compared to most of the planet, I would say, you know, this is far more intentional than what most people are looking at their career. So I'm curious, what the third one is for you? And help everybody understand that.

Eric Murphy 26:14
Number three, for me is a word culture. And specifically for my... and I know, this isn't for everybody, but my bent is definitely a progressive type, word culture. And my current job, it's a board culture, on a scale of one to 10, that my current job is, it looks to me like it's going to be like an 11. They flew me out there for three days to basically check it out. And I mean, I honestly didn't even know that companies like this existed. I was very, very, very impressed.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:55
Well we had that conversation, too. Right? Like, okay, so if you say that, you know, these types of things are out there, then I guess I'll trust you.

Eric Murphy 27:05
And, lo and behold, it came to be true. So the biggest thing about... So when I say progressive company culture, I think what I mean by that is thinking about things that not having, like, company norms for no reason, I guess. So like, it was just me personally, it may fit different for other people, but not having to wear a suit and tie to work. Just cuz you're supposed to wear a suit and tie to work or, you know, basically, like work cultures that are... I would define a progressive work culture as employee centered work culture, like your work management has a mentality that it's management's duty to make employees one stay. And I know that's a heavy burden to put on management. But when management has that mentality, it makes companies a great place to work at as opposed to companies where management says, your duty is to serve us. If that makes sense.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:26
Yeah, totally. And I mean, it's kind of the only thing, right, really, when you get down to it. But sadly, so few companies actually do that, too. But it's almost like a good example is like, health care, the customer service in health care, like when you go to the doctor, or something along those lines is horrific. Like they treat you like you have to be there. And you have to tolerate it and everything like that. And you kind of do because there's not too many alternatives out there to some degree. But it's kind of the same thing in the average company, average Corporation, they look at it like they're doing you a favor or something for giving you this job. And it really doesn't have to be that way. And then more and more and more too, the progression is heading the other way, like the company that you've just joined, where they look at it as, hey, look, it's our responsibility to make sure that you're set up for success that you're happy, that you're having a good time here, that you're got what you need to be able to serve the company well.

Eric Murphy 29:32
Yeah, I kind of want to talk about how this my new company, how that... what I just described specifically looks for them. I think it starts at the top down. So I've heard a lot of, so I've met pretty much all my co workers when they flew me out there. First of all, just the idea that after I interviewed with them, they flew me out for three days. Basically to see if I liked it. And they're also, that's not completely it, they're also seeing if I would be a good fit for the organization as well, because part of their business structure is they, the number one thing that they look for in hiring people is good people, people that would be a fit in this culture, it's a very family type of atmosphere. I've heard a lot of co workers describe the owner who works very, very closely with everybody, as a matter of fact, all the engineers, all the people there, were doing work, they get training, specifically from the owner, which is awesome. But he's, I've heard a lot of people say that he never had kids. So all of the workers at the company, I'm gonna work at, are basically like his children. And just from talking with him, even the offer process, the negotiation process, all those things, like he used very caring, he's very much... first thing he said, like, Eric, you have to make this decision for you. Like you don't worry about us, we'll be okay, you have to make sure you're happy with this. And that mentality, it just rang through this company that they care about you, they care about the employees, and they care about the work atmosphere being like a family, and that of course, I know, going in, that doesn't mean, I'm gonna be able, hey, guys, I know you really care about me. So I don't have to do a lot of work, like that. No, I know, it's not like that. I know, it's gonna be, I want to be a part of this family. And I gotta pitch in and bust my butt to make this company that I love, be great. Let's put in the work and have to grind. And I like it like that. I think it's... we all have this goal. And we're pursuing it all together. And that's, I'm really ecstatic about that work culture that I'm about to be a part of.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:21
That's really cool. And knowing you, I don't think you would have it any other way.

Eric Murphy 32:26
Right. Another thing, so I've talked about this a lot. But another thing I want to touch on that I noticed is, it's not competitive there at all. And that's crazy to me. It's not like the other people there are like trying to best the other employees to make sure you get that promotion. There's not a mentality of that. It's that we're all in this together. We're all going to focus on what our strengths are, and contribute to this cup of coffee in our own way. It's not about besting the other person. It's working on team, pushing this company forward, which is awesome.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:12
That's really, really cool. And I want to ask you a little bit about, you know, now that you're here, as you're looking back, and you're about to join this company that you're absolutely ecstatic about, what do you think worked the best for you? What were the two or three things for you, that allowed you to get here? Other than, you know, you did a great job upfront, really defining what it was that you wanted in the first place and being open to different types of possibilities that really aligned with those most important things. That we're going to call it that the, Eric Murphy dating theory. But aside from that, like going from point A to point Z, over here, what were the two or three things that you think are most effective, that you would love to pass on to some other people?

Eric Murphy 34:04
So are you talking about specific job search techniques? Are you talking about an overall outlook? Or either one?

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:15
Either one, whatever you think is was most effective for you or combination of.

Eric Murphy 34:20
Are you okay with me sharing some of the secrets?

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:22
Of course, please? Yeah, that's why we do. To share as much as possible.

Eric Murphy 34:27
Okay, yeah, for sure. So one, I guess I'll give one like, one answer. That's like an overall philosophy for job searching. And I think number one thing is being intentional about your job search, not just... I touched on it earlier, but not just taking a job that is, oh, it's a good job. But like being intentional of this whole career thing. I'm gonna spend a lot of time doing it. And it's pretty important with my life. So I need to find a job that really, really fits me. I need to find out what that is. And I need to be intentional with every single one of my moves to make this career happen. So that's number one. Two, the actual, as far as the technique that worked the best and making that happen was basically cold calling a bunch of companies, and essentially saying, hey, I would call them and they're... a lot of companies would have a dial by name directory. And I would find like a director or manager on LinkedIn, and I'll cold call them until they picked up their phone, and basically say, "Hey, my name is Eric, I'm an engineer. And I'm currently wanting to make a job transition into a field like yours. And I was wondering if you had 15 minutes or so to basically give me any advice on how to make that job transition, or any advice on just careers in general. And it doesn't have to be now but we could schedule it." And almost every time, they said, "Yes" and we have this conversation, and after the conversation, I would follow up, I get a lot of very valuable information from them. Now for the conversation, I would follow up and say, "Hey, can I keep your contact and just follow up with you periodically on my journey?" And they pretty much always said, "Yes." And what happened was, I developed a network of people from doing that. And when I would apply for jobs, I had the ability to get my resume out of the stack. And basically towards the top because they knew who I was. And that was probably the most effective technique into making this job transition happen.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:05
Well, it seemed like doing that, and by the way, it should, just to help everybody, all the HTYCers that will listen to this, realize that, you know, your job search and how you went about this was tailored to your strengths, and also what your situation wasn't what you were after. So there's certainly different methods that you can use. And you should use the right ones that are going to be most effective for you. But this one, you know, knowing that you were wanting to move out of city, you wanted to be able to move into a very, very specific set of roles, you didn't have any experience in the industry that you were interested in moving to, you had some non industry experience. So all those odds going against you, you know, this, you ended up using this approach. And I thought it was really, really effective for you, based on who you are too, at the same time. Now, what was really interesting out of that for me is, you accumulated like this massive amount of contact information and people who would pick up your phone call or answer your email or, or whatever else, right?

Eric Murphy 38:19
Yeah. It's really cool. So many contacts that I would like lose. But yeah, that was very cool. I kind of developed mini network for myself. And it gave me the ability to learn about a lot of companies too. Like I said, I was interested in solar. And what I found was, I found towards the end, which I didn't exactly go into solar one was there other companies that fit this sort of that community aspect that wanted a job. But two, even though there were solar companies, they didn't exactly fit what I wanted to do. And they're definitely great solar companies, I'm sure would fit what I wanted to do, but some of them were there a couple of solar companies that were a, you know, it's solar And that's awesome, but it's still pretty much just like a regular job. Which wasn't what I was looking for. And I got to learn that from getting this network and talking to people and making all these contacts. So that was very useful. And that's also how I got the current job that I have.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:49
So here's another question for you. It's kind of wrapping it up here because, you know, I truly believe that if you wanted to, you could have gone and gotten a job, probably, you know, probably a decent job, probably a good job, what you call it, good job, before.

Eric Murphy 40:06
I love the tone how you said that. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:09
You know, you probably could have done that in like four to six weeks-ish, you know, not not counting back and forth for offer time and whatever else like probably gotten a job offer too at that time frame, I believe, you know, having worked with you, I believe that you could have done that. This took longer than that. And so looking back, I guess the question would be, was it worth it, taking that type of approach? An if it was for you, and I suspect I know the answer just working with you. But if so, why? Why was that worth it?

Eric Murphy 40:45
So I think I'm gonna look back at this decision and say that this was... one of those decisions, that was like, the best decision of my life, you know, I think this is gonna be one of those pivotal decisions. And there's gonna be a couple like that in my life, like, you know, the girl you marry, or the spouse that you marry. Or, you know, whatever, what have you but I think this decision that I made ever look back and say that, so for something that's that special to me, like, any amount of work is totally worth it. And it wasn't that much worth it, work is a couple months. So a couple months of work for something like that is absolutely 10,000% worth it. And I apologize, but there's a part two to that question that I forgot about them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:42
I was just curious as to if, you didn't think it was worth it. And why did you really think that's worth? And you really kind of answered that too. And, you know, it's so... Oh, go ahead.

Eric Murphy 41:59
I remember what I wanted to say today. The reason why I think it was worth it was, because it's such a big thing in your life. Like, where you work, what you do is, it's like, that was some folly that I had right out of college was I had this image of, I just needed a job that where I could support a family and just support my lifestyle. And it doesn't matter what the job is, as long as I'm saying that my job, it's all good. But I learned that holy crap, you spend well over most of your life here, and a lot of your listeners are probably thinking, like...

Scott Anthony Barlow 42:42
Thanks for that, Eric. Awesome.

Eric Murphy 42:44
Yeah, but I wasn't thinking like that. Going into it. And the reason why it's worth is because it's... your career, such a big thing. It has such a massive impact on your life. So making sure that it's a good fit. A good career is very important.

Scott Anthony Barlow 43:05
If this is not your first episode of the Happen To Your Career podcast, you probably heard somebody on here, that their first step to work that they absolutely love that fits their strengths, and they're excited about was going through our free eight day mini course, to figure out what fits you. And we've had now well over 30,000 people have that as their beginning step to identifying what they want in their lives. And you can do the exact same thing. And if you're interested in that, it asks some really amazing questions to get you started in becoming clear on what you want and what you need in your career. And it's a great way to kick it off and determine what is most important for you moving forward, you can learn what you're great at so you can stop wasting time in your job and start working in your career. Even identify some of the internal blockages that are keeping you from fulfilling work, and wealth and career success. And begin narrowing down what you should be doing for work that's fulfilling to you. All you have to do is go to figureitout.co that's figureitout.co and get started today, enter your email and voila, we'll send you the very first lesson. Head on over there figureitout.co or you can text happen to 44222 that's h a p p e n to 44222.

Speaker 3 44:39
Passion and contribution are focused in very different directions. Passion is all about me and contribution is all about other people. I really don't think that professionals care about that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:49
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. Yeah, you are first of all, an avid 40 Niners fan, and we almost couldn't be friends because of that, but...

Eric Murphy 45:25
I mean, at this point for 40 Niners, Seahawks rivalry isn't much of a rivalry anymore. I feel like you guys just feel bad for us.

Scott Anthony Barlow 45:37
This is true.

Eric Murphy 45:37
I figure that makes it easier.

Scott Anthony Barlow 45:41
Yeah, it does for me.

Eric Murphy 45:44
It doesn't for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 45:47
That's fair.

Introduction 00:20
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 00:44
Quitting might just be one of the most overlooked and most useful tools in the process of discovering the work that you were meant to do. When the realization hit Lynn Marie Morski is a graduate student in multimedia design that she actually loath coding, a skill that she needed. Well, she quit. When being a sports medicine doctor turned out to be a dream job, just not her dream job. She started planning her exit route.

Lynn Marie Morski 01:11
Get a list, you know, written or in your head or otherwise, of exactly what you want. And she didn't mean what position, she meant characteristics just like we were talking about. And she said and just don't let that go, focus on that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:25
Lynn Marie Morski is a doctor, lawyer, powerhouse with a multimedia background. She's also a self described hippie who gushes about things like Burning Man and festival and has quit just about every career she started. Here's Dr. Lynn Marie Morski, about her early career.

Lynn Marie Morski 01:43
Quitting is something that I've realized over the years is an extremely important tool that is undervalued and in fact, kind of devalued and looked down upon in our society. But I always thought, no, there's things about quitting that are fantastic. And I always kind of had that secret thought in my head, and I had some concepts and ideas built around it. And then one day, I was driving and I threw on a Freakonomics podcast. And they did an entire episode on quitting. That was essentially like hearing a podcast of my own thoughts. And I thought, this is a thing. This is... more people need to know about this. And I was super happy that Freakonomics had done an episode on it. And what listening to that episode did was give me some kind of economic concepts that I could apply to what I always thought about quitting. And when it came time to do my valedictorian speech, I thought, like, what kind of impression, oh, I want this to be a speech that resonates with people, but that opens their minds to something. And I thought, it's gotta be quitting. You know, this is a concept that nobody else aside from this one, you know, podcasts I heard, I just don't hear people talking about this enough. So for me, and as Scott, I'm sure you will kind of bring up at different points in this conversation, but I have quit several things in my life.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:58
I wonder too.

Lynn Marie Morski 03:00
Yes. And, you know, when you list my resume of things that you did at the beginning, it sounds like, oh, she must have never quit anything, she must have started this path at seven years old, and just trudge right through and there's no other way you could get to wherever she is. And it's completely the opposite. If I hadn't quit things, I wouldn't be where I was, where I am.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:21
Truly, you know, listed off that laundry list of stuff. But it almost seems like you've quit almost all of those to some degree. And that's paved the way for other things. How would you put it? How do you... when you talk to people in, you know, you tell them about your past, how do you tell them about that?

Lynn Marie Morski 03:42
The one thing that I guess I have quit for, you know, like, almost 100% quit, would be the fact that I started off as a multimedia designer. And that actually was after I had quit three other college majors. For essentially the same reason I started off as a broadcast journalism major. And I realized, no, that's just, I wanted to be more behind the scenes than on camera. And it well, you know, one thing led to another and I was a multimedia designer. But as I said, in my speech, that career, even though it was creatively fulfilling, it got very technical very quickly, you know, websites just went from basically HTML to these Java monsters. And I wasn't a programmer. And I had to stop and be like, man, I just did undergraduate. I was halfway through my graduate degree at the time. And I was at a job where I was actually employed as a multimedia designer, but I thought I am going to be the lowest person on every multimedia totem pole because I don't have these coding skills. And frankly, I took a class to try to get the coding skills and it was somewhere in the middle of that class where I thought, oh, this is miserable. Like, this is not something that makes me happy. I'm very glad that it makes coders happy. I'm very glad somebody can do it. It just wasn't for me. And it was kind of that day when it was like, ooh, if I can't, if getting the skills required for me to go on in this career is miserable, that maybe that career is gonna make me miserable. And I'm gonna have to do some thinking. So that's definitely the thing I quit the most, other things I've quit...

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:09
Hold on, I want to ask you something about that really quick. Okay, so you realized at that point in time, or it sounds like not too long after you started taking that coding class, had that realization that oh, you know, this may or may not be really what I'm after, I don't know, if I'm gonna be able to do this, if I don't really want the coding piece. Yet, you've had a conversation with your dad, at some point after that. How long was that after that? And what was that conversation?

Lynn Marie Morski 05:35
It was probably very quickly, because I don't like, when I have a gut feeling that that's wrong, I examine it for a while, but I don't wait forever, you know, like, life's too short to be unhappy. So I had a conversation pretty shortly with him after that. And my dad is a hard worker, but he was brought up in a family business of land surveying. And he essentially did some other things in his life. But it was always expected that he had to keep that family business. And he had to be a land surveyor. And he would tell me multiple times throughout my life, that wasn't what he chose. That's not what he would be doing if he was given the choice again. And so I thought, you know, this may be something that he has an open mind to, you know, even though he just... thank you to him, paid for my undergraduate education. I was halfway through paying for grad school. And I was like, this is, you know, I hope he doesn't take too much offense to the fact that I need to do more training, etc. But he was very open to it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:34
So he is open to it. What did you tell him you were going to do?

Lynn Marie Morski 06:37
I told him, I was going to have to start thinking, I essentially just told him, I wasn't happy. That multimedia wasn't for me. And that I was going to really explore. And I mean, I, the sternness thing he said out of the entire conversation was like, "well, make sure you really know what you want to do before you change courses again, you know, you've already kind of waste..." and it's funny, because I think he might have said, wasted three years, my undergraduate years. And that stuck with me for a number of reasons. But you know, obviously, it puts some gravity in the situation like, nope, he's absolutely right, I have to do significantly more kind of legwork and thinking than I did prior. And obviously, most of us choose a college major when we're... I mean, I started college at 17. Like, what kind of world experience did I have to pick whatever I chose?

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:23
Exactly.

Lynn Marie Morski 07:24
So this was the time to make more of an educated decision. And that's what I got out of that initial conversation. It's okay to change but let's put a lot of thought into it before you do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:33
So what happened from there then?

Lynn Marie Morski 07:34
From there? You know, I kept going to my job in multimedia, and I kept brainstorming, I mean, I went everything from like, could I work at a florist? To, could I be a chiropractor? A lawyer popped in there at some point. And at the time, I was a, like, competitive swing dancer. And my swing dance partner, and this is a strange story. But my swing dance partner was a urologist, a resident at the time in urology. And I was around he and his other physician friends a lot. And so that was kind of something that came into my head, but I thought, oh, there's so many prerequisites to go into medical school. And medical school takes forever, and oh, my goodness, like, that's just too much. But one night, I stopped by the hospital to drop off something to him. And he was in the middle, he was about to put in a chest tube into a patient. He was working in the emergency department that night. And he made this statement. He said, "If you don't faint, easily, you can come watch this." And I was like, oh, sure, I hadn't faded to that point in my life. So I went back there. And I saw him put it in, and something just said, like, I can do this, you can do this, you should do this. And that's what got started me on the road thinking about medicine. But like my dad said, you know, I had to do some due diligence. So I shadowed a ton of physicians. And what I had to do even before going to medical school is kind of the reverse from a lot of people, is I wanted to make sure I knew what specialty I wanted to go into. A lot of people go into med school open mind, let's see what I enjoy. And I was like, oh, no open mind didn't work the first time, let's try like having a very strict path to what I'm going to do. So I finally, you know, I found a sports medicine doctor, and I shadowed him a lot. And I decided that was the next path.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:25
Let me cut in here. If you still don't know what it is that you want to be doing, and you're still not doing work that allows you to be able to leverage your strengths, or you don't even know exactly what your strengths are, then you've got to check out our free email course that helps you figure out what it is that you want to do. We've had hundreds of people go through this course at this point. And I've gotten numerous emails, almost on a daily basis now about people saying, hey, you know, I can't believe you don't charge for this. You should put a donation button on here. All kinds of stuff like that. But really what it does, it helps you take some of that overwhelm that you're experiencing about all of those options out there. And instead, put it down on paper to get an idea of what you should be doing, all you have to do is be able to text HTYC to 38470. That's HTYC to 38470. Just follow the text, and we'll get you enrolled. I am, you know, listening to hear you say that in trained and I know a little bit about, from some of the research and everything like that. I know a little bit about what happened from there. But I'm really curious, what is your perspective now? Because you've tried a whole bunch of different paths, you are using different pieces from a whole bunch of them. But you haven't, you know, I heard you say, hey, this really strict path versus this really open path versus, you know, all the things that could be in between that, you know, what, for somebody else who's standing on the edge of that looking and saying, hey, you know, do I go into this stuff with an open mind? Or do I, you know, go into it with a very defined, well thought out plan, you know, what advice would you give?

Lynn Marie Morski 11:23
My advice is, based on my current kind of outlook on life, which obviously, you know, I'm 37, it's changed significantly over the years. And I think this is the one that has worked the best for me. And it is based on like, follow your intuition. And know what you love and know what you enjoy and know what you don't enjoy, and what you don't plan to tolerate for your life and keep those things strict, and then know that the path to getting you to those things, leave that path open. For example, you know, in law school, when I went to law school, I didn't have a specific thing I was going to do with this law degree, I had 1000 options, I could run for Senate, I could try to help human trafficking and write some legislation there. I could do a health law. Like, there were so many things that a law degree is good for, even though you know, obviously, even broader than medicine, everybody needs a lawyer for something.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:21
Everybody needs a lawyer.

Lynn Marie Morski 12:22
Everybody. And so I just I decided, you know, okay, I had just tried the strict path with the, you know, sports medicine or die for essentially, you know, a decade, you know, because medical school, I did take some prereqs in med school, did residency then did fellowship. So it totaled about a decade of work on this path with this sole focus and that, when that... you have such a sole focus, and it doesn't end up being exactly like the golden egg you thought it was, then you get very, you know, there's some frustration and some kind of looking back, like, did I make wrong choices? And and I decided, no, let's try this a different path. I know that there are all these options with law. And I'm going to go, get the degree, but just keep focused on the fact that I know what kind of job would make me happy. And what kind of characteristics of the job. So instead of focusing on that one job, focus on keeping like, a solid knowledge of what you need to feel fulfilled in a job.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:22
So why do you think so many people miss that? Because I mean, we literally have an entire class called figure out what fits that help people come to that conclusion throughout the course of the class. But the reason people need the class and are so interested in it in the first place is, I think, virtually everybody, including myself for many years, miss that exactly what you said, you said, hey, you know what you love, understand the things that are going to help you stay in that and experience those pieces. But be open to... I sort of heard be open to how you do that.

Lynn Marie Morski 13:59
Exactly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:59
And that's not very common advice. So why do you think that is? Why do you think everyone misses that?

Lynn Marie Morski 14:07
And I think the reason may be that they haven't quit a bunch of things. And the reason I say that is because everything that I quit, obviously I learned from, you know, I did multimedia, I learned what things I loved about it, okay, I love that there was creativity. I did not love staring at a computer screen in a dark room for you know, 8 to 10 hours a day. And then I went on to medicine, I realized, okay, I like these aspects. And I don't like these aspects. And if you, you know, a lot of people, they get their undergraduate degree, they go into their first job, and then they stay there for a long period of time. And all that tells you is maybe what you didn't like about that one job or what you did like about that one job, but that may not be a large enough data set for you to kind of round out okay, this is the kind of thing that would make me happy. It just tells you like maybe you worked in a cubicle for six years, nearly like, okay, just don't want to work in a cubicle or just don't want to work for a big corporation. But it may not give you enough data points on the opposite end of this, I really liked about it. Okay, I want to find a job that does entail these skills. I think that, that it's either that people haven't had enough jobs, haven't quit enough jobs, or maybe just haven't spent enough time thinking about it or listening to their intuition about it. Because, you know, when I start to think about it, even throughout law school, I consider certain internships or not. And I would just get a very deep seated feeling one way or the other. And I just would follow that and I realized that, that intuition is going to lead me to the right position.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:45
So I gotta tell you that I didn't realize how much we have in common when we got on this call. I've heard that same Freakonomics episode. And you know people, since I have a podcast, people ask me what podcasts I listened to all the time. And Freakonomics is one of the ones that I do not miss. It's probably one of the only ones that I don't miss, in fact, say absolutely love it. Huge, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner fan. So I heard that same episode, I had a lot of the same thoughts that it sounds like you did, and partially because I have this very same quitting background that I don't know if I would have called it that before I heard that episode, and listening to you talk about it now. But what I'm really, really interested in, though, in listening to you say this is, how has that helped you now, in terms of, what you're doing right now? How does that line up with what you want?

Lynn Marie Morski 16:51
It's perfect. And as I said, when I made that speech, which was December 13 of last year, I didn't have this position. I think I made that speech on a Saturday. And I think I got this position or found this opportunity, maybe two days later. And in the speech, you hear me say that I don't even know what I'm going to do with my law degree. But I assume I will be combining my law degree and my medical degree into doing some kind of consulting position that I love. And that was just kind of in my head, I thought I want to combine these two. But I kept referring in my head back to this chart I had seen online posted two or three times, and it's a Venn diagram.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:33
I know you've seen it.

Lynn Marie Morski 17:34
Right. I wish I had in front of me. So I could quote the four portions correctly. But it's like one section is what you're good at. And one section is what you can make money at. And one section is what would help the world. And one section is like what you enjoy. And the intersection of those four, it was labeled your calling. And I just kept thinking, you know, I've been through enough career transitions. I've had enough jobs, I want to find this calling. And I really could not think of something to fit perfectly into that Venn diagram until the opportunity that I got arose. And I thought, oh, my gosh, this fits in the calling, like, and that's how I knew that just having believed all during law school that I was going to stick to my guns and find something and just, I didn't worry about it. I didn't do a big career search. I just thought like, this is going to come to me, and it's going to come organically and it totally did. Yeah, maybe you want me to say what I'm doing now? So it's a little cryptic.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:35
No, let's keep building the suspense.

Lynn Marie Morski 18:37
Okay, fantastic.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:39
Please tell us a little bit about what it is that you're doing now. I know a tiny bit, but, you know, for everybody else's benefit too.

Lynn Marie Morski 18:45
Sure. Okay. Currently, I'm working as COO for a company called Medico International. And just FYI, we are thinking of changing the name because we are pivoting to make a whole new platform. And that's what I have been brought on to help with. Medico has been working for eight years in medical tourism, and medical tourism has kind of, you know, people either don't know what it is, or they have seen one episode on something in Thailand, and they don't have a great idea. But basically what it was, was that my business partner, his father is a physician, and they would have patients at the office that could not afford surgeries in the US, say a knee replacement, you know, somebody had been had a pre existing condition, no longer had insurance, needed a knee replacement, it's 60 grand or so, in Arizona, they found board certified US trained, often physicians that are at Joint Commission International certified hospitals in Mexico, and they could do it for 15,000. And so that's the kind of thing that Medico has been facilitating for eight years. But just like other medical tourism companies, all of it has been offline, meaning that somebody would call, Bobby my business partner, and then he would give them some options and they would say, "okay, I have got option" and then he just became essentially the middleman trying to communicate between the doctor and the patient, setting everything up, which worked fine, but it's not a scalable system. And he could only help one person at a time and max two or three a month, because it was just such a time consuming, tedious procedure. And one day he thought this was before I came on, you know, he looked at Airbnb and that kind of model where a platform allows people who own homes and people who would like to rent homes to connect each other without this active participation of a facilitator. Same with kayak, you know, when you used to need a travel agent, no longer you have the platform of kayak that gets you a flight or hotel, everything you need.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:40
Can access supply and demand.

Lynn Marie Morski 20:42
Exactly. Yeah, he said, "we need... nobody's applying this to medical tourism. We need to do this." And what actually happened if lizards need any more reason to follow their intuition. I had met my business partner, two times in person, one was at a yoga festival, and one was at Burning Man. And at some point, you know, Facebook friended him, never had a conversation with him more than three minutes, I didn't have any idea what he did for a living. And he posted something on Facebook just about, oh, look, Skype has this new translation technology, this should really help when I talked to doctors, and like, my ears perked up. And I was like, "What is this guy do?" And so I went to his website, and I looked at what he did, and I just wrote him, out of the blue, you know, I hadn't seen him in six months, wrote him an email, through Facebook and just said, I love what you're doing. And if you need a doctor, lawyer, let me know. And within five minutes, we were on the phone. And that's how this all started. And he said, I didn't know I needed a doctor, lawyer. But yes, I do. And because part of why I went into law school was a desire to change the healthcare system, my parents were uninsured my entire life, there were a lot of, you know, my dad ended up having a facial cancer that I tried to remove by myself in a hotel room at some point, you know, during my residency training, because we couldn't find anybody who would do it for a charity case, and he didn't have the money to pay for it. And I, you know, that stuck with me forever. And I like I need to change healthcare. But as I went through law school, I'm like, politics is too divisive, politics is not the way to go about it. And I realized, this is the way to go about it, like this system, if I can help build this system with Bobby, then this allows people like my father to find affordable surgical solutions, this is the change healthcare needs, you know, change it from the outside, and then the laws will have to change accordingly. So that's why I realized, oh, my gosh, this is something I'm passionate about. It's something I can use all of my skills for, even down to my multimedia skills, because it's online. And it's something that would help others and something I would be good at. It was... it just fit right into that center of what was supposed to be my call.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:56
So the interesting thing about listening to you tell that story. And also the interesting thing, you know, hearing other similar stories, where people find and identify with what they would consider their calling is that, it doesn't... you can't really, and it sounds like you too, very much experienced this, you can't really anticipate exactly what it is. And exactly and fitted into that very strict box of, it's going to be this job title in this particular blah, blah, blah. And it sort of once you figure out what it is that you want, and once you have a good understanding of what you're great at and you're looking and you're very actively looking and open to those possibilities. then it can actually show up, is what I'm hearing you say.

Lynn Marie Morski 23:43
Yes, I couldn't agree more. That's exactly it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:46
But that's totally the opposite a way that almost everybody looks at it.

Lynn Marie Morski 23:50
Right. What color's your parachute?

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:52
Exactly.

Lynn Marie Morski 23:53
Go do it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:53
Exactly. Yeah, totally agreed. Funny thing, I totally forgot to turn off my phone and a buzz. And it said, stitcher Freakanomics radio has a new episode for you, don't miss it.

Lynn Marie Morski 24:06
You said, I would never.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:09
Anyhow. I am totally fascinated by your story because, well, for all the reasons that I stated so far. But another thing that I really wanted to ask you about, was this concept of, trying to think even what to call it, I'm struggling for... you've got me struggling for words. That's how fascinated I am. Well, you know, let's go down this road. I am really curious, you know, as you've talked about all of these different experiences, you've talked a little bit about your dad, but are there other people in your life who have had a really big impact on you? Because I've seen over and over again that typically people, one, don't do this alone, and then two, they're typically lots of experiences along the way that come from other people. So I'm really curious who in your life has had the biggest impact on you?

Lynn Marie Morski 25:10
That's, well, like you said, my father, and also my mother, because never once, aside from like I said, my dad's claws I stern warning of, you know, let's be sure we check this out. They never questioned me, I mean, to was walk away from medicine, which I mean, I haven't, I'm still practicing. But to do such a pivot and go to law school or to up and quit multimedia and decided I was going to become a doctor. Some of these things sound a little bit outrageous to the average person, and my parents just didn't blink an eye. And my dad just was a huge fan of education. And the more of it I got, the happier he was, he didn't care as you know, like, granted, I have significant educational debt from med school. So it's not without costs, which is, you know, something you should factor in, and I would be happy to have a conversation with any of your listeners at, any point via email or whatever, if they're considering med school or law school 100%. Because, you know, it's definitely a cost benefit ratio. But I just love that, I've thanked them for that over and over. Like, I know, some of my ideas have sounded kind of crazy from time to time. Thank you for never giving me any self doubt. You know, like, if I didn't have any doubt, I sure didn't get any from them. I didn't... wasn't given any reason to and then I guess, externally. I recall having a conversation with a friend of mine, her name is Elizabeth Lamson. And she'd been a, not a career counselor, what kind of like a recruiter I think. And she just happened that we had coffee one day, right after I got back from Burning Man, incidentally, and she just... I told her like, you know, I'm finishing up law school, it's time to me to start thinking about what I want. And she said, "get a list, you know, written or in your head or otherwise, of exactly what you want." And she didn't mean, what position. She meant characteristics, just like we were talking about. And she said, "and just don't let that go, focus on that" you know, and I'm kind of a hippie. Yeah, obviously, the Burning Man thing might have been your first clue. You have like a very professional hippie, but you know, I believe that there is some merit to you know, manifesting what you want. And you have to know what that is before you can manifest it. But like you said, not what exactly it looks like in job opening form. It's what the characteristics are and know what characteristics you want, focus on those so that when the opportunity does arise, you recognize those characteristics in it, you can go for it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:45
Out of the blue question, but have you ever done visioning? Or do you know what visioning is?

Lynn Marie Morski 27:50
No.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:52
So the short explanation is, I'm just curious, just because you're describing a lot of things that are similar to visiting but lots of leaders and millionaires use visioning. And really what it is it's looking, you know, five or 10 years in the future and not... similar to what we're just talking about, not describing exactly what type of job that you have, or something along those lines, but instead describing what your life is going to be like, and, down to the some of the smallest details, like how the things that are going on, make you feel five or 10 years in the future. And you know, what your morning routine might be like, as you wake up, and, you know, some very large, you know, how much money is in your bank account too, all of these other things. And I have, I've seen a lot of evidence, and I've started using this more recently, in the last year. And it seems to be very, very powerful. So I was just curious if, one of you used it and doesn't sound like you have, but you might check it out. You might have been the self described hippie that you are, and having some of the philosophies that you do, I think you'd find some benefit from it.

Lynn Marie Morski 29:09
No, I absolutely do. I think that that's definitely just kind of an extension of the manifesting. It's just more of a okay, let's manifest down to the detail and down to the feeling and I love that, that's fantastic. The closer thing I've done to that was this, I found this guided meditation online, it's like rockstar meditation or something. And I was like, well, I just... the names too good. Let's try this. And it definitely described that. It was like, picture you in your happiest self and it just went, it kind of guided you through, like, how do you feel? What do you look like? What are you doing that day? And I only did that meditation once but I distinctly remember everything that I thought in it, and as I tried to build my life, I'm like, okay, remember that, that's the picture that you thought would make you happy. So it's kind of a similar so I'm gonna pour into that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:59
Interesting. Well, hey, I just realized that this conversation has flown by. And we are just about out of time. I really, really appreciate you making the time. And I know that we were scheduled once or twice. And I'm really glad that we could make it work and getting on the phone, field Skype here. And yeah, very much appreciate that. But for those people that want to talk to you about taking on, you know, high school or not high school, college or graduate degree debt, yeah, high school debt.

Lynn Marie Morski 30:31
I highly recommend people.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:33
Yeah. But how can they find you? How can they reach out to you? What's the best way to do that?

Lynn Marie Morski 30:39
I'm on LinkedIn. I am also on Facebook, those are two kind of easy routes. And I think, yeah, either of those ways. My name is Lynn Marie Morski, as I'm sure the show notes, will say, LinkedIn is a great way. It's super nerdy but that's, I've realized that that's where this new tech space, I mean, everybody's on LinkedIn. It's just a thing. Yes. But you know, Facebook, shoot me a message, and I'm sure, I'm guessing that I can probably give you an email that they could put in the show notes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:15
If this is not your first episode of the Happen To Your Career podcast, you've probably heard somebody on here that, their first step to work that they absolutely love that fits their strengths, and they're excited about was going through our free eight day mini course, to figure out what fits you. And we've had now, well over 30,000 people have that as their beginning step to identifying what they want in their lives. And you can do the exact same thing. And if you're interested in that, it has some really amazing questions to get you started in becoming clear on what you want and what you need in your career. And it's a great way to kick it off and determine what is most important for you, moving forward, you can learn what you're great at. So you can stop wasting time in your job, and start working in your career. Even identify some of the internal blockages that are keeping you from fulfilling work, and wealth and career success. And begin narrowing down what you should be doing for work that's fulfilling to you, all you have to do is go to figureitout.co and get started today, enter your email and wallah, will send you the very first lesson, head on over there, figureitout.co or you can text HAPPEN to 44222 that's (H.A.P.P.E.N) to 44222. Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you, next week.

Speaker 2 33:00
I started this job and it was about two years in and I realized that was very good job with good people, it didn't fit my values.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:12
All that and plenty more next week right here on Happen To Your Career. Make sure that you don't miss it. And if you haven't already, click Subscribe on your podcast player so that you can download this podcast in your sleep. And you get it automatically. Even the bonus episodes every single week, sometimes multiple times a week. Until next week, Adios. i'm out. Talk to us about Burning Man.

Lynn Marie Morski 33:44
Burning Man. Its...

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:47
What does Burning Man mean to you? I'm curious.

Lynn Marie Morski 33:50
It means, I'd think I'd say freedom. If I had to sum it up in one word. It means that you can go somewhere for one week a year, and you're just free from the bounds of societal norms. And prior to going to Burning Man, there were a lot of societal norms that always frustrated me. Like, this doesn't make any sense, you know, for I mean, this is way too candid. But for example, how can you go out in a bikini that is next to nothing, but you know, somebody comes out in regular underwear and that's somehow scandalous, like that never made any sense to me. And so Burning Man, you know, norms are just out the window and it's replaced essentially by kind of Golden Rule type things like, don't hurt anybody else. Pick up after yourself. Just basic things that make everybody have a great time and let you be whoever you are. And I just think it's something everybody should do once, probably twice in your life. If anybody's interested there's a video you should check out on YouTube called Charlie goes to Burning Man and it's about 80 something year old gentleman who went for his first time and it shows you it's not just some kind of you know, whatever people think a music festival or a drug field orgy, it's none of those things. I mean, well, it can be those things. But in addition, your real life changing a growth experience for anybody who's there and consciously there and paying attention and really open to the experience.

Jeffrey Madoff 00:02
If you are lacking in curiosity, you're going to be a really uninteresting person, because anybody thinks that they know and they're no longer curious. To me, it's like oxygen to be curious.

Introduction 00:19
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 00:43
What do you think is better? Being a specialist, or a generalist? Are you better off having a deep body of knowledge or a wide set of experiences? This comes up in conversations I have all the time. And my question is, why not both?

Jeffrey Madoff 00:59
He took the money. And of course, the reason you never heard of the film junkie is because it never got made. But what it did do is expose me to the film business.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:10
That's Jeff Madoff. He started out as a fashion designer running his own company. And then he switched into film and video production, and many years later has become well known for working with organizations like Victoria's Secret, Ralph Lauren, and even Harvard. What's not obvious about his change, is the role that having both depth and breadth played in his success over the years, not just being a specialist, and not just being a generalist being both in really concentrated areas. How did he do this? Well, that's exactly what we're gonna talk about today. Listen for later on in our conversation. And I'll give you a clue. It has something to do with leveraging your own curiosity.

Jeffrey Madoff 01:57
We design career, which happened by accident, I did achieve very rapid growth, we were doubling like every three or four months, within a year and a half, I had about 120 employees, a factory in Foothill Wisconsin, I'm sure you've heard of that. And then a second factory in a place in northern Wisconsin, which I actually can't remember the name of, an office in New York at the Empire State Building. And you know, some things happen quickly. And I was chosen one of the top 10 young designers in the United States, which isn't as impressive as it sounds, because I think there were only eight of us. Back then, young people weren't doing startups, that just wasn't a thing. A lot of the companies like when I go to buy fabric, when I was starting out, didn't want to work with me. Because you know, to them, I was a kid. And I was a kid. I was like 21 when I started it, but so they didn't think there was any credibility behind the business I had. But I had attracted very good financial backing. And, you know, I was a legitimate business and in national magazines, and all of that kind of thing. But I did also, was fortunate enough to find some mentorship, and was also unfortunate enough to trust people at times that I shouldn't have. But you learn, you know, you learn from that. And so I did. So I started when I was 21. And when I made the decision to move to New York, which we might want to go into why, about that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:29
I am super curious as to why I read about this, that move to New York. However, I don't know all the backstory. So please do tell.

Jeffrey Madoff 03:37
So the business was going well, there was a recession. And all of a sudden, the stores that used to pay in 30 to 45 days, usually the terms were net 30 on the sales, were taking 90 days, 120 days, that was really tough. My backer stuck with me was a very good man. But the main reason that he backed me other than he thought my business was interesting. And I was kind of a novel character to him and was making money. He owned five banks in Wisconsin. So all those people that worked at factories and work for me banked at his bank. And he told me that one of the main reasons that he was backing me was that I provided an employment for Wisconsinites. And he was a fifth generation Wisconsinite. And when things got rough, and I wanted to move to New York, because I realized I needed to be around people who are in this business. And this business really doesn't exist too much outside of New York, especially fashion, I mean a bit in LA, but way less than New York and back then it was way, way less than New York, and I had no interest in living in LA but New York was very seductive to me because I'm a stimulus junkie. And I just love the city. Didn't start out that way, by the way. Initially, the state was intimidating to me. You know, I had never ridden subway. Or gotten around on buses, I grew up in Ohio, in the suburbs. And initially New York is a bit intimidating. But the more I went there and learn the city, the more I loved it until I absolutely wanted to be there. The conflict that arose was that my backer said to me, if you move to New York, I'm not going to continue to back your business. And he made that clear from the beginning, it wasn't a mean thing he was saying, and I understood it. And so I was faced with a big decision. When I was like, 23 or so 24, which was, you know, do I stay in Wisconsin, and continue to do my business? Or do I give it up, maybe look like a failure, because the business wasn't going to continue. It would close if I moved, and I had the realization, money comes and goes, time only goes, and I was talking to a dear friend of mine, and he said, "so do you have a job lined up in New York?" "No." "Do you know anybody there?" "Not really, no." "You have a place to live?" "No." And he said, "Well, aren't you afraid of moving there?" I said, "No, you know, actually, I'm more afraid of staying here. Because I kind of knew what the script was. Or at least I thought I knew what the script was. And so I wanted to move on and do something different." And I had saved up enough that if I lived frugally, which I did, I could travel parts of the world and not work for almost a year. And then I started another fashion business because I had a good reputation and my stuff sold, and built that up, and then sold it to another company. And that's when I transitioned to the next career.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:44
So here's what I'm curious about then, Jeff, you said, you had that realization that money comes and goes, but time only goes, was it that conversation with your friend that led to that realization? Or was it another event or set of events? What led to that realization?

Jeffrey Madoff 07:01
My dad came... my parents were entrepreneurs. You know, my mom and dad owned some retail stores in Akron. And I remember one time, my dad coming home, and seemed particularly pensive. And I said, "Dad, what's going on?" And he kind of shook his head. And he said, "No, I don't remember the guy's name." But the guy who worked in the bank next door where my dad did his banking, they had a retirement party for him. He was 65. And they had a retirement party for him during lunch hour. And we're a few people said, you know, he's been of great service to the bank and that kind of thing. He was given the, what is now the cliche probably was a cliche then, the gold watch. And exactly, and my dad said, and I thought, "That's it? You work in this bank for 40 years, and you get a watch, and you just said, goodbye, and take a little box of stuff from your desk. And that's it?" And it just hit him. And he thought, you know, and he said, and adults always tell you this, now that I'm an adult, at least I've aged, if not mature. Time really goes fast. And my dad said, you know, for the time goes so quickly, you spend 40 years working there, and you get a 45 minute lunch actually not even lunch they had cake and then gave him the watch. And then he left. They said watching him walk out of the bank was one of the saddest things I've ever seen it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:37
It is so anticlimactic to put it mildly. Understatement of the many years, I suppose, of a lifetime for him.

Jeffrey Madoff 08:46
Yeah. And so that's, you know, when I kind of realized, you know, that left a huge impression that was years before I made that decision for myself. But that left a strong impression on me, and how it affected my dad. And then it made sense. And I started actually Scott thinking about words, I think about time and you think about money, you know, time is money. Well, time isn't money, right? You know, because you spend time, you spend money, you waste time, you waste money, you save time, you save money, but time only goes, money comes and goes, the time only goes that's a one way street. as it passes, you're past it. And it's always that and so I realized there's a real difference between the time is money because at a certain point, you can't buy any more time.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:43
Agreed.

Jeffrey Madoff 09:44
Yeah. And so when I was thinking about the words, and I'm always fascinated by word roots and where things come from, that really hit me. And I realized, I think fortunately at a young age, that money comes and goes, time only goes. And all of those other things don't really make any difference.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:04
That sounds interesting. So I have a lot of things about that are interesting, particularly the separation of time and money and looking at them as individual concepts versus what is now also very cliche, maybe even more so than the gold watch, that time you make is money. But I'm super curious too about your fascination with word roots and other things. Where does that come from? I'm also very fascinated by that to the point where, you know, our organization name Happen To Your Career is completely put together based on the etymology of where the original words come from. And you know, that's a longer story. Maybe we don't have time for right now. However, I'm curious where your fascination of word roots in the light come from?

Jeffrey Madoff 10:52
Well, I've always been and it's always been encouraged by it was always encouraged by my parents. I've always been curious about stuff. I remember when I was a kid. And you may have read this story in my book, when my neighbor invited me to look through his telescope that he had just gotten and we were like, 12 years old or something, and he said, "Look at Orion, do you see Orion?" I said, "No. I see a bunch of stars." He said, "No, no, look, there's the three stars under his belt, you don't see that?" "I see a bunch of stars." He said, "There's the shoulder. And then that's the sword. You don't see that?" I said, "I only see a bunch of stars." And more I said that the more frustrated and pissed off he got. And I said, he said, "I can't believe you can't see Orion." I said, "Well, Billy, I see what everybody agrees is Orion. But that's just because everybody agreed that's Orion. It's not intrinsically Orion." And I like the word intrinsically because it meant in and of itself. And, you know, we assign that because humans are always searching for organizing principle and meaning, but it's just a bunch of stars, until you assign that meaning to it. And by the way, it's only Orion. And you're not America, they have a whole different mythology around arts, you go to A they have a whole different mythology around stars. So it's uniquely in the United States, North America, what those stars represent. I always was interested in so why is something called something that's still a fascination I have. I always asked lots of questions when I was a kid. So my teachers either really liked me or found me...

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:33
That's fair. I can see that. But curiosity and innate curiosity, especially when it is to the extremes, it seems like there's no middle ground for teachers in that area.

Jeffrey Madoff 12:50
You know, I remember when I was in, I don't remember what grade, fourth grade or something like that. Yeah, we learned that, Columbus discovered America. And I raised my hand and I said, "How can you discover something when people were already here? What do you mean? I saw the Indians were already here. So how could he discover something, they were already here?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:13
Columbus discovered the edge. Yeah, not so much.

Jeffrey Madoff 13:21
And so that kind of thing also, you know, the words and how the words were used? And then in that case, what it implied. You know, I mean, not to get too deep into this, but there was an implied racism about it. These aren't people, there's something else. And that threw me off. So a lot of these things that made big impressions on me when I was younger. As I read more books, talk to more people, educated myself more, those things became actually more interesting to me, because it created more questions. And I think that if you are lacking in curiosity, you're going to be a really uninteresting person, because anybody thinks that they know and they're no longer curious. To me. It's like oxygen to be curious, you know, that keeps my life going. Because it's so interesting, all of this stuff unfolding, being in Manhattan now. And we did not leave during the pandemic. And I was acutely aware that history was unfolding every day here, and my family, we would open the windows and applaud for the health care workers. And that was happening every day for about four months, out the windows and just thinking, what an astounding thing is going on now? So I've always had that kind of curiosity and always, you know, wondered about things and you know, when, in order to wonder, I do this in my class, you know, I said, "if you change the O to an A, you wander and you wander so you can wonder about." You know, like I looked, I remember seeing a lobster, we went to a seafood restaurant when I was a kid, and then the tank with the lobsters in it. And I thought, who looked at that the first time and thought, you know better if I tore the ass off that and dipped it in some butter, it would be delicious. You had to be really hungry to think, oh, man, does that look like it tastes good. So, but I'm wondering about stuff like that, how did that happen. And that led me to actually study lobsters, not to a great extent. But the realization that lobsters were initially so plentiful off the coast of Maine, that they were prison food, and for poor people. And it was through a genius of marketing, that it became a huge cost a quarter of the price of chicken. And it was through genius of marketing, that they made this very plentiful, very ugly creature, I mean, maybe not ugly to another lobster, but to me it is and that it became a luxury food. And so if you go down the rabbit hole, those discoveries to me are really cool.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:14
I love those discoveries as well. And I suspect that if we go back to that concept of wandering, and actually knowing let's go all the way back for just a moment here, where you wander to New York, and you decided that, hey, this is.. I'm more scared of staying here in many different ways. And it sounds like in some ways too, they getting to know you a little bit, there was probably some element of curiosity is as well, that was on the other side of that. And what took place in New York, after you had opened up the other design company you had ended up selling it, what took place that made you decide, hey, this is something I want to sell, I want to move into what many people would consider to be an entirely different career path?

Jeffrey Madoff 17:04
So you talked about the transition and going into film then?

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:07
Yeah, absolutely.

Jeffrey Madoff 17:09
Well, you know, I had the experience very young with my first company. I started when I was in Wisconsin. And part of the reason by the way that I got was able to attract publicity is not because my clothing sold, but I was a young kid doing this out of Wisconsin, not a fashion summer, you know, so pardon me out. So I was a novelty also. When I moved to New York, moved 11 different places, you know, that first year, traveled around a lot, then ran out of money. So I was approached to start another company, which I did, I realized, you know, this business is not the business I want to be in. That I felt I had, and I didn't know that at the time. So I'll tie this together. But you know, I wasn't doing anything dramatically different than I had done when I was in Wisconsin, other than I was in a more interesting environment being in New York. One of the people that I bought fabric from, really nice man. And he was one of these guys that extended me credit. And when I was started my previous company, he had extended me credit, you know, because he liked me. I thought, he thought I was a bright kid. So he said to me, "Jeff, do you know anything about the film business?" I said, "Not really. I've read some books, and I go, I love movies, but not really." And he said, "Well, look, you've got a good head on your shoulders. My son is your age. He's going to involve us and people. Would you mind talking to him? Because he don't... he won't listen to me at all." "Yeah, I'd be happy to meet him." And I met his son. He was going out at that time with the daughter of I don't know if you're familiar with the actor, Eli Wallach, and his wife Anne Jackson, both wonderful actors who have very rich careers. For your listeners, Google them, because you've probably seen them if you've watched some older movies that are great. And his son, his name is Tommy, had optioned the rights to William Burroughs, his novel junkie. And William Burroughs was one of the seminal figures along with Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg of the beat movement in the 50s. And Burroughs was the sign on to the Burroughs business machine fortune, but he wanted nothing to do with his family business. He was a heroin addict. He was gay. So he was a total outcast in terms of his family and all of that. And he also wrote the book Naked Lunch, which is also quite a famous book, if you look at literature in the 50s and 60s. So anyhow, Tommy was doing the film based on Burroughs his book, and it was going to star and be directed by Dennis Hopper. So I met Dennis Hopper, he and I hit it off. He wanted me to be in the movie, and anyhow was really interesting for a while and then what happened is that Burroughs, Hopper and Terry Southern who wrote Magic Christian and a few other books. And Hopper and Southern would argue about who wrote Easy Rider, which is another one of the classic iconic films of the 60s. But they wouldn't get any work done. And so it was really interesting because I said to my friend, "look, they're going to squeeze you out of this, you've put this team together, they don't need you anymore." "It's my film." I said, "Yeah, but it's not going to get made, you know, they were getting high every night, they would wake up at four in the afternoon, I had taken a suite at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. And so it was clear to me that it was never going to happen." So it was initially interesting, in meeting these people, and spending time with them, became not so interesting anymore. Because unfortunately, you know, they were addicts. And when you're an addict, and you're numbing whatever pain it is in your life, you're also not terribly productive when you have something real to do. Sure enough, they told him, they wanted to buy him out of his option. And they offered him three times more than he had paid for it. I said, "You've tripled your money, in four months, take the money." And he said, "but it's my film." And I said, "it's not going to get made, they're not going to make it. I wanted to be in the film." You know, that was pretty cool initially, but it's not going to happen. He took the money. And of course, the reason you never heard of the film junkie is because it never got made. But what it did do is expose me to the film business. And through somebody I met through Burroughs, I met some people who are starting a company that wanted to start shooting fashion shows, because nobody was doing that. And I had this intuitive feel for the medium. And that's when I realized, wow, the fashion design stuff. I mean, that's been cool. That's been good to me. But this is so much more interesting to me. And it will use what I believe to be my talents in a much bigger and broader way. And I met these people we had dinner together, went back, looked at footage, and by I met them on a Tuesday and on Thursday, I started my first project with them. That was really interesting. And then I started my own company, you know, truncating the story here, but I wanted to start my own company and do what I wanted to do with it. But it was the, again, the curiosity and the opportunity to do something that would stretch and use my talents more than I thought the fashion business would. For what I liked, I mean, there's wonderfully creative people in fashion, I'm only talking about what satisfies me, I'm not saying anything about the industry.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:40
I think what's really interesting to me, and I would say fascinating to me about your story is I think that there's so many elements there that are common when people haven't, I'm just going to call it like a, you know, reasonable success on the other end where they are able to take their talents, as you said, and put them together in a way like talents and strengths and past experiences in a way that is really interesting and more fulfilling. Some of those commonalities that seem to be there that definitely appear to be a part of your story, Jeff, are that you went and did something and had a track record of success first, and then, you know, as you started, or I guess I should say catch, being curious and kept being open in different ways, then it eventually led to a way to be able to put those past experiences together. And I see that again and again, in different industries, different people's stories. If those elements aren't there, then it doesn't appear to get to the, I don't know what you want to call it, like the output on the other end, the happier place on the other end, maybe happier is the wrong word. But you know that higher fulfillment, higher interest, higher type. So I'm curious, what advice would you give to people that are going through or looking for, you know, that same type of transition in one way or another where they want to put together their past experience, but want to do it in a new and different way that is more interesting or more fulfilling to them?

Jeffrey Madoff 24:16
Well, there's a couple of things. One is what I learned when I started in the film business, was it was exactly like the fashion business. And what I mean by that is, so when I was designing a line of clothing, I came up with a concept, right? Did some research, came up with a concept. Then I sketched the ideas. And then once I had the ideas sketched and made my selections and all of that in finding fabrics or the materials for it, figuring out what the labor costs would be to make it, in other words, established a budget, established a selling price, had the salad, had to get paid for it, and then that would go back and I start the process over again, when I started in the film business, it starts with an idea, then it starts with some rough sketches which can become the storyboard, you have to cost out your materials, you have to cost out your labor, you have to figure out how much time it's going to take and meeting the deadline and getting paid for it. So the protocols of business and I maintained the protocols, and almost all businesses are essentially the same going from idea to concept to budget to billing, to collecting and starting over again. That's one thing that demystified an awful lot of business is to me, is realizing that if you can do a deconstruction of that, and understand the business much better when you just look at the protocols involved. Another thing is, is that, you know, we're compressing many, many years into a few minutes here.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:52
Yes, we are.

Jeffrey Madoff 25:53
And I think that we should do my life in real time.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:58
I hope you're clearing out your schedule. We're gonna meet a few minutes longer.

Jeffrey Madoff 26:03
Yes, we'll order in some food and I see...

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:06
Alright, perfect.

Jeffrey Madoff 26:07
But the point is, and I think it's one of the big myths of entrepreneurship, is that, you know, it somehow is easy. It's not easy. It's hard. It's a lot of work. And although I think more and more people are making those attempts, a lot of people go into it blindly as I did, and which was a good thing. In a sense, you've probably heard the phrase, ignorance is bliss. And that is true. Because if you knew all the risks involved upfront, you might not attempt it, you know. So it's not easy, it requires a lot of work. And that a lot of work phase never goes away. You get smarter about it, maybe use your time better, can delegate more as your business grows. But if you own the business, you're dealing with a lot all the time, that's just the nature of it, that's important to understand. When you get to the question of, do I make the switch? And what should I ask myself when making that switch? I think the first thing you have to ask yourself, and I don't think most people ask themselves this question until they're middle aged or older, is what is success? And what does success look like? You know, to me, is it having a home in the city, a country home for the weekends, in an island home somewhere else, and cars and wardrobe and every place? And you know, all of that doesn't mean that you're doing something that most of the time because it'll never happen all the time. But at least more than 50% of the time you feel happy and fulfilled about what you're doing? Or you know, what is success for you? There's not a right or wrong answer. But it's important if you're aiming for a certain destination, that you've got a map to help you get there. And I think that's a question people often don't ask themselves is, what does success look like to them? What does it mean? And then it's... why am I doing this? You know, what is my motivation for wanting to be whatever that is? So in my case, in terms of, you know, transitioning to doing film, I wanted to have a broader palette of creative expression. And that was what was really interesting to me, because I wanted to write stuff. I wanted to work with musicians to do scoring. I wanted to work with great cinematographers that I directed to do things. And I just wanted that richer palette to draw from for a greater creative expression. And I wanted to make enough where essentially, money wasn't a concern. But money wasn't a concern, because my needs, my family needs, and it's different, you know, I got married, I have two kids. So you can't just think about yourself, you've got to think about what's the impact on other people when you're taking risks and making decisions. So you can't be foolish about it. Because you have to realize you're putting other people's lives at risk, unless you have so much money, that you're fine. I didn't happen to be born into that kind of family. And I was hoping my wife was wealthy and she wasn't. So you know, you just have to sort of be sensible and calculate and assess your risks in terms of what you're doing. But for the first 15 years of my career after fashion, I didn't have a family and I was able to, you know, to do those things and establish that business. The question arises, Scott, if you're making really good money, but you hate what you're doing, and every day that you go to work, you find it a drag, are you successful? And to me that success and fulfillment are inextricably tied together.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:48
It's really almost a what should be a common milestone that we look at in people's lives. It's not a common milestone, that question that you posed earlier of, you know what is success to me, what does success look like to me? And what are some of my motivations around that? I feel like we've got all the normal things like, you don't get bored, you go to school, you know, maybe graduate from college, you get married or have kids or whatever, all of those conventional milestones, if you will. But then I feel like there's a whole other set of events that happen in someone's life, when they choose to grapple with that question of what success looks like. And it happens to your point all too often around, you know, the middle of life, sometimes even lighter.

Jeffrey Madoff 30:37
We're not at all.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:38
Yeah, we're not at all. Yeah, I've had many conversations with people that are in their 70s that are just now grappling with that type of question, and are trying to figure out for the first time, but where you... that milestone, I think is where you shift over from what are other people's ideas of what success looks like, into what are my ideas of what success looks like? So I'm really appreciate you articulating that, and I hadn't really thought about it in that exact way. Also, what is really fun to see, too, is I know a bit about the end of your story too, well, not the end of your story, but the current day.

Jeffrey Madoff 31:15
Oh, what's the end of the story?

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:19
Well, I guess we need to have lunch and ignore it...

Jeffrey Madoff 31:23
Died on the podcast. But you were there, folks.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:30
I might make for good radio? I don't know. But hold out on me, Jeff. You know, when we started this conversation, you were telling me a little bit about the play that you have coming up, you know, as of recently it's been rescheduled to it's going to launch in 2022, February of 2022, as well, right. And what I'm seeing now is some of those common threads that are running through your story, where you probably were not in a position to be able to put that play together in the way that you have now, if we went back to when you were running the design business, I'm just taking a shot in the dark here. And now it's totally possible in a new and different way. So I'm curious, your thoughts on that?

Jeffrey Madoff 32:13
Well, I think that I believe that one of the things this is true about the play, and frankly, it's true about you know, I became a parent older. And I think in both cases, I had more life experience, and I hope had more wisdom, in terms of coping with the realities of those situations.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:33
I'm curious, what do you mean, when you say, in coping with the realities of those situations? What does that mean, tell me more.

Jeffrey Madoff 32:40
Things never happen as quickly as you want them to happen. You get disappointed by people, you know, who seem in the moment to be very present, and don't follow up. And just all the things that are day to day life that when I was younger, I would tend to more personalize, but it really has nothing to do with me and everything to do with them and who they are. And that's just the way people function. You know, I have enough years under my belt to you know, to see that. I mean, it's amazing to me, and I've done some very unscientific market research in this. And I have friends that are CEOs of major companies, and a whole range of different occupations. And I would say to them, so what percentage of people would you say, either don't call back or answer an email, and one of these people, and I'll be discreet, he runs a major Entertainment Corporation. And he said, "I guess 85%" I said, "85%, don't get back to you. And he said, "Yeah, I understand. I'm in a position to give them money." And the numbers ran anywhere from 80 to 90%. In terms of people just not following through. And I said to my kids, if you just show up, ready to do the job, you're gonna beat out 85% of the competition, because most people just don't. And it's kind of incredible. And you know, I was brought up to be responsible, if you say you're going to do something, you do it, if you say you're going to show up at a time, you do it. If you say to somebody, I'll get back to you, you do it. But I didn't realize that was more the exception than the rule. And I know lots of people in business, take that to heart and feel like, I don't know why I, they didn't get back to me. And I've been waiting. I said, "Well don't wait, call them." And so this is I think good for your listeners, because one of the things you do is email them and say, "I just want to confirm that you received my previous email." "Oh, I'm so glad you contacted me." I didn't you know, and whether that was out of embarrassment or true it opened up the dialogue again, call the person, follow up. You don't know what's going on in their lives. They might have just died on a podcast. You know, you don't know what's going on. So don't assume it's about you and follow up. You've got nothing to lose. And a sure way to make sure nothing happens is do nothing. So take your own initiative and be proactive. And a lot of people are don't... I don't want to be a pest. So you just want to sit here and be anxious? You know, act on it, follow up, force in a nice way a response by asking for confirmation, just want to make sure you receive this, hope everything's okay. And that's all you have to do. And they're the percentage of response goes from this to that. And those are just some strategies, frankly, for waking people up. Because everybody's consumed with their own lives and what they have to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:36
Jeff, I so appreciate this conversation and to bring this full circle. All of these events have led to a recent book as well. And I just wanted to acknowledge that because one of the things I wanted to ask you in order to close this out, is, you know, if people want to get more, Jeff, where can they go? Where can they get more, Jeff? How can they get the book, which by the way, is Creative Careers: Making a Living with Your Ideas? Tell us more.

Jeffrey Madoff 36:04
Do I get to hold it up so I can show them and do a shameless plug?

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:08
Shameless plug of. Here we go.

Jeffrey Madoff 36:10
Thank you. Oh, a two first shameless plug. I love that. The book is available. We're all fine books are sold. You can go to Amazon, or Barnes and Noble, or Audible, you know all of those places. And, by the way, if you liked the book, please post a review on Amazon because it helps in their rankings. And if you don't like the book, keep it to yourself. I have a website, two websites, madoffproductions.com, where you can see my film work. And then there's, acreativecareer.com. And you can see some of the clips in interviews with some of my guests. And I have an amazing range of really cool guests. And you'll get a lot of them in the book. And then there's an Instagram also @acreativecareers. And there's shorter clips there. And then I'm on LinkedIn, as the name you see on your screen B. Jeffrey Madoff. And there's a creative careers LinkedIn group I started.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:18
In the very next episode, and tell you about a story. Story where Alyssa and I were sitting out Woody's overlooking the beach in San Diego, we had banana pancakes, coffee and breakfast burritos. It wasn't just us, though. We were listening to Michael, tell us what his life was like now.

Michael 37:36
If work is fun, like what I'm doing now I find these moments when I'm like, you know, it's eight o'clock on a Tuesday night. And I'm like, should I watch a movie? I'm like, No, I actually really feel like working because, that's not work. It's fun. I'm having fun with it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:54
Michael had been an executive for Sony Entertainment for many years. And it was a great career for him until it wasn't. The crazy thing is that, you know, all these years working for Sony, even though we enjoy lots of pieces of it, he'd never realized that work could be something that was fun. And as we were sitting there listening to a story, it was evident how much life had changed for Michael in the last two years. And that was when I asked him if he would come on the podcast and share everything that went into his journey to find his ideal career. Next week, we'll dive into all that and more right here on the Happen To Your Career podcast. Until then, I am out. Adios.

Jeffrey Madoff 38:38
But I'll tell you something that you know that's one of the things that we can talk about. is you know, I went from my first adults career. Sounds like I did porn. It sounds was an adult person.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:54
I'll tell you what, we're just gonna jump right in, right now. So tell me a little bit about where that started. I'm super curious about that. What caused you to get into design in the first place? How did that come about?

Jeffrey Madoff 39:08
I had an acid flashback when I was in college.

Alyson Thompson 00:03
One of the frustrating things about job hunting is that, you can type in a very general title like account manager, and then like a million jobs will pop up for account manager. But if you look at the actual role, that can be take five out of those million, they're all going to be different.

Introduction 00:23
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 00:47
We've had a lot of episodes on this podcast, about how to create new roles for yourself. But what about when you're trying to figure out what existing roles out there? Which ones are right for you? This was Alyson Thompson's biggest challenge as she navigated a career change moving from the hospitality industry to finding a brand new organization and role this past year. She did all the work to identify what she really wanted in her life. And what she really wanted out of her career, she figured out what her signature strengths were, she did all of this really great work to be able to set the groundwork. But then she started searching for specific roles.

Alyson Thompson 01:28
It really took a lot of paying closer attention to those details of like, okay, what are they actually telling me that I'm going to be doing and being able to filter out the ones that I knew were gonna be a waste of my time?

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:38
As Alyson started to search for open positions, she realized that what she was looking for, didn't always match up with what companies said they were looking for. Sometimes, companies would use a title that she's typed in and found, but then she got to the actual job description and the posting, and the responsibilities didn't match at all, what she expected to see. And conversely, she would find the job description she was looking for, but with a different title for the role. So if you've experienced this problem, too, you know that Alyson had to learn how to adapt her job search to find the right role for her. Spoiler alert, she did find her ideal career. But one of the best things that Alyson did early on, was begin identifying what she already had in the past, in past roles, past opportunities that was important for her to take with her into the next opportunity, that next role. Now this is especially important because most people don't actually make career changes, or they stop themselves from making great changes for them, because they're worried about what they might lose by making that change. Listen, later on in my conversation with Alyson, you'll get to hear how she avoided that problem entirely.

Alyson Thompson 02:53
Originally, my academic focus in college was psychology. So when I was in college, I was very, I was relatively certain that that was kind of the field that I wanted to be in. So I did all my coursework. And, you know, as I hit my junior and senior year, that's when you're doing more of that intensive, like internships and getting that hands on experience. And I loved the volunteer work that I did, like, I loved everything that I learned, but I had to make a judgment call with myself when it was like, okay, it's time to figure out like, what I want to do postgrad, I had to make a judgment call of like, okay, is this something that I can really see myself doing as an actual career? I'm kind of a bleeding heart type of person, like, I'm a very empathetic, emotional sponge type of person. And so as much as I love helping people, and volunteering and getting experience and all these different areas of you know, what being in the psychology field can expose you to, I was basically like, I know, I would bring my work home every day, and I just be miserable, and no longer good and effective at my job. If I decided that I wanted to be like a therapist, or you know, a counselor or something like that. When I graduated, I just took like, a random, like, it was like probably the worst job I ever had. But it was like one of those like, cold calling, like type of jobs where you're like, have to make X amount of calls a day, and you know, talk to X amount of people per day. And like, I just felt like it was sucking my soul out. And so that was kind of the time where I was like, Okay, what is it that I feel like is going to kind of feed my soul a little bit, I did the one thing that I never do, which is quit a job without having another job. And I took an unpaid internship at this place in Chicago called the standard Club, which is like a social, like a historical social club in Chicago. And I interned in their membership and marketing and events department. And so that was my initial exposure into you know, what goes into marketing events and coming up with, you know, event concepts and doing like event marketing material for the members of this club. And so I was only there for four months, but it was really like really, really great exposure into the world of events. So after four months, I got my first catering job here in Chicago at this, like, upscale is like a gourmet, almost like a fancier version of a whole foods, but they also had like a restaurant and like a coffee shop. And they also did catering services for like corporate companies like drop offs and things like that. So that was my first official catering role. And then they also offered like event services through their catering. So I got exposure to what the world of you know, off premise catering events are in catering and things like that. So that's really what kind of skyrocketed me into what turned out to be about a seven year career in catering events wedding. So over the course of those seven years, I kind of bounced around into like a little like different areas of catering, which was pretty awesome, because I kind of got to experience every side of events from the sales side and the venue like selling event spaces and selling catering services and dealing with more high end clientele. And after working within like a catering and events company, my goal was to eventually land in hotels, which I did eventually do. So I was doing just the catering and event sales for about, I think, three years. And then after those three years, I got my first hotel job.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:17
What made it your goal at the time to move into hotels? Because I heard you say that, a minute ago.

Alyson Thompson 06:23
I just thought that that was like the place to be, you know what I mean? Like when I think about like career development and career trajectory, and just like further career opportunities, I thought, okay, if I move in, into the hotel world, that will kind of expose me to one a different type of environment that I hadn't experienced before. And then just thinking about, like, the different departments and roles within hotels, you know, I thought, okay, I'll have a little bit more flexibility and a little bit more movement and career advancement, which... it kind of happened that way, but sort of not, which is how I ended up reaching out to you guys. But I did do about, I would say I was in hotel specifically for four years. So from about 2015 to 20, well 2020, technically, so five years of just strictly hotels, doing event sales and catering sales within the hotel space, which was really cool. Like, it kind of gave me a little bit more balance in my experience where previously I was mostly dealing with like weddings and more like nonprofit things like that, being in hotels gave me more of that corporate exposure of dealing with corporate clients. So I would say by the end of it all, like I felt very, like well rounded, and just the different kinds of clients I was used to dealing with. And the different kind of instances that arise when you're dealing with different clients. Like the things you deal with with a wedding client is going to be very different from the things that you deal with with a huge, you know, financial company, you know, here in Chicago, and just being able to have that experience, got great experience, love what I was doing, but looking at, okay, what's going to be my next step? Because I'm a very, I'm a planner, that's like, that's what I do. And I'm always thinking, like... I'm always thinking, what's the next step? Like, how can I learn more? How can I grow my skills, like, I'm always kind of looking for ways to kind of grow and expand because as much as I love what I do, like, I don't want to get bored and you know, end up being doing the same thing for 20 years and, you know, never really like growing. And so when I was thinking about that, and thinking about just kind of like the hotels that I was involved in, I realized that the structure of the roles within a hotel varies based on the hotel and the size of the hotel, ended up being a little bit more limiting than what I thought. So, for example, my role in my, when I was at my hotel, it was a catering manager, I started out as a catering manager ended up being senior catering manager, I already had a director, so it's like, and he's been there for like almost a decade. So it's like, okay, it's a long shot, you know what I mean? of me being able to get promoted to catering director or assistant director or, you know, any of those higher level positions, and some hotels don't even have those higher level positions, you know what I mean? So I was like, Okay, I can either sit here and you know, just kind of go through the same motions and be okay with just being a senior level catering manager and hope that something else better comes along, or I could potentially explore something else, even though I like to grow and you know, learn new things. Like I'm also a creature of habit. So it's like the idea of not doing something remotely similar to what I was, what I've already been doing for seven years. I was like, asking myself, like, Alyson, you're crazy. Like, what do you mean, you don't want to do this anymore? But I didn't want to ignore that feeling. You know what I mean? I didn't want to ignore the fact that, you know, I was starting to feel a little bit of burnout and then I was starting to feel almost like a sense of unfulfillment, you know, in what I was doing, and...

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:54
I'm curious about that, when you say almost a sense of unfulfillment for what you're doing, what did that mean for you? I've definitely felt something I would describe, it might be different from person to person.

Alyson Thompson 10:04
I feel like for me, like when I think of when I was feeling like that sense of unfulfillment, I felt like I'm not using all of my skillset to the full potential that I can, like, I wasn't operating on my full potential, like, I don't want to say that I felt like I was like wasting my talent, that's a little bit aggressive. But I kind of felt like, you know, there's more that I could be doing, if I was in a different place, or if you know, my role was a little bit different. And then like, I started noticing, like little things like, Okay, if I was a director, or if I was higher up in my department, there are definitely some changes that I would want to make. And I tried with the power that I did have to try to implement some of those changes. But it just within the hotel world, you know, there's, I don't want to say bureaucracy, but there's definitely like, it has to go through a process of you know, getting things approved. And sometimes it can take years and you know, being within a sales position, it's like, you want to make sure that you're being keeping up with your competitors. And it's like, if I see three of my other competitor hotels doing this awesome thing that people are really responding to, and it's going to take my hotel two years to do that. Like, that's very frustrating for me, you know what I mean?

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:17
Absolutely.

Alyson Thompson 11:18
So that was just some of those things that I just kind of started to kind of notice, that was just like, not sitting well with me. And then I started to think, well, maybe I need to just be doing something else, you know. And that's when it kind of really started the journey of okay, how do I start from square one, because that's basically what I was trying to do. And I knew that, you know, I didn't want to be left to my own devices as far as just like the job hunting process, because I knew that I wanted it to be different. Like, it's not like I was trying to make a lateral move of just going to another hotel, or you know, leaving hotels, but going to like a different, like a venue, like an event venue or something like that, like I knew I wanted it to be something different. And I knew I wanted to really give myself the opportunity to do some of that deeper exploration of like, okay, let's really take some time and figure out what I'm really looking for. So that way, you know, I'm not job hunting again, and like another year and a half. And so that's how I kind of started doing the process of like, okay, should I, you know, hire a career counselor, and just kind of looking at the services that are out there. And I can't even remember, I think I like stumbled upon, like an article on LinkedIn. And the article had mentioned, something Happen To Your Career related on the article. And that's how I found you guys. So thank God for LinkedIn, because I'm always on LinkedIn.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:43
The magic of the internet and LinkedIn. And eventually, you found your way over here. A couple things that I'm super curious about. One, you mentioned that if growth is something that's really important to you, and I would probably say that, you know, as human beings, we all need to be able to grow, otherwise, we become stagnant. And then even if everything else lines up really well, then it still feels like there's a piece missing. But one of the things that I found is that what growth means is pretty different from person to person, what each individual needs is pretty different from person to person. So I'm curious, what were some of the pieces that were really important to you as it relates to growth? I heard one of them, like you wanted the opportunity to move up and have new experiences, and it sounded like, there you perceived that it was gonna be limited eventually. What else did you mean, when you say, and talk about growth?

Alyson Thompson 13:38
In time thinking about, you know, some of those key things that I was looking for in my next opportunity, obviously, having opportunities to learn more, even if it's not necessarily directly related to whatever my role is, like just having the option to be able to explore other areas of a company, I thought that would be not necessarily like a must have. But definitely a very strong nice to have. A must have, for me was definitely like being somewhere where it's a good quality team dynamic. But it's also a very interactive team dynamic, where it's like, we can toss around ideas, and we can give feedback and have that feedback be taken into consideration. And then ultimately put into practice to just improve what we're doing. Like that was a really, really big piece for me, because it's like, especially being client facing like, it's a very interesting position to be in. And if you're good at your job, and I don't want to toot my own horn, but like, I feel like I'm pretty, you know, to what I do, you know what I mean? Yeah, and it's just like being able to not just, you know, meet their needs and provide a service but also kind of being able to create a relationship where you can get more like nuggets of information from them. That's going to improve what your company is doing. Being in a position where you're always talking to the client. It's an area of opportunity for myself, for my role, but also for the company to be able to say, hey, you know, I'm dealing with, you know, a handful of clients, a lot of them are giving me this feedback, saying that they would like to see us do these 10 things. Can we do five of these 10 things that they're asking us for, and being able to implement things that ultimately makes the people that we're serving happier and more efficient in whatever it is that they're trying to achieve. And so that was like a really, really big thing for me. And then also some of the other things like a company that is invested in your growth outside of just the company. So tuition reimbursement or certifications, opportunities to just learn and grow personally for yourself outside of just whatever your role is, I thought that would be like a really awesome plus to have. And then like work life balances was an important one for me too. And I think obviously, that's just comes from being in the industry that I was in where sometimes, especially during busy season in Chicago, like constant conferences going on around the city, constant weddings, events, and everything like that. So there will be a lot of times where it's like, I'll have a late night, and I don't get home until like 10, because I had a meeting to oversee, like at six o'clock or something like that. So I really just wanted to kind of move away from that and just kind of be somewhere where my hours were a little bit more defined. And I don't mind kind of going above and beyond if I need to. But it's like I don't have to be clocked in or be plugged in at 10 o'clock at night, like just being able to just like really step away from the computer, step away from the desk and just be done for the day and refreshed and do what I need to do to be ready for the next day.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:34
So that's interesting as a part of that. When you say work life balance part of that for you was just being able to step away at the time, you wanted to step away, and be able to have that type or that level of flexibility.

Alyson Thompson 16:49
Yeah, exactly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:50
I can definitely appreciate that, I think is about four or five years. I can't remember now. That's weird that I can't remember now. But the time I spent with target, which is a retailer, and very, very popular retailer in the United States, and it was a wonderful organization to work for. However, if you support it stores in any way whatsoever...

Alyson Thompson 17:11
You will have no life.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:13
Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that in some ways was part of it. And what was originally kind of a dream job for me not kind of it was a dream job for me. It ended up turning into as I evolved and I decided I wanted much more flexibility and much more space. And it turned into something that no longer was a fit because I had to be there, they had on deck days, if you're supporting stores, and if you know anything about retail, you know that it gets really popular. Around, say Thanksgiving, Christmas, you know, Black Friday, all of those time periods. Everyone was there, everybody was on board. And it was actually a ton of fun. But it became more important to me to be with my family and everything else. So I can totally appreciate what you're saying. Another question for you, though, as you got to the end of this, realize that you wanted to make a change started thinking about, hey, this is a bigger change than, I heard you say, hey, what this sounds crazy, like... they're going from something that you had spent a lot of time, had a lot of experience. And then in some ways, it was a wide open frontier transition the next thing other than what you already knew you wanted, but how did you think about what would help you make that next move? I know, we got the opportunity to work with you on this one. But I'm curious, you know, as you were in that transition, how you were thinking about like, hey, here's what I need, because this sounds crazy?

Alyson Thompson 18:41
Yeah, I knew that I wanted more than just your run of the mill courier service. And not to say that there aren't good careers, a ton of good career services out there. It's just that they're all structured differently. And a lot of them that I was finding had more focus on some of those more tangible skills of like, resume writing, and you know, prepping for interviews and like those sorts of things. But I knew that I wanted to focus more on some of that, like all the things that happens before you even get to applying for a job like that was what I wanted to focus on. Whether that was getting a deeper understanding of what my skills and abilities are and getting a deeper understanding of you know, okay, what kinds of things do I want out of a job or like what kinds of things would excite me about a certain type of role like really doing kind of like that exploratory work? I wanted something that was going to really focus on some a lot of that first before we even get into applying and resumes and stuff like that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:43
Why was that important to you? That's awesome.

Alyson Thompson 19:46
Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:47
However, I'm curious why that was important to you at that time?

Alyson Thompson 19:50
Because I wanted to make sure that I was setting myself up for the success in the right way. Like I wanted to make sure that like I didn't shoot myself in the foot by trying to make this big life change and not going about it the right way. And I knew that part of having that be this be a successful transition, I knew that that exploratory and kind of research. And like that building up piece, like I knew that that was important. I was like, okay, like I, because I really did like, like I said before, like, I really didn't want to just apply to a bunch of random jobs, that kind of sound good. And then I get a job, and then I hate it. And then it's like, I'm back to square one again, after like, a year, a year and a half. It's like, because I was really looking for, aside from all those other things, like I was really looking thinking of longevity, and really thinking of like, this isn't just like, my next new job, like, I'm really trying to transition into a new career. And it's a subtle difference but it's very different. When you're job hunting, and you're just like, oh, I'm just trying to get another job, just have another job and thinking about it from like, I'm trying to build a new career, if that makes sense.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:58
Yeah, absolutely. So with the transition itself, as you started transitioning, what in the beginning was different than how you thought it would be?

Alyson Thompson 21:09
I have to be honest with myself, I'm a patient person. But when it comes to like things like exploring and digging deep, like I'm all for it. But when it's more of like an extensive, like drawn out process, I get a little bit impatient. So something that was different was like I didn't really expect a lot of the earlier training modules. Like I didn't expect so many of those to be focused on the exploring and figuring out what you need and figuring out what makes you tick. And all that exploring piece, like I was like, oh, like, I'll be doing this for like two or three weeks, like no, like, that was a very extensive portion of the program, which ended up being exactly what I needed. But I didn't really expect that like in the beginning. And so I was like, Oh, well, this is different, but I'll just roll with it and see what happens.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:01
Why do you say that? Because I think that that's a really common thing. And I very much am that way. I very much I'm like, okay, so where's the part where we get to do the thing that gets me? Like, how can we make that happen in next week? Not like, whenever. But I'm curious about your statement that it ended up being exactly what you need. What do you mean when you say that?

Alyson Thompson 22:22
Because it just, I feel like it was exactly what I needed. Because I basically like I knew what I was asking for when I was, I knew what I was looking for in a program. But like, I think I underestimated, like I knew the importance of it. But like, I think I underestimated even within myself, like how important that is. And it ended up being exactly what I needed. Because by the time I got to the point of the job searching portion, I felt so much more confident in what I was looking for. Because I had done all that preliminary work of exploring myself, and really understanding what my strengths are, and, you know, comparing and contrasting my previous roles and kind of seeing like those kind of common themes of what keeps coming up and thinking about Okay, well, what did I hate about all my jobs, and you know, really kind of ingraining those things into my mind. So that way, it's like I had a pretty solid roadmap of how to navigate the process once I was ready to start looking for jobs. And I feel like if I didn't do that, then I probably wouldn't have been able to be as specific when I was doing the actual job searches. If that makes any sense.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:28
I think so. So tell me more about that. When you say, if you hadn't done that, the previous work, you wouldn't be able to be as specific. So where did that actually help you out? How did that translate into getting closer to where you wanted to go?

Alyson Thompson 23:44
I think the great thing that was helpful for me is that before you get to the part of the program, where you're actually job searching, you're kind of thinking about the concept of what your ideal role is, and kind of a more broader scope. So it's not necessarily about okay, what's the actual position? It's about, okay, what's the broader scope of what you're looking for? And having that in mind. So looking at, you know, okay, these are the strengths that I need to keep in mind when I'm looking or these are the things that I know, I don't like to keep in mind when I'm looking and okay, like, here's some common threads that I need to make sure I have in my mind when I'm looking at these jobs. So it really kind of saves me a lot of like, unnecessary work of looking at jobs that I knew wasn't for me. I was like, oh, I already know this isn't for me, because it's not meeting the criteria that I had previously established for myself as far as what I was looking for.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:42
Do you remember any of those? I'm super curious. It seems like everyone always goes through that type of transition where, you know, yep, that's no good. That's no good. What were some of those for you? Do you recall?

Alyson Thompson 24:55
I can't remember any specific roles off the top of my head and one of those furstrating things about job hunting is that you can type in a very general title. And then like a mill, like account manager, and then like a million jobs will pop up for account manager. But if you look at the actual roles, like can you take five out of those million, they're all going to be different. And so it was about kind of like comparing and contrasting, okay, don't focus on the title, but look at the actual the meat of what you're going to be doing. And so when I was looking like I would like things that would be red flags for me would be like, oh, well, you know, you have a quota. Like, because I've already done the sales thing. And one of the stressful things about being in a sales role is having to worry about hitting quotas, or having to worry about making quarterly or annual goals. And I was like, I do not want that. I just want to be able to start my day and work with my clients and be productive and not have to worry about meeting the numbers. Like I don't want to be the numbers girl, like I want to be the focus on supporting your clients girl, anything that had kind of like a quota component. I was like, I already knew I didn't want that. And anything that even sounded remotely salesy. I knew I didn't want that, like, you know what I mean? So it really took a lot of paying closer attention to those details of like, Okay, what are they actually telling you that I'm going to be doing, and being able to kind of like quickly kind of just filter out the ones that I knew were going to be a waste of my time.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:19
What was the hardest part or parts of the transition for you?

Alyson Thompson 26:24
I think for me, and I think the thing that made it more difficult was the pandemic because I feel like it made the process and like the timing of just how I wanted to time things out, it made it worse, because so many people were affected by the pandemic, and a lot more people are looking for jobs. And, you know, employers are now taking a lot longer of a time period to hire because they have to figure out how they're going to manage their business in a pandemic. So I feel like just being like in the meat of this process in the middle of the pandemic really sucked. And I had to have a lot more patience with just knowing that it was going to take longer than usual to hear back from people. So that was very difficult. And I think the other part, though, that I felt was a little bit difficult for me was, I think, like, in the beginning, when I first started the job hunting process, like I was very, like narrow with just like the positions I was looking at. And you know, thank God for my career coach, because she really pushed me to broaden my scope a little bit and kind of think outside of the box and really think about reminding myself to think about like the content of the role and not the title of the role. Because I was very, it's easy for us to get hooked up on titles, you know what I mean? Because that's all we really have to go on when we're looking for jobs. And so like, I really had to push myself to broaden my horizons and kind of think a little bit more outside the box. And, you know, once I started being more creative with keywords and things like that, then that's when I really started like rocking and rolling with like finding jobs that I thought would be a better fit for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:03
So that's really interesting on a couple components. First of all, you mentioned the pandemic. And that's been really fascinating. It's been horrific in many ways. And I don't want to under, you know, I don't want to undermine that. However, it also has been fascinating to see how it relates to job search boot, partially because we've seen it create a lot of opportunities for people, not for everyone. We have also seen the other side of it, too. But I'm curious for you, do you think that if you hadn't already been into your job search already, then that would have been harder to start? Or tell me a little bit about how you think about that overall?

Alyson Thompson 28:44
That's a good question, I think it would have been more difficult had I had not already kind of been into the groove of already kind of looking and kind of figuring things out. I think if I would have been like at the beginning of my process in the middle of the pandemic, I probably would have been a little bit more overwhelmed with just like, the number of jobs and like the number of applicants at each job. And like I just would have been a lot more overwhelmed than I was with the timing the way that things played out. It was a challenge, but I was able to kind of navigate it a little bit better.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:16
When you were thinking about the broadening horizons beyond job title. I'm curious, what advice would you give other people as it relates to that? Partially because I consistently see, I've now been able to ask you many hundreds of people this type of question on the... And that's one of the things that pops up over and over again, as something that was hard for people in how to think about it, but also very helpful as well. And that in some ways made the difference for some of the folks who've been able to work with and help through this process. So I'm curious for you, what advice would you give other people as it relates to looking at job titles, broadening your horizons, focusing on what you want? Tell me a little bit about that.

Alyson Thompson 29:59
I think my advice would be to be open minded. Obviously, in certain situations, it's easier to discern whether a job is a good fit for you. Like if you see a job that's like veterinarian tech, and you know that you don't want to do that, that's a lot more straightforward. But I think it's important for people to remember that, I don't know, maybe this might be some insight that people aren't aware of. But like, I feel like sometimes these companies, they're not always 100% certain of what a role should be called. And all they have is like they know, they can tell you what you're going to be doing day to day. And that's pretty straightforward. But what that title is actually called, it's like, oh, what is this kind of sound like, oh, this kind of sounds like an account manager. And so they just call it an account manager. You know what I mean? And so I think like, knowing that going in, I think that that will really help people, and just kind of remind people to not get so hung up on the title that you see, but pay more attention to the responsibilities and let that be your guide for whether you apply or not. But also let that be a guide for how you continue to search for other jobs. And when I was mentioning keywords, like when I was kind of playing around with job titles, and things like that, when I started to kind of pick up on some patterns of you know, some of like, the keywords that kept popping up for certain types of roles. That's when I was like, okay, you know, because, for example, like my position now, so my official title is client success specialist. And so when I was searching for client success, customer success, account manager was still popping up because some of those responsibilities were overlapping. Just kind of keep that in mind that like the responsibilities that you're looking for, they may overlap with other roles, that might just be called something else. And if you start to see that pattern, start using that other title, or some of those other keywords associated with that title in your search to kind of get a little bit closer to hitting the nail on the head on the types of positions that you're most interested in applying to.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:05
Alyson, in your role now, as you... Let's push off the title to your point. The title is, in a lot of cases, irrelevant. However, tell me a little bit about what are the pieces of your role or roles now that you get to do that you love that really match up with what you were looking for?

Alyson Thompson 32:25
Yeah, so that's a good question. One of the things I know that we focus a lot about, like, on what I did, and didn't want to my next role, but one of the things that I was already doing that I wanted to remain constant, and whatever my next step was, was that client interaction, like, that's one of my favorite things. I love building relationships with my clients. And sometimes, like within the hotel business, like you're not always, you don't always work with the same clients all the time. But it does happen. Like I've had clients that I've worked with, like two and three times, you know, over the course of a few years, just based on that relationship that I built with them. And you know, when you work on, you know, a large program, or like a huge wedding or something like when you work with someone over the span of like nine months on this huge thing. Like you feel like you've been in the trenches, and like you've accomplished something with your client. And I love that feeling. And I was like, well, you know, I know, I don't want to be in hotels, but if I can find something, or I can still support and kind of coach and consult with clients like that would be amazing. And so in my current role, that's pretty much what I do. Like I do do that, like sometimes I kind of yell at my clients a little bit, only because my company right now was focusing on, it's a health and wellness company. Yeah. And they were able to really pivot with the pandemic. So a lot of the work that I'm doing right now is with administrators and directors of nursing, for nursing home facilities for COVID testing. So we're basically providing us like a COVID testing program in these facilities. So my direct clients that I'm dealing with are the administrators and the directors of nursing on their day to day COVID testing processes. And because it's a pandemic, and it's COVID testing, and you know, it's important, and it's people's health, like sometimes I kind of have to, like buckle down on them and be like, you shouldn't have done that. But it's okay, we're gonna figure it out. But so that's what I mean, when I say sometimes I feel dumb. But for the most part, you know, I'm talking to these people every day, we're in constant communication every single day. I've only been working with you know, a lot of these people. I think it's been, what month are we in now? December? It's been about like a month. Yeah, I feel like it's been a year already. Over the span of just the month and a half I've been working with them. It's like, we have a relationship and we have a rapport now and we're we've kind of gotten into the groove of them kind of understanding like what my style is as their designated clients. It's a specialist but me also understanding what their style of communication is and how they work and operate from a day to day basis. And sometime when I call and because something went wrong, or I need to figure something out, I end up having awesome conversation. And hey, how was your Thanksgiving? Oh, it was great. Like, I love that kind of stuff it's like so it's like you really build a relationship with the people that you work with. So that's probably like the biggest thing that's kind of carried over from being in hotels to being in this world of healthcare now, which I'm learning a lot. But it's been fun.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:20
I think it's so important, what you mentioned about the idea of carrying over those things, those pieces that you want to remain, or those pieces that you already enjoyed, I think so many people describe this type of process, when they're originally thinking about it the way that you mentioned earlier, and I'm moving to brand new territory, it's like the Wild West out there, like so. But in reality, almost every single person that we get to participate in their change, is doing something similar to what you just described, they're pulling out, at least some pieces that they want to be able to carry over and bring with them. So it often is less about a brand new, moving into the wild west, starting over type process, it's really not that in a lot of different ways, is it bringing with those pieces that you enjoy and to be able to bring those pieces what you enjoy, you also have to bring a lot of the skills and experiences and other pieces, otherwise you don't get to continue doing those.

Alyson Thompson 36:21
Exactly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:22
I so appreciate you pointing that out. Because that is, that almost brings us full circle in some ways where people start thinking about the change versus how it actually ends up too. That's so cool that, you have done. One, you know, you identified these pieces from the very beginning that you wanted to keep, the pieces that you want it to be different. And then you were able to find that in the real world. And now even in a year of COVID you're actively doing that, congratulations. Yeah.

Alyson Thompson 36:53
Thank you. It's really bizarre, because I feel like if you cuz I started this process, I think it was a year ago, like, I think I officially got on board with you guys like right before Thanksgiving of last year.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:04
Oh my goodness. Had it been that long? Wow.

Alyson Thompson 37:05
It has been that long. And I did... like I did take like a break. Like when the pandemic hit, I had to like, you know, put a pause on things and kind of figure out how to, like manage my life. But like, if you would have told me a year ago that like I was going to be working for like a health care company that deals with labs and testing and genetics and all these other things I'd be like, that doesn't really sound like something that I would do. But like, that's what I'm doing. And the company, it's like a newer company, like it's growing. Like, I feel very comfortable. Like, I feel like I found my fit. And I also kind of feel like I got lucky cuz I kind of found my people to like, my, like my team, like the client success team, they're just like a bunch of amazing humans. And, you know, we have a really, really good dynamic. And that's like one of those kind of like, bonus things. Because like, when you're thinking about what's going to be a good fit for you and company culture and things like that, when you really do the work of figuring that out. And you get to where you want to go, you realize that like the people that are already there are like your vibe with people, you know what I mean? So it's kind of like a nice little bonus, that can pop, that can come out of, you know, doing a career transition and doing the work of figuring out what really makes you tick. And then you find awesome people, that kind of tick, the thing where you do you know.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:23
Alyson, I love how you're thinking about that that's something that actually gets missed a lot of the times between myself and the rest of the team, we get to have conversations, many conversations every single day at this point. However, as we're having those conversations, rarely does someone actually point that out, even after the fact sometimes that gets missed. So I think that's super cool. Because what you just said, I don't want to be lost on everyone, when you go and you take the time and effort and energy to be able to do all of the work of defining clarifying what you want. And then yeah, and then actually go in and get it in the real world. The byproduct of that is you're in a better fit all the way around, including the types of people that you're surrounded by. And that's something that is... it relates to everything, it relates to like the types of relationships that you're already having existence, it relates to having a higher quality of life, that relates to you being able to be more productive, because you're surrounded by the type of people you want to be surrounded with that are also supporting ways that you need and all those things. So I really appreciate you pointing that out.

Alyson Thompson 39:31
Yeah, and that's actually a piece that I forgot not to interject. But one of the other things that was on the top of my list was company culture. And I'm kicking myself that I forgot it, but that was kind of a thing that I wanted to keep in the back of my mind. And you know, I'm a very chill person for the most part. And I'm also very productive and ambitious. I really wanted to find a nice balance of having kind of that company culture but I'm also a very socially conscious person, like, especially with you know, the climate of the world right now. with, you know, diversity, inclusion and things like that, it was one of those things where it's like I never, I always kind of had it in the back of my mind is something that I would either notice or pick up on. But I never really put my money where my mouth is and actually said, I want to be somewhere that is inclusive, and I want to be somewhere that's diverse. And that is something that's very important to me. And I'll be honest, like, when I was looking at some of these jobs and applying like, I was going on those websites and looking at what leadership looks like, and it was, I'll be honest, because I mean, I don't know, can people see me, they'll just hear me, right. I'm a black woman. And being a black woman, I wanted to make sure that I was going to be in an environment that would have my best interests at heart, but also have the best interests of all the different types of people that work for them. And so like if I looked at company culture, and all I saw was in, you know, higher ups in leadership all the way down is like older white men, that was kind of a red flag, because then it's like, how are they going to be able to support me, and any other person who is a woman or someone who is of a different ethnicity? How are they going to know and be able to support me in my career, having those different kind of diverse backgrounds. And so that was something that I was really, really looking into too. And I got really lucky, cuz my company is very, very diverse, you see all different kinds of folks, men, women, in all different levels of the company, all different ethnicities, all different backgrounds, and it's probably honestly, the most diverse company I've probably worked for, compared to a lot of the other ones. And so, you know, like, everybody has their priorities, everyone has their preferences. And that was just one of the ones for me, and I got really lucky with where I landed. As far as like, that being something that was a meeting of the minds, you know, you can tell that that's something that's important to everybody else in the company too.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:51
You know, I've heard you say, I got lucky, many times, one of the observations that I've had is...

Alyson Thompson 41:57
You're so observant.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:58
Into do the work, over and over again, are the ones that seem to get really lucky with the organizations that they arrive at. So I am going to say that there probably was some luck involved. There always is some element of luck involved, however, I compliment to you. on doing the work and being able to manufacture some of that luck, or at least the precursor to luck.

Alyson Thompson 42:22
Yeah, thank you, it was a lot of work, it was a lot of effort. It was, you know, a lot of, you know, moments of frustrations, and, you know, there were times where me and my coach Jennifer, like we... not, I wouldn't say butted heads, that sounds a little bit aggressive, but you know, we would have these like, moments of tension, where she's trying to get me to, you know, broaden my mind or see a different perspective. And, you know, finding the balance of, you know, what she's trying to tell me versus making sure my needs are met. So, you know, it wasn't all smooth sailing, it definitely was a lot of work and a lot of time and a lot of energy, and especially with the pandemic, having to, you know, still find the motivation to like, you know, finish the process, and you know, really kind of, like, knock it out of the park and get it done. But it was definitely, definitely worth it. And who knows what kind of job I'd be in now, if I didn't do all of that work to make sure that I would end up where I wanted to be. And I feel like with the company that I'm at now, like, I'm getting all of the things that I needed, and then some because they do support career development, the director of operations, he wants to make sure that we're still engaged in the roles that we're in. And if not, you know, he's like, let me know, we can move you to a different team, or you can train and kind of shadow someone else and see if that's a better fit for you. And like, I love that flexibility and that movement. And even within the month and a half that I've been there, there's so many things are already changing. And there's so many things that I'm going to get exposed to now, like, I'll have to start running trainings now for onboarding clients, which was something that I was actually trying to get into that was one of the jobs I was trying to look into. But I didn't have that previous experience of doing kind of like that corporate training piece. And so now I get to do that, like, that's so awesome, you know. So it's like, it's really been like an exciting journey so far. And with the way that the company is growing, there's... I might be doing something completely different in a month from now, but it's very exciting to you know, have kind of that to look forward to, and it's like I'm never bored, and there's always something interesting going on. So it all worked out for the best.

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:23
I appreciate you coming on and sharing your story and the hard parts as well as the fun parts and the results on the end. It's always one thing when we get people in snapshot at the end, where everybody's excited about moving into the new role and the new experiences and everything. But I appreciate you sharing also what was the challenge in the work and the other pieces that actually got you here as well.

Alyson Thompson 44:50
Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:50
What advice would you give someone, if we go way back, way back to a year ago where you were thinking about transitioning and you're in that space, realizing, "hey, you know what, I need to make a move, I realized that, you know, there's probably not opportunity for me for growth in the way that I want. And it's not going to serve me well any longer" and all the things that were going through your head way back then. What advice would you give to people that are in that situation right there, right now?

Alyson Thompson 45:16
I would say, first, it's okay to not be happy at your job, I feel like there's this like weird sense that, you know, we're just supposed to be at a place and you know, be there for 50 years and then retire. And that's it. And I feel like that, that way of, you know, looking at careers has changed so much over, you know, the course of, you know, the past few decades. And I feel like sometimes people can feel like a sense of guilt, if they're just, like, unhappy what they're doing. And sometimes it's like, oh, I feel guilty, but it's like, I don't want to leave because of, I love my co workers, or I don't want to leave because I've been here for five years, like all those little reasons why we tell ourselves not to do it, like it's okay. Like, it's okay to not be happy. And it's okay to not feel unfulfilled in your job. So that's the first thing that I would say like, it's okay. And you're like, I'm validating your feeling of, you know, unhappiness right now. Like, it's okay, that you feel that way. And I think the second part that I would really drive home is like, don't ignore that feeling. Like, no one knows yourself better than you. And follow your instincts. Like, if you have like that gut feeling, like if you have that thing, knowing in the back of your mind, that's telling you, I wish that things were different. Or if I was in this position, I would do things differently, or you know, whatever those thoughts are, like, lean into that a little bit. I know, it's very uncomfortable to think about blowing up your life and, you know, trying to do something different or switch a different job or think about relocating for a different job, like whatever the case is, like, I understand it can be intimidating, but really lean into that and really kind of think about, okay, what can I do to change the situation for myself? Like, what reasonable steps can I start to do to change some of these thoughts and feelings? And sometimes the answer isn't always leaving, like, sometimes the answer is talking to your manager and say, "Hey, can we do some things differently here?" "Hey, can I take on these projects?" Like, sometimes it's not always the answer. But if that ends up being the answer for you, like, that's totally okay. And you don't need to feel guilty about it. And at the end of the day, like it's your life, and it's your livelihood. And if you feel like it's a good step for you, then do it. And obviously, there are resources out there and people that are literally here to guide you through the steps because I didn't go through this alone at all. So you have like you have people there to support you. If it's something that you decide that you want to do, and if you want to explore it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 47:47
In the next episode, you'll see that there's a connection between success and fulfillment, when it comes to your career.

Jeffrey Madoff 47:53
The question arises, Scott, you know, if you're making really good money, but you hate what you're doing, and every day that you go to work, you find it a drag, are you successful? And to me, success and fulfillment are inextricably tied together.

Scott Anthony Barlow 48:14
That's Jeffrey Madoff. He started a clothing design company right out of college at 21 and then made several pivots throughout his life. Join us next week right here on Happen To Your Career. Until then, I am out. Adios.

Vicky Meng 00:04
Before August, I was you know, following the structure. I was doing the modules I was reaching out. But, I remember telling Phillip, I'm like, this is not going anywhere. I definitely doubted myself. And doubted even this decision many, many times.

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
One year ago, January 2nd 2020, Vicky Meng went ahead and sent an email that completely changed her life.

Vicky Meng 01:01
That email was literally the first thing on my mind when 2020 started. And that's why it was on January 2nd, because January 1st is a holiday. And I think I already drafted that email, maybe at the end of December.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:15
Exactly one year later to the day, we're releasing her story right here on the Happen To Your podcast to help her celebrate. Why? Well, because Vicky made a seemingly impossible career change, and we want to share with you exactly what she did. That way you can benefit from it too. But there's something you should know first, on the podcast, when we air a story, it's only a snapshot in time, usually what happens is we're talking to someone shortly after they've accepted their new job offer, they're super excited about it. And at that point, in a 45 minute long conversation, you don't always get a sense of the highs and lows and what they went through to be able to do something that most of the rest of the world can only dream of. Well, I want you to listen to this conversation. Because Vicky does a amazing job of articulating these highs and low points in our conversation together, listen for it, it'll help you understand what it's really like to make this type of career change, it's so much harder than everyone thinks it will be. But here's the thing, I've get to meet anyone who's made it to the other side of that, and doesn't absolutely think it was worth it. Here's Vicky sharing her early career and what led up to her career change in the first place.

Vicky Meng 02:31
My career journey so far has not been very long, this new job with this new organization is literally my second organization, in my whole career journey. I have been with my previous employer for five years. And I started with them right out of college. And I would say that about two years ago, and around 2018, that I began to look for a career change.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:12
Tell me little bit about what you were doing, what type of work were you doing? A couple of years back. And what really led up to thinking about that career change?

Vicky Meng 03:24
Yeah, so I guess I should say that I started in corporate accounting, because my education background is in accounting, and I actually went straight up accounting for Bachelor's, for Master's and I got my CPA. So I was supposedly, I should have, you know, followed my peers path and going through either public accounting route, or I would just stay within the corporate accounting route. But to be honest with you, I can't... even though I did so much education, in that field, has never really felt like the field for me, it was more of a family, culture background influence. But what was sad about it, was that I knew accounting wasn't for me at the same time, I had no other passion, or no other areas where I would be, I consider myself a boring person. Because you know how a lot of other people will probably say, "Oh, you know, I love acting, or I love painting or I love photography." I just never had one of those passions. So as I just followed, what my family's advise was, and what seemed to be the most realistically best choice. And that's what I did me and it helped me to get up with my own feet. In the beginning right after college, you know, all companies need accountants and I could you know, find a job. And I was able to find a good company that sponsor me through the immigration process and which is a place a monumental part of my life right now. And that is why I can still go on to pursue my further dreams in this career. But yeah, I just didn't know what else, if it's not accounting, though, what could it be? I did transition into the finance department with my previous employer working in the Treasury Department. And I did not know what that was about at all. But what was good about it is that the organizations pretty small, so I was able to transition to different departments. And at the same time, I was able to dive deep in each of those areas, not only dive deep, but also gain a very clear, big picture of how each area plays into the whole corporate finance and accounting structure and how each department helps to make the final decision. So I did Treasury for about two years. And then I transitioned to financial analysis, which is another department under the corporate finance umbrella. And I did that for another two years. So that makes up five years in total, but I was literally doing everything that the company needed accounting and finance wise. And in the end, I just rose up to this, like strategic finance advisor for the executive team, because I've worked with different departments. And I know how different parts integrate with each other. So whether it's tax related, whether it's finance projections, whether it's accounting recordings, whether it's cash movements, I was able to come up with a good strategy that's customized to that organization specifically. So that's where I was most valued at, and I actually enjoyed being, you know, the strategic partner in that way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:18
Yeah. What did you enjoy about that? I'm curious.

Vicky Meng 07:24
I think I really liked the one on one interactions that I often had with the each executive team member for the CFO will come to me for a specific project. And I felt like I was helping him directly. And I was overseeing this project, or starting a project on my own and overseeing it until the end, and actually see the results happening. And I could see the impact that is making on the organization. I really liked that aspect, that's when I... one of the things that I realized after starting CCB is that I actually enjoy working in small team environments, I don't like to be one of the members of a large, you know, corporate accounting team and just handle maybe one facilities month-end closing, we repeatedly every month, what I like about it is you know, a various, a row with various projects that could come up and need some, not... I wouldn't say creative, I actually generally don't consider myself a creative person. But you just, it's not the same. And it's very fast paced, and you have to integrate different areas of knowledge, that's what I really liked about is not just solely about accounting, it's not just solely about finance. It's not just about tax, you have to integrate everything together in order to find the best solution.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:04
Well, it sounds like it in some ways, it is the creative application of those different experiences and knowledge sets. And then also, it sounds like you have to have that particular type of variety in there in order to make it rewarding for you. Is that fair to say?

Vicky Meng 09:23
Yeah, so one of the strains that came out in my strengthsfinder assessment besides this one on one helping part was that I am that factor input. So I'm a person who really likes to do research, who really likes to know about different areas. I like to get that input. Even sometimes when I don't see where this input could actually help me in this project. Maybe you won't ever help me but I still like to collect that information, I still like to understand it. And I feel like someday I'm sure it'll come to you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:08
Well, so I think what's really interesting about that, to me, is, you know, I know the end of the story here, too. And I know that eventually you decided to transition. And I also know that later on, much later, when you were in the midst of your transition, that inclination, and that inclination to research really helped you be able to make that transition. So we'll come back, and we'll talk about that a little bit later. And I'll certainly ask you about that. However, you know, what were some of the final events that made you say, you know, what... I have to transition away from this company, away from the roles that I'm currently in, what caused you to make that decision?

Vicky Meng 10:54
I think the main factor there was that I just couldn't see myself grow anymore, in my old organization. As I mentioned that I've already worked in various departments, I'm already directly helping the executive team. I've definitely made contributions. And I could see those contributions or new contribution areas where I could help with but when they're coming, it's not for sure. The development stage of my old company is also add a, they were weren't exactly looking for expansion or anything. So I just knew that I wanted to, although it was very nice to be the strategic partner. But I'm also a very technical person at my age right now, I just feel like I have not yet built up a very solid foundation for my career where, you know, I could say, this is the area that I've been working on for so long. And I know every detail about it, I could apply it to any corporate scale. I don't have that skill set or that career path that I could rely on, say that is what I do. I was sort of like a generalist, which is a very good thing to have to be. But still, I felt like I needed some specific career track to depend on. So that's when I really looked into a program that could help me figure out. So, where is the specific? What exactly is the specific track that I could put all my energy towards that area for the next decade?

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:54
Interesting. So it sounds like you had outgrown the company.

Vicky Meng 12:59
Yes.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:00
In terms of what you wanted, was no longer what they were able to provide in that same way for you as a related to your growth. And then it sounds like you came to that conclusion. And then at some point, must have asked the question, well, what's next, then? How do I find that type of next step? What happened from there?

Vicky Meng 13:24
I was started looking, I started to go to various events. From where I come from, and the culture that I grew up in, to find help is something that you're not supposed to be proud of. So...

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:42
Tell me about that.

Vicky Meng 13:46
So my upbringing tells me that you have to depend on yourself all the time, especially when you encounter a difficulty, you should do a bunch of self reflections, which is right. But you should, you know, work hard, as hard as you can, make yourself go crazy. And you will find a way to navigate, you know, through the crisis. But for me, I was willing to work hard, I was willing to work 200% hard, but I didn't know where or how to put that energy. So I went out to different events. I started going going to these recruiting events from my... the university that I attended and all these like career related events around the city and that's when I first encountered my first career coach, a person who has worked in the public accounting industry, because at that time, I was still sort of exploring the idea, maybe I could still go with public accounting. I worked with her for on a monthly basis for about a year. And that was kind of, like me testing the water with this coaching idea. And...

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:27
And getting help, too.

Vicky Meng 15:28
And getting help. Yes. And I realized that talking with her every month was a happy moment for me. Because I was so unhappy, you know, with my job on a day to day basis that talking with her, even if it's just for one hour, each month, felt like a way out, like I could actually felt like, make me feel hopeful. Like, I could actually make this happen, someone out there is dragging me out of this, you know, very bad situation. But I also realized, at the end of probably a year into working with her that once per month wasn't enough for me, I make progress little by little, I did test, or I did while working with her, I did reach out to a couple of companies in the public accounting sector, and tried to explore the ideas of still sticking with accounting. It didn't work out very well, I still didn't feel like that was the way to go. But you know, I did get myself on track into in terms of, you know, interviewing even, and saying no, or crossing out some of the possibilities on the list.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:58
What made you feel like, accounting was not for you? I think it's awesome that you were exploring and trying to figure out "Hey, is this in right track for me?" But what after doing a bit of that exploration and having some of that reach out, what caused you to say, you know what, this most definitely, isn't it?

Vicky Meng 17:21
That's a good question. For me, I am an E.N.F.J and I think a lot of times for me, it's the feeling. If the feeling isn't right, it's just... it's not right. Well, I interviewed for accounting, consulting with a really great firm, and I got the offer, the team was great. Like I could see myself thrive in that team environment. But when I think about doing the type of work that they do, and helping the type of clients that they were helping, because we're specifically targeting law field clients in like law firms, where they're all of their clients, I couldn't, I don't see myself very excited about that industry. And I can definitely do the work, but I just don't want to advise on you know, this is how you do your books. This is how you, you should you know, debit does credit had. It didn't very exciting me at all. When I think about the details of that job on a day to day basis, even also in a lot of people.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:43
Yeah, and it doesn't really seem to have that same type of variety that you were talking about earlier on. It's not the... it's, I mean, certainly you can get variety in accounting, but it doesn't seem like the combination of all of the different experiences and the gathering of the different experiences and being able to, to use them in a way that like you were talking about earlier. It seems like that in some ways.

Vicky Meng 19:08
Yeah. I mean, accounting is definitely something that happens, you know, it's often at month-end right, all the activities have already happened, they became reality. You can find a way to summarize and record them in the right way. But I think what I really wanted was, I want the action to happen. I want to be a part of the action, you know, day to day basis, I want to see that happen, that the decision that I'm making right now is going to affect the company today, or this week. And if it's a bad decision, then oh my gosh, it's a lot of pressure. But still, that's fast paced feeling. That's the kind of impact that I want to have.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:50
Well, that's super interesting, too, because I think that there's a lot of patterns here for you as well that I didn't even know about and you know, As we got to work with you, I have gotten to know you a bit. And then also Phillip, your coach that you work with has been keeping me up to date on your story for the last 8-10 months here. And what is really interesting to me about what you said is that accounting is very past focused. And even, you know, even as you were talking about your interaction with that first career coach long before we ever met you and everything too, what excited you was about the possibilities in the future. And everything that you've articulated so far, has been about, in some ways that future focus or that, you know, proactive focus or being a part like I you said, being a part of it. And with other versus just like recording it. And I know, that's a drastic oversimplification, and not meaning to undermine anything that that accounting does. Because accounting is a great field. However, it's a different focus entirely.

Vicky Meng 20:58
Yeah, and I have two more things that I want before I forget, about why I chose Happen To Your Career in the end. The other reason, the other thing that I realized while working with that career coach on a monthly basis is that I really need a structure, a set structure with that career coach, I did not have a structure. So every month, I sort of have to come up and email her, you know, this is what I want to do this for this session, which is also something that I needed to do with HTYC. Just to be proactive, and to you know, work well with my coach, but it's different when, with HTYC, Phillip kind of knows what stage I'm at in the whole course of things. But with that coach previously, there was no deadline, there was no set timeline, it was just like, you know, if you ever encounter a problem, just let me know. And I'll help you there was no structure. And I didn't really know what stage I was, should I reach out a little bit more? Or should I not reach out into this session? Or should I... where should I go? Where should I... can you tell me what to do versus me telling you what I need, because I don't know what I need. So that's one of the reasons why I chose a HTYC is because there is a structure that nine modules. I view that I know Philip does not agree with me on this though, when I first told him I'm like, I need a syllabus and this nine module, literally my syllabus, I'm going to follow this. And then after I finished all the eight, nine modules. When I finally found the perfect career opportunity, I think this was starting from August to... So from February to August, I just followed that structure. And then from August to October/November, I applied all of those eight modules, customize it in my own way. And made it like okay, I'm working on a final product for this class, I'm going to deliver the best final presentation and my... me getting that final offer is like my final project. And I feel like I deserve an A, because I was able to apply the methods from those modules. And I you know, and I did it on my own. So that's how the way I feel about HTYC in a way, and I really liked it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:34
So first of all, so excited to hear that. And it sounds like what that did for you that structure was you were able to see where you were at, and where you were going as well if I'm understanding you correctly, and it helped you. I mean, you didn't use these words, but it sort of made me think like it helped you keep on track in many different ways. And it helped you pull it all together at the end to which interestingly enough is similar to what you did, as you left that last role to you were able to pieces of and I'm a big subscriber to how you do anything is how you do everything but and that really shows with strengths too, especially. And it's so first of all, thank you for saying that those are very kind words and I'm so it makes me so happy that you were able to leverage our framework and structure in that particular way and that Phillip was able to help you in the ways that you needed it. That's pretty awesome. And, you know, one of the things that it makes me very curious about too is, you know, as you started to get into this change, because you had decided, Okay, I need to make a more drastic change than what I was thinking more drastic than just going and working with another organization with accounting. And as you started to get into it, what surprised you in going through this type of career change process, because what you have done, and I'll just fast forward to the end for just a second, you were able to not only make a pretty sizable change, but also you did a new organization and new industry, if I understand correctly too. And what surprised you as you were going through this process over the last 10 months here?

Vicky Meng 25:29
I don't think actually, I was surprised by this process, I kind of expected how on structure is going to be and that's why really held on to the idea of a structure and in place and knowing where I'm at. Because I know this career change is not like a class, it's, there's no syllabus, you can't follow, you know, a timeline, it's so different, it could change at any moment, I came with that expectation. But knowing that, that's why I really needed someone to continuously motivate me and push me and let me know where I'm at. Because if not, then I'll be just, you know, doing whatever, it'll all be very scattered. But I think what was scary was, from February to August, I don't think I was making any progress.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:33
Tell me about that. What made it feel like you're making no progress?

Vicky Meng 26:41
Because before August, I was, you know, following the structure, I was doing the modules I was reaching out, but the frequency of me having a conversation was probably only two per month. Two to five per month, it kind of varies. And to begin with, because I was so scared to reach out to strangers, a lot of those conversations started with people that I kind of knew before. And when it was... when August hits, July hits, I remember telling Phillip, I'm like, "this is not going anywhere." I definitely doubted myself and doubted even this decision many, many times. And that's, and I was still like I, even though I followed the syllabus, but I still weren't able to define what my ambition was up to that point up to August. I tried Treasury, I tried Financial Analysis, and they were still both on my list. And I still feel felt like, "Oh, I could go either way. And I talked to some of the large organizations or tech companies in the Bay Area. And it was just so competitive, too, because maybe because of COVID. But I think more importantly, it's just because that industry, and with those companies, they're so popular right now that they never lack applicants. So even though some of the people that I talked to in there, there were managers, and they looked at my resume, and they say, "Oh, your resume is amazing" but because I don't have the direct industry experience, and the direct working experience, I guess, on that corporate scale, even if they submit my resume into the system, and they helped me submit on sort of like a referral, it's still very difficult to be recognized by the hiring manager, because there were just too many people applying. And I felt like I could try harder, I could, you know, network even more within that organization, just to find, you know, at least one opening that or one person was willing to bet on me. But I, at the same time, I was only filled with this. Like, I don't feel like doing that with this organization. Like, there's so great other so popular. And it's definitely I thought that I wanted to move out to the Bay Area ever since two years ago. And I thought that's the whole point of me, participating at Happen To Your Career is to get me up there. But I don't see myself working so hard for any of the organizations out there just because I'm not asked... I don't feel the passion and myself towards, what they do. And that kind of hit me in the end that you know, and this is like facts according to you know, my second look after my second point already, that's when I finally realized that, okay, maybe this whole idea of moving to the Bay Area wasn't right to begin with. And I think that surprised me, I guess in the end, because I never expected myself to stay in LA. But when I finally hit that moment of realization, everything clicks so fast afterwards, because literally the next week, I reached out to the manager of my new organization. And the location of my organization is perfect, and the role is perfect. And this manager, he recognizes my potential fully, in at least in in the way that I want people to recognize me. And I interviewed and then I signed the offer, it was literally like two weeks after I realized that everything just clicked. So I think... what's surprised me was how fast it could happen when you finally get everything together.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:03
I think that's so interesting, especially since you said, you are on Myers Briggs, which, you know, you were talking about your Myers Briggs results, which he said you were an EN...

Vicky Meng 31:14
FJ.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:16
FJ. Okay, so that means that for people who may not have taken Myers Briggs Type Indicator that you rely heavily on feeling and if it feels right, and this sounds insane, but we see it again and again and you can go listen to the hundreds and hundreds of episodes, once people start to get it to where it is more authentic to them the decision and the route that they're taking is more authentic to them, it clicks so quickly after that, it's not always two weeks like that's relatively quick as far as things go. However, it starts to click so much quicker once you get those pieces right. And as crazy as it seems, Vicky, I think what you went through, and in going through and doing some of the work and the identification and everything that came along with all the hard pieces along with it almost had to happen in some ways to get it to finally click. And that way, you could start really moving forward in the way that you want to. What was that like? Why do you think it was so hard to come to that conclusion for you, and make the change and say, you know what, I don't even really want to... like I've been working hard on this. I don't even really want to go the strike.

Vicky Meng 32:43
Yeah. That's very interesting. I mean, it's so liberating. You know, right now, I know, you can't tell, you know, just from looking at me, but in my heart, ever since that moment of realization happened, I felt so liberated, like, for the first time in my whole life, because I guess for the previous 27 years, I've always felt like that I needed to live up to other people's expectations. And usually it was, you know, usually my parents, but then it became my peers. So going on to the Bay Area, definitely was me, trying to live out my ambition in the way that satisfies my ego. To put it simply, I want it to be admired by my peers, I want it to be in my, you know, admired by my family members, saying, wow, you know, she made such a drastic change. She's working with one of the big tech companies in the Bay Area, she's getting paid a lot. You know, that's probably how people define success for a lot of people that I know and it's just the hype around that area and that area that sort of made me feel like oh, you know, if I want to be the best, which I always want to be in my... I'm very competitive in nature, then I should get in there, get into the game, and be the best in battery and beat everyone else. I think that's why I've always thought that that's the place to go. But there is not Vicky at all, Los Angeles is definitely more of Vicky. And that's why like realizing that right now, I just feel happy from the bottom of my heart because it's not about how famous my new organization is, it's about how much I am aligned to what this organization does, and how excited I am to work with my new manager and thinking about the contributions that I can make to the team. And it's also about the industry that this company is in, it's also an industry that I deeply care about, like, on the weekend, I'll read about this industry, just because I'm interested in that. And it's, you know, I want to read about tech industry, honestly, in my free time at all.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:39
That is so cool. I'm trying to think of the right word. You know, I know the right word is, I'm so proud of you. That is to put it mildly. And I think that's so cool when partially because I think some people will go their entire lives without having that type of moment. We're actually, we're in the midst of writing a book right now. And one of the things that, it's not just me writing, it's the entire team effort to be able to make this thing happen. And one of the things that we were just talking about the other day is the switch that happens once you're fully focused not on other people's expectations, or even expectations of you other people's expectations. But then you focus more on what is true for you. And when you switch that focus, not only does it feel different in ways that are hard to describe, and I think you've done a fantastic job of describing what that is like for you. But it is also... it puts you in a place where you can contribute to the world, and organization and family members and friends, it puts you in a place where you can contribute completely differently. And that's something that's really difficult to be able to explain on a podcast or in a book or anything else to describe the types of feelings that happen after you make that switch that you were talking about. And I remember not that long ago, I think it was about a year ago, I was talking to a guy who was in his 70s. And he had found us through Google. And you know, I ended up on a phone call with him. And he was telling me about he had gone through all 70 plus years, focused on other people's expectations. So I think it's so cool that you have done that far, far earlier than 70. That's pretty amazing. Let me ask you two other questions that really badly wanted to ask you about. One, you know, I remember a point in time, where I guess it wasn't that long ago, it probably was, you know, back in August, where you were describing, you know, I'm really struggling and moving through a few of these pieces where you and I got on the phone. And we were chatting about a couple of different things that weren't working, and how to make them work differently. And, you know, the thing that I wanted to ask you about that is, what were some of the things that, as you were going through the process works particularly well for you? Or tell me about that.

Vicky Meng 38:08
So, yeah, I remember that call. And I definitely feel like that call. You taught me how to liberate myself also, because...

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:17
Oh, interesting.

Vicky Meng 38:18
Yes, I, you taught me how to just be myself, and be honest about my experiences. And that's the only way where you could find your own way, your own path. Because I was so worried, and sort of just complaining to you that you know, there's such a huge gap between where I am and where I want to be and my current organizations, small and what it does is, in finance is different than you know what I want to do in finance in the next step of my career. And when I talk to people, I feel like I have so much to offer, but because when they listen to my direct experiences,they don't get excited about me as much because they just feel like that I have been in the wrong environment. I won't fit in with their environment. And you told me, you know, why don't you just tell them exactly what you've done. And you know, even though my old organization did not have a ton of structure, which suppose sounds like a bad thing, but in reality because it was losing structure, I got to work on projects that touched on different areas of corporate finance and accounting all the time. And that is actually the biggest value I have because not a lot of people understand the impacts of so many areas in an organization. And I do and, you know, knowing having that background information and then try to dive deep in a certain area makes you go deeper easily. Because you just know, you know what you're doing. And you know, what role you are in this... the whole grand scheme of things. And you won't, well, hopefully, you'll make fewer mistakes. And so that's exactly what I did. When I was talking to the manager of my new company, I told him that, you know, I was able to, I was constantly, in the your words, constantly exposed to treasury, even though I wasn't really working as a treasury analyst at my current company. But that's also, you know, the best thing that happened to me because I was able to do a lot of cross functional work, and I understand how everything plays into each other's role. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:07
That is so cool. I didn't actually realize that, that it helped in that way, that also makes me happy. And I really think that that is truly one of the best... I mean, it really is, like, we've talked about threads of that through our entire conversation just in the last 40 minutes or so here. Because, you know, it was the thing that was the most fun for you being able to have exposure to all these areas and give advice on all these areas. And being able to see the impact from having exposure to all these areas and work with other people in the organization. And then on top of that, it's also your biggest value when you started to harness that and really take ownership over that, that is such a value. That's so cool, Vicky. Oh, go ahead.

Vicky Meng 41:56
I just want to say that, I think before I just felt so ashamed of my experience.

Scott Anthony Barlow 42:03
In what way?

Vicky Meng 42:06
In the like, objective way, because how you people looks down or not look down, but people, when they see an organization that's small, that's less structured, they don't necessarily associate a very competent employee with that image. But it just happened to for me that I feel like I'm a pretty competent employee, but I was working in that kind of environment. And I felt so ashamed to showcase or go out there and tell everyone, you know, this is the company that I'm working for. But at the same time, I really wanted to be recognized. And I think I can do a great job if I were put into a different environment, but I just needed someone to recognize me first. And after having that conversation with you, it was liberating, because I stopped being ashamed of my experiences. And what I did, I just went out there and told people what I did, and tell them why I think I was so valuable, and I could still add a lot of value to their organization, they give me a chance.

Scott Anthony Barlow 43:34
So much of these types of big transitions are getting past the head games that we play with ourselves in many different ways. And it almost makes the you know, tactical like job change, career change type pieces, almost, they're not easy in comparison. I want to give people any indication that they're easy, but easier by far in comparison, compared to moving through all of those pieces, like you're talking about, like the shame that went with how you viewed your past experience, which it was great experience, wonderful experience, and it's who, you know, who you are and what you bring to the table. That is really cool. What advice would you give someone else who, you know, way back, you know, 10 months ago here, you know, I remember right, as we were... right before we hit the record button, you were telling me a little bit about, you sent us an email on January 2nd, and you'd actually written that email on just in the week beforehand, if I remember correctly, and you were saying, "Hi, I was doing this to be able to make sure that I made a change in this year." Tell me a little bit about that. And then I want to ask you what advice you would give somebody else who's in that similar situation where they want to make a change going into the next year.

Vicky Meng 45:06
Yeah. So I think my advice would be, definitely have faith in yourself and this whole process because it could get very dark, especially at the beginning, and you don't know how long the stock process is going to last. But it could suddenly turn so bright that you, it goes so fast that you don't even, you can't even capture everything, but it just... it could just suddenly turn around. So have faith definitely it will come, the brightness will come. And the other thing is, I am a person who is big on 'why'. So for each decision in my life, I have to know, my reasons for making that decision. So I sent you, well before I finally sign up HTYC, I was thinking... I was listening to your podcast. And I think at that time, I had been listening to it for a year or so. And I felt a connection with you even though I've never, at that time, I've never met you. But I felt a connection in many of the episodes that I listened to at different times. And I think that helped me finally make the decision to know that this is the right thing to do, because I feel so... I feel understood from your podcast episodes. And it was at the end of 2019. And I just knew that 2020 has got to be the last year where the last year for me to work at my old organization. And I really wanted something to happen in 2020. So right after New Year's Day, I sent you an email. Exactly like you mentioned, how you said it in the podcast, you know, with the title conversation, and just say you're Scott. And tell me about your story. And that's exactly what I did. It was an obnoxiously long email. I was reading it last week. I just wanted to kind of look back on how everything started and how that go now. It was so long. Oh my gosh.

Scott Anthony Barlow 47:50
I love those emails though. I love them. I love what I do. So I love getting those emails. And so...

Vicky Meng 47:58
Yeah, so it was like on January 2nd, I sent you that email, and I took a screenshot of it. And I saved that screenshot on my desktop. Because I just wanted to remind myself, you know, that was my New Year's goal. I just made a whole big deal out of it. And it is the big deal.

Scott Anthony Barlow 48:17
It is a big deal.

Vicky Meng 48:18
It's been five years and I've been contemplating about this since 2018. And I'm finally making this change with a program that I feel like I've I know very well because I've listened to you guys for more than a year. So I just felt like you know, every step of the way I checked everything on the list. I think this is the right thing to do. The timing is perfect, it is the start of a new year. And I just got to do it. So that's what I did. And I think having... because the beginning happened exactly the way that I want it to happen. And... to this day, when I think about it, and now when I talk about it, I still remember how hyped I was how excited I was when I hit the two low points in the past 10 months, I actually you know clicked on that screenshot and looked at that email again and I told Phillip, "I have got to make this happen. This was like my single goal for to 2020 and if I don't make this happen, and I want to happen before my birthday, if I don't make this happen I don't know how I'm going to be 28, I don't know. I won't be able to celebrate at all. I will like kill myself." And yeah, and that's I think the beginning is very important because it just makes you remember how important it is when times get hard and also the worksheet... it's called your plan for when it gets hard. That's in module one. I also pulled that out a couple of times, I think in August, and also in October when I feel felt like, I don't know where this is going. And I read what I wrote, why am I doing this? I had so many reasons. And I still looked at it this morning, and I am so glad that I'm actually checking off everything that's on that list. Do you want me to share what was on that list? A couple of...

Scott Anthony Barlow 50:37
Yeah, absolutely. I'm super curious. Yes, please.

Vicky Meng 50:40
I wrote, you know, I want to find the best fit career track for me to pursue for the next 10 years. I want to upgrade my career platform, because I know I have what it takes. I want to find a leader who will also be my mentor. I want to change the way I see the world and the way I see networking. I want to build up my resilience threshold and become more tolerant of rejection, and learn how to turn a no into a yes, without getting angry. Those are the things that I wrote. To answer the question, why do you want to make this change on that worksheet? And I literally did all of that, especially you know, with the networking part now is such a natural skill in me, I can see myself using that or applying it in every aspect of my life. So it's amazing, it's a pretty good feeling. And because of this feeling, I think all the dark moments, they were worth it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 51:42
That is so cool. And you know what else I think is really amazing? Is... okay, you declared all of this for yourself at the beginning of the year, and said 2020, this is it. And then in a year when we had a worldwide pandemic, in a year where so many other people are just like, when is 2020 gonna be over already, like in a year when so many other people are essentially giving up. And I mean, we've had real terrible things happen in the world. And it's made it hard across the board. But in a year where so many people are giving up, you have pushed through and figured out a way to make it happen. And I think that that is so very, very amazing, astounding. And I'm super excited that you were letting us be along for the journey, and that we got the opportunity to help and I'm just so proud of you, Vicky, this is so cool.

Vicky Meng 52:42
Thank you, I mean, it's definitely... I credit a lot of this to HTYC too, I would not have been able to do it, do this on my own seriously without Phillip, without you, without the podcast, the program. I just love the continuous motivation. And I loved how Phillip always was there for me, even though when I had nothing to share, you know, on a particular week, our conversation was so motivational enough for me to power through the next week. That's what I loved about this whole process. And I made friends. I think Phillip is definitely a friend now. And he has his career. And I'm excited for his career journey, too.

Scott Anthony Barlow 53:28
Yeah, hope you really loved that conversation with Vicky, I had so much fun chatting with her and helping her out along the way. And I know the rest of my team did too. And I just want to invite you to be able to send your own email, make your commitment this year to doing your career and your life completely differently. Focusing more on work that fits your strengths and life that actually works around your ideals and what you want. And there's no reason you shoudn't. It's actually a great thing, not just for you, it's a great thing for the whole rest of the world because you'll be able to contribute at a completely different level. So here's what you can do right now, pause this and send an email, just send a super short email, open your email app on your phone, and send it to scott@happentoyourcareer.com. And go ahead and put 'Conversation' in the subject line. After that, here's what will happen, either myself or my team will reply back to you. And we'll go ahead and hop on the phone, hop on a zoom call, have a conversation, figure out what would be the very best way that we can support you in your situation. And then we'll get about the business of helping you make that change this year, just like Vicky, just like everyone else I've you've heard on the podcast. Drop me an email right now, scott@happentoyourcareer.com 'Conversation' in the subject line. We'll figure out how we can help. Okay, so we already know that career change can be pretty difficult on its own, much even more so when you continue with a global pandemic right? But what if you're doing a job search and you don't even know what the next job title is that you're going for? What then?

Speaker 3 55:08
One of the frustrating things about job hunting is that you can type in a very general title like account manager, and then like a million jobs will pop up for account manager. But if you look at the actual role that can be take five out of those million, they're all going to be different.

Scott Anthony Barlow 55:25
That is Allison. She recently made a change from the hospitality industry. In the time of COVID and pandemics and everything else, you might consider it a dying industry. And she did too. She was looking at the writing's on the wall, but tune in next week right here on Happen To Your Career because we want to be able to share exactly what Allison did to be able to make her change.