Scott Anthony Barlow 00:02
Being in the job that looks like a dream job on the outside doesn't mean it’s going to be the dream fit for your inner values and your strengths and your interests. And I can't tell you how many people find HTYC because they're in a job that they thought would be great, but it isn't.

Introduction 00:25
This is the Happen To Your Career podcast, with Scott Anthony Barlow. We help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what it does and make it happen. We help you define the work that's unapologetically you, and then go get it. If you're ready to make a change. Keep listening. Here's Scott, Scott. Here's Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:50
So a little while back, I had a Skype call with a former Google employee, who had wanted to transition into a role that fit their strengths even better. Okay, so I wanted to tell you about this, because you might be thinking right now, "okay, who on earth chooses to leave Google?" That's the holy grail of dream jobs, right. And that's what I think a lot of people feel from the outside when they see people that are leaving NASA, or Facebook, or Google or Stanford, or all of these other companies that we've had had people come to us from. But the big trap that's really easy to fall into when you're searching for jobs is comparing your insides to someone else's outside. For example, being in a job that looks like a dream job on the outside doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a dream fit for you, for your inner values, what you value most, your strengths, your interest, and what you actually want out of, you know, organization and well, life. And I can't tell you how many people find HTYC because they're in a job, they thought it would be great but it isn't. And it ends up being someone else's dream and not their own. Or we end up getting emails every day from people who feel like they can't get clarity on what their next career move looks like. So they're stuck in a mental pressure cooker, wanting to make a career change, but really not knowing how. Okay, so if this is sounding even remotely familiar to you, and here's what I want to happen. This is an episode where you're going to want to pay attention. I've got a ton of lessons that I've learned from coaching, at this point, you know, we've worked with thousands of people through career transitions. I want to share some of these with you, that way it can save you some time, some headaches, and help you identify what you need to focus on most, when you're making this type of transition.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:51
I'm Scott Anthony Barlow, I'm the CEO and founder of Happen To Your Career, and the creator of Career Change Bootcamp. And although me and my team now teach how to find and do work that you love, I vividly remember being in a job that wasn't fulfilling at all. And when I was there, I didn't understand how this whole career happiness thing worked at all. And honestly, I thought that if I could just get to a better job situation, or get to a certain job or the right fit job for me, then it would solve my problems. Which means, of course, that many of us are going about this career change somewhat blindly. We're looking at job postings online, or we're trying to network or updating our LinkedIn profiles or spending time going on interviews. But the problem is, we don't even know exactly what a fulfilling career looks like for us yet. Now, here's the tricky part, we as human beings, well, we're pretty terrible at determining what will actually make us happy. And over the last 10 years of many career changes myself and a whole bunch of experimentation, and working with a lot of people making these types of career changes, I've determined that there's actually four traits that we all need and want in our career. And then there's two parts that are incredibly unique to who you are. And in the rest of this video, I want to cover those four key traits that you must add to your career list in order to have career happiness. Turns out, number one, is helping people. And you wouldn't believe how many people email me and say, "If only we're helping people, then I would be happy." "I just think that I should be a counselor because it's helping people. Or I'm just one of those people that really needs to help others." Yes, helping people, I get it. There's also a ton of research out there to corroborate this. It's something you actually need, unless of course, you're a psychopath. And helping people is something that all of us are looking for, and if we don't directly understand how we're helping others, then it's less fulfilling for us. Now, for example, Sarah was one of our students in Career Change Bootcamp. She didn't know anything other than she wanted to help others when she started working with us. We helped her focus on where she could see what she was doing and how it was helping others. And we realized for her, she had to have a cause where she could actively see those people getting help. Otherwise, it didn't fit for her. So we helped her become an operations manager for a nonprofit. But that's not for everyone. The important part is that whatever we're doing, and whatever you're doing, you have to see that direct connection.

Sarah 05:23
Done this before, like, what do you think I could do? Because I know there's like a million jobs out there, right? There's so many different jobs, different industries, different roles that we never hear about, or at least me, you know, average person, you know, you got surgeon, doctor, engineer, you know, those general things, but you, there's tons of times I hear about somebody's job, and I think, "that's kind of cool. I don't know somebody did that." Like, I wouldn't mind doing that. But so I was worried that there was a lot of stuff out there that I probably would be really good at, or that I would really like, I just didn't know what they were. So I couldn't do a search for it. I couldn't tailor my resume for it. Because I didn't know what it was. I just knew there's got to be jobs out there that I haven't heard of that. I would want to do, you know.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:03
Then number two is basic needs. And if you remember Maslow's Hierarchy from psychology 101, back in college, you know, well, if you don't have your basic needs met, then you never get to the next level, right? Okay. Well, in today's society, your basic needs just above food and shelter are pay that you feel is fair, or a commute that isn't two hours long each way, and going to make a gouge your eyes out by the time you get back. And for example, not working 10 to 14 hour days all the time. These are things that are nearly true of everyone, except for the one crazy who can't get enough of the two hour commutes. You know who you are. Now, another big piece of this puzzle is that we all need work that's engaging to us. Now, this can mean a lot of different things. But the commonalities are having the freedom to decide how to do your work, because well, I've yet to meet somebody who's just like, "I love micromanagement. It's so awesome." Now another one of this is having a really clear understanding of how well you're doing and how well it's going. And that's why your boss is actually so important too. Because if you don't have a leader or co workers who are making these pieces easier, and making sure that they're supporting you, then some of these other pieces might not matter all that much, right? So basic needs, freedom, clarity of work, a boss that doesn't suck, and helping people, right. Okay, add these things to your list, we all must have these for work happiness. None of these will come as a surprise. We all knew those intuitively. But what we find that most of us still accept jobs that don't have these four universal keys, and then wonder why we're unhappy when the honeymoon period wears off. Don't do it, stop doing it now. Okay, let's get into the second piece of this. Here's where it gets complicated. The last two pieces are not as black and white. This is where most people get caught up. It's also where nearly everybody is doing it wrong, or is slightly confused. It's where misguided advice creeps in, like just follow your passion. Instead, here's the method that we teach to people. When my son Grayson was two years old, he was sitting on the floor and he was trying to put together a puzzle. And he was grabbing the nearest piece, and he was trying to jam it together with another piece. And he had both in his hand and it just wasn't fitting, right? He would then give up on one of those pieces and throw it away and grab the next closest piece and then try and mash it together. And it just wasn't working. I got watched him getting frustrated for a few minutes. And then I went and sat next to him to try and help them understand how to put this thing together, and how to put together the puzzle in an efficient way. And if you've ever put together a puzzle, you know that there is an easy way to put it together, and many, many really incredibly difficult ways. Now the first thing that you do is you take the corner pieces, right. You can pretty easily identify them. And there aren't too many of them, usually four on a puzzle if it's square, right. Next, you gather together all of those edge pieces. And you can start to see different colors on the edge pieces. And you can pretty easily assemble them together into a frame. Once you have that frame, you can actually start to see what the picture might be. And then you can begin filling in those pieces. Now in our house, we do a lot of Disney and Paw Patrol puzzles. So you can start to see without even having all the pieces that, guess what, this is Mickey Mouse's here, and this is Donald Duck foot. And even if you don't have all those pieces, you can begin to understand what the picture actually looks like. Now most people are approaching their careers by taking those two random pieces and just trying to mash them together and build the puzzle from the inside out, much like a two year old. And I've done it this way too. It's frustrating. It leaves you looking at online job postings depressed and wondering why all these jobs don't look all that interesting. Or why the ones that do look interesting require 27 years of experience, and that you must be an astronaut. Instead, if you do it differently, just like the efficient way to be able to put together a puzzle, it's so much easier. And it's so much more possible to identify a picture of what can be a really great situation for you. Start with the corner pieces, these are your strengths, particularly what you're great at, or have the potential to be great at. Next, those outside pieces, the edge pieces are what you want in your life, these build out the frame. And the interesting thing is, when you're very clear on both your strengths, and what you value the most in your life, then you've now built out this frame, and just like the frame of a puzzle, you can begin to see what the picture in the middle might be. It might not be as easy as Donald Duck foot. But if you know it's incredibly important to you to be able to work out in the middle of the day, then you might have to have a job where they're going to allow you to do that. Or if I just absolutely can't stand details, and I'm a big picture strategy person, then I know that the role I am in can't have most of my time spent picking apart details, because that's going to drive me insane. Now these might seem like really small things. But when you identify all of these, it really helps you to create a picture. And this picture is something that we call your "ideal career profile". This acts as your destination, where you're going. So you can actually do something with this. Once you have that destination, it's kind of like taking a trip, right? Once you know your destination, you can begin figuring out the best path to get there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:36
I'm Scott Anthony Barlow, I'm the CEO and founder of Happen To Your Career, and also the creator of Career Change Bootcamp. My team and I, we work with high performers from all over the world, helping them get clarity on what makes them happy. And then after they've identified it, we help them make somewhat seemingly impossible career changes and make those things actually happen. Now, remember, the opportunity here is much, much bigger than knowing how to write a great resume or a great CV. And instead, understanding how you want to spend your time, so that much more of it is in solving incredibly interesting problems, and helping others in ways that are fulfilling to you. I want to show you how identifying and working with them what we call your 'Signature Strengths' can help lead you down a lifelong path to fulfilling job opportunities and not just the next one. I also want to show you what to actually do with that information, and how it can save you time along the way and energy and focus when you use this strategy to make a career change. Okay, let's start with strengths. I mean, if these are so important, then why does half of corporate America want you to focus on improving your weaknesses? I mean, have you ever been to a performance review lately? I'd like to suggest a slightly different perspective. And let's take Maggie, for example. She came to us, she was working in advertising and communications and was so over her job. We worked with her to identify her strengths, and four months later helped her make a career change into a role that really leveraged her love for teaching and training, but paid her a whole bunch more than what she was making in advertising. Now, at this point, this is where she had started to realize that she had a huge advantage because most people, and most companies are not so well aligned with their strengths. And the ones that are considered high performers or incredibly passionate about their work, the type of people that you've seen and want to be around. Anyhow, in less than 12 months into the role, they're already planning a promotion in 16 months, and she gets promoted into another role that's even a better fit for her strengths. Now, there's a whole lot of reasons and research to support why this happens. But I think it's best coming from Maggie.

Maggie 13:54
Place to work where you have to spend so much time away from your family, I want that time to count, you know, and being able to discover what it is that I'm passionate about. And the people here recognize my passion, like some of the... when my promotion, my most recent promotion was announced, so many people who commented on the passion that I have, and then it comes through and that helps people connect to the material that I'm teaching. And to have been able to be guided into that has been huge for myself fulfillment. So just being able to discover that drive and the time that I spend away from my family makes a difference and it's impacting people and it's fulfilling to me, it makes it easier to be, you know, a mom who works out of the home.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:39
Okay, I think it's fair to say that Maggie is a lot more aligned with her strengths and her work, and much more so than the average person. But this isn't just true for Maggie. We find that tons of people that we've worked with in our Career Change Bootcamp experience the exact same thing. Those people experience promotions, opportunities and growth. So much faster than average when they're working in their areas of the signature strengths. And this is not the only reason though, let's go to the research that Gallup has found. They say that, "you're less stressed by working in your strengths." Wait a minute, what's going on here? Okay, first of all, you probably didn't need 7.8 million data points to figure out that you're less stress working in your strengths. Second of all, this can be pretty confusing, because many of these people are also in incredibly demanding jobs that might often be associated with stress and responsibility. Here's what's happening. Take a look at this graphic. Now, too much stress or distress overflows into anxiety or burnout. And on the other end, boredom, that's not so good for the soul either, what we want you to do is aim for the stretch zone, because that's where it's causing you to grow without outpacing your ability, so much that is continually causing that really, really harmful stress. Now, when you're working actively in your strengths, what is really doing is it expanding that stretch zone and making it much larger so it takes a lot more to move you into that anxiety zone. In fact, think about it this way, you have less capacity to handle stress, if you're working outside your strengths, stress fills up and it overflows into anxiety, and later on burnout. However, if you're spending more of your waking hours and more of your time working in your strengths, then not only does work feel more natural, but you also have a much higher capacity to be able to handle stress that goes along with it. But it doesn't stop there. Because when you have a capacity to experience higher levels of stress, it also gives you an ability to expand your comfort zone much more rapidly than the average person, which means that then you experience growth overall faster as a human being too. Pretty cool, right? But there's even more when you combine your strengths with what you want in your life, like the puzzle method I showed you in the first video, then it creates what we call your 'Ideal Career Profile', which then allows you to create a clear picture of what your ideal career is. So you can get a sense for what your destination looks like. Now, obviously, if you don't know where you're going, it's going to be really, really difficult to get there. Right? It becomes like this really bad road trip that just won't end, you end up in Montana at a gas station. And it's 2am and is negative 24 degrees. And you're like, "how on earth did I even get here in the first place?" And no, of course, that's never happened to me at all.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:29
Now that you have this destination, you've got all the information that you need to begin pushing aside companies and opportunities that just don't fit you and instead focus only on the ones that do. Most of the time, this comes as a huge relief for the really busy people that we work with. Because it means that you don't have to waste all of this time interviewing or applying or networking with companies that just aren't a great fit. Here's why this strategy is most valuable, though, it means that you already have a competitive advantage when you show up to an interview, actually, even before there's ever an interview. And speaking of competitive advantages, thanks to putting in a tremendous amount of upfront work to identify her signature strengths, a client of ours, that's in Career Change Bootcamp has just started interviewing with their dream company, working from home as a learning science researcher. And guess what, she's gonna knock it out of the park because she's been aligning herself with the right companies and right opportunities to pursue and making it so that they can see clearly how she matches up with both the skills and experiences and values that they really, really want. If you do it this way, this is how you actually get jobs created for you, or even modified during the job offer stage. None of that off the rack or stock job opportunities that are posted online. We've got another student named Mike, and you might have heard his story on the Happen To Your Career podcast recently. He had two different job offers. And they aligned really pretty well with what he wanted in the first place to start out with. But we ended up coaching him to ask one of them to change the job responsibilities, so they lined up even better. Keep in mind that one of them pretty badly because of everything that we taught him through Career Change Bootcamp, about interviewing, and about the interview process, and even how you reached out to these companies in the first place. Now once you start to learn how this works, you can begin to realize that by first developing an incredibly clear understanding of what it is that you want and need and what you're great at, then this can become systematic, you can actually work step by step through this type of process. Now you might be thinking, "thanks, God, I get it. This is super important. But figuring out exactly what fits me is way more complicated than watching a 15 minute video." And you would be right. There's thousands of books written on the subject of understanding yourself. And we know that if a simple framework was really incredibly easy to execute on, then everybody would be making well over six figures, well working from their beach condos or whatever floats your boat, and is important to you. Now, Maggie, and Mike and Sarah had all tried many things before they took these same exact concepts and use them to achieve results. And if you want that too, that's where I'm very sure that we can be of help to you, what I'd love to do is invite you to learn more about Career Change Bootcamp, or start to finish step by step program that uses our tried and true research supported framework that we've used in helping over 1100 people. If you've done struggling with jobs that don't fit or companies that don't appreciate what you value, and what you want to thrive in your career, and want a framework that you can use over and over again to get different and better results in every step of the career path and growth, well, that's where Career Change Bootcamp can absolutely help. It's the first and only bootcamp that pairs a proven step by step framework with intensive one on one support, and guarantees that you'll make your career change in six months or less. It's where we help you cross the bridge from where you're at right now, to where you want to go. We even have a career coach assigned to you in the program on day one to make sure that you have every answer you need an extra support, if you get stuck. We've just opened up enrollment for CCB. And if you finally want to gain clarity on what a fulfilling career means for you, and then have our help in making it happen, that's where you should click over to our Career Change Bootcamp enrollment page, and watch the video to learn more about how it can fit you. I want you to experience work that lights you up and uses your strengths and uses your potential. And if you've never had that before, then that's also where we can help, the answers, they're out there for you. And we can hold you accountable to finding them and help being able to move through the process that everyone has to go through to get to work that they love. Especially, if you don't have the perfect experience. Or you don't know yet what your ideal career actually looks like. And when you come out of this program, by the way, you're going to know your signature strengths and how to use them to get you hired, you're also going to be able to successfully position yourself in an entirely new field or industry. Particularly if you don't have all of the experience or have less than other candidates, you'll also be able to figure out what your ideal career would be that would excite you and test drive it prior to taking the job. We also want you to be able to learn to build relationships with hiring managers to get opportunities that are really normally hard to get at, and companies that you love and even potentially get jobs created for you. Now we teach in an insider program, how to cut to the front of the line with interviews, even if you have less experience than other candidates. We combine our on demand online coursework with one on one support from your coach so that you have the very best of both worlds. When you get stuck, there's always somebody that's just an email or a Skype call away that can absolutely help.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:17
Hey, if you want to take everything that we just talked about in this episode, and figure out how to make it work for yourself, like many of the other people that you've heard on our podcast, make big transitions in one way or another, I'm not always talking about massive career changes, but figuring out what really works for you. Or even if you know what is making that transition, we can absolutely help you identifying what would be the very best way to do that. Send me an email, pause it right now, send me an email scott@happentoyourcareer.com, just put 'Conversation' in the subject line. I'll put you in touch with our Director of Student Success. And we can help you discover what would be the very best way that we can help support you. And what do you need to do to take the best path for you to get to where you want to go for a happy and meaningful career. Hey, seriously, pause it right now. Email scott@happentoyourcareer.com 'Conversation' like put it in the subject line. And then yeah, I'll hook you up. You can have a conversation, we'll figure out how we can help. That's what we do. It's what we love to do, as it turns out. And I gotta tell you that we have even more coming up next week for you on Happen To Your Career. One of our most popular guests on the podcast was Emily Wapnick. She talks about being multipotentialite. You might have heard that episode, I think most recently, she was on Episode 173. And someone who has a wide variety of interests and talents, that's what multipotentialite means. Well, next week, I actually get to talk with an expert that has studied and gotten some data on how multipotentialite actually show up on Gallup's StrengthFinders Assessment and many other assessments across the board. There's some clear patterns.

Melanie Buford 25:06
Literally in the interview, I just remember they were like so you know, what do you think you want to do? And there was like an awkward pause and I just, this just came out I didn't even think about an advance but I just said, "I think maybe education."

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:20
High up, no question mark at the end.

Melanie Buford 25:22
Right. Exactly. I tried to make it sound professional. I was wearing a suit.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:26
That's Melanie Buford. And you will be hearing a whole lot more next week on the Happen To Your Career podcast. Until then. See you later. Adios. I am out.

Phillip Migyanko 00:02
It's really trying to figure out how do you translate all of those skills that you have into finding a great career that you're also excited about.

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:40
As a company, we get the unique opportunity to be able to interact with 10s of thousands of people that are going through career transitions every single year and that number is growing daily. And once those people decide that they want some kind of help with the biggest challenges that they're working with and working through and facing right here and now. Well, then we have one person on our team that gets the opportunity to get on the phone or get on Skype with each of those individuals and understand every single aspect of their needs.

Phillip Migyanko 01:17
I get to talk to everyone that goes through each of our programs, and make sure that, one, they have all the tools and resources to make them successful. And two, also make sure that each one of them gets the premiere experience when working with any one of our teams at Happen To Your Career. And so really, this just for me, this means I get to jump on calls and speak directly to each and every single person. And this means people who have real problems that need real help and includes people who are, you know, in situations where they need to get out of their jobs as soon as possible or they might be in jobs that on the outside look really good, but have just kind of shifted and they're just not a great fit right now.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:08
That's Phillip Migyanko. He's the director for client and student success here at Happen To Your Career. And he gets the really unique perspective because he talks to so many of the people that come into our world. And we wanted to bring him on to answer one particular question. What are some of the biggest challenges that we see so many people in this world facing? Especially when they want to make a career change to something that they love, and they're on the beginning stages of making that happen.

Phillip Migyanko 02:42
So to go back way when I'm originally from the great state of Ohio, so shout out to all of my Buckeye fans out there, right. Whoo. OH-IO! But I grew up in a family business my entire life. And what we did, we had a landfill and trash hauling business, which means we just had a giant hole in the ground and all the trash trucks. So I grew up my entire life around dirt and big trucks and precent and doing stuff like that. So I don't know when the first time it was, but I can remember very clearly just going through neighborhoods and being on the back of a garbage truck and picking up trash. And for my entire life, myself and my family, we grew up very much with this entrepreneurial mindset, but also we get up at 5am every day and then work and get home at 5, 6, 7pm every day, some very long days. And I'm very grateful for that because it's taught me so much and it's carried those lessons that I learned growing up in a family business, have really carried over through my entire career which led me to HR and recruiting in college and then getting lots of different jobs through that, where I was able to really network through people, through Twitter, but also be able to really know the entire hiring process from beginning to end. So I jumped on interviews, I jumped on phone interviews, I got to look at the types of people for applying a jobs, I look at resumes. And really, they gave me a really good knowledge, know what it's like to be out there in the job market. But what it also takes to hire somebody at a company, which, spoiler alert, it's, there's a lot that goes into it, which I did not know until working with HR and recruiting. And long story short, I remember the final day we sold our family business. And like I said, that was a 12 plus hour a day that we had to work very often. And we were working that really long day. And it gave me the opportunity to kind of sell that last day and move on to the next thing or think about what was next. And I ended up moving all the way to Austin, Texas, which I now live in now. So also shout out to anybody who lives in the Austin, Texas region. And I came here without knowing really anybody, also without having a job too. So kind of like you mentioned, Scott, I had to really put my feet down and start networking, and really putting myself out there, which is what I did through, like as mentioned through Twitter and other types of stuff. And all that came from a place for me when I was back in Ohio from being very grateful of what I had.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:40
So I want to ask you about that here. But first, I want to know, because I don't think I've ever asked you before, like what prompted you to move to Austin, Texas with no job, essentially no connections or network or friends or essentially no support system in any way whatsoever? Like that for the average person is kind of a scary prospect in a lot of different ways. And I think that most people might not make that same decision. So I'm always curious why you've made a different decision than what most people might? What drew you to do that? What caused you to do that?

Phillip Migyanko 06:15
So originally what drew me to move into a new place, let me also say that it was just a scary and I was terrified the entire way too and what originally drew me to moving to a completely new places that I knew that one important factor for me, and especially my career was growth. I thrive in different areas where I can really get to know an area or a place or a bunch of people, and where... I also don't know a lot of people, I went to a college where I think I only knew one other person, I studied abroad in France, I didn't know anybody and I barely spoke any French so that was a tough situation. And I moved to Austin without support system either but I knew the things that were important to me was being in an environment where things were going on and people were doing things. I also knew that I kind of wanted to get a job in the tech field as well. So I knew Austin was a great place for that. I also got tired of the snow. I grew up with the snow my entire life. So it was time to move away from that and move now more towards the heat. And I always heard great things about Texas, and especially Austin, and visit here for a week and I was like, okay, this seems like the place and I can tend to be an over thinker and over planner so I had spreadsheets figured out of, okay, here's how much the cost of living is here, how much my rent will be, and things like that. But I thought about it for a really long time until I actually I had a career coach, push me to go and figure it out. And at the time, I was really scared because the biggest fear I had, which is the smallest fear now is like, I was so concerned about where I was going to get groceries at. It kept me up the whole night, I was like, "oh my gosh, like, where am I gonna get groceries at? I have no idea. I've never been there before." And even though I know Texas has grocery stores, I know Austin's grocery stores. But for some reason, this is the biggest concern. And she very clearly got me out of, this career coach, were gonna she got me out of my head it's like, "just go try it out. Just go down there. What's the worst thing you can happen? Just go there for a week, see if you like it and come back." And I did exactly that. I came and tested things out. I met some people around here, I looked at different areas. And I was like, yep, I can do this.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:44
That is amazing. Love that. And also, I appreciate you sharing all the context and everything that occurred before because what I found and actually you and I were just talking about this before we hit record too, about anytime somebody has done something very difficult or anytime somebody is great at something, there's so much behind that. And in this case, you went to France, like you've done a number of things leading up to this point, even before making this type of decision and making it happen. So appreciate you sharing that too. And that becomes my next question then. Once you got down there, how did you start to make things happen? Like you went down there, no role, no idea where the groceries are gonna come from. Clearly you figured that part out. But what did you do once you got down there? How did you connect with people? How did you get that first role? Tell us all the things, Phillip.

Phillip Migyanko 09:36
Definitely. One of the things that I did before actually going there. I started doing a lot of networking, before I even moved down to Texas. So I did a lot of networking for people in Ohio, especially through the HR community. One of those connections, got me a connection in San Antonio, who I met, and I mentioned too his name was Carlos and I met him at a Starbucks in San Marcos, which is in between Austin and San Antonio, and I was telling you my whole situation, these like, let me think of somebody, and they knew somebody here in Austin, and I try to connect with her over email. But I think at the time, her name is Wendy, she's very busy, so she didn't have time to get back with me. So Twitter comes again to save the day. I knew I could see from her tweet that day, she was at a job fair, that was just a block down for me. So I went and I visited her. And there's context there too where I was, like, nervously pacing the entire event space, because like, "oh my god, I gotta go. I have to go talk to her. I have to go talk to her." And then I was just like, did it two or three times. And then I was like, "okay, Phillip. Let's do this." And I was like gear myself up. And I went and talked to her and I said, "Hi, Wendy. My name is Phillip. You don't know me, but I know you." And then I just went through my kind of my spiel my story. And I got an interview with her a couple of days after that and ended up working a recruiting job with her. And that was one of the ways of putting myself out there. And very uncomfortable situations for me at the time, where you could possibly well off and doing it by myself and having the courage to just not be fearless because I definitely had all that fear, but seeing fear and then doing it anyways. And that's how I found a grocery store is like I'm gonna go try it a couple places and I found one I mean, Whole Foods astounded here, so that was an easy to figure out. But I don't know, I stood up and looking back now, it was one of the smallest ones, but finding resources and finding people and finding opportunities, I was just putting myself out there and really taking the chance and choosing myself and having a little bit of that courage. As part of it as well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:01
When I know that it progressed drastically from there, too. And there's a continuation of this. And when you and I first interacted and first met too, even that first interaction, I got to see evidence of you reaching out and doing exactly that taken a chance on those in that exact same way that you're describing. And I would say at this point, this is a bit after that original landing in Austin and everything else along those lines. But at this point, I think that you've become pretty phenomenal at this as you practice this over a period of time. And first of all, one, wanted to commend you for that and two, I know that has helped with the rest of your career progression too, and getting some of the other things into your life that you really have wanted as well.

Phillip Migyanko 12:50
Yeah, I remember our first interaction, I sent you little GIFs of, I remember Kermit, he was typing and things like that. I'm like, "Hey, Scott, I just sent you this type of thing." And then I was like it's hot off the presses. And then here's Kermit typing away. And it was the very, in my opinion, hilarious GIF. And I just kept always trying to be in contact, but always letting you know where I was at and which led me to also meeting you face to face in South by Southwest here, which was an amazing experience. And I know we just mentioned this before we hit record too where I was at a South by Southwest event all day, I think it was an eight hour day, and I don't know how I saw it. But I saw that you're coming to Austin, and I sent you an email like, "oh, hey, you're gonna be in Austin. Let's make sure we meet up." And...

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:46
It's probably on Twitter.

Phillip Migyanko 13:47
It was. Yeah, it probably was based on the past experience, and I just remember getting there super early, and I was like, "I don't know what time he's coming on. But he's gonna be here. I know that and which means I'm going to be there. And if that means I have to be out here all day, that means I'm going to be out here all day." And I think I got there early in the morning. And you didn't come until like, late in the afternoon, maybe three or four. And that was such a cool experience. I got to meet you, I got to meet your wife, got to meet a couple other friends that we ended up really hanging out for the rest of the night in downtown Austin and having a really good experience where we both got the opportunity to meet each other, but also talk about careers, talk about things we're into that at the time. And again, that was such a terrifying experience for me the entire time. But I knew that, that was very important to me. So I knew that I had to put myself in that environment into that situation to get to talk to you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:49
That's one of the things that I've observed over the course of time. And this is something that I think people can take away as well is in order to get different opportunities, it doesn't necessarily need to be here at Happen To Your Career or anything like that. But like any place around the world, in order to get different opportunities than what most people will get. You have to do, and be willing to do different things than what most people are going to be willing to do. And that's something I've seen time and again for you that you have been willing to do. And it's led towards different types of opportunities and relationships and all kinds of things throughout your life. And you've been very modest here. I think some of the things that people don't realize is that you are also a career coach, like you have your own business on the side, doing career coaching as well. And you've been in such a variety of different types of industries and at the same time, worked with such a variety of different people too that it gives you this really unique understanding across many different sectors and many different people and even different countries too with some of your experiences. And I think that, that is super cool. And to be quite frank and honest, that's one of the reasons why I was interested back then and having you on our team because that is something that we need. But I think that it does something else too. And I know we're going to talk about some of the things that you've observed. I think it gives you that big picture understanding, which allows you to be able to connect with people on a completely different level in so many different types of people, too. And that's part of the reason why we have you in the type of role helping our students, and people who are incoming into our programs, set them up for success and get aligned with the right type of help and everything else, as well. But I'm curious what you have observed, as you have been on so many of these different calls with people, and what are the biggest challenges and most common challenges that they're experiencing as they're coming in to this and they're thinking about making a career change and trying to decide how they're going to make that happen, which isn't easy at all, you know, and they're in that kind of thought space.

Phillip Migyanko 16:54
Yeah. And from jumping on these conversations, it's been a lot of fun. 'Cause I got the opportunity to connect with a lot of different individuals coming from lots of different scenarios all over the world in different countries. And through that experience, I've been able to really see, I think, three challenges that people are going through. And the easiest way to really put it is, I show like the first one is, what's next. It's like, what's next mentality where they've been taking all these tests, and trying to figure out what might be that next scenario, even taking BuzzFeed questions and quizzes. I don't know if you've taken those before Scott or how many you taken, I've just told you what type of house you'll be in at Hogwarts, or which character you're most like it on the Friends’ show.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:45
Oh, I'm Ross.

Phillip Migyanko 17:46
But... Are you? Okay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:48
I don't know if ... but I've seen it.But I've seen it.

Phillip Migyanko 17:50
But it's really trying to figure out how do you translate all of those skills that you have into finding a great career that you're also excited about and I think about one of the calls I was on with Yvette. And that was exactly what she was going through, and how she dealt with all this information. But she was kind of unsure what to do with it. She had all this knowledge, but no way of putting it into action and putting it out in the real world. And then it makes me think of another call. And another challenge that we and I have seen time and time again, when jumping on calls with these great people. And it's, what's important now, and what's important now might have been what's not important, you know, to you 10 years ago, and really moving down that track and not sure how to change into what this new thing might possibly be. And not also knowing what's out there too, wanting a job for people maybe starting their careers two or three years ago, 10 years ago. What might have been important to you then can completely change now. It's also recognizing those subtle differences and be able to honor those within yourself. But also be able to articulate express them to possibly what the next thing might be. And really, that's the third one to try to figure out what's out there. I was thinking of Sophia, I was on a call with her last week. And she didn't know what was out there. She felt like she was in this sea of possibilities, and is more about eliminating things that might not work. And she didn't really even know what was possibly realistic. And it really comes from the point of, and I think we've kind of express this through my story, but really the stories I'm hearing from a lot of people is the ability to choose yourself, and the difference between living of choosing yourself figuring out what might be important to you and what those options might be versus existing. And that just means of just taking what's coming, but really always coming from a point of value, and what you might going after what you really want, versus what you perceive is available to you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:15
So let me ask you about this. So first of all, I really like the lens of breaking these into three different areas. What's next? What is important now, as opposed to in the past? And then, what's out there or understanding what's out there? Or what can be out there? And here's my question in totally get the first one in terms of, hey, look, I understand that I want to do something different. I've made that decision. I know that I need to do something different. I've got all of this information from like taking strengthsfinder and MBTI, and all of these other things, and then I'm a Griffin dork. So like, we got to factor that in as well. And how do you translate that into one career? So I totally get that one in terms of that particular challenge, and trying to take and understand how to move that into something that's going to be useful. But I'm curious about the what's important now, because that's something that I've observed quite a bit as well, like, you know, I know you mentioned one of the conversations that you'd had in particular, but the thing that I see again and again is, you know, people have gotten on this track, they got on the track somehow, sometimes it's from, they had a set of family members that have done this same sort of thing, or their uncle Bobby told them that, you know, it'd be great if you were an attorney, or, like, my wife became a teacher, because our whole family is teachers. And that's what she knows and everything like that. And she's not teaching anymore at this point, or at least not in the same way. But like, that's kind of, for all intents and purposes, how that happened? And we see that type of story again and again, but what happens 10 years down the road, when what was important to you then has changed and you have had kids or you have an ill parent or you have had life circumstances that have caused you to realize that you want something different, like how do you not just, you know, get up and move to a new role or new industry or something like that, but something that really reflects what you actually now want. And sometimes, it seems like there's an identity change that goes along with that, because you've been on this, like you're so far down this track in some ways that it feels like you just have to keep going.

Phillip Migyanko 22:13
Yeah. And I completely agree with that. And it's so much more about figuring out in real life, what those things are important to you and getting out of your own head and a certain way too, right? We're in many ways you feel like, it's, you feel like those things should still be important to you, where you feel like they were important to me then, why can't they still be important now? And you bring up a really great point, Scott, which is, life happens, things change, and you change as a person. So what you might have been, at the time, maybe starting out in your career, even in that new job, really valuing growth. But now since you've done the job, you've got all the medals, you've risen up in the company. Now it's more about wanting to own more of your time and so maybe now you value more time flexibility or maybe you've been just sitting in traffic a lot, and you just don't want to be in traffic anymore. So I think it really comes down to trying things out and realize and figuring out what are those new values that you have? Or what are new things that now have become important to you?

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:19
So let me ask you about that in the next one, the what's out there piece, because I think that there is this huge, I observe, and you can tell me if you see the same thing or not with many of these conversations that we've had here with people, it seems like there's a big gap in between there in some ways, like, I'm in the place where I recognize that what's important to me now is different than what was important to me then. But I'm still on this set of train tracks going down this particular road, and I'm not sure how to move from one train track to another. But I don't even recognized like I don't even know how many different train tracks there are, and like how many trains come on those tracks and do they fork off at different places like, and I don't even know what I don't know. And I think at that point, one of the things that I observe is that people feel like they have to choose, as you said, what's available to them, or what they think is available to them instead of choosing what they actually want, and doing the work to figure out what is it they actually really legitimately want. And then going and getting that and something you said before we actually recorded really kind of resonates with me, we were talking about at an earlier conversation. And you were talking about the difference in living versus existing. And I feel like that sort of that paradox is like choosing from what's available to you versus what you really want. So help me understand what you mean, when you said living versus existing.

Phillip Migyanko 24:46
Yeah, it really comes back to going back to really what you want, right? It's and what's important to you and living for the types of careers that you want and the types of work that you want to do and the types of people that you want to be working with, in many ways, living comes from the choosing what's important to you and really going after that, and that comes from doing all that work to really ask yourself and know those answers to those questions versus existing, rather than I'm now in this job because I chose this major 10 years ago, because at that time, this is where all the jobs were. I remember growing up, especially when I was first going into college, and the whole thing was turf management. People wanted to go into turf management, because that's where the jobs were. And now, all the people who went off to study turf management, and just for context, turf management is all the astroturf on the football fields that they said this used to be this huge thing. All those people who studied that in school are no longer don't have jobs anymore. I think one of them, he end up working on a farm and things like that. But the point is, is that instead of figuring out those types of things, he was just kind of taking life as it gave it to him or that's what I'm observing all these calls are people are choosing what uncle Bobby, like you're saying, what uncle Bobby told him to do a bunch a while back. And they realized that, "nope I don't like that thing as much as I used to or I thought was good." I think that's really the difference between living and existing. Living for a life that you want and a career that you want rather than existing, and one that was chosen for you or what was available at the time.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:32
Okay, so then here becomes a question because I think that, you know, we've all been in that place at some point in time, like, that happens to everybody. And when people are finding themselves in one of these places with one of these challenges that we've identified, what's next or what's important now versus, you know, 10 years ago or trying to identify really what is out there when you don't even know what is actually out there. What advice would you have to help them with these three challenges?

Phillip Migyanko 27:04
I really think the first one is leaning into your curiosities. And I always like to think about this as, do you know, when you were ever in classes or if you were ever, the next time your classroom or if you're in there one right now of the people who sit in the front rows of the class or even the second row. I don't think of those types of people and I was also that type of person. And I was also the type of person who was like, hey, Professor, did you forget to give us our homework? So I don't know if I've always the favorite person in the class. I don't know...

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:37
Glad we didn't meet in College.

Phillip Migyanko 27:39
But I always like to think about is sitting in the front row of your life, being super excited about what really you're curious about. If you love scuba diving, just go after scuba diving really, like lean into this stuff. You might meet somebody there who has some ideas about hey, maybe you might try this thing, you might try that thing. But the point is, is just getting out there and leaning more into the things that you really enjoy and really like doing. I think another great piece of advice is being ridiculously helpful. I remember back when I was networking in Ohio, I had a mentor at the time, he was talking about networking. And I know networking has all those horrible connotations with it. But he mentioned that people only network when they need something, and people only really do that when they actually, when they need help. But I think a good piece of advice is making sure that you're being helpful also to other people and not just networking when you need it. But being helpful to anybody, think people are helpful to people out there too. Those are where opportunities to help grow and contribute are often overlooked. And this is what I've seen a lot in the cost of just volunteering, maybe helping out others. That's where opportunities can possibly come from. And I think the last piece of good advice is, this is something that I've mentioned a lot is really getting out of your own head and starting to take action. I know this often comes from the perfectionism mindset, which you've done a great job of talking from on this podcast. And through every a lot of your Happen To Your Career content. But I always think about it, and this is the way I always have to tell myself is "stay in your head and you're dead" right? You have to get out of your own head and start taking action in real life. We can often think that our ideas are really great in our head or, like myself, or I was really fearful to move all the way across the country to Austin, Texas, or I had no idea where any of the grocery stores were. But until I actually came in, said, okay, there's a grocery store. I can figure this out. There's a road over there, coming here and actually living it breathing the air and figuring out I can make it work. So getting out of your head and really start doing action now.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:03
I love that. One of our past podcast guests and used to work with us here at Happen To Your Career is Mark Sieverkropp. And he one of the things that Mark says all the time that goes hand in hand with what you're talking about Phillip is, you know, he always tells the story of like, jokingly behind the scenes, they'll say things like, I'd love to build this company, however, you know, and then I want to like grow it to 100 million dollars. But here's the problem. Like, I started thinking about all of the airplanes that I need to buy and the corporate jet that is gonna fly me back and forth. And where am I even gonna get a pilot like, oh, my goodness, like, how am I even going to find a pilot and like, none of that stuff matters, whatsoever. And especially it doesn't matter if you're not taking that first step forward. Like in your case, that example that you gave, getting down there for a little bit to Austin, Texas and seeing that, hey, Texas has grocery stores too, as crazy as it sounds, but then taking that first step and moving you forward. And you know, I know you irreverence, perfectionism. And we've done several episodes on this, including airing some of our own personal conversations behind the scenes about perfectionism and some of the things that we struggle with on our team. And that was Episode 233. But we also detailed out some really specific strategies, I think six of them in total, in Episode 226, that can really help with perfectionism and being able to get out of your head and make the move to Austin, Texas, or whatever it is for you in your world. Love that example. I'm gonna bring that up. Probably more than once from here on out.

Phillip Migyanko 31:32
And more the merrier. If you want to come move down to Austin, Texas, everybody is totally free. I will take you to all the great barbecue and taco places here.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:40
Oh, my goodness. Yes, that is happening because I don't think we got to go to any last time as in town.

Phillip Migyanko 31:45
We did not.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:46
Oh, my goodness. Phillip, hey, I so appreciate, one, you taking the time and coming on. I know that you've got a ton of people to meet with and a whole bunch of projects that we're working on behind the scenes for our students. So you taking the time and making it and coming and sharing some of this advice and what you're observing for all of our listeners here, at Happen To Your Career, is just something that I really appreciate. And also, I appreciate it because you have this unique perspective, since you're in these calls every single day where people are coming to us and asking the question like, how do I figure out what's next? And how do I jump to a different track when I know that something is important? Now to me, and it wasn't, you know, 10 years ago, and how I'm looking at that has changed, and how do I figure out what else is out there? And these are not easy questions to answer in the first place. And thank you for doing that type of work, first of all, on our team. But then second of all, this is stuff that very much matters, and one of the ways that we get to contribute and show up in the world. So really appreciate it.

Phillip Migyanko 32:49
Thank you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:50
I hope you love that episode with Phillip. And as since we talked about some of the biggest challenges for people that come into our world, that were listeners of the podcast, and then, well, they've decided they want to do it differently. Next week, we get to hear about one in particular who started out listening to the podcast, and then decided she had to do life differently than what was happening for her now.

Kristy Wenz 33:19
There are some things I like about it, but it's kind of been alone and doesn't get very exciting. And it just there was really no upward mobility. It's kind of lost its bluster to me at that point.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:30
That's Kristy Wenz. And she'll be back next week to talk about her amazing journey from a business that she didn't love anymore to a career that she described is feels like she gets to pinch herself every single day. We'll see you next week, right here on Happen To Your Career. Until then, I am out. Adios.

Just that uncertainty, I mean, I definitely left my job some of the biggest challenges and questions in my head were, who am I without this job? This job has been my identity for more than a decade. So who am I without it?

This is the Happen To Your Career Podcast with Scott Anthony Barlow.

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Here's Scott.

Here's Scott.

Here's Scott.

Scott: What happens when you decide that you no longer want the same life?

Robbie: I had a cool job that changed a lot over time. There was a lot of diversity. I have a lot of autonomy, so that kept me in my job for a long time because I was leader in the company. I made my own schedule. I made a lot of key decisions. And I worked with great people, but over time I was one a little tired. You could just, you know, getting tired and thinking about maybe something different would come along. I'm also thinking about what could I make happen and my wife and I started to travel more. It was kind of that pivot situation as the company was changing. My personal life was also changing.

Scott: Robbie Kaplan was living in Washington DC. She is working in a role that was honestly pretty great for her.

Robbie: At the end of February I left my job, which I had been at for almost 15 years and that was a job that grew over time, but at the end I was the merchandise mixmaster was my cool title. Basically man, I was the merchandise manager for a group of 12 ace hardware stores in the DC, Maryland and Virginia area and it was a really cool job. I was with the company since they started. When they have one store, helped it grow to the 12. I helped create the operations, branding, obviously the product on the shelf over time. So I had a very interesting job there.

Scott: But then she got a taste of travel and that short term getting away from everything made, her and her partner realized that they were living their happiest life. Now here's the interesting thing. She was originally a listener of the Happen To Your Career Podcast, who later on we got the opportunity to help make a change and she's made some pretty astounding changes over the last year and that led her to touring around the entire country in an RV, being able to explore. And I got the opportunity to catch her right in this new chapter of life as she toured through Moses Lake Washington. And for the first time ever we have one of our clients in studio in Moses Lake to take a listen to Robbie story.

Robbie: And at first we gotta take a couple trips and I would work remotely stole, you know, be in touch with everything that was going on and also have vacation time. But after doing that for a year or two, a couple of extended trips, I was like, this isn't working quite right. There's too much going on in the business and there's too much that I want to be doing personally for these things to mash up. I think an original goal had been maybe I could travel for say a month and work remotely and still do my job well, and I realized that wasn't really going to be the case, nor was I really going to be happy for my personal work ethic. I work a lot, my partner works a lot and I found myself working a long time, an extra hours and times I was supposed to be on vacation, I was checking my email. I'm not good at turning off. So working in a what was a retail business that was open seven days a week, you know, 7:00 or 8:00 AM till 8:00 or 9:00. I felt like I was on all the time, even if that wasn't required of me, which I do think is an important note. It was my personality type, not what was being imposed upon me. Yeah.

Scott: So you had that realization about it didn't feel like you're going to be able to turn it off in some ways.

Robbie: Correct.

Scott: So what happened in between there, you know, at some point you, well, first of all, you started traveling and that caused the realization, it sounds like for you and Sandy that you want to do more of that. Right?

Robbie: Right. It was something we love to do together and to do it together and we wanted more of that.

Scott: So you're like, hey, how do I get more of this? It sounds like there was a progression that happened in some ways where you realized, look, I'm not going to be able to do this in the way that I want to. Is that fair to say?

Robbie: That is fair to say.

Scott: So is there anything else that happened along that way that caused you to cause you to do it in the way that you're doing it now? What was the, what was the

Robbie: I had a weird quirky thing that happened, I guess I'll call it quirky and I would love to. I would love to be other people out there if this happens to them as well. So around last October of 2017, I was chosen for grand jury duty and that meant that for the next five weeks I was to report to jury duty every single day and I could not go to my job and I did not have access to my phone or email during the day. I was cut off from what my life was literally changed in a day.

Scott: No phone for you?

Robbie: No phone for me, which, you know, in this day and age is really hard. And a couple things happened. One is I realized within a few days I was not going to be able to focus on work at all. It just wasn't possible. I couldn't keep up dirty, busy time and thankfully I had to staff around that that could pick up the slack and we're so thankful to them. And then also because I would have, I was now going to be taking the bus versus driving and do any different. My whole schedule is different. My life was different. I decided to focus all my available time, free time on self care and using that I consciously made the choice that I was going to use any of that free time that I could spare on myself and to decide what I wanted to do next, whether that was doing something else in my company, changing up my job, or finding something completely new. And that was when I found your podcast and they listen to it on the bus every morning on the way to jury duty.

Scott: How long ago was that? Just curious.

Robbie: So that was last October, so 8, 10 months ago.

Scott: Just under a year ago. So that's crazy. First of all because now just slightly less than a year later, you're sitting here in the studio on the podcast.

Robbie: It is crazy, but it found the podcast and immediately was just drawn into it and thought the messages were really positive. It was a lot of cheerleading I really needed to hear. And also would... And also another thing that came through was that compassion and understanding for the place I was in, which was really drained, tired, needing a break. I knew I needed a break and now is having a forced break. It may not have been the most pleasant break, but it was a break enough where I could kind of regain my personal footing of what am I doing for myself. So that really was useful to me. And then right around the end of that time, I think you had a Webinar, a free webinar about was about bootcamp. But I came on with an ulterior motive of like, what can I get out of this for myself? So that's when you and I connected.

Scott: Yeah, I remember that. I remember that conversation too. So let me ask you this then. You know, with that, do you think you would have gone the same route had you not had that interrupt that break? Which can mean that I've seen that happen for a variety of different people and that can be a life changing event. Not always grand jury duty necessarily. But...

Robbie: Any? Any of them?

Scott: Yeah. Do you think that one, do you think that could have happened in a different way for you and two do you feel like some of these things would have happened without a break and I have no idea, but I'm curious what you feel.

Robbie: Well, what I think would have happened, I think I still would have left my job. I think I probably still would have found the podcast have found Lisa, but I think from a different context of just being completely worn out and I was afraid I was going to crash. Right? So even though I was tired, I wasn't at that point yet and the podcast and interacting with you guys really helped me reframe what was going on in a positive light and allowed me to exit gracefully for my job, come up with a plan, which is what I really needed. I have a resource and the resource team which I really needed and a frame what I was going to do next. Like I, any other job I had left previously was sort of either under a negative circumstance or not by my choosing and so I had a negative context to it and I wanted this to be positive and I think it was and also I was afraid I would quit my job, I need a break and not have any idea what was next and I specifically remember having a conversation with you where you said, oh, we can help you frame a sabbatical in a way that will not only let you take the break that you need, but what you really enjoy it and know what the work will be for you either later or during the sabbatical. And that really, that was the thing that got me Scott, that was because I didn't feel like I was quitting or giving up or failing. I felt like I was really moving in a positive direction towards what was next for me.

Scott: Yeah. That's so interesting. For a few different reasons. One, I, you know, I remember her saying that I remember having that conversation with you, but I realize now and recognize that out that most of us probably are not thinking about it in that way, or we don't have the breaks that happen either, like, so that break that you had with drudgery, I think what a lot of people do too is they keep on going and then they get to the point where they just literally can't take it anymore and then often that's when many people are looking for alternatives. So I guess the thing that I'm taking away from that is there, whether it's by your choosing or somebody else's choice, there are other ways to be able to get to that point, but almost all of them require you to be able to get above the situation a little bit in one way or another. It seems like and get whether get some kind of mental bandwidth.

Robbie: Yeah, exactly. And that has come up on several of your podcasts and with other conversations with Lisa, like just knowing, being aware and conscious that you're, you need to have that bandwidth to even make a change or take an action and it's very hard to find that for yourself, especially for a high achiever or somewhere he's caught up in the rat race and you know, just whatever the situation is, it can be difficult to do.

Scott: Yeah, totally agree. So first of all, like very public Kudos because that is awesome and I think that other people could have gone through that situation and not how to turn out the same way. So that's, that's awesome. And I recognized just since we've been doing this a lot, that that is not a small amount of effort even if it's forced upon you, it's still not a small amount of effort. So very nicely done. And I'm curious, what do you feel like was the hardest part of deciding that this is what you were going to do? Because essentially what you've done is you have, you've now created another kind of break and a new section of life for yourself in a totally different way than what you were living before. And you know, some people are gonna, some people are only gonna see the trap like the three months and everything like that, but recognizing that it's much bigger than that and it is, it really is a new, entirely new section of your life and a lot of different ways. And to even make the decision to move that direction, requires a bit of work too. So what was the hardest part of getting to here?

Robbie: The hardest part of getting to here, were definitely the hard conversations and planning for them was crucial. And talking through how it's going to have each of those conversations, both with my bosses, with my partner, with my family. You know, how is going to approach this was really important to me. I process internally. I'm mostly an introvert, so it, so I had to work harder at that. Like how did I want to present myself, how, what's it like, what were my goals and how did I want to have these conversations? And I think I was talking, I was talking to someone and I was like, it's gonna be really hard. It's going to, you know, it's terrible. I think it was my sister and she said it'll be fine, it'll be fine and then it's going to be really fun. I wrote it down, it will be fine and then it will be fun. And that was actually really true and I think somewhere along the way as someone on the podcast has also said, you know, like your life grows proportionally in relation to these hard conversations you have and it's true. And I knew, I knew that when I spoke to my bosses about what I wanted to do, that they would be supportive. I had no doubt about it. But having that conversation to make something real is not easy.

Scott: Thinking about it as one thing versus actually having the audacity and the courage to do that as a completely different thing. And so what helped you the most other than the very quotable? Tweetable. It'll be fine. Then it'll be fun because I love that. That's awesome. Well, what else helped you to be able to do that?

Robbie: Definitely the preparation. So talking to you, talking to Lisa before I even actually hired her as a coach. Having preliminary conversations and understanding that help that I could get and listening to the podcast. Also just hearing all kinds of great advice and then Lisa have really helped me hone in on what was important to me, what my priorities are for myself and how to really focus on that and how to understand that anyone else's reaction to what was going on with me was more about them than about me. So that was really important for me and helped and helped and helped me also plan out how did I want to approach work. Say I wanted to leave and also already have like an idea of when I want it to go, what my exit strategy was and how I wanted to deal with different situations because I had my hand in a lot of pots there. So it was no small feat that was leaving. I was also the most senior employee at that point. So it was a lot and I think it helped me exit well. My whole thing was I wanted to exit well, I want to leave people in a good position. I hope I did that. And leave having people thinking well of me and I hope I did that as well.

Scott: What do you feel like in building those next steps or building that plan? What do you feel like would work for you? Or what are some of the elements that you put into that? When you say, I built my exit plan, what does that actually mean?

Robbie: I made checklists of actually worse case scenarios. Like what if I go in and say I want to leave? And they're like, all right, well just go to that.

Scott: We'll see you later.

Robbie: Besides to that and all i think what happened, but what if. So I was just prepared, did I have my contacts, did I have important documents that I thought I needed, you know, were the most important things in my office, like, could I get them quickly if needed? I know in my situation I was very fortunate, I never once thought that would really be the case. And then thinking about the next projects and the calendar, like really writing out like here's what's going to be happening and so and so needs to be on top of it or so and so needs this to happen. And I left all my, pretty much all my emails there and accessible all the documents accessible. I had a wonderful assistant buyer at the time who's now a senior buyer and I really feel, felt like I could, you know, teach her a lot before I left and I gave two months notice. So it was a fully. We were working weeks of spending time with people and training them.

Scott: What were some of the parts, you mentioned several times along the way, like identifying what was most important to you in terms of your life, your career, what were some of those parts help people understand what for you and it's gonna be different for everybody. I think it's really important to acknowledge that, you know, what is, what's important to you is not going to be necessarily the same things that are important to me and important to the next person. But what are those things look like for you?

Robbie: For me at the time the priorities were definitely that I wanted to travel with Sandy and for an extended period of time and feel like I could do that without feeling guilty or without feeling resented. And that might've been a perception I had, but that was just what I had internalized. So I wanted that we have a house that's a fixer upper that we hadn't spent a lot of time on and I would like to live in a house I love, so I want it to be able to spend time on that. And those were two big things I would say. I'm sure there were others I can't think of right now, but it required more balanced in our family. Sandy and I are both high achievers. We work, we work till the job is done. We're not just going to stop at 5:00 or 8:00 or whatever. So it was not unusual for us to both be working at 10, 11:00 at night. Well, no one's caring for our family at that point. No one's caring for our home. So it's not that I'm going to suddenly be betty homemaker. That's not who I am either, but we needed more flexibility and ability to live the lives we want to live and have a great time. And we found we love traveling and really wanting to make that work. And so we were able to plan a three month trip that's now at three and a half months and get on the road where Sandy is working remotely full time. And I'm vacationing and also helping be Julie the cruise director basically for our trip.

Scott: A lot of times we'll have people on the podcast and we're talking about the new role they're moving into or whatever it might be, but in this case, for you as you identified what the next stage of life looked like, really involved this travel and having that flexibility and some of those other pieces that we just mentioned, but also if for those people that haven't traveled extensively, you and I were talking about this over lunch, but there is a massive amount of decision making that has to happen. It's not like it's a woe is me type situation because you're doing what you want to, but it is. It is hard in a way that you wouldn't anticipate because if like I'm on vacation. Vacations or you know, people don't associate that with hard a lot of the time, but it realistically as like it takes a lot of effort and planning and thinking and all of these other things too. So for you, help somebody that might be interested in doing this sort of thing where they go and they spend a period of time traveling and they're looking to put this into their lives for one reason or another, and in one way or another, help them understand a little bit about what that's actually like on a day to day basis for you.

Robbie: Well, I definitely think, like you said before, what's important to everyone is different. It's subjective and we actually, Sandy and I actually traveled very spontaneously. We may not know where we're sleeping until 6:00, 7:00, 8:00 at night and we might get there and it's too hot or the plugs don't work or you know, we can run into a variety of issues. There's a lot of decisions. Where are we going to sleep? There's several apps I consult to figure out where we're going to be parking that night. Home is where you park it in our RV. We, you know, we do have everything we need, we're self contained, but do we have enough food? Is the dog happy? Which is, you know, takes up a lot of energy. What will I be doing the next day of Sandy's working. Is they're reliable internet and wifi and cell reception, which is hugely important and became a bigger factor on this trip. Then we realized it was harder to find. And then if someone's working, what are our available travel hours? Where can we go have fun with the dog? There's, you know, there's just a ton of things which yes, it's fun. I can't complain about those things. But it is work and I will say kind of leads a little bit into something else I was thinking about a minute ago, which is that I do have a mental capacity at this time to think about what's next, what I want to be doing, but I'm still using a lot of mental capacity everyday. I'm not bored. And it was making me think about when I was leaving my job, everyone of course as well, what are you going to do next? And I would say, I don't know, what do you mean you don't know? Do you want to work in retail? Do you still want to be a buyer? I don't know. I'm really happy about that. As I said, I wanted to go figure out who I am now, shed the skin that I've had and see what's still interests me. And this trip has also allowed me to do that. I like to go somewhere new, walk into a store and be like, Huh, that's cool. That's not cool. Look, I'm still interested in, you know, merchandise mix in with the cool new product is, so I'm really okay at the moment with not knowing what's next but I'm nearing the end of the trip and so this podcast comes at like a serendipitous time or I'm like, Huh, you guys start thinking about, you know, what's gonna happen when we get back?

Scott: We will have the part 2 podcast later.

Robbie: Yeah. Hopefully, hopefully it won't be a cardboard box.

Scott: What you're talking about though is it's really interesting to me that like how far we have to get in some ways like how excited our normal routines and our normal things and also how okay or not okay. I guess I should say most of our society is with not knowing, and I was going to ask you, you were very much a planner type of personality. Is that the best way to say it?

Robbie: Yes. I think that's fair.

Scott: Okay. So now you've gotten to this completely spontaneous and also not knowing what is next. So what are the, for you and your personality, what are the hard parts about that? What are the parts where you found that liberating, if any.

Robbie: What is the question? What's hard? What's hard about not knowing what's next? Part of the question? Just that uncertainty. I mean, I definitely left my job. Some of the biggest challenges and questions in my head were, who am I without this job? This job has been my identity for more than a decade. So who am I without it? Will I have the same recognition or response or was the success I was having based on who I was and who was working with and all that? Or is it really self earned? Just regular self doubt I guess. And I still have that. Like, who am I saying one care? We'll see. Now I lost track.

Scott: Well, it's frustrating that that I find it frustrating that that never goes away.

Robbie: Sure.

Scott: It would be nice if it did, but it really comes down to a case of choosing what you want to do or how you want to be spending your time, even though that that self doubt is there.

Robbie: It's there. And I would say one of the things I've learned along this path the last several months is just like going for it and doing it. Like I'm sitting here with you doing a podcast. I remember listening to your podcasts and being like, that would be fun to be on there. Well, I didn't wait around for you release it. It'd be like, Huh, Robbie, you might be a good guest. I just said, hey, I want to come talk to you.

Scott: I'm coming to Moses Lake, get a spot ready for me.

Robbie: So I don't know what that says about you. You know, I, when I had the actual, I had a great opportunity to meet Lisa earlier in the trip and person. I've worked with her on skype and on the phone and...

Scott: For context, Lisa was her coach throughout the beginning part of this journey.

Robbie: Right and we actually met up at a small business type conference in Boulder and I earned a shirt. That's someone who's giving away that has a curse word on it, but say f fear and I was like, that shirt is for me. I really had to say that to myself like over and over again. I'm just doing. I'm going to ask for what I want. We're gonna decide what it is and just go for it. Why am I, why wouldn't I go for all the things that I want in this world and I don't want to be wasting any more time. Basically we don't know how much time we have. Right? I mean, I'm 45 right now. My father passed away when he was 48. I would hate to get to that point in my life and feel like, oh, I wish I had taken that road trip. You know, I wish I had taken a couple of months off of work or whatever it is. So I just really felt like I was in a place where I was ready to do something really different.

Scott: You know, what we, I don't think I've ever told this story before, but one as we were, I say we, it was my myself giving feedback from Alyssa, my wife at the time, but when I was choosing the name of the blog and the later the business, debated calling it Happen To Your Life and ended up not doing that because really wanted to do it through the lens of focusing on people's careers. But they're so intertwined and whether we like it or not, they are incredibly intertwined. And I think that what you're talking about, we don't, we don't know how much time we have left. My grandma just passed away. I just spoke at her funeral just a couple of weeks ago and is a reminder for me, you know, just like your dad is for you, that we just don't know how much time and I don't want to have regrets quite frankly afterwards. And I'd have to say that you've done a phenomenal job of having courage to pave that way for yourself. And it is, it is not easy. It is not easy. Absolutely.

Robbie: And I should also say, of course, that I am very fortunate that I have a partner who has been incredibly supportive of me, that we were able to plan enough to take this break and, you know, have this time in our lives together. I recognize not everyone has that ability to do that. And I think it is important that I was very scared to have that conversation with her about wanting to quit my job and wanting to take a break because of course everyone wants a break. Everyone would like to have a vacation. Everyone would like to have a sabbatical possible. But I knew it was crucial to my mental health and when we had the conversation, when I had that courage to say, this is what I really want, I was very pleasantly surprised that immediately she said, absolutely yes, like one, you need that break and we'll make it happen. And also in regards to traveling and like being able to do this, she actually was like, it works since my plans perfectly because I was, I have to go to Denver this summer and I was hoping we could take a long road trip and so it all kinda came together and of course that doesn't happen for everyone and of course there's lots of steps and hurdles for people to get to do what they really want. But having the conversations is really important, right? And the longer I was. I mean maybe I could have done it a year ago, right? But who knows?

Scott: Well, I think that inevitably some people are going to see the post that goes with this or they're going to listen to this and they're going to look at just the trip element and some people are going to say that is, that's not possible for my situation, but here's what I found though, that when you're willing to have the courage to declare what it is that you want more frequently than not, you find a way to be able to make that happen. And I think that's the part that people miss because so many people never have those conversations or so many people never take the steps toward because I feel like it's not going to be possible rather than spending their time on figuring out how it's going to be possible. So, just I can't say it enough how great of a job you've done with that. And I really, really appreciate you coming all the way to Moses Lake Washington. We've been, yeah. Everybody should make your way out to Moses Lake question. Actually. We've had, we've never had anybody come visit us before. We had two people that we worked with this week, but it's, yeah, this is the week to come apparently. Who knew? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Robbie: It's still worth it.

Scott: Still worth it. So appreciate you making the trip out here and thank you so much for sharing your story with all the HTYCers out there. This is amazing.

Robbie: I am so happy too because without everyone else's stories, I wouldn't be here either. So I'm happy to give back in any way I can.

Scott: It's come full circle. So I've got just one question left for you after going through all of this and for where you're at now and there's still plenty to come for you, but right in the middle, everybody's right in the middle. It's just what the middle looks like quite frankly, but what advice would you give to people that are kind of on the edge, on the precipice there? They know that they want something, but they haven't necessarily taken those steps yet or they're a little bit worried about whether it could be possible for them, whether it's a three and a half month long or longer road trip or whether it is making that change or leaving a job really well or whatever happens to be for them. What advice would you give them?

Robbie: Well, I mean I would definitely say figure out what your priorities are for yourself so you can follow them. Like tying into something else you just said. A piece of advice my dad always gave was like, go for the thing you absolutely want. That's the best case scenario and figure out how to make that happen. Don't start with the bottom or the, you know, case D, like start with case A and work toward that and it takes a lot of courage, but I think maybe making that mental head space where you can be more creative where you can gain a little bit of your own energy back and decide what's right for you. That would be my biggest advice and you know, listen to the podcast, and don't hesitate to like jump in or call or ask you questions. Now I'm like, you know, here's Scott's personal phone number, but I think that was just key feeling like your team was really accessible and willing to throw out some, you know, like tidbits of advice that helped me just even get started. Whether I came to you full time or not was really helpful.

Scott: I hoped you loved that story with Robbie. She's phenomenal and her first introduction to us was the podcast just like this one. And then later on she went over to our site and signed up for our 8-day mini course, the figure it out mini course to begin to get some clarity on what she wanted in her career. And if you want to do that exact same thing, it can help you get started in figuring out what really creates a compelling and filling career for you. Just text happen, H A P P E N to 42422. Or you can visit, figureitout.co, figureitout.co. And if you're feeling a little lost, then next week you're going to absolutely love of what we have instore for you. We have a return guest to the Happen To Your Career Podcast, who is coming on to talk about something that she knows very well, partially from experience and partially from interactions with so many different people over the years.

Maxie: I used confidence and self belief interchangeably and it's how much you believe that your abilities and whatever it is that you try your hand up. We'll have a positive outcome.

Scott: That's Maxie Mccoy. She's coming next week to Happen To Your Career for the second time. She's become a good friend over the last couple of years and this time she's back to talk about how to no longer be lost and even share a bit of an action plan on how to find your own way. So next week it's all right here on Happen To Your Career. We've got so much more in store for you and we'll be back with Maxie Mccoy. We'll see you then. Adios. I'm out.

Robbie: So nice to be here and why not come to Moses Lake.

Scott: And why not come to Moses Lake. It is a fantastic place.

Robbie: I see where the magic happens people. I'm right here in the center of it.

Scott: This is where the magic happens.