Leveraging Your Strengths In Your Career

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on this episode

“It’s hard to find something that fits, that’s why so many people change careers. When I finally understood my strengths and how I could apply them it all made sense. It just made it easier to see what types of jobs and roles would fit me. In my new career I get to do the marketing that I love with a company I’m excited about.” – Kirby Verceles

what you’ll learn

  • Find out specifically how Kirby learned her strengths (and began to use them)
  • Learn how to think about Strengths and weaknesses in a way that benefits your entire life
  • How to use your signature strengths to make work feel different (and not so much like “work”)

Success Stories

After working many years in aerospace as a Manufacturing Engineer, I wanted to move into a Program Manager role without ever holding a PM title or certification. Scott and HTYC helped me to showcase my relevant strengths and made me feel confident and prepared for the interview stage. I landed the Project Manager job I was seeking even though there were qualified internal candidates available. I was able to avoid a disruptive family move and am loving my new position.

Andrew Gagnon, Project Manager, United States/Canada

All the stars aligned and I ended up finding the right thing at the right place at the right time, and it was you guys! Everything that you said was speaking to me and the things that you had done in the job that you had transitioned out of and into. Also how finding work that you love is your passion for people! Honestly, it was you Scott, I mean, the way that you talked about it, how passionate you were, I was like, there's no way he's gonna put out a faulty product. So I'm gonna try it, you know… I recommend you to all my friends, you know, even if they don't realize that they're looking for a new job, I'm like this is the first step, let's do this! Even if you maybe don't move out of this career. This is going to help!

Maggie Romanovich, Director of Learning and Development, United States/Canada

I’ve been offered the job! It was great having the opportunity to speak with you prior to my interview. It enabled me to highlight my strengths as part of the conversation and I was able to be clear about my enthusiasm for opportunities to be proactive versus reactive. I also highlighted my desire to provide positive individual experiences. Our discussion not only assisted me in the interview but it also helped to increase my confidence!

Bree Hunter, Project Officer, Australia

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Using StrengthsFinder Assessment in the Real World (and an Interview)

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Every week we get questions about assessments. Particularly the Clifton StrengthsFinder Assessment. Is it accurate? Will it tell me what type of career I should focus on? How do I use it outside of my work? 

All good questions: We thought it would be better to show you how people can use strengths, what they are, how they work, even how to incorporate them into things like interviews. We also thought it would be best if we showed you this real time. 

Meet Bree Hunter from Tasmania. She’s worked for the city of Hobart in a role that used to be great for her, but no longer fits what she wants. What you’ll hear is us doing an actual recorded coaching session where she had just taken the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment and is trying to figure out how she can use the results. You’ll want to listen close to this conversation because there’s a big surprise at the end. 

What You’ll Learn

  • How the Clifton StrengthsFinder Assessment works? And where it will/won’t be useful for you!
  • Interviewing using your strengths (while still being humble and likeable)
  • Why you don’t need to focus on weaknesses (even though it will undoubtedly be an interview question

Success Stories

I think what helped me the most was focusing on my strengths and the connections that this process, the whole happened here, the career change bootcamp, those connections that basically you're prompted to go reconnect with people right? So, that helped me the most because the roller coaster that I was on with the role that I was in that I was trying to exit from, again, it realizing that people had a positive view of me and that they saw things that maybe I didn't see in myself really helped me articulate who I already was and who I wanted to be in my next role, if that makes sense.

Elizabeth , Digital Marketing Analytics Strategist, United States/Canada

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I wanted to thank you because you have helped me land a job that is more fulfilling in every way than a job I thought I could have had before I met you. The work you did and the techniques you taught me literally changed my life.

Eric Murphy, Science Teacher, United States/Canada

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Sometimes you just need someone who has done these things before to make it easier. Scott’s advice allowed me to get exactly what I wanted out of my new job!

Andrew Trujillo, Digital Marketing, United States/Canada

My brain always goes 'Well, what's the worst that could happen?' And that was another one of the exercises from Figure Out What Fits and once you realize what the worst that can happen is, it's not really that bad. In the big scheme of things, it might knock it back for a minute or two, but it's not not a biggie. They have not found it to happen yet. So I've just been pleasantly surprised every step of the way.

Mark Sinclair, Photograher, Australia

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Getting clear on what I wanted helped me to recognize how perfect this opportunity was when it came along and the choice to switch was a no-brainer. Thanks for doing the work you do!

Austin Marlar, Frontend Developer, United States/Canada

Nadia Career Change HTYC

If you're stuck, if you want to know what to do, go listen to this podcast, it will change your life. And I was thinking, "great, okay." And then of course, I go to the website, and everything that I read, it was like, "Yes, this is what I've been looking for."

Nadia , Support Team Coordinator, United Kingdom

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Introduction 00:39
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 01:03
We get questions every week about assessments, particularly the Clifton Strengths Finder assessment. Is it accurate? Will it tell me what type of career I should focus on? How do I use it outside of my work? All good questions. However, we thought it would be better to show you how people can use strengths, what they are, how they work, and even incorporate them into things like, I don't know, interviews, and everything else. And we also thought it would be best if we showed you this real time.

Bree Hunter 01:33
Got a job interview later today.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:35
That's Bree Hunter from Tasmania. She's worked for the city of Hobart in a role that used to be great for her, but no longer fits what she wants. What you'll hear is us doing an actual recorded coaching session, where she had just taken the Clifton Strengths Finder Assessment and is trying to figure out how she can use the results. You want to listen pretty close to this conversation. Because there's a pretty big surprise at the end. Here's our conversation and coaching session, take a listen as a fly on the wall.

Bree Hunter 02:06
Several months really been doing a bit of soul searching and came across your website and your podcasts. And that's been really helpful amongst a few other tools I've pulled together. So yeah, I really enjoyed the StrengthsFinder test. I found that really useful to sort of pull a few things together and things that you're kind of already feeling but haven't really been able to articulate or put into some sort of framework.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:33
Yeah. Very cool. And if I have this up here correctly, it looks like your strengths themes from StrengthsFinder where, Learner, Harmony, Restorative, Positivity and Individualization. Does that sound right?

Bree Hunter 02:48
That's right. Yep.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:49
Very cool. So then the other thing that I saw from the email that you sent a little bit earlier today, or let's see here, was that you're hoping to get a little bit better understanding of how you can actually leverage these. So now that you have the ability to articulate them a little bit differently, how do you actually use these things? And then it sounds like currently, you are... well, I mean, obviously, you got another job interview coming up here. But your past role or current role feels like it is not the right fit for several reasons. And you talked about workplace culture. And did you use the term busy work? Is that what it was?

Bree Hunter 03:32
I did. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:34
Okay.

Bree Hunter 03:35
And it's just a case of, I've been in this role for two and a half years now. And before that I was still sort of connected to this role, and I loved it for a period of time. And it's just, I've changed and grown, I guess. So it's time to take on a new challenge. And I was acting in the role I'm applying for, although I'm interviewing for later today. And that's where I found it really energized me of the things that I was doing. And then having done the StrengthsFinder, it just backed up why those particular functions were energizing me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:15
What were some of those functions?

Bree Hunter 04:16
Working with the community. So it was project managing the planning phase of new projects, and I was working on new mountain bike tracks. So I got to do all the community consultation, and the planning around that. And I really enjoyed getting feedback from the community and advocating for what they wanted. And also, you know, within, I work for city council, pulling people together within council to get the project going, like I don't hold... claim to hold the expertise. I really rely on other people's expertise and getting the right people together to make something happen and just sort of facilitating that process.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:00
Okay. All right, that makes sense then. So, let me ask you a few questions then. And then I think I can help with a few of these things. First of all...

Bree Hunter 05:13
Okay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:14
Quick, just clarifying question, the role that you're interviewing for, is that in the same organization or is that a different organization?

Bree Hunter 05:21
It's the same organization. But it's, at the moment, I'm in operations at like a Depo sort of setting. And that role would be in the town office, away from operations.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:36
Okay, very good. So let's see if we can leave a little bit of time in terms of working up to how you talk about strengths and interview because it's different than how most people would think. Very often, they find that many of us perceive that we're going to need to talk about them extensively, and use like the right word, so that it perfectly matches up to our strengths and everything. And I find that there's much easier, much more organic ways to be able to leverage your strengths in your interview. So let's see if we can leave a few minutes to talk about that towards the end. And then in the meantime, let's see if we can get to the bottom of some of these strengths and even understand them a little bit deeper so that we can figure out how to answer some of the other questions in terms of what is right for you. Is that fair?

Bree Hunter 06:26
Excellent. Okay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:28
Cool. So along those lines then, you said it sounded like a lot of these when you read them do line up, are there any in particular that you find don't match up for one reason or another? I guess that's question number one.

Bree Hunter 06:46
No, I think they all line up. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:50
Okay, great. What about then, out of these five that you have on this list, are there any that resonate with you more so than the others?

Bree Hunter 07:00
I would say, Learner, Restorative and Individualization.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:10
Okay, so tell me about each one of those. Let's start with Individualization. So what about that really feels like, yeah, this is clearly high resonated or high priority.

Bree Hunter 07:25
Okay. It resonates because in my job, I manage a team of people. And I really enjoy leading people and I like resolving conflicts, I like carrying people together, that you might not think through each other, but I can see they've got particular strengths or weaknesses that counterbalance one another. And a lot of that comes from my own experience working in small teams. What else? I think everyone's unique. I enjoy learning from other people's experiences, and learning from that. And at the same time, I really enjoy having responsibility that I sort of have control for the end product and making sure that things are completed.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:18
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Those are all... those things, particularly, I think that everyone is unique. Those are things that somebody who can't help but individualize would say, that's very individualistic of you, Bree.

Bree Hunter 08:35
Okay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:36
So what about the other two? I want to just understand this a little bit more, and then I've got a few questions that I want to help take us a little bit deeper on these.

Bree Hunter 08:47
Okay, as far as the Learner, I'm just sort of skimming what it says makes you stand out. I love learning, but as it's in there, which I thought was interesting, I actually enjoy the process of learning. Like, I might not retain all the information, but I love the activity of it. And particular things I'm interested in, like for the last probably 18 months I've really been interested in leadership and management, and learning tools and ways to grow in that space. But I particularly like to learn about myself and how to improve myself and then helping other people improve themselves as well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:28
Where have you seen that, really, what's an example of where you've seen that really recently that like, "if only I could do more of that"?

Bree Hunter 09:38
Funny because I've also been listening to a video coaching series. I find my favorite part of the day is not busy working, getting things done, but it's the interactions that I have with people. And I can easily stop and spend a fair bit of time just learning about them and learning from them and seeing where they're at. So somewhat taking conversations off track of work, and really finding more about who they are and learning from their experiences, and also asking them sort of questions that might point out things that they hadn't thought of before I realized. And it's a shame that I can't. I'm very aware and trying to be time efficient with what I do. So I only have so much time that I can take out to have those conversations.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:30
That's super interesting then. One that you have already recognized that. But two, by the way, I totally forgot for a minute that we've emailed the back and forth that during the career coach series and now I recall that, now that you said that, but I just remembered that we had...

Bree Hunter 10:46
That's okay. I don't expect you to remember.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:48
Well, it's kind of a weird thing. I remember people's names and email addresses a lot, because that's what I see the most. But I knew that we've interacted, and I remember that email exchanges, I just didn't remember what it was about, necessarily. But I think that one of the things that, as coaches, that we look for, just to give you a glimpse behind the scenes, we're looking for, where are the anomalies. And one of the places that we find anomalies a lot of the time is where are those places within your current work that you keep gravitating towards, but don't necessarily have enough time for and it feels like you're perpetually don't have enough time for. So that's in my mind, as you say that, that's one of the things I hone in on and want to know more because that is likely where we're finding those anomalies, you know, from the, as I'm explaining what I'm doing for coaching, I guess, at the same time here. So tell me more about that then, where do you find out of those types of interactions, that you are adding value to someone else's world too. Where you're getting either feedback, or thank you, sort of things like that with those types of interactions, where you get to learn about them and ask them questions, as you said, but you're sort of taking conversations off track, and it's not a normal part of your job, per se.

Bree Hunter 12:09
I guess, sort of more the coaching style, talked a lot about in management courses these days.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:16
Sure.

Bree Hunter 12:17
Pulling more information out and asking them like, you're doing to me, the questions that they might have in the back of their mind, but haven't had to answer before, and helping clarify things for them. And I don't get to, like I often deal with members of the public, and so I don't always get to do that with them, because I might be trying to negotiate a particular issue or something that they're not happy with. So I often use this strength of mine to build a rapport with them quickly, to let them know that I understand their issues. And I also realized that often people just want to voice their opinion, get something off their chest. So I guess I sort of use coaching techniques in that space...

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:01
Give me an example of that. Because it sounds like you're thinking a few different times. What's a recent example where you've done that?

Bree Hunter 13:08
I manage fire in reserves and managing and mitigating fire, which is in the urban interface. So often we're cutting down trees, or slashing vegetation, next to people's houses. So they get upset. So I go out and say, you know, this is what's happening. And we have to... they might be planting trees on council land, and we need to remove them. So giving them you know, I mentioned how long have you lived here, sort of getting a picture of their connection to the property, then explaining the changes in our policy and why now all of a sudden, we have to remove the vegetation, saying that, you know, I completely understand if I was... if this was happening next to my home. But then coming back to the facts of why it's really important that we need to do this. So I guess a bit of education, which often the public are aware of, you know, the facts as to why we're doing particular things. And I guess just coming to an agreement and getting them to see my point of view, as well as the land manager. And, you know, there's liability issues. And it's concerning for us. And I'm faced to deal with this situation. I don't want to have to do it, but it's for their own safety.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:27
So this is super interesting, that one set of examples, use it every single one of the strength themes. So if we break this apart for just a second here, and we look at that example where you've got to go talk to, it sounds like you know a property owner or somebody who is, you know, utilizing a piece of property or whatever else it is, and you know, they're planting trees or whatever else is going on, you having that conversation. First of all, you're asking the types of questions other people don't ask. And I think that partially it comes from your desire to learn. But I think that also comes from maybe even moreso your tendency to want to individualize and really understand kind of the uniqueness. And then what has a tendency to happen is, it sounds like you are leveraging that information that you accumulate through your desire to learn and your tendency to individualize. And then you also have this desire in some ways, or you can't help but do it, even if desire is the wrong word, to have a higher degree of ability to bring things back together for harmony. And interestingly enough, like I can, probably anybody can tell within 10 minutes of talking to you that you're generally a positive person. So I can see a lot of the positivity pieces, we call the positivity and a few other strengths, we call them umbrella strengths, because they have a tendency to just sort of go over the top of whatever else that you're doing, and you can't... it has a tendency to be difficult to separate it out. Whether you want to or not, it's just going to kind of be there working, amplifying other things in the background. But does that make sense how that one example that you gave me really is actually pulling from all five of these different areas, it's not really just any one or two of these?

Bree Hunter 16:26
Oh, yeah, no, that's really interesting. It was good to go through that exercise.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:31
Have you ever thought about it in that way before?

Bree Hunter 16:34
No, I haven't. And that really makes it quite clear now, that's great.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:40
What is clear to you now versus before?

Bree Hunter 16:44
I guess, stepping through the process that I have when I speak to landowners about these issues. And again, giving it that framework, which I often have trouble articulating, the highlights, each one of those steps picks up one of those strengths. And so I'm really just stepping through those strengths and bringing it all together at the end to create a positive, harmonious outcome.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:12
What is... what you'll find, or at least I think you'll find based on my experience in working with other people that have similar strengths to yours, or this type of strengths combination, is that you'll probably flourish in areas where you get to be proactive, versus reactive. And here's what I mean by that. And there's a couple other words we could use to describe it maybe even better. When you are faced with a continuous sort of problems that are coming from a negative standpoint, and that's... if that's all you're doing all day, that's gonna feel really, really draining on you, because both your restorative nature and your harmony nature, going to want to pull it back to harmony or want to restore those situations. And if that's what you're doing all day long, where you are perpetually out of harmony, then that is going to... it's going to feel really, really like it takes a lot of energy. And it's going to feel very, very well, I think draining is the right word.

Bree Hunter 18:21
I think that explains it perfectly. And that's why I struggle in my current role, because it's all very reactive and it is draining. I don't get that time to be strategic or positive, pushing things forward in a positive light. And I think that's what I really enjoyed about the role I'm interviewing for, is I was so energized by you know, I'm planning something positive for the community to utilize in the future. And that was really energizing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:51
Yeah. So I think, just to give you a little bit of validation that the more that you can align yourself with those types of roles, and organizations that are putting you in that more proactive standpoint, where you get to proactive and productive standpoint, or you get to work more on, hey, this is already good. But we need to make this even better or we need to take the situation, which is generally more on the positive side. And we need to move this agenda forward. Those are going to be better fit, better alignment for what you need and better play to your strengths. So I think one thing that if you haven't already, you know, got it written down someplace capturing that you definitely need to be on more of the proactive side, or the more positive making it better side is going to be something that is a must within your next role. If you don't get to spend the majority of your time there, it's going to be... it's going to feel like it does now or worse.

Bree Hunter 19:52
Yeah, now that's a really good point. And that's what surprised me about the strength tests with the, I think it was Learner, I never had the confidence, I guess, or experience around strategic planning. And I thought it was something that, you know, I wasn't going to be very good at. But I think this is where that comes through. It's strategic being strategic is just focusing on those things to improve, which is often in my current role, I get frustrated, because I see all these things there that I want to improve. And but I just don't get the time. It's not the focus of the job. And that for I often feel like I'm not achieving things, or I'm letting the team down because I'm not able to improve those things.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:36
Yes. So it feels almost like you're perpetually losing in some ways.

Bree Hunter 20:37
Yes. Even though others don't say that or think that, feedback. I really internalized that. Yeah. Cool.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:53
So I think that there's probably areas where we could dive much further, but I wanted to save a little bit of time. So we could talk about how to leverage some of these things in the interview, but I think that the more that you can ask yourself, those types of situations like in my past roles, where have I found those small tidbits that I am gravitating towards? Or where have I found the small tidbits of enjoyment, or the things that I'm particularly great at? And then break those apart and see which strengths are kind of coordinated with that, then you'll be get to get... you'll begin to get more answers about what really is going to be right for you within that next role too. Whether it's the one you're interviewing for or another one.

Bree Hunter 21:37
Okay. Yeah, that's good advice.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:40
So when you think of interviewing then, to shift gears on now, when you find you're having the most struggle in thinking about this idea of communicating your strengths, or getting across your strengths in interview, and what is... helped me understand the desire there first.

Bree Hunter 21:59
I don't know if they'll actually or they're not likely to ask the question of, what do you feel your strengths are. Because the company base questions to I've got to be really conscious of knowing my strengths and throwing them into examples that I answer in the interview. So if it's problem solving question, then talking them through the example. But being conscious of where you particularly highlight and say, because one of my strengths is such and such and such, I'm clearly, I have a ability to do this very well. And this is where that came through. I guess it's more in relation to that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:43
I have a couple... if that's the case, then I have a couple ideas for you, in terms of things that I can teach you fairly quickly, that might be really useful to you immediately, this afternoon. To give you a little bit of context, typically, when we're teaching things for interviewing, and something that has lots of different variables, usually we're taking like four hours to teach that like, for example, in career change bootcamp, or going through and doing much more prep or anything else. But let me see if I can break this down into a way that can be useful to you immediately. One of the things that I find is that when you communicate, that I enjoy, or I love something, people automatically assume that you are good at it. That's our tendency and a bit of our human nature. So they don't necessarily always think about it in those terms. But that's the association they get along with it or the feeling that they get as well. They don't necessarily in their brain say, "Well, she loves that. So she must be good at that." That's not how the self talk works necessarily. But that is one of the things that we find over lots of years of testing this stuff out, and knowing some of the psychology behind it, too. So knowing that, you can leverage that immediately in your next interview. So if they ask, you know, what... you were talking about, like a problem solving question, right? So what... you probably know a little bit about since you work there, too, like with the types of questions, is that going to be like a behavioral style question, where they say, "Tell me about a time when you had to solve a problem." Or are they going to say, "Hey, if you have to solve this problem, what are you going to do in this situation?" Which do you think more of those might show up?

Bree Hunter 24:36
The behaviorial. Yeah, so you give an example and talk yourself through the task scenario.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:42
Okay, perfect. So if that's the case, and they say, "Hey, tell me about a time where you had to solve a problem that popped up on short notice and you were successful with it at the end?" So just that type of question. So instead of saying, "One of my strengths is problem solving." A different way that you can go about that is be able to say, "Well, let me tell you about the time in my last role, where I had this particular problem. And I gotta tell you that one of my favorite things about this piece of my previous role was, A B and C. In this case, it might be, you know, getting to interact with people in a way that I got to understand their problem. And I got to understand really what they need, and then pieced together a solution that was really individualized to them. And I found that every single time I got the opportunity to do that, they were actually pretty happy. Like it, we went from a situation where they were, quite frankly, not excited at the beginning." And you'll want to use specific, you know, specific times or specific examples, you know, "I was talking to Bob, about the tree. And Bob was telling me that, you know, really, after I asked the question, like, hey, what... how long have you lived here? When did you plant the tree? And he was telling me all have this situation. And I learned that Bob didn't realize that he couldn't plant the tree there. And if I would have..." I'm just making this up on the fly. "But if I would have gone down the road a little bit further, and just started telling Bob that he would not, like that he can't plant the tree there, without asking all of this to try and understand, then it would have been a terrible situation. And quite frankly, Bob was already irritated that I probably would have made him further irritated. But I love that opportunity to be able to understand what's important to people and where they're coming from. And every single time I look at that as an opportunity to be able to learn more about them and then figure out how we can get what we both need. And after I asked Bob, what that was, you know, we were able to talk about it, and we figured out a solution. And he was actually going to move the tree back five feet. And that worked out really, really well in the end. But I find, every time I get the opportunity to have those types of interactions with people, and take a situation that would otherwise be bad, and really recognize where they're coming from, that those are the things that I do very, very well, but also they're the times where I enjoy it the most. So one of the reasons that I'm excited about this particular role is because I perceived that I get to do more of that."

Bree Hunter 27:34
Okay, right.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:36
Does that make sense in terms of good example for how to go through that, but then you relate it to the needs of the other role. And then you also relate it to your particular strengths. Not saying that these are my strengths, but these are the things that I enjoy the most. And here's how I'm actually using them.

Bree Hunter 27:54
Yep. Now, that was really good. And I was actually able to, while you were speaking, think about how I actually using my strengths. I find the... where the needs of landowners and the council pros and finally compromise that suits us both. I think I'll leverage that. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:19
That is. That is fantastic. So that's one very easily transferable way to talk about your strengths and give people the impression of what your strengths are, but also, at the same time, being able to relate it into their world, because you're like literally showing them like, "Hey, here's the element that I perceive is going to be helpful to you." And putting that as a portion of your answer too. So that you're spelling it out for them. But at the same time, you're not tooting your own horn in a way that feels false.

Bree Hunter 28:52
Yep. Good advice, Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:54
Well, I'm glad that it is helpful. How else can I be helpful to you?

Bree Hunter 29:00
I guess how... I feel we sort of touched on a little bit. Yeah, in my current role, I feel like I've been battling with just trying to improve my weaknesses. And I guess that's what I found really awakening with doing the StrengthsFinder is, no, these are actually strengths, which can be perceived as weaknesses in your current role. And I guess that's where, you know, that's your whole thing is that your values or your strengths don't align with what you're doing. But how do you balance using and harnessing your strengths? But also, you've got weaknesses and you're going to have to utilize your weaknesses, time to time like, how much do you focus on improving those weaknesses?

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:47
There's a couple of different lenses that we look at this through. So in our career change bootcamp program, one of the things that we teach pretty extensively is the concept of the shadow side to your strengths, or we call them "anti strengths." So that is not your weaknesses so much, but negative things that are caused by your strengths. So just really quick example of that, like a really basic example, like I am ridiculously future focused, very futuristic like that as a thing that I cannot help. One of the things that, that has a tendency to be a huge challenge with, is anytime I need to focus on like small details in the past, like I just, I cannot comprehend, I cannot use them. I also am very much of a big picture thinker to go right along with that, and I may... I see the forest, not the trees. So, I guess, tons and tons of details. So, as you might imagine, that gets really, really hairy in a lot of different areas. And, you know, things like reviewing contracts, when they used to work in HR, or reviewing policies and stuff like that. I got... at one point, put one of our organizations I worked with, into probably a potentially big liability situation, because I just don't even see that stuff, but I was responsible for it. So we have a tendency to look at it in terms of, what is the shadow side to your strengths. And one side of that is, how can you better align what you're doing and spending more your time on with you getting to operate inside of your strengths? Partially because it just feels a lot different and it feels better. And quite frankly, I think it's a better way to live. And there's just, doesn't solve all your problems. But it does feel differently in terms of even if you are challenged, like the stress feels different than... you know, stress feels different when you're working with your strengths compared to stress, when you are not consistently working with your strengths. So there's that side of it. But then there's the other side, where it just allows you to often be more successful within a given role. Because nobody is good at everything. So if you can align more of those pieces with those things that you're going to be more gifted at because of your strength, then it just gets a lot easier in some ways. Even if you're in a challenging role, so there's that alignment side. But then the other side is the skill side. So even if you do a lot of great work, finding an, you know, role and organization and all of those things that are very aligned with what you want, and your strengths, then there is still the skill side, the skill development side of other things that you might need. A really common version of that is being able to advocate for yourself or ask for what you want, within a work environment like that, that isn't related to strengths necessarily. I mean, it can be in some ways, but for the most part, like that's a skill that people can develop over time. But it directly impacts how you get to spend your time. You know, if I... in my latter career, when I used to work for other companies besides my own, I was much much better at saying, "Hey, I'm really interested in these particular projects, I think that these would be a great fit, here's why thousands of organization will benefit from them, here's I think I will benefit from them. And I would like to spend more of my time working on these projects." And then routinely having them say, "Yes" versus at the beginning of my career, and saying, "Hey, I think it'd be cool if I did this kinda, sort of..." and that felt really awkward. So you get the skill development side. But to answer your question directly, I think that the more time you can spend actually trying to align yourself with your strengths and trying to spend more of your time there, we find that that is going to take you further faster for nearly any goal that you have inside or outside of your career, whether it is other areas of life, whatever else, is just going to get you further faster. And we've got a lot of data and evidence to support that versus spending really any kind of time at all, focusing on bringing up your weaknesses. Unless it is to figure out how you're going to given some thought for how you're going to balance that out, in one way or another. Maybe that is... I'm great at this on the team. And there's this other person that is great at the other thing, so maybe we can share some of the workload or giving something of that kind of strategic thought or, in my case, I mean, I do a lot of that on our own individual team. Because quite frankly, I'm bad at a lot of things based on my strengths and that's okay. But that type of strategic thought is useful around that versus me spending tons and tons and tons of time focused on things that I will probably never be good at. And I don't want to confuse that the skills. So strengths are different than skills.

Bree Hunter 35:01
I guess that's what I've been utilizing in my own team probably the last 12 months is, you're recognizing what I'm not as good at which others are. And doing that same thing, delegating those tasks to those people who enjoy doing those things more, and they're better at it, which gives you time to focus more on the other things. And I guess one thing about this job I'm interviewing for to be a real shift, because I won't be managing a team, I'll only be working on my own projects, but again, pulling those other people in as experts to help. That might require me to utilize some of those shadows strikes a bit more, because I'm relying on myself to get it done.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:48
Yeah, I see what you mean. So prior to, again, I think that's a great... the interview is a great opportunity to find out more about that. And maybe it turns out, it's really not a good fit. And that's okay, there's nothing wrong with that. But I think if I'm in your situation, I'd rather know, before accepting it versus after accepting it. But I think that it's a great opportunity to sense you know some of those things about yourself to ask for the areas that are of the highest priority for you. And ask and that try and understand at a deeper level, versus a lot of interviews, if you don't ask, then it's going to gloss over it, because they don't necessarily know what's important to you.

Bree Hunter 36:32
Yeah. Okay. As far as just quickly, you know, thinking of other career options, which in line with my strengths, would something like, you know, because I'm interested in leadership and management skills and things, that kind of thing, or maybe HR would be interesting, or would not just be more the same kind of busy work or policy, trying to improve policy or develop policy. Do you think that would align with these particular strengths from what you've seen from yourself or from others?

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:05
I think situations in which you get to create an individualized experience for people, you're going to find those to be in a lot of situations more gratifying. Because it'll pull on some different pieces of your strengths. There's a lot of different types and ways that that could look not necessarily just one industry, but ranging from, on one extreme, that could be like user experience design for different types of software, something on another extreme, that could be like, developing live events for people. And then still another area, that could be like designing, training and learning programs for a particular organization or working internally, a lot of times it gets lumped into HR, but a lot of organizations call it like learning and development. They have a couple other names for it, too. But there's some quick areas where that could be a fit. There's also going to be some other variables in there in terms of, is it the type of organization that supports the type of learning that you have got the desire for? And does the individualization really actually matter to the firm, is that one thing that's valuable to them, as well, and not just to you, we don't want to make sure that there's not, an out of alignment piece there, too. And that really the same types of things that are valuable to them are those that they're going to reward you for, because when you have that be a fit, then it feels much better too and then you truly get to leverage some of those strengths versus being face value or should matter.

Bree Hunter 38:41
Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:43
So that's some really super quick ideas. But then, beyond that too, again, those situations where you get to focus on improving a situation, or moving something that's already good and making it better, I would say that you're probably going to find that you have, unless you are acting as a consultant type role, then if you have lots and lots of executables, or tasks that are all supposed to be delivered by you versus with a team, depending on what they are, you may find that draining as well, because all your strengths are people focused, as opposed to like task or work focused. Does that make sense?

Bree Hunter 39:35
Yeah, it does. And I guess this job I'm going for, it's about improving things for the community. And I would just have to accept that it's not for particular individuals, and you're not going to make everyone happy in the community. So some people might not like what you're doing, and whether I'd be comfortable with that or that just frustrate me long term.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:59
Yeah, there'll be interesting, I definitely would say good opportunity for you to learn more about that and maybe even go out and talk to some of the community prior to, if they offer you the role. Or if you decide to even run the role or whatever, like, do that as a little bit of an experiment and try and feel out whether that is something that's empowering to you or frustrating to you about some of the issues that you would actually be working on. And that would be a good way to kind of validate that, "Hey, is this going to be a, lift me up type of thing or drag me down type of thing?"

Bree Hunter 40:32
Yeah. Cool. Now, that's really helpful. And even if it's just a stepping stone in a different job to develop other skills, or learn new skills to your time or something, take those skills and the whole package and try something else or might lead to something else more fulfilling.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:52
Yeah, absolutely. Was that helpful?

Bree Hunter 40:57
That was... All of the Americans word, "Awesome."

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:59
That's awesome.

Bree Hunter 41:02
That was awesome.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:05
All right. Fantastic. I'm glad it was awesome. And did we hit on all the areas that you wanted?

Bree Hunter 41:11
Yeah. Now, we certainly did. I know, I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to hit. But, know that was great. That was very helpful. So thank you, Scott. I appreciate your time and your busy schedule.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:24
Absolutely. My pleasure. If there's any other way that we can help support you, then don't hesitate to let us know. And let me know what happens through this interview. I'm interested to find out, keep me posted.

Bree Hunter 41:36
Okay. I will. Thank you, Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:38
Alright.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:39
Yeah, I hope that gives you an idea of just how powerful these concepts can be, and how we can actually utilize a deeper understanding of your strengths, and what we call "Signature Strengths'', and actually begin putting them to work for us. And not just one area, but multiple areas of our life, the more that you can spend time working with your strengths rather than against it, the more that you're going to find that, you just have a higher quality of life all the way around. And even when you're working in things that are challenging for you, it's still going to allow it to feel completely differently. Okay, so, but it gets even better than what you just heard, because afterwards, I want you to understand what happened. Guess what, Bree sent me an email very, very shortly afterwards, and said, "Hey, Scott, I wanted you to know what came out of our last recent session here." And she'd said that, well, she got the job. Woohoo! She'd been offered the job. And not only that, but in this particular case, obviously, we recorded this session. And she had a copy of this session. And one of the things that she said that was really powerful for herself is that she'd had this fairly limiting belief. She said, "You see, I've actually never heard myself speak before. And I always believed that I wasn't able to articulate my thoughts very well. And I was pleasantly surprised to hear that I sounded way better than I expected. And this has helped me feel much more confident when speaking to my team and my other colleagues." And then she goes on to say, "Thank you." So this is far, far ranging. Really a deep understanding of your strengths and how it connects back to your reality can completely change not just your career, not just opportunities that are coming your way or that you're taking advantage of, but your entire lens that you look at life through. I hope this was really helpful to you. And if you want to hear more like this, let us know what you thought of the episode you can email, hello@happentoyourcareer.com and share any feedback or like I said, if you want to hear more episodes like this, we'd love to hear from you. Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you next week.

Speaker 2 44:03
I am a self proclaimed you know, multipotentialite. I have many interests, many ideas, many things I want to do and there was so much going on in my head and I didn't know how to navigate sort or kind of figure out what I want to do next.

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:20
All that and plenty more next week right here on Happen To Your Career. Make sure that you don't miss it. And if you haven't already, click Subscribe on your podcast player so that you can download this podcast in your sleep. And you get it automatically. Even the bonus episodes every single week, sometimes multiple times a week. Until, next week. Adios. I'm out.

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3 Creative and Strategic Ways to Show Your Strengths to Interviewers

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Everywhere you look these days, you can find articles sharing why focusing on your strengths is more valuable than improving your weaknesses. Using your signature strengths in your role means you can be energized instead of drained, engaged instead of bored, and successful instead of struggling.

When it comes down to it, working in your strengths can completely transform your work day, your career, and your entire life!

But once you recognize this fact and identify your unique strengths, you may hit a roadblock. How do you actually land a career that allows you to utilize the strengths that will make you happy and help you flourish?

“I’M THE PERFECT FIT FOR THIS JOB!”

I remember the days before I started Happen To Your Career when I’d look through job postings for new opportunities. Every once in a while, I’d stumble across a description that left me internally exclaiming:

“They need me! It’s like they wrote this description based on my exact desires and strengths! I’m a shoe-in!”

Can you relate? Maybe you’ve had one or many moments where you felt as though you were the PERFECT fit for a job opening. But then there’s a problem…how do you get the employer to see you’re the perfect fit? What do you say and do to show that you are the answer to their needs?

Being the perfect fit and helping an interviewer perceive you as the perfect fit are two very different things. Many interviewers won’t directly ask you to list your strengths and even if they do, your answer may not stand out from everyone else’s. Before your next interview, you must figure out your strategy for showing potential employers who you are and how your strengths will bring value to the organization.

SERVE UP YOUR STRENGTHS ON A SILVER PLATTER

Whether you hop on the phone for a quick HR screening or sit down face-to-face with your potential boss, you want to finish every interview knowing you’ve communicated why you are a good fit for the role. (Side note: If you don’t believe you are a good fit—meaning your signature strengths don’t align with the company and role—you probably won’t be happy even if you get the offer!) Helping an interviewer perceive you as a good fit involves revealing and reinforcing your signature strengths throughout your time together. This can be accomplished through three main tactics:

1. SAY WHAT YOU LOVE

Have you ever noticed that when you say you love doing something, people assume you are good at that thing?

For instance, if someone says they love to ice skate, it’s a natural tendency to assume they are gifted at ice skating. You don’t picture someone who loves ice skating flailing their arms about until they bust their ass on the cold ice. No, you picture someone gliding smoothly along the surface, balanced and experienced.

It’s the same thing with strengths. If you say, “I love to connect with customers in a way that allows me to identify issues and create custom solutions,” your interviewer will automatically believe you are gifted at that particular skill. Unintentionally and subconsciously, they will assign positive traits associated with problem-solving and communication to you.

 2. SHARE YOUR STORY

Don’t stop with saying what you love or hammering off a bulleted list of your strengths. Instead, prepare to share a story that reinforces each strength. You can identify and practice telling these stories to your friend or spouse before you begin your interviews to make sure you are clearly articulating your abilities through your story.

For example, using the strength identified above, you might say, “Let me tell you about a time I developed a creative solution that transformed an angry customer into one of our biggest fans. The angry customer, Bill, had requested customizations to his sales platform and the web team failed to notify him that customizations take up to six months for completion. I called Bill, asked him to explain his business to me, and discussed the why behind his specific needs. As Bill talked, I realized his business needs were parallel with a client we had partnered with the previous spring. Bill’s requests were different, but his purpose was the same. I explained to Bill that his requests would take more time to build, but if he was okay with utilizing a previously built interface, we could refund his customization fee and copy over the code and update his platform to work how he needed within one week. Bill was thrilled! After the changes were complete, he posted on social media that he’d be one of our customers for life. The solution I created not only removed his anger but made him one of our best and most loyal customers.”

This story helps your interviewers see your strengths in action, and they are more likely to remember an anecdote than a simple claim about what you can do.

3. STEP INTO YOUR NEW CONTEXT

Once you’ve shared what you love to do and shown how you’ve used your strengths in the past, paint a picture of your strengths at work in your potential new company. This will move your interviewers from just admiring your strengths to actually imagining you in the role.

Let’s say you’re interviewing for a role as a process improvement specialist for a medical center. Sticking with the story from above, here’s what this step might look like:

“In the same way that I effectively communicated and created a unique solution that transformed Bill from an upset customer to our biggest fan, I could quickly build rapport with the nurses, doctors, and administrators. I know you mentioned it can be difficult to get cooperation from these people, so I would use the same strengths that I used to help Bill see he could trust me. Once they began to share the issues they encountered on a daily basis, I could develop budget-friendly alternatives that cut non-value-added measures and capitalize on current resources. Viewing the medical team as my customer, I would solve specific problems in a way that meets business goals and leaves the direct care team happy.”

Preparing these answers before your interview gives you more control over your interviewers’ perception of who you are. Once you’ve defined what you love to do, shared your story of utilizing your strengths, and painted a picture of how you fit into their specific context, it will be almost impossible for them to forget you.

On our latest podcast episode, we share a live coaching call with Bree Hunter, an Aussie looking to move from her reactive and draining job to one that values her proactive, future-oriented strengths. Our call will give you an idea of what it’s like to work with one of our career coaches, plus give you a greater understanding of how to show your strengths and what to do with your weaknesses. Click the play button below to listen now!

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Bree Hunter 00:03
And I think that's what I really enjoyed about the role I'm interview for, is I was so energized by it, you know, I'm planning something positive for the community to utilize in the future. And that was really the interesting.

Introduction 00:20
This is the Happen To Your Career podcast, with Scott Anthony Barlow. We help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what does and make it happen. We help you define the work that's unapologetically you, and then go get it. If you're ready to make a change, keep listening. Here's Scott. Here's Scott. Here's Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:44
Every single week, we get a subtle really similar question again and again, and one of those questions in particular is, how do I use my strengths to get hired? Well, it turns out that this isn't necessarily an easy answer and it’s an extended answer because it starts with, you have to really understand your strengths in depth. And we realize that many people all over the world, well, we think we understand our strengths and even as we have worked with people that are really highly self aware, we know that we can get much more granular, much deeper level to get nearly anybody better understanding of their strengths. And when we do that, then that gives you some really powerful information to start with. But then more importantly than that is, when you understand how to apply your strengths that can completely change the world in a lot of different way, starting with more confidence in you know one or more particular areas and ranging to feeling of higher happiness, because we know from some really great work that Gallup has done and several other organizations that, when you spend even as little as one to two more hours per day with working or spending time utilizing your strengths, then that is associated with things like higher productivity, higher feeling of happiness and many other really great things. But that's not what this is all about. What this is about is to be able to really understand how to utilize your strength to get hired. We first have to understand your strengths, only then, can we start applying it to whatever it is that you want to accomplish. So we had been experimenting with how do we actually help people understand the power of this for quite a while and we were entirely sure to be quite frank with you and then we realized well, let's show them. Let them listen to a conversation where someone is actually discovering their strengths and they go and put those to use immediately. So that's what we're going to do. In fact, you're going to get to be a fly on the wall. In actual coaching conversation, and this is with Bree Hunter. Bree Hunter, lives in Tasmania, Australia, and she had been in a role that was pretty great role but no longer really fit in what she wanted and especially going forward in the future. And it was really trying to understand how she's leverage for strengths and understand her strengths in a way to make sure that she's going after what she really wants and feels more happy more often and through this conversation, I want you to pay attention to it and listen to how we get to a much deeper level and then as it goes on, listen for how we actually utilize that in a way that she can benefit from it immediately, starting with some interviews, that she has coming up. Okay. There's so much built into this one single conversation and I want you to take a listen so watch for all those pieces and so much more, here's my conversation and coaching session you could get to fly on the wall with Bree.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:22
Bree it’s Scott from Happen To Your Career. How are you doing?

Bree Hunter 04:25
Hi Scott, how are you?

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:28
I am doing a really, really well. It's been a good couple of months actually. How's it going on your...

Bree Hunter 04:35
Oh, that excites. Pretty good. Got a job interview later today.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:41
I saw that.

Bree Hunter 04:41
Yeah, and just the last several months really been doing a bit of soul searching and came across your website and your podcasts. And that's been really helpful amongst a few other tools I've pulled together. So yeah, I really enjoyed the StrengthsFinder test. I found that really useful to sort of pull a few things together and things that you're kind of already feeling but haven't really been able to articulate or put into some sort of framework.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:11
Yeah. Very cool. And if I have this up here correctly, it looks like your strengths themes from StrengthsFinder where, Learner, Harmony, Restorative, Positivity and Individualization. Does that sound right?

Bree Hunter 05:26
That's right. Yep.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:27
Very cool. So then the other thing that I saw from the email that you sent a little bit earlier today, or let's see here, was that you're hoping to get a little bit better understanding of how you can actually leverage these. So now that you have the ability to articulate them a little bit differently, how do you actually use these things. And then it sounds like currently, you are... well, I mean, obviously, you got another job interview coming up here. But your past role or current role feels like it is not the right fit for several reasons. And you talked about workplace culture. And did you use the term busy work? Is that what it was?

Bree Hunter 06:10
I did. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:12
Okay.

Bree Hunter 06:14
Okay. So I've been in this role for two and a half years now. And before that I was still sort of connected to this role, and I loved it for a period of time. And it's just, I've changed and grown, I guess. So it's time to take on a new challenge. And I was acting in the role I'm applying for, although I'm interviewing for later today. And that's where I found it really energized me of the things that I was doing. And then having done the StrengthsFinder, it just backed up why those particular functions were energizing me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:52
What were some of those functions?

Bree Hunter 06:54
Working with the community. So it was project managing the planning phase of new projects, and I was working on new mountain bike tracks. So I got to do all the community consultation, and the planning around that. And I really enjoyed getting feedback from the community and advocating for what they wanted. And also, you know, within, I work for city council, pulling people together within council to get the project going, like I don't hold... claim to hold the expertise. I really rely on other people's expertise and getting the right people together to make something happen and just sort of facilitating that process.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:38
Okay. All right, that makes sense then. So, let me ask you a few questions then. And then I think I can help with a few of these things. First of all...

Bree Hunter 07:51
Okay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:51
Quick, just clarifying question, the role that you're interviewing for, is that in the same organization or is that a different organization?

Bree Hunter 07:59
It's the same organization. But it's, at the moment, I'm in operations at like a Depo sort of setting. And that role would be in the town office, away from operations.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:14
Okay, very good. So let's see if we can leave a little bit of time in terms of working up to how you talk about strengths and interview because it's different than how most people would think. Very often, they find that many of us perceive that we're going to need to talk about them extensively, and use like the right word, so that it perfectly matches up to our strengths and everything. And I find that there's much easier, much more organic ways to be able to leverage your strengths in your interview. So let's see if we can leave a few minutes to talk about that towards the end. And then in the meantime, let's see if we can get to the bottom of some of these strengths and even understand them a little bit deeper so that we can figure out how to answer some of the other questions in terms of what is right for you. Is that fair?

Bree Hunter 09:03
Excellent. Okay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:06
Cool. So along those lines then, you said it sounded like a lot of these when you read them do line up, are there any in particular that you find don't match up for one reason or another? I guess that's question number one.

Bree Hunter 09:23
No, I think they all line up. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:28
Okay, great. What about then, out of these five that you have on this list, are there any that resonate with you more so than the others?

Bree Hunter 09:38
I would say, Learner, Restorative and Individualization.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:48
Okay, so tell me about each one of those. Let's start with Individualization. So what about that really feels like, yeah, this is clearly high resonated or high priority.

Bree Hunter 10:03
Okay. It resonates because in my job, I manage a team of people. And I really enjoy leading people and I like resolving conflicts, I like carrying people together, that you might not think through each other, but I can see they've got particular strengths or weaknesses that counterbalance one another. And a lot of that comes from my own experience working in small teams. What else? I think everyone's unique. I enjoy learning from other people's experiences, and learning from that. And at the same time, I really enjoy having responsibility that I sort of have control for the end product and making sure that things are completed.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:56
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Those are all... those things, particularly, I think that everyone is unique. Those are things that somebody who can't help but individualize would say, that's very individualistic of you, Bree. So what about the other two? I want to just understand this a little bit more, and then I've got a few questions that I want to help take us a little bit deeper on these.

Bree Hunter 11:25
Okay, as far as the Learner, I'm just sort of skimming what it says makes you stand out. I love learning, but as it's in there, which I thought was interesting, I actually enjoy the process of learning. Like, I might not retain all the information, but I love the activity of it. And particular things I'm interested in, like for the last probably 18 months I've really been interested in leadership and management, and learning tools and ways to grow in that space. But I particularly like to learn about myself and how to improve myself and then helping other people improve themselves as well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:06
Where have you seen that, really, what's an example of where you've seen that really recently that like, "if only I could do more of that"?

Bree Hunter 12:16
Funny because I've also been listening to a video coaching series. I find my favorite part of the day is not busy working, getting things done, but it's the interactions that I have with people. And I can easily stop and spend a fair bit of time just learning about them and learning from them and seeing where they're at. So somewhat taking conversations off track of work, and really finding more about who they are and learning from their experiences, and also asking them sort of questions that might point out things that they hadn't thought of before I realized. And it's a shame that I can't. I'm very aware and trying to be time efficient with what I do. So I only have so much time that I can take out to have those conversations.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:07
That's super interesting then. One that you have already recognized that. But two, by the way, I totally forgot for a minute that we've emailed the back and forth that during the career coach series and now I recall that, now that you said that, but I just remembered that we had...

Bree Hunter 13:23
That's okay. I don't expect you to remember.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:26
Well, it's kind of a weird thing. I remember people's names and email addresses a lot, because that's what I see the most. But I knew that we've interacted, and I remember that email exchanges, I just didn't remember what it was about, necessarily. But I think that one of the things that, as coaches, that we look for, just to give you a glimpse behind the scenes, we're looking for, where are the anomalies. And one of the places that we find anomalies a lot of the time is where are those places within your current work that you keep gravitating towards, but don't necessarily have enough time for and it feels like you're perpetually don't have enough time for. So that's in my mind, as you say that, that's one of the things I hone in on and want to know more because that is likely where we're finding those anomalies, you know, from the, as I'm explaining what I'm doing for coaching, I guess, at the same time here. So tell me more about that then, where do you find out of those types of interactions, that you are adding value to someone else's world too. Where you're getting either feedback, or thank you, sort of things like that with those types of interactions, where you get to learn about them and ask them questions, as you said, but you're sort of taking conversations off track, and it's not a normal part of your job, per se.

Bree Hunter 14:46
I guess, sort of more the coaching style, talked a lot about in management courses these days.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:54
Sure.

Bree Hunter 14:54
Pulling more information out and asking them like, you're doing to me, the questions that they might have in the back of their mind, but haven't had to answer before, and helping clarify things for them. And I don't get to, like I often deal with members of the public, and so I don't always get to do that with them, because I might be trying to negotiate a particular issue or something that they're not happy with. So I often use this strength of mine to build a rapport with them quickly, to let them know that I understand their issues. And I also realized that often people just want to voice their opinion, get something off their chest. So I guess I sort of use coaching techniques in that space...

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:38
Give me an example of that. Because it sounds like you're thinking a few different times. What's a recent example where you've done that?

Bree Hunter 15:45
I manage fire in reserves and managing and mitigating fire, which is in the urban interface. So often we're cutting down trees, or slashing vegetation, next to people's houses. So they get upset. So I go out and say, you know, this is what's happening. And we have to... they might be planting trees on council land, and we need to remove them. So giving them you know, I mentioned how long have you lived here, sort of getting a picture of their connection to the property, then explaining the changes in our policy and why now all of a sudden, we have to remove the vegetation, saying that, you know, I completely understand if I was... if this was happening next to my home. But then coming back to the facts of why it's really important that we need to do this. So I guess a bit of education, which often the public are aware of, you know, the facts as to why we're doing particular things. And I guess just coming to an agreement and getting them to see my point of view, as well as the land manager. And, you know, there's liability issues. And it's concerning for us. And I'm faced to deal with this situation. I don't want to have to do it, but it's for their own safety.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:04
So this is super interesting, that one set of examples, use it every single one of the strength themes. So if we break this apart for just a second here, and we look at that example where you've got to go talk to, it sounds like you know a property owner or somebody who is, you know, utilizing a piece of property or whatever else it is, and you know, they're planting trees or whatever else is going on, you having that conversation. First of all, you're asking the types of questions other people don't ask. And I think that partially it comes from your desire to learn. But I think that also comes from maybe even moreso your tendency to want to individualize and really understand kind of the uniqueness. And then what has a tendency to happen is, it sounds like you are leveraging that information that you accumulate through your desire to learn and your tendency to individualize. And then you also have this desire in some ways, or you can't help but do it, even if desire is the wrong word, to have a higher degree of ability to bring things back together for harmony. And interestingly enough, like I can, probably anybody can tell within 10 minutes of talking to you that you're generally a positive person. So I can see a lot of the positivity pieces, we call the positivity and a few other strengths, we call them umbrella strengths, because they have a tendency to just sort of go over the top of whatever else that you're doing, and you can't... it has a tendency to be difficult to separate it out. Whether you want to or not, it's just going to kind of be there working, amplifying other things in the background. But does that make sense how that one example that you gave me really is actually pulling from all five of these different areas, it's not really just any one or two of these?

Bree Hunter 19:04
Oh, yeah, no, that's really interesting. It was good to go through that exercise.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:09
Have you ever thought about it in that way before?

Bree Hunter 19:12
No, I haven't. And that really makes it quite clear now, that's great.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:17
What is clear to you now versus before?

Bree Hunter 19:21
I guess, stepping through the process that I have when I speak to landowners about these issues. And again, giving it that framework, which I often have trouble articulating, the highlights, each one of those steps picks up one of those strengths. And so I'm really just stepping through those strengths and bringing it all together at the end to create a positive, harmonious outcome.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:50
What is... what you'll find, or at least I think you'll find based on my experience in working with other people that have similar strengths to yours, or this type of strengths combination, is that you'll probably flourish in areas where you get to be proactive, versus reactive. And here's what I mean by that. And there's a couple other words we could use to describe it maybe even better. When you are faced with a continuous sort of problems that are coming from a negative standpoint, and that's... if that's all you're doing all day, that's gonna feel really, really draining on you, because both your restorative nature and your harmony nature, going to want to pull it back to harmony or want to restore those situations. And if that's what you're doing all day long, where you are perpetually out of harmony, then that is going to... it's going to feel really, really like it takes a lot of energy. And it's going to feel very, very well, I think draining is the right word.

Bree Hunter 20:59
I think that explains it perfectly. And that's why I struggle in my current role, because it's all very reactive and it is draining. I don't get that time to be strategic or positive, pushing things forward in a positive light. And I think that's what I really enjoyed about the role I'm interviewing for, is I was so energized by you know, I'm planning something positive for the community to utilize in the future. And that was really energizing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:29
Yeah. So I think, just to give you a little bit of validation that the more that you can align yourself with those types of roles, and organizations that are putting you in that more proactive standpoint, where you get to proactive and productive standpoint, or you get to work more on, "Hey, this is already good. But we need to make this even better" or "We need to take the situation, which is generally more on the positive side. And we need to move this agenda forward." Those are going to be better fit, better alignment for what you need and better play to your strengths. So I think one thing that if you haven't already, you know, got it written down someplace capturing that you definitely need to be on more of the proactive side, or the more positive making it better side is going to be something that is a must within your next role. If you don't get to spend the majority of your time there, it's going to be... it's going to feel like it does now or worse.

Bree Hunter 22:30
Yeah, now that's a really good point. And that's what surprised me about the strength tests with the, I think it was Learner, I never had the confidence, I guess, or experience around strategic planning. And I thought it was something that, you know, I wasn't going to be very good at. But I think this is where that comes through. It's strategic being strategic is just focusing on those things to improve, which is often in my current role, I get frustrated, because I see all these things there that I want to improve. And but I just don't get the time. It's not the focus of the job. And that for I often feel like I'm not achieving things, or I'm letting the team down because I'm not able to improve those things.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:15
Yes. So it feels almost like you're perpetually losing in some ways.

Bree Hunter 23:21
Yes. Even though others don't say that or think that, feedback. I really internalized that. Yeah. Cool.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:31
So I think that there's probably areas where we could dive much further, but I wanted to save a little bit of time. So we could talk about how to leverage some of these things in the interview, but I think that the more that you can ask yourself, those types of situations like, in my past roles where have I found those small tidbits that I am gravitating towards? Or where have I found the small tidbits of enjoyment, or the things that I'm particularly great at? And then break those apart and see which strengths are kind of coordinated with that, then you'll be get to get... you'll begin to get more answers about what really is going to be right for you within that next role too. Whether it's the one you're interviewing for or another one.

Bree Hunter 24:15
Okay. Yeah, that's good advice.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:18
So when you think of interviewing then, to shift gears on now, when you find you're having the most struggle in thinking about this idea of communicating your strengths, or getting across your strengths in interview, and what is... helped me understand the desire there first.

Bree Hunter 24:36
I don't know if they'll actually or they're not likely to ask the question of, what do you feel your strengths are. Because the company base questions to I've got to be really conscious of knowing my strengths and throwing them into examples that I answer in the interview. So if it's problem solving question, then talking them through the example. But being conscious of where you particularly highlight and say, because one of my strengths is such and such and such, I'm clearly, I have a ability to do this very well. And this is where that came through. I guess it's more in relation to that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:20
I have a couple... if that's the case, then I have a couple ideas for you, in terms of things that I can teach you fairly quickly, that might be really useful to you immediately, this afternoon. To give you a little bit of context, typically, when we're teaching things for interviewing, and something that has lots of different variables, usually we're taking like four hours to teach that like, for example, in career change bootcamp, or going through and doing much more prep or anything else. But let me see if I can break this down into a way that can be useful to you immediately. One of the things that I find is that when you communicate, that I enjoy, or I love something, people automatically assume that you are good at it. That's our tendency and a bit of our human nature. So they don't necessarily always think about it in those terms. But that's the association they get along with it or the feeling that they get as well. They don't necessarily in their brain say, "Well, she loves that. So she must be good at that." That's not how the self talk works necessarily. But that is one of the things that we find over lots of years of testing this stuff out, and knowing some of the psychology behind it, too. So knowing that, you can leverage that immediately in your next interview. So if they ask, you know, what... you were talking about, like a problem solving question, right? So what... you probably know a little bit about since you work there, too, like with the types of questions, is that going to be like a behavioral style question, where they say, "Tell me about a time when you had to solve a problem." Or are they going to say, "Hey, if you have to solve this problem, what are you going to do in this situation?" Which do you think more of those might show up?

Bree Hunter 27:14
The behaviorial. Yeah, so you give an example and talk yourself through the task scenario.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:20
Okay, perfect. So if that's the case, and they say, "Hey, tell me about a time where you had to solve a problem that popped up on short notice and you were successful with it at the end?" So just that type of question. So instead of saying, "One of my strengths is problem solving." A different way that you can go about that is be able to say, "Well, let me tell you about the time in my last role, where I had this particular problem. And I gotta tell you that one of my favorite things about this piece of my previous role was, A B and C." In this case, it might be, you know, getting to interact with people in a way that I got to understand their problem. And I got to understand really what they need, and then pieced together a solution that was really individualized to them. And I found that every single time I got the opportunity to do that, they were actually pretty happy. Like it, we went from a situation where they were, quite frankly, not excited at the beginning." And you'll want to use specific, you know, specific times or specific examples, you know, "I was talking to Bob, about the tree. And Bob was telling me that, you know, really, after I asked the question, like, hey, what... how long have you lived here? When did you plant the tree? And he was telling me all have this situation. And I learned that Bob didn't realize that he couldn't plant the tree there. And if I would have..." I'm just making this up on the fly. "But if I would have gone down the road a little bit further, and just started telling Bob that he would not, like that he can't plant the tree there, without asking all of this to try and understand, then it would have been a terrible situation. And quite frankly, Bob was already irritated that I probably would have made him further irritated. But I love that opportunity to be able to understand what's important to people and where they're coming from. And every single time I look at that as an opportunity to be able to learn more about them and then figure out how we can get what we both need. And after I asked Bob, what that was, you know, we were able to talk about it, and we figured out a solution. And he was actually going to move the tree back five feet. And that worked out really, really well in the end. But I find, every time I get the opportunity to have those types of interactions with people, and take a situation that would otherwise be bad, and really recognize where they're coming from, that those are the things that I do very, very well, but also they're the times where I enjoy it the most. So one of the reasons that I'm excited about this particular role is because I perceived that I get to do more of that." Does that make sense in terms of good example for how to go through that, but then you relate it to the needs of the other role. And then you also relate it to your particular strengths. Not saying that these are my strengths, but these are the things that I enjoy the most. And here's how I'm actually using them.

Bree Hunter 30:32
Yep. Now, that was really good. And I was actually able to, while you were speaking, think about how I actually using my strengths. I find the... where the needs of landowners and the council pros and finally compromise that suits us both. I think I'll leverage that. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:56
That is, that is fantastic. So that's one very easily transferable way to talk about your strengths and give people the impression of what your strengths are, but also, at the same time, being able to relate it into their world, because you're like literally showing them like, "Hey, here's the element that I perceive is going to be helpful to you." And putting that as a portion of your answer too. So that you're spelling it out for them. But at the same time, you're not tooting your own horn in a way that feels false.

Bree Hunter 31:30
Yep. Good advice, Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:32
Well, I'm glad that it is helpful. How else can I be helpful to you?

Bree Hunter 31:38
I guess how... I feel we sort of touched on a little bit. Yeah, in my current role, I feel like I've been battling with just trying to improve my weaknesses. And I guess that's what I found really awakening with doing the StrengthsFinder is, no, these are actually strengths, which can be perceived as weaknesses in your current role. And I guess that's where, you know, that's your whole thing is that your values or your strengths don't align with what you're doing. But how do you balance using and harnessing your strengths? But also, you've got weaknesses and you're going to have to utilize your weaknesses, time to time like, how much do you focus on improving those weaknesses?

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:25
There's a couple of different lenses that we look at this through. So in our career change bootcamp program, one of the things that we teach pretty extensively is the concept of the shadow side to your strengths, or we call them "anti strengths." So that is not your weaknesses so much, but negative things that are caused by your strengths. So just really quick example of that, like a really basic example, like I am ridiculously future focused, very futuristic like that as a thing that I cannot help. One of the things that, that has a tendency to be a huge challenge with, is anytime I need to focus on like small details in the past, like I just, I cannot comprehend, I cannot use them. I also am very much of a big picture thinker to go right along with that, and I may... I see the forest, not the trees. So, I guess, tons and tons of details. So, as you might imagine, that gets really, really hairy in a lot of different areas. And, you know, things like reviewing contracts, when they used to work in HR, or reviewing policies and stuff like that. I got... at one point, put one of our organizations I worked with, into probably a potentially big liability situation, because I just don't even see that stuff, but I was responsible for it. So we have a tendency to look at it in terms of, what is the shadow side to your strengths. And one side of that is, how can you better align what you're doing and spending more your time on with you getting to operate inside of your strengths? Partially because it just feels a lot different and it feels better. And quite frankly, I think it's a better way to live. And there's just, doesn't solve all your problems. But it does feel differently in terms of even if you are challenged, like the stress feels different than... you know, stress feels different when you're working with your strengths compared to stress, when you are not consistently working with your strengths. So there's that side of it. But then there's the other side, where it just allows you to often be more successful within a given role. Because nobody is good at everything. So if you can align more of those pieces with those things that you're going to be more gifted at because of your strength, then it just gets a lot easier in some ways. Even if you're in a challenging role, so there's that alignment side. But then the other side is the skill side. So even if you do a lot of great work, finding an, you know, role and organization and all of those things that are very aligned with what you want, and your strengths, then there is still the skill side, the skill development side of other things that you might need. A really common version of that is being able to advocate for yourself or ask for what you want, within a work environment like that, that isn't related to strengths necessarily. I mean, it can be in some ways, but for the most part, like that's a skill that people can develop over time. But it directly impacts how you get to spend your time. You know, if I... in my latter career, when I used to work for other companies besides my own, I was much much better at saying, "Hey, I'm really interested in these particular projects, I think that these would be a great fit, here's why thousands of organization will benefit from them, here's I think I will benefit from them. And I would like to spend more of my time working on these projects." And then routinely having them say, "Yes" versus at the beginning of my career, and saying, "Hey, I think it'd be cool if I did this kinda, sort of..." and that felt really awkward. So you get the skill development side. But to answer your question directly, I think that the more time you can spend actually trying to align yourself with your strengths and trying to spend more of your time there, we find that that is going to take you further faster for nearly any goal that you have inside or outside of your career, whether it is other areas of life, whatever else, is just going to get you further faster. And we've got a lot of data and evidence to support that versus spending really any kind of time at all, focusing on bringing up your weaknesses. Unless it is to figure out how you're going to given some thought for how you're going to balance that out, in one way or another. Maybe that is... I'm great at this on the team. And there's this other person that is great at the other thing, so maybe we can share some of the workload or giving something of that kind of strategic thought or, in my case, I mean, I do a lot of that on our own individual team. Because quite frankly, I'm bad at a lot of things based on my strengths and that's okay. But that type of strategic thought is useful around that versus me spending tons and tons and tons of time focused on things that I will probably never be good at. And I don't want to confuse that the skills. So strengths are different than skills.

Bree Hunter 37:39
I guess that's what I've been utilizing in my own team probably the last 12 months is, you're recognizing what I'm not as good at which others are. And doing that same thing, delegating those tasks to those people who enjoy doing those things more, and they're better at it, which gives you time to focus more on the other things. And I guess one thing about this job I'm interviewing for to be a real shift, because I won't be managing a team, I'll only be working on my own projects, but again, pulling those other people in as experts to help. That might require me to utilize some of those shadows strikes a bit more, because I'm relying on myself to get it done.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:26
Yeah, I see what you mean. So prior to, again, I think that's a great... the interview is a great opportunity to find out more about that. And maybe it turns out, it's really not a good fit. And that's okay, there's nothing wrong with that. But I think if I'm in your situation, I'd rather know, before accepting it versus after accepting it. But I think that it's a great opportunity to since you know some of those things about yourself to ask for the areas that are of the highest priority for you. And ask and that try and understand at a deeper level, versus a lot of interviews, if you don't ask, then it's going to gloss over it, because they don't necessarily know what's important to you.

Bree Hunter 39:10
Yeah. Okay. As far as just quickly, you know, thinking of other career options, which in line with my strengths, would something like, you know, because I'm interested in leadership and management skills and things, that kind of thing, or maybe HR would be interesting, or would not just be more the same kind of busy work or policy, trying to improve policy or develop policy. Do you think that would align with these particular strengths from what you've seen from yourself or from others?

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:43
I think situations in which you get to create an individualized experience for people, you're going to find those to be in a lot of situations more gratifying. Because it'll pull on some different pieces of your strengths. There's a lot of different types and ways that that could look not necessarily just one industry, but ranging from, on one extreme, that could be like user experience design for different types of software, something on another extreme, that could be like, developing live events for people. And then still another area, that could be like designing, training and learning programs for a particular organization or working internally, a lot of times it gets lumped into HR, but a lot of organizations call it like learning and development. They have a couple other names for it, too. But there's some quick areas where that could be a fit. There's also going to be some other variables in there in terms of, is it the type of organization that supports the type of learning that you have got the desire for? And does the individualization really actually matter to the firm, is that one thing that's valuable to them, as well, and not just to you, we don't want to make sure that there's not, an out of alignment piece there, too. And that really the same types of things that are valuable to them are those that they're going to reward you for, because when you have that be a fit, then it feels much better too and then you truly get to leverage some of those strengths versus being face value or should matter. So that's some really super quick ideas. But then, beyond that too, again, those situations where you get to focus on improving a situation, or moving something that's already good and making it better, I would say that you're probably going to find that you have, unless you are acting as a consultant type role, then if you have lots and lots of executables, or tasks that are all supposed to be delivered by you versus with a team, depending on what they are, you may find that draining as well, because all your strengths are people focused, as opposed to like task or work focused. Does that make sense?

Bree Hunter 42:12
Yeah, it does. And I guess this job I'm going for, it's about improving things for the community. And I would just have to accept that it's not for particular individuals, and you're not going to make everyone happy in the community. So some people might not like what you're doing, and whether I'd be comfortable with that or that just frustrate me long term.

Scott Anthony Barlow 42:36
Yeah, there'll be interesting, I definitely would say good opportunity for you to learn more about that and maybe even go out and talk to some of the community prior to, if they offer you the role. Or if you decide to even run the role or whatever, like, do that as a little bit of an experiment and try and feel out whether that is something that's empowering to you or frustrating to you about some of the issues that you would actually be working on. And that would be a good way to kind of validate that, "Hey, is this going to be a, lift me up type of thing or drag me down type of thing?"

Bree Hunter 43:09
Yeah. Cool. Now, that's really helpful. And even if it's just a stepping stone in a different job to develop other skills, or learn new skills to your time or something, take those skills and the whole package and try something else or might lead to something else more fulfilling.

Scott Anthony Barlow 43:31
Yeah, absolutely. Was that helpful?

Bree Hunter 43:35
That was... All of the Americans word, "Awesome."

Scott Anthony Barlow 43:37
That's awesome.

Bree Hunter 43:40
That was awesome.

Scott Anthony Barlow 43:43
All right. Fantastic. I'm glad it was awesome. And did we hit on all the areas that you wanted?

Bree Hunter 43:49
Yeah. Now, we certainly did. I know, I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to hit. But, know that was great. That was very helpful. So thank you, Scott. I appreciate your time and your busy schedule.

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:01
Absolutely. My pleasure. If there's any other way that we can help support you, then don't hesitate to let us know. And let me know what happens through this interview. I'm interested to find out, keep me posted.

Bree Hunter 44:14
Okay. I will. Thank you, Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:17
Yeah, I hope that gives you an idea of just how powerful these concepts can be, and how we can actually utilize a deeper understanding of your strengths, and what we call "Signature Strengths'', and actually begin putting them to work for us. And not just one area, but multiple areas of our life, the more that you can spend time working with your strengths rather than against it, the more that you're going to find that, you just have a higher quality of life all the way around. And even when you're working in things that are challenging for you, it's still going to allow it to feel completely differently. Okay, so, but it gets even better than what you just heard, because afterwards, I want you to understand what happened. Guess what, Bree sent me an email very, very shortly afterwards, and said, "Hey, Scott, I wanted you to know what came out of our last recent session here." And she'd said that, well, she got the job. Woohoo! She'd been offered the job. And not only that, but in this particular case, obviously, we recorded this session. And she had a copy of this session. And one of the things that she said that was really powerful for herself is that she'd had this fairly limiting belief. She said, "You see, I've actually never heard myself speak before. And I always believed that I wasn't able to articulate my thoughts very well. And I was pleasantly surprised to hear that I sounded way better than I expected. And this has helped me feel much more confident when speaking to my team and my other colleagues." And then she goes on to say, "Thank you." So this is far, far ranging. Really a deep understanding of your strengths and how it connects back to your reality can completely change not just your career, not just opportunities that are coming your way or that you're taking advantage of, but your entire lens that you look at life through. I hope this was really helpful to you. And if you want to hear more like this, let us know what you thought of the episode you can email, hello@happentoyourcareer.com and share any feedback or like I said, if you want to hear more episodes like this, we'd love to hear from you. And also, by the way, thank you so much. We've had even more people that have gone over to iTunes and Stitcher and other places where you can play podcast and left us ratings and review. This latest one comes from Kay Rose 55 says, "A hidden gem for any career changer or coach. I was so surprised at the high quality of this podcast is someone who has consumed quite a few different career advice, pods and articles, I'm used to having to squeeze out value from a bunch of fluffy bullet points, or upselling type of content. But with this podcast, the advice feels juicy, relevant and really intuitive all at once. Thank you." Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. And that helps other people be able to find the show, which means that we can then in turn get more people to work that they absolutely love and is meant for them in this world, which works well for all of us. Hey, I really appreciate you spending your time with us. We've got so much in store for you coming up right here next week on Happen To Your Career.

Speaker 3 47:42
There's all these morons out there making tons of money. What's my problem? Very smart, wonderful people doing it. But seriously as like how hard could it be?

Scott Anthony Barlow 47:54
Hey, all that and plenty more in store next week for you. We'll see you then. Until then, I am out. Adios.

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Using Signature Strengths to Make Your Life More Enjoyable

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What if you could take the very small parts of your past jobs that you love the very most, and spend most of your day doing those things that make you happy and you’re great at! 

What would that be like? 

How would that change your life?   

In 2006, after I got fired from a job that I detested, I set about answering those questions for myself. 

I moved from a Regional Manager role that was a terrible fit for me into a role in Human Resources that felt like I was on vacation all of the time.

This wasn’t because it was easy or I wasn’t working hard, it was because I found I was great at it and I was enjoying it immensely. This was because in this new role and new company I was much more aligned with my strengths than ever before. 

Only I didn’t fully understand this right away, I just was excited because at the time I didn’t know work could feel like this. It wasn’t until many years and career changes later (and working with thousands of other people on their careers) that I finally understood how much of an impact working in your strengths makes. 

But aligning yourself with your strengths and spending your time in areas of what we call your signature strengths is much bigger than just your work. I’ve grown to believe that what initially seemed like a “good idea” actually is a compelling way to live your life (not just your career) 

Here’s just a few compelling reasons I’ve found over the years:

  • The more that we use our strengths in a day, the less likely we are to feel stressed, worried, angry or sad!
  • Just 1-2 extra hours a day of using your strengths corresponds with increased feelings of happiness
  • Using ones strengths is associated with increased productivity levels and increased wellbeing,

*Source Gallup 

That coupled with the my personal experiences of just feeling more valued, more at peace, more content with any given stage of life. 

Plus I’m in a really unique position now that I’m the CEO of a company that helps people move to careers and businesses that allow them to flourish (and part of flourishing is spending more time in your strengths) we’ve been able to gather qualitative data from thousands of people that are in “before” and “after” situations. 

When our students successfully make a change in their life that allows them to spend more time leveraging their strengths, they tell us their life, their work, their relationships and even their focus and productivity are better! 

One student put it like this: 

“Before I felt like I was going against the grain, now it feels like my career is working with the grain.” 

As Psychologist Daniel Gilbert points out in his book Stumbling on Happiness, “Who are we to argue with how people feel. They are the best judge of how they feel.” 

All of these things combined have convinced me that I personally will spend the rest of my life making sure that I am spending more and more of my life and time focused on working in and developing my strengths AND being an advocate for others to do the same. 

Even though all this makes a compelling case as to why spending more of your time using your strengths is good for you and your wellbeing, it doesn’t answer the question of how do strengths really work?  

HOW DO STRENGTHS REALLY WORK?

  I get constant questions about how strengths really work!

  • How much do strengths really matter?
  • Do strengths change over time?
  • I took the Strengths Finder Assessment 3 years ago is it worth taking again?
  • I’m really great at some things but honestly I don’t enjoy them that much. How do I know which strengths to focus on?

These are all really great questions, especially if you want to focus your career, a business or your life around your strengths. But do you want to structure your career, business or your life around the areas you have strengths? And if so why?

When I mention the word strengths, most people envision skills, tasks or actions, they say things to me like 

“I’m great at building pivot tables in Excel, but honestly I hate spending all my time in Excel” 

Or “I’m great at making people laugh, does that mean I should be a comedian” 

Or “People tell me I’m a good project manager, but I really don’t want to be doing project management” 

In every one of these cases, these aren’t their strengths (breathe a sigh of relief, you’re not doomed to run pivot tables for the rest of your life) 

All of these are focused instead on the physical or tangible manifestation of the strength. (Not an example of the strength itself) 

Meaning: you might be good at a task but it’s actually what is underneath the surface that is causing you to be great at that (plus your individual practice at that skill) 

Think about it this way: If you imagine strengths to be like an iceberg then the part above the water is the skill, activity, or physical and tangible manifestation of that strength. Not the main iceberg itself. 

The part that other people often can’t see (and many times it’s hard for us to see too) is the under the water portion. These are your actual strengths themselves.  

They are often hidden from view, underneath the surface. Here’s some examples of strengths:  

EXAMPLES OF STRENGTHS

I used to work with a Finance Manager who “miraculously” would build the best models of how businesses worked. All of this would go into an incredibly complex spreadsheet and at the end of the month his projections would be incredibly accurate while all the other finance managers would be off by as much as 35%. 

Was his strength building complex models? Of course not, One of his main strengths was understanding and identifying how complex systems and information fit together in ways that you or I might not be able to comprehend. But all we see on the output is a fancy spreadsheet and that he’s deadly accurate in his projections. 

Further it gets complicated because you may have multiple strengths that make it possible for you to be great at just one skill!    

DO STRENGTHS CHANGE OVER TIME?

I constantly get asked if strengths change over time. The short answer is “yes” they do. But not  but not in the way that you probably think. 

For example people ask things like… 

“I took the strengths finder assessment a few years back, then I took it again my top 5 strengths are mostly different, I didn’t think that strengths were supposed to change that much? What gives?” 

Your strengths don’t change that much over the years, but some get more development and float up to the top. 

Think about it this way. If I had a bucket filled with water and I began dropping in plastic balls the more buoyant plastics would float to the top. Those super heavy plastics would sink to the bottom. Some might be in the middle and may not rise all the way to the top.

Signature Strengths

Gallup defines strengths as “those areas that make you talented and unique.” 

We define strengths as those areas that you are great at or are predisposed to have potential to be great at and are nurtured over time and activity. 

Those ones that sink to the bottom immediately are neither of these. These aren’t necessarily weaknesses per se but they are those areas that whether through nature or nature these are not your strengths. 

The plastic balls that are floating at the very top are those strengths that have been developed the most. 

The ones that are not floating as easily and are just below the surface are still strengths. These just may not have had the same level of development as the balls that are floating easily on the top. 

When you take an assessment like Strengths Finder that ranks your Top 5, it’s providing you your most current strengths themes (the plastic balls that floated right to the top). But lets say a few years of life go by and you’ve been in a different role or operated in different business or industry where you experienced growth in, this may cause different strengths to become more developed. 

In our bucket of water this just means that those others have now floated up to the top, because of that focus and development. It doesn’t mean the other strengths have disappeared. 

And in the case of Strengths Finder where you get the top 5 themes (and not the remaining 29 themes) many people immediately want to know the rest of them. But honestly in my experience that’s not valuable and for most people it’s just confusing and overwhelming. Plus it defeats the purpose of focusing on your top strengths. Because often those are your most valuable strengths to the external world AND the most enjoyable for you to use. 

In my opinion, that is one big part of flourishing as a human being: spending more of your time and energy in those areas that are valuable to others and allow you to focus your efforts of enjoyment.  

HOW DO I FOCUS ON MY KEY STRENGTHS (SIGNATURE STRENGTHS)

If I know that spending more time in my strengths (particularly my signature strengths) makes me “more happy” more often, then I immediately want to know, how do I focus my efforts there. 

First you have to understand what “Signature Strengths” are. The easiest way to think about them is the intersection of your strengths, enjoyment, and where you bring the highest value to the world. 

Here’s a visual way to think about this:      

How Do I Focus On my Key Signature Strengths

Once you find these areas it becomes much easier to focus your time in areas that allow you to use your signature strengths. 

This is no easy task for most people though, we might work with our students (often high performers that are already self aware) and it can still take 1-2 months before honing in on where to hyperfocus energy. 

To get you started in figuring this out, here’s a few resources to help you begin!  

RESOURCES TO BECOME CLEAR ON YOUR STRENGTHS

We’ve put together several items and resources for you to use to become clear on your strengths

  1. The Ultimate Guide to Using Your Strengths to Get Hired
  2. Strengths Finder – (Clifton Strengths) Assessment
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Scott Anthony Barlow 00:00
What if you could take the very small parts of your past jobs that you love the very most, and spend most of your day doing those things that make you happy and your great at?

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
Welcome to the Happen To Your Career podcast. I'm Scott Anthony Barlow. This is the show where we share stories of how high achievers find career happiness and meaning. Okay, that first question that you heard earlier, I'm serious about it. What if you could take the parts of your job, those pieces of your past roles that you really truly enjoy and what if you could expand upon them? And what if those things really allowed you to focus in on those pieces that make you most happy at any given time? Or put you in a place of happiness at any given time? And you also happen to be great at them? What would that be like really? Think about it, what would that be like? How would that change your life? Okay, so in this episode, we're doing things a little bit differently. I wanted to help you understand some of the biggest questions that I get about strengths and help you understand what is the real magic of strengths. Because that question that we just mentioned earlier, well, that is the magic of strengths. What do I mean by that? But I'll tell you what, and let me tell you a story first. In 2006, after I got fired from a job that I just absolutely detest it, I said about answering those exact same questions for myself, and really trying to figure this stuff out. And I moved from this regional manager role that, quite honestly, was a pretty terrible fit for me into a role in human resources that felt like I was on vacation all of the time. And the interesting part about this is it didn't feel like I was on vacation, because it was super easy, or because I wasn't working hard, not on vacation in that way, but it was because I found that I was great at it and I was really enjoying it very, very much so. And this was because in this new role, and this new company, I was much more aligned with my strengths than I ever had been before. The only thing here was, way back then, I didn't really fully understand this right away, I was honestly just excited because at the time, I didn't know work could feel like this at all. And it wasn't until many years later, and many career changes later too and then working with thousands of other people in their careers that I finally really started to understand how much of an impact working in your strengths really makes on someone's life, on your life. But aligning yourself with your strengths, and spending more of your time, more of your life, in areas of what we call your "signature strengths" and I'll tell you more about that in a second, and we've done some past episodes on that, you can go back and look for as well. It's much bigger than just your work. I've grown to believe that what initially started out is it seemed like a good idea that I should probably do this whole concept of working in your strengths and living in your strengths, it actually is really a compelling way to live your entire life and not just your career. Okay, so here's just a few of those compelling reasons that I found over the years that come from research, not my opinion. And Gallup, by the way, has done some really amazing research on strengths in particular. Now, one thing that has been found– and this comes from Gallup, this comes from a couple pieces of research they've done, but the more that we use our strengths in a given day, the less likely are we see a positive correlation with being less likely to feel stressed, worried, angry, or even sad, pretty cool, right? Okay, now get this, just one to two extra hours a day of using your strengths, regardless of whether it has anything to do with work or in any other area of life, just one two extra hours of using your strengths corresponds with increased feelings of happiness. Pretty cool, but it gets better. Using one strengths is associated with increased productivity levels and also increased well being. All right, so I'm a total nerd for the charts and the data that goes behind this. And if you are, too, you can go over and see the links that we've got back to some of the research and some of the sources for this over at happentoyourcareer.com/239 and that'll allow you to be able to download the entire set of resources that we've got along with this. But it'll also link you up to some of the research, too, if you're that kind of nerdy as well. But for those of you who are not, I got to tell you that seeing all of this, not just made a really compelling case, but I started to see a lot of evidence, too, in my personal experiences. For me, I just felt more valued on a day to day basis, I felt more at peace, I felt more content with any given stage of my life, you know, whether it be the beginning to raise kids stage, or whether it be the building wealth stage, whether it be... for all these different types of stages in life, the times where I was spending more time working or living in my strengths, increasingly felt better and better.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:08
Okay. And now, I've got to admit, I know I'm in a pretty unique position, too, because I'm CEO of a company that helps people move to careers and businesses that allow you to be able to flourish. And part of flourishing– and there's a really good definition of flourishing, by the way, that comes from Martin Seligman, who is often renowned as the father of positive psychology. But anyhow, one of the definitions that he gets for flourishing, includes spending more time in your strengths. Okay. So we've been able to gather a lot of qualitative data within our own business as well from thousands of people that are in these before and after situations, especially as it relates to their careers. Where beforehand, they're not spending very much of their day, on any given day, or very much of their week, working in or around or spending time in their strengths. And then after, they are spending a much, much higher percentage, it varies pretty widely, but a much, much higher percentage. And increasingly, we hear from them that they are happier, they feel better, we get all different kinds of commentary back. But when our students successfully make this type of change in their life, it allows them to spend more time leveraging their strengths. And they tell us that in their life, and in their work, and relationships, and even in their focus in productivity, all of those are better. And one student put it like this... before– he was talking about before I made the change and before I started using my strengths more frequently– "Before, I felt like I was going against the grain. Now, it feels like my career is working with the grain." Okay. And I thought that was such a great illustration of just that feeling and the difference that you can get in your mind, why this is even worth talking about in the first place. Because strengths sounds really nice, but what does it actually do for you? And we find that it really is, even though it's intangible, it really makes a major difference in the quality of life. When we're talking about quality of life, we're talking about things like flourishing and happiness as Daniel Gilbert, who is a psychologist and wrote a book called "Stumbling on Happiness". And as he points out in that book, well, "who are we to argue with how people feel? They're the best judge of how they feel, right? And if they're telling us that they feel happier, if they're telling us that they feel like they have an improved quality of life, well, who are we to say that they don't, or interject otherwise, right?" Okay. So all of these things combined have convinced me over the years that I personally want to spend the rest of my life making sure that I am spending more and more of my time, and of my life focused on working in and around and developing my strengths. And then for me, too, in particular, because I've seen such a profound impact in my own life, and because I've seen what this can do for others, this also includes being an advocate for the rest of my life for others to be able to do the same. And that's part of how we ended up with this company in the first place. And one of the reasons behind it, why we started it, could see this impact, you know, as I was working in HR, as I was working with other people on developing their careers over time, more time spent here becomes worth it. There's the end conclusion. But even though all this makes a pretty compelling case as to why spending more of your time using your strengths is good for you, it's good for your well being, it really doesn't answer the question of "How does strengths really actually work? What are we really talking about when we say strengths?" Because quite honestly, I get constant questions about how this stuff actually works. When we open up the hood, and we start looking at the engine and we start, you know, tearing apart and understanding how does this really make the thing go, then we realize that it often doesn't work the way that we think it does. And so we get tons of different questions on a daily basis at this point now, like, "how much do strengths really matter?" Well, we talked a little bit about that. And, "do strengths change over time?" There's another question we get fairly frequently. Sometimes people have questions about StrengthsFinder assessment, cuz that's one of the assessments that we've recommended over the years and one that we find does a great job in giving you good, useful verbiage to describe your strengths and think about your strengths. Is it the magical end all be all? Or is it the magic bullet necessarily to just completely change your life? No, absolutely not. But it's one step in understanding, what are some of the things that are unique to you, that really, you can leverage throughout time?

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:02
Another thing that pops up again, too, another example, and I'll try and answer some of these questions here as we go along. But, people say things like, "Hey, I'm really great at some things, but honestly, I don't enjoy them that much. How do I know which strengths to focus on?" So these are the types of questions that I get, this is the types of questions my team answers every day with the people that we're working with. And these are all really great questions, especially if you want to focus a career, business, or your life around your strengths. But do you want to structure a career or business or life around the areas that you have strengths? And if so, why? Well, let's evaluate that for just a minute. Let's tear this apart. Okay. When I mentioned the word strengths, most people I find envision skills or tasks or actions, they say things to me, like, "Hey, I'm great at building pivot tables in Excel. But honestly, I hate spending all my time in Excel. It's not what I enjoy doing all the time." Or people say things like, "I'm great at making people laugh. But does that mean I should be a comedian?" And still, other people say things like, "Hey, people give me feedback all the time. I'm a really great project manager. But honestly, I don't want to be doing project management." Okay, well, when I hear things like this, that is my red flag to help those people understand, really what strengths are, because all of those indicate to me that they haven't yet had the opportunity to learn a deeper understanding of how strengths work. And so I'd like to help you understand what's under the surface. Every one of these cases, every one of the sets of questions or things that people say to me that I just described, they aren't their strengths. They aren't their strengths. We're not talking about their strengths when we, and I guess you can breathe a sigh of relief here, because if you're great at building pivot tables, don't worry, you're not doomed to run pivot tables for the rest of your life. It'll be okay, I promise. But what I should point out is that all of these instead are focused on the physical or tangible manifestation of that strength. That's what we see. But it's not the strength itself. Meaning, you might be good at a particular task or particular skill, but it's actually what's underneath the surface that is causing you to be great at it, plus, I would also say your individual practice and development at that scale, too. But it's that underneath the surface part that we're really talking about when we talk about strengths, the things that you can't see. And think about it this way, if you can imagine strengths to be like an iceberg, then the part that you see above the water is actually that physical manifestation. It's the part that's easy to see. It's the skill. It's the pivot table building. It's the activity, the physical and tangible information and manifestation of that strength. It's not the main iceberg itself. It's just the tip. Now, the part that is underneath the water that people often can't see, and many times it's hard for us to see it in ourselves, too, is that much larger piece of the iceberg. These are your actual strengths itself. These are what's causing you to be able to develop those skills much easier or be predisposed to be good at a particular set or provide you that ability or lens to make it easier when you take a particular type of action. And think about it as, this is the cause. What causes these outputs to be easier? Now, when we can start to figure out that's what gives us a clue as to what our strengths are. So these are often hidden from view if they're underneath the surface. And here's an example. I used to work with a finance manager. And this guy would miraculously build some of the best models I've ever seen of how businesses work. And really, really talented guy in a lot of different ways. But all these things would go into an incredibly complex spreadsheet, and then at the end of the month, the end of the month would roll around, and all his projections and everything would be incredibly accurate. Where all the other finance managers in the company might be off by as much as 35%, he was, you know, within about 1 to 3%, nearly every time, right? Okay, so what was his strength? Was his strength of building complex models? Was his strength working in Excel? Was his strength something else? Of course, it wasn't any of these particular things that he just described. One of his main strengths was actually understanding and identifying how complex systems and information fit together in ways that you or I might not even be able to comprehend. But all we see on the output of it, all that we see on the physical side, the tangible side that's in front of us is a fancy spreadsheet, and the fact that he's deadly accurate in his projections, right? But is that underneath the surface piece, that really is his actual strength? And then this can get even further complicated, too, because a lot of times, you might see something on the surface, but it's influenced by multiple strengths underneath. You might have that strength with that finance manager, where he's great at understanding and identifying how complex systems and information fit together, but another one of his strengths at the same time, that also influenced his ability to be able to do all this really cool stuff, was being able to be super curious and ask lots of questions– he had this innate curiosity. And some people were put off by this, quite frankly. But he would continue to ask questions until he had get to the cause. He just had this innate need to understand and ways that were, in some cases, offensive to most people, but he couldn't stop doing it, couldn't stop doing it until he sort of got to the bottom. That's what allowed him to be able to, when combined with his other strengths, put together all of these really very accurate things. Right? So that is hard to understand when you're just looking at, "Hey, this guy puts together awesome models." Right? "Why is he so good?" And we're often confused that hey, our strength is the model itself. Nope, definitely not. That's what's underneath the surface.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:22
Another thing that people ask all the time is, do these strengths change over time? Okay, so let's say that I know what my strengths are, in the first place, you know, I do understand that their underneath the surface pieces, do those things change over time? Well, I want to answer this question. And the short answer is "Yes, they do. But probably not in the way that you think." You know, another derivative of that question is, you know, people say things like, talking about the StrengthsFinder assessment, "Hey, I took the StrengthsFinder assessment a few years back, then I took it again. And my top five strengths are mostly different. You know, I didn't think they were supposed to change that much, what gives?" And I'll tell you that your strengths don't change that much over the years. They do get more developed and some get more developed than others, depending on where you're focusing your time, what you're involved with, what you are focused on individually, and how you're growing as a person. And those, in particular, that get more development float up to the top. Now, here's a way to kind of think about this, we all have a variety of different strengths and if we're using the StrengthsFinder assessment in particular, which if you're familiar with that one, that they divide different types of talents, what they call it as talents, and they divide those talents into 34 themes. And those 34 strengths themes, they... when you take the StrengthsFinder assessment, they give you your top five. And the reason why that's so valuable to many different people is because if you are focused on those things that are your highest strengths or your top strengths, if you will, then that provides you this way to be able to focus your time and efforts into those areas to be able to benefit from all the other things we talked about earlier, like, you know, being able to have a higher quality of life if I get to spend more of my time in these top five areas. StrengthsFinder, first of all, since I do get lots of questions about that, too, it's not gonna solve all your problems. It's really not. A lot of people get it and they take it and they're like, "Okay, now what? What do I do with the information now?" And it's not going to be the magic bullet necessarily, but what it does do a really great job of is helping you hone in on some of those top strengths and giving you verbiage to communicate with or to understand how to think about those areas of strength, that area that's underneath the surface in a little bit different way. And that's what it's really great for. So there's no perfect assessment out there, by any means, but StrengthsFinder is a great one, if your goal is to be able to understand and prioritize some of your strengths, as well as get a good set of verbage to go along with them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:26
Okay, so now let's go back to that question of, you know, "How does it work? How does strengths actually change over time? Do they change over time?" Yes, they do change over time, but it is slower than what you probably think. And you might have not just, you know, five, like StrengthsFinder gives you, but you might have seven or eight different areas that are really your strengths. And over time, you know, one of those might float higher to the top versus another one. And it really depends on how you are developing that and what's causing that development over the years. But in general, you know, from now, until six months from now, they're probably not going to change drastically, you might rearrange the order in terms of what is your top strength based on how you've been spending your time, but for the most part, when we're talking about strengths, which are those underneath the surface pieces, and you know, sometimes are... you even think about it as the way that you're wired and you know, the things that are causing you to be good at those skills, or knowledge or abilities or actions, those types of things. Okay, so let's go back to this final question of, "How do I know what strengths to focus on?" Because I mentioned earlier the example of, you know, somebody saying, "Hey, everybody's telling me I'm great at project management, and guess what, I hate project management." Or, you know, they might think, you might even think, that I'm great at a particular area, but I just honestly don't enjoy it that much. So first of all, just like we acknowledged earlier, it's really the underneath the surface part that we're focused in on. And this is a great opportunity to be able to define what we call "Signature Strengths". Now, a lot of times, you might have heard us mention this on the podcast in the past, where we've said, "Hey, just think about signature strengths as the overlap between those things you're great at or have the potential to be great at and what you enjoy." But when we dive a little bit further into it, what we teach in our classes and courses and programs, and with our students, we even go a little bit further in depth and say, "Okay, really, it's not just those pieces." But we're also very interested in finding, where can you add the most value, the intersection between adding the most value to the world, as well as those areas you enjoy, as well as those areas that you happen to be great at, either through nature or nurture, or the combination of. Okay, so that is really what we're looking for. And those in particular are the strengths that we want to focus our time and effort on. Because we find both through research and practical application, that those are the very, very same areas that you are going to be able to flourish in. You find that those are the same areas that you're going to contribute the most to your career, plus, be able to very likely earn the most, as well as have the most fun on a regular basis doing them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:38
So a couple of ways to be able to figure out what those are, we've got a few different resources, and we're not going to be able to dive into all of it, and I don't want to leave you hanging. So I've got a few different things that you can do from here on out to begin to identify what are those areas of signature strengths for you, and begin moving more of your life to spending more of your time so that you can be more happy, more fulfilled, more often. Okay, thing number one, I mentioned earlier, you can go over to happentoyourcareer.com/239. And that's going to take you to all the notes in the blog post and a little mini guide that we've put together for this episode, as well as all the links for everything that we've talked about here. So that's happentoyourcareer.com/239 and that'll help get you started, tioo. Another great resource, I mentioned strengthsfinder, so you can actually go to happentoyourcareer.com/strengthsfinder, so happentoyourcareer.com/strengthsfinder, and that will take you to the StrengthsFinder assessment. And if you want, you can actually get the StrengthsFinder assessment alone or you can even get it combined with a little mini training of three videos that help you understand and dive even deeper into your strengths, how they work, and how you can make them work for you. And also some of the misconceptions that tears apart some of the misconceptions on strengths, too. And so there's a couple of different resources for you. And then even still, another resource, and will provide links to this as well when you go to happentoyourcareer.com/239. But we have put together a guide, that's called the "Ultimate Guide To Using Your Strengths To Get Hired" and that'll take you through some ways to find your strengths and focus on some of your top strengths, as well as give you some ideas and examples of how to leverage them through a career change or through a hiring type process. So there's three different resources that can get you started. And feel free to choose one or all of them that you want to do if you want to dive even further into strengths. Okay, I hope this has been really, really helpful for you. And now that you understand just a little bit more about how strengths actually work, and why we feel that they're so incredibly important, especially as a part of your career, but as a part of your life as well. And we have even more coming up for you next week, right here on Happen To Your Career. I'm so excited to be able to welcome to the podcast, somebody who I have been told we should get on many, many times. And she's written a number of different books, about happiness, about behavior, and a whole bunch of other topics, even Winston Churchill. Take listen.

Gretchin Rubin 26:38
I never thought about happiness. I never asked myself if I were happy. I never thought about "could I be happier?" Like, is it even possible to be happier? Like, is that something you can affect? And I said, you know, I should have a happiness project and I was like, "Babeym! Happiness Project." like yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:56
All that and more when we bring Gretchen Rubin to the podcast next week right here on Happen To Your Career. Until then, we are out. Adios.

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Switching Industries Without Compromising Your Career’s Trajectory

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HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU THOUGHT TO YOURSELF WHILE SITTING AT YOUR DESK, “IS THIS REALLY IT?”

Maybe you really enjoyed your job when you started…four years ago. But now, you stroll into work each morning disengaged and hopeless. You wonder if there’s anything else out there that will make you feel as excited as you were in the beginning.

If you’re nodding your head in agreement to the scenario above–trust me, you’re not alone. In my observation (from HR days) about 50% of people go through this exact cycle during their first, or second or even third jobs.

Because, when we’re in college and told to choose a major, we go with what we’re good at. If we like math, we choose to major in statistics or engineering. If our parents were doctors, we might go on the pre-med track. There isn’t much self-reflection or foresight that goes into selecting the path that launches our career. Especially not our dream career.

Which is why most of the time, we end up on this career cycle: excited-learning stops-feels stuck.

We end up in careers that either: (a) aren’t a good fit, or (b) don’t have a continuous learning loop.

And, then–most importantly–we don’t know how to fix it when we hit the “feeling stuck” phase. We scroll through job descriptions online, and mope to friends about how bored/unhappy/sad we are about our careers.

LAURA’S STORY: FROM FOUR PROMOTIONS TO FAKE SMILES

Laura, one of our rockstar Career Change Bootcamp Graduates and HTYC Podcast guest this week, experienced a similar career trajectory before she landed her dream career just a few weeks ago.

Growing up, Laura always knew that she was good at math. Coming from a family of engineers, she decided to follow a similar path. After college graduation, she was unsure about what she wanted her career path to be–like many early 20-somethings. So, she became an engineering consultant.

But, Laura always knew something wasn’t quite right.

A few years after she started her career, Laura went back to school again and got her Masters Degree with the sole intention of finding a career that fit her values. And, she did. She landed an awesome job as an environmental sustainability consultant at an innovative company.

For a while, it seems like she had it made.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF PRETENDING TO BE PASSIONATE AT WORK?

For me if I’m not learning I’m not engaged. I work with a lot of people who are passionate and I almost found myself having to pretend to be passionate when I wasn’t really feeling it, which was hard on me.

Fast forward eight and a half years later, and Laura found herself pasting on a fake smile each day, forcing herself to act excited about her work. She didn’t want to let down her direct reports (now 10 of them!), but her constant need to “fake happiness” was taking a toll on the rest of her life.

It took Laura three years (three whole years!) to finally come to terms with the fact that she needed to leave her job.

And, do you know why Laura sacrificed her happiness each day staying in a job she knew she didn’t like?

Because, she felt stuck.

Even though Laura had a stellar resume and an extremely strong work ethic, she felt like she wasn’t smart or experienced enough to find a new role.  On the podcast, Laura talks about the toll that “pretending to be passionate” at work had on her confidence levels.

When you are in a spot where you are unhappy and have been for awhile you lose some of your confidence of everything you’ve accomplished. From the outside someone looking at my resume would be impressed but I hated it. I wasn’t proud of anything I’d been doing because I wasn’t happy doing it.

Because, Laura’s mind kept convincing her that she wasn’t good enough; that she was going to stay in this job forever. Not only does it drain your energy to “pretend to be passionate” at work, but it actually tricks the mind into thinking that you’re not good enough for another role.

It made Laura ask that ill-fated question: “Is this really all that I have to look forward to in a career?”

GETTING YOUR CAREER CONFIDENCE STARTS WITH A LOT OF SELF-REFLECTION

When Laura first found us at Happen to Your Career, she had already taken action to start looking outside of herself for a new job by going to a career coach. Coincidentally, on her walk home from that session she found our podcast, and “binge-listened for about a week!”

At that time, Laura realized that she didn’t need to go through this process alone.

The thing that stuck was it was the first time I heard there were tools and processes to help me figure this out. I didn’t have to just look at job postings but I could do other types of work to think about what I wanted to do next.

That was in May of 2017. Seven months later, and she found her dream career!

Woah–not so fast though. Laura went through a lot of self-reflection, and dug deep to understand what that next step should be. During this process, Laura also began to get feedback, and collect “mini-wins” from her coaches, her friends, and many others to help rebuilt her identity.

At the beginning of her coaching sessions, Laura wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to do in her next role. But, as she began to complete her self-assessment projects, she couldn’t contain her excitement. Laura couldn’t stop talking about how much fun she had completing these self-assessments (her husband might have gotten a crash course or two!).  She kept this idea in the back of her mind, but still had a lot of searching to do.

Interestingly, Laura already knew what kind of culture she wanted in a company. She loved having the flexibility of wearing jeans and working from home when she wanted to. Even more importantly, she knew that the office should have a ping-pong table in it–for what it represented about the office culture.

But, from her experience in her last job Laura knew that a cultural-fit wasn’t enough. She had to find the right role, not just the right people.

That’s where she kept getting stuck. She felt naive about all the types of jobs that were out there.

FINDING THE RIGHT NEXT STEP IS NOT A CHECK-THE-BOX EXERCISE

One of the first things Laura did to understand all the job opportunities she could have was to hold informational interviews.

She scheduled dozens of interviews with people in and out of her network–which was a growing experience in itself. Laura admits that this was one of the most challenging, but rewarding, parts of her coaching experience. She’s not necessarily a self-proclaimed extrovert. But hey, why not?

Laura met with tons of people who helped her understand what she did, and didn’t want in a role. Some of those conversations could have opened the door to a job. But, while it was tempting, Laura said no when she didn’t feel it was exactly right.

Until finally one day–she found it.

TO SECURE THAT DREAM JOB, YOU HAVE TO BE AUTHENTICALLY YOU

Laura learned quickly that she loves to prepare. For her informal interviews alone, she would do research and write prep questions for almost two hours each time!

But, when she finally found the perfect job opportunity, she realized that she just had to be herself.

With the help of her career coach, Lisa Lewis, Laura practiced some mock interviews and found that her answers sounded good on paper, but “boring” during the actual interview. So, she stopped preparing as intensely as she might have, and got herself in the zone.

It’s less important that you know how to answer a million behavior questions but get yourself in a headspace to be yourself and be confident in those conversations.

Laura ended up securing her dream job. But, not only that–she has completely transformed her mindset from disengaged and hopeless to optimistic and confident. Laura is thriving in her career, as a new mom, and constantly achieving new goals (heck yes, Yosemite!).

Most importantly, Laura’s realized that she didn’t have to go through this process alone. Here’s her last piece of advice for anyone else who might be in her shoes from a few months ago:

Particularly as someone who has been successful it was hard for me to say I could not do this by myself. I’m a smart person I should be able to figure this out. As soon as I had my first career coaching experience it completely turned around my approach to find a new job. It completely gave me the power back and the tools I needed. If you know exactly what you want to do, you probably aren’t listening to this podcast, but if you don’t know there are a lot of tools, and resources, and people out there that can help you. For me that made all the difference.

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Laura Morrison 00:03
It took me a few months to look for outside help. And that was the thing that I needed. I think, particularly as someone who has been successful, it's hard to admit to myself, it was hard for me to say I couldn't do it by myself. You know, I'm smart person, I should be able to figure this out. But it completely turned around my approach to finding a new job.

Introduction 00:30
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 00:48
This is Scott Anthony Barlow, and you are listening to Happen To Your Career, the show that helps you figure out what work fits you by exploring other stories. Now we can bring out all kinds of experts like Kathy Fettke, who helps people create space for themselves and make passive income, or people that have pretty amazing stories like Jenny, who went through our CCB program, and let go of other people's expectations to reframe her career search for a job she wanted. These are people that are just like you, only they've gone from where they are, to what they really want to be doing. And today, we get to talk to Laura Morrison, another person who was an alumni of our Career Change Bootcamp program, and take a listen to what she does right now.

Laura Morrison 01:37
Yeah, so I'm really excited on Monday, actually. I'm starting a new role in Product Management at a company called the Predictive Index. And they do behavioral assessments with the goal of hiring the right people, and in their words, inspiring them to greatness. And what I'm really excited about that is, you know, someone like myself, who wasn't engaged as an employee, means I understand that pain. And so what I'm going to be doing now is actually helping people and companies inspire their employees through different tools and understanding more about the people. And that's really exciting for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:15
As you listen to this conversation with Laura, you're gonna find that we get pretty deep into how you can find your strengths, how you can learn about new career opportunities, and even options for your career, and even build relationships so that you can land, not just a job, not just even your dream job, but really a job that truly fits at a company that you're excited about. And I think you're gonna love that. Also, see how you getting outside help can often lead to your aha moments or your big breakthroughs and what that actually takes. And then you can learn that, as it turns out, you're not alone in your career change process, and how you can take some next steps there. All of these fundamentals that you can learn about yourself, and what you want in your life can not only help you land that next job and the role that actually fits, but also help you make pretty large changes for yourself, your family, and every everyone in your life in the future. It's pretty cool. So take a listen for all that plus more. You're also going to hear about a different way that you probably have heard of to approach the interview process that is much more genuine, than all of those, all the things that you think you're supposed to do in an interview, you'll see what I mean, as you listen.

Laura Morrison 03:33
I think this is a struggle for a lot of people. But you know, in high school, you have to figure out what you're going to major in, in college. And you don't really understand what any of that means. And so, for me, I was good at math, and I had some engineers in the family. So I went into engineering. And I did fine, but it always felt a little off to me and I couldn't quite figure out why. And I couldn't figure out what else I should be doing. So I stuck with it. And so I had, you know, college degree, master's degree, a few years in the work world in engineering consulting. And the whole time never really felt like it was a good fit for me. And so, you know, my first career pivot was actually into sustainability consulting. After a few years working, I went back to grad school with the goal of pivoting, and I landed myself at a really great company that I was at for eight and a half years. And I was excited about it, because sustainability is forward looking. So it was a startup feel company, which I was looking for. And I had a lot of freedom to grow really quickly. And so for a while, that felt like a good fit, and it felt like something I could be passionate about. And then over time, it just wasn't anymore. But again, I was in the same position that I had had kind of in college and beyond where I didn't know what else to do. And so I just kind of stuck with it kind of only half thinking about what else I could be doing.

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

Laura Morrison 05:15
Yeah. I think in the beginning, a new challenge is always exciting. And then I think, in that eight and a half years, I have four different roles. And the new challenges and the new role were exciting. But the length of excitement I had from just learning something new kept getting shorter and shorter. So I think that's one thing that changed. And then by the end, I didn't actually feel like I was learning that much anymore. And for me, that if I'm not learning, I'm not engaged. And I work with a lot of people who are really passionate, and I almost found myself having to pretend to be passionate, when I wasn't really feeling it. So that was pretty hard on me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:00
That's interesting. What was that, like? Clearly, it was difficult, but feeling like you had to pretend to be passionate.

Laura Morrison 06:12
Yeah, it was tough. You know, by the end of this past role, I had 10 people reporting to me, a lot of them were early in their career. And I wanted to do a good job of inspiring them. But because I wasn't inspired myself, it made me feel like I was being inauthentic to kind of hide the part of myself that wasn't engaged, that wasn't super passionate about our work anymore. And so it just, it basically zapped all my energy, where I would kind of put on this kind of extroverted, fake smile at work every day, and then come home and be unhappy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:54
Do you remember when you started to realize that?

Laura Morrison 06:58
Oh, I hate to admit this, but it was probably three years ago. And, you know, at the time, our company was going through some management changes. And, you know, there are other life things going on, you know, I was trying to start a family. And all that combined was just exhausting. And so I think I knew that it wasn't a good fit. And I've known that for a long time. But again, without knowing what to do next, or even how to think about what to do next, I just felt really stuck.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:30
That is... I think that is one of the biggest problems that many people have, especially high achieving people that had gotten into a role similar to you where they were excited about at one point, and they have lots of responsibilities. And you know, something's changed along the way. But you don't necessarily know what to do next. What were some of the things that you considered or tried? Because you've been thinking about this for years. About making a change and doing something, but it sounds like kept coming back to that point, where not entirely sure what to do next. So what were some of the things that you considered or thought about or tried along the way?

Laura Morrison 08:18
Yeah, you know, it's, a lot of it was staying within the sustainability field. It took me probably a couple years of passive looking and talking to people to figure out that there weren't roles in that field that I was interested in. So I looked at, you know, what does it mean to do my role, but not as a consultant, but embedded within a product organization, for instance. And I talked to, you know, I would go to sustainability, networking events and talk to people in those roles, and I just wasn't getting the excitement. I think it excited me for a little bit. And then a lot of the reason that didn't work is a lot of those kind of product manufacturing companies aren't based in Boston, and I wanted to be in Boston, so it kind of took a lot opportunity off the table. And I guess the other thing I tried to do is look internally. So at my own company, we do sell, or my old company, I guess, we do sell software. And I talked to a bunch of people for a couple years about product management in the software that we sell. So that's basically the role I'm taking in a new company, but I was talking about doing it at my old company. And, you know, the team, the software team was in Germany, so and it was also having a lot of trouble. So it just never really worked out. You know, I talked about doing more marketing at my old company, and again, the marketing team was having some struggles. So it wasn't, it really wasn't gonna work out. I think maybe if I had stayed another year, I could have pivoted in my existing organization into one of those roles. But, you know, at that point I was ready to actually just kind of make the jump and leave the company.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:07
What made you feel ready to be able to make the jump? And what actually took place? Was it just the combination of all those conversations and realizing, "hey, it's not gonna happen here."? Or was it something else? What made you feel like, "hey, at that point, I was just ready to leave."

Laura Morrison 10:26
You know, I think what... I think I knew I was ready to leave for a long time. But what actually made me take the steps to leave is a little bit different. And so, you know, I was on maternity leave for seven, eight months or so. And I met a lot of working moms as part of that, and had a lot of career conversations with them. And one of them recommended to me a career coach who was based in Boston, who's an older woman who'd been working at Radcliffe for, you know, years and years, and had her own private practice. And I actually finally decided to kind of invest in career coaching. And so I had one session with this woman, and I had like a mile and a half walk home. And the thing that really stuck with me is that it was the first time I'd ever heard that there were tools and processes to help me figure this out, that I didn't have to just think about it and look at job postings, but that I could do other types of work to think about what I wanted to do next. And she said something to me about, I can't recommend a book for you, it's very personal. But find a book you want to read about career change. And that's your first bit of homework. And my reaction was, I don't like reading, really. But I love podcasts. And I had this mile and a half walk home where I was really excited. And I found your podcast. And so I listened to it on my way home. And then I kind of binge listened to it for a week, which I think the point where we talked for the first time, and all of a sudden I heard all these stories and tools about things that I could do that didn't... it was okay that I didn't know what I wanted to do. I could still take steps to figure out what I could do next.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:07
That is interesting. You know, I didn't actually realize that's how it happened. That is fantastic. And now, not that long later, you're on the podcast. And...

Laura Morrison 12:18
Yeah, one of my personal goals.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:21
Yeah, check. Before we hit record you were talking about, you built this list of national parks that you wanted to go see, and you just basically went to Yosemite. So now you've got several things checked off the list. Way to go.

Laura Morrison 12:36
It's awesome. Thank you. Feels good.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:39
Absolutely. So I have so many questions, because I think that there's so much for other people to learn too, that are in that same space or have been in that same space where they aren't sure what to do and want to know what to do next. And you were kind enough to bring us along for the ride and allow us to sit co-pilot on this journey. And it's been a bit of whirlwind. How long did it take from when you found the podcast to accepting a job offer?

Laura Morrison 13:11
Oh, boy. Okay. I think it was probably April or May that we first talked and I accepted a job offer about a month ago. So whatever that math is...

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:25
I was trying to do the calendar math, too. Is it about...

Laura Morrison 13:30
Six to nine months probably, right?

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:32
Yeah. Right in seven-ish months someplace. And what... you started listening to the podcast, had this realization that hey, there are things that I can do. And then you talked to us, and you ended up joining career change boot camp, and we started getting the opportunity to be able to help you along the way. That was just the beginning. I am curious in going through this process, what were some of the apprehensions that you had, as you said about growing and figuring out, "Hey, here's what I might want to do. And then ultimately, moving through each step."

Laura Morrison 14:23
Yeah, I think, I mean, the biggest apprehension, I think, is that what you don't realize is when you're in a spot, where you're unhappy, and you've been unhappy for a while, you lose some of your confidence about everything that you've accomplished. So, you know, from the outside, someone looking at my resume would be impressed. But I was looking at it, and I hated it. Right? I wasn't proud of anything that I had been doing, because I wasn't happy doing it. And that didn't mean I didn't understand that it, there were some impressive things on there. It just didn't feel like me. And it didn't feel impressive to me, because I didn't enjoy the process of doing it. And so I think a lot of that lack of confidence is like tied into kind of the anxiety of trying to figure it out. Right? What if there is nothing for me? What if I'm always unhappy at a job? And I think there is this whole mentality out there that that's normal to kind of be unhappy in your job. And I was trying to get to the point where I was maybe resigned to that being the case. I also think, you know, in the process, I had my daughter and I took a lot of time off. And that will, you know, maybe I want to be a stay at home mom. And I quickly realized that, kudos to everyone who does, but it's not for me, I need a lot more adult conversation, a lot more intellectual stimulation from my work. And so that was like another kind of thing I explored, I guess, job I explored, that wasn't the right fit. But there's a lot of emotion tied into all of that, right? It's not just, unfortunately, it's not just the check the box exercise...

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:10
It would be so much easier for well, as it works out.

Laura Morrison 16:12
It's so much easier. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:15
We probably wouldn't have this podcast if it was as simple as that.

Laura Morrison 16:18
That's right. So that was a big apprehension for me. Going through the course, you know, the first few weeks are a lot about self reflection. And I love that. And actually, part of the funny story about my new job is that as I was doing strengthsfinder, in Career Change Bootcamp, I was kind of talking my husband's ear off about how I loved behavioral assessments and how I wish I could talk about them all day. And, man, I wish that was a job. And then you know, a few months later, I found basically that job, which is pretty awesome. But then, you know, you get into the part where you really have to be vulnerable. And you have to kind of go and talk to people and try to meet new people. And there was definitely a lot of apprehension around that as well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:04
So it's, first of all, I love and I've heard variations of that story so many times, and it just makes me so happy that we get to be a part of any of those stories where in this case, you, at one point, were talking your husband's ear off about, "Hey, I just love this self assessment type thing. And it would be super cool if I could do something like this and be able to be immersed in this world all day." And then now you're going to be and absolutely love that. And I'm so proud of you for going from that end to the completely opposite end. Because that's not an easy thing to do as we're going to talk about. That said, what was most difficult as you started flipping from the internal and reflection side, which is often the way that we'll work with our students and clients, we will go through those internal side and really get the best hypothesis of what's going to be great for you. But then at some point you have to flip into, okay, how does this match up with the rest of the world? As you were going through that section, what was hardest for you?

Laura Morrison 18:25
You know, I think I had this idea of the company culture I wanted, right? I'm a casual person. I like wearing jeans to work. I like flexible hours and you know, wanted a ping pong table in my office, which is just kind of a funny indication of the type of culture I was looking for, right. And... but I didn't know what work I wanted to do, right? So it's great to have a good company culture and I had that before, but it's not enough because I wanted to work that was actually exciting to me as well. So that was the hardest part is to think about the work, but also as you and Lisa would keep pointing out as, figure out the work later, like you just have to start somewhere, start talking to people, start learning about what other people do. And I think for me a huge mental barrier, as well is that I felt really naive about what type of jobs are out there. And I felt insecure about how little I knew about what other job opportunities were out there. And so the process of having to talk to people about what they do and what it actually means, as well as continuing to listen to the podcasts where people were sharing stories about the work they do. That step in itself just really helped me understand what opportunities there were, even though some of them I dismissed pretty quickly. Yeah. Does that answer your question?

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:50
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a common thing. And I've heard that quite a bit of feeling naive about what types of jobs are out there. And I think that, I don't think anybody knows all the types of jobs that are out there. We've got exposure to a whole bunch of them just because of the nature of the type of work that we do. But...

Laura Morrison 20:15
I've got to say, Scott, maybe you know all the jobs that are out there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:18
Not all the jobs but...

Laura Morrison 20:19
Yeah, exactly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:22
No, it would be... that even might be easier if we did to help people in that way. But if only there was a list, that's another thing. If only there was a list, I could just go through and pick and it isn't that easy, because even if we knew all the types of jobs, there's still other elements and other variables that come into play. And it becomes this somewhat complex problem of picking out the variables that are most useful and relatable and relevant to you and how you work. And I'm curious, what was it about this process of going and talking to people because from getting to know you just a little bit through the program and having chatted a couple of times, and having had the pleasure of helping you negotiate. It seems like you benefit a lot from conversation.

Laura Morrison 21:16
Yeah, I do. Yeah, I think, you know, one of the, I'll go back to that kind of first session I had with this woman who's local to Boston, this career coach, and her approach was a bit different than yours. And I didn't love it, because she wanted me to read a book about each career option, which as I mentioned, not the best way for me to learn, it also is a big time commitment. And she wanted me to do that before I talked to anyone, because I, you know, when you talk to people, you're taking up some of their time, and you want to be knowledgeable about what you're asking. So that didn't feel great for me, of course, I could have done it. But I wasn't excited about it. But I know that I learn best by talking to people. And the opportunity to talk to all these people in different roles, added a ton of value to me, I think, one I got to see a little bit about company culture, depending on if people were willing to talk to me or not, which is kind of a funny thing. And I also will, now always talk to someone who's looking and wants to talk to me, right?

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:25
It changes that perspective, doesn't it?

Laura Morrison 22:26
It does. Yeah, and I was actually hiring someone as I was looking to be hired right in my current role. And so it put a different lens on it. But, you know, I think I was really nervous about talking to people about making sure that I had something intelligent to say or had good questions to ask. So I did a lot of preparation, which is kind of my style to over prepare, when I'm anxious about something. So...

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:53
What type of preparation would you do or you're gonna...

Laura Morrison 22:55
Yeah, well, I'd looked at their LinkedIn profile. And I would come up with a list of questions that I wanted to talk to them about. And for people who don't know, I mean, the idea is like a 15 minute phone call, which is really not a lot of questions. But I would have probably 10 for every person I talked to, and I would try to make them personal. And I would try to make sure I knew where they went to school, what common interests we had, anything like that, that could help me relate to them. Because while I really like working with people, I have trouble with that kind of first introduction part. I get really nervous, like walking into a room and introducing myself to someone new. But if someone introduced me to that person, I'm very comfortable. So there's this kind of hurdle that I needed to get over to be able to have all those conversations where I could ask these questions. And I literally would ask questions, and sometimes they would ask about me or ask how they could help me. But most of the time, they just told me about what they did, day to day, and I think I talked to probably 20 to 25 people. And that's a lot. That's a lot of kind of time and hours to learn about what other people do. And it made me feel less naive, right, about what all the opportunities are, it made me feel much more empowered to make a decision about different types of roles that could be a good fit for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:20
What were some of the things that you learned through that portion of the process?

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:46
Yes, very much. And we're absolutely encouraging people that center in and lean into those that happened to fall into both categories. And it sounds like... it was interesting for me, going back because you were working primarily with one of our coaches, Lisa Lewis, I would get tidbits, she would either send me an email, or you would cc me on something and get tidbits into what was going on in the different steps along the way. And I would say that it wasn't necessarily always an easy road for you.

Laura Morrison 26:31
Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:32
I'm curious what you felt like were some of the most challenging parts. And I know, we chatted just a little bit before we hit the record button here. But I'm particularly curious about what you'd mentioned to me about going into a role. And getting out of that, because I think that that is real, that's human. And to some degree, we all do that sort of thing. So tell us about that and then what worked for you.

Laura Morrison 27:02
Yeah, you know, I think having a program that I was following was really important to me, because I needed the homework. And I needed to check the boxes as I went through the weeks. And where I spent the most time was in this test drive method, right, is having these phone calls. And so what would happen is I'd spend, you know, two to four hours, and I'd research all these people. And I'd get introduced, and I set up phone calls. And then all of a sudden, I'd have, you know, four phone calls in one week that I was trying to juggle with you know, naptime on Fridays, and work time Monday through Thursday. And I'd have like, get it all in and get... have the conversations that take the notes up great. I send follow up emails and follow up thank you notes. And then after doing four or five of those in a few weeks, between the scheduling and the talking and the follow up, I was just tired, right? And so like, okay, I did that. I know, I'm supposed to have three more phone calls this week. But I didn't have any lined up. I didn't even know who the next people that were going to be talking to were. And so I would often then kind of have a week or two where in the back of my head, I would know I would need to do that again. But maybe I would take a break and go on vacation. I'd say that I was too busy. Or sometimes I would do some of the other homework that I felt more comfortable in. Some of the internal stuff like going back to my signature strengths or even skipping ahead to look and think about my resume. And I think you know what got me to keep going back, I think one like I said is having this course where I knew I had other things I needed to do. Knowing that I was accountable to Lisa, my coach, but I think for the first time really being accountable to myself to get this done and a lot of it was just like, alright, I don't want to do this right now. But I'm going to suck it up. And I'm going to sit down. And I'm going to spend four hours on a Saturday working on this and moving forward. And then you get another flurry of phone calls and follow ups and scheduling. Right? And then it kind of happened in many cycles like that, I would say.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:20
AAnd it kind of sounds like almost the flurry of phone calls and scheduling and everything that came along with it was almost the dose of motivation to keep going or to pull you back in to some degree. Am I reading that right? Or how did you feel about those? Because it sounds like you're...

Laura Morrison 29:40
Yeah, it's a little bit of both. I think a lot of it is, those conversations were really energizing for me. But I would still leave them being like, well, I still don't know where I'm going to work next. So I'm happy that I'm talking to all these people. I'm learning all these things, but I didn't see the end goal. And so I think I tend to be... push myself to be more extroverted than I am. And so I think there was an element of those conversations that was draining for me as well. So it's a little bit of both, but knowing that the conversations are good, made it easy to be like, okay, I took a week off, let's get some more on the calendar.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:22
Very cool. And with those conversations, and initially, as you went into those conversations, you'd said, hey, I still don't know where this is going to end up leading. And clearly that was uncomfortable for you. And there is some of that discomfort type reality that when you're going through and trying to identify what is a great situation for you, and what is a great career opportunity for you, that there... sometimes it is hard to see that light at the end of the tunnel, no matter whether you have a system and whether, you know, we've had many other people go through it before. It's still when you're in the thick of it can be challenging. So what point did you start to see that light come back?

Laura Morrison 31:11
Yeah, it's interesting, because I, you know, there were a couple people I spoke with, and their companies were interesting, and they have job openings, and they were offering to help me get my resume in the door. And I kind of said no, right, I said, you know, I'm not sure this is the wrong fit. But I'm not sure it's the right fit yet. And I don't want to apply to something I'm not super excited about. So like, I need some time, I need to figure that out. And that was hard to do as well, because I wasn't particularly happy. The idea of an end was tempting, right? An end, that could be really cool and I'm sure it would be a great opportunity, but maybe didn't hit the lifestyle choices I wanted or the day to day work that I wanted. But so I think what changed is that when I started talking to people at PI, I was not just excited about the company, or the people, but all of a sudden, the role sounded exciting, too. And I talked to a lot of people there. And they were, like everyone I talked to, was so willing to give me their time. And they're, kind of, openly tell me about what the day to day was. And I just, it was such a great group of people. I mean, I got introduced through a friend of a friend and the kind of head of marketing they're, like, easily handed me three more names of people I could talk to on the team. And that in itself was kind of an indication to me of how generous kind of the culture is. Because when you're busy, and of course, startups and everyone is busy, right, especially at a startup culture, and when they're willing to not just give you their time, but also time with their team members and other colleagues. I think that says a lot about the company. So all of those things combined, started getting me excited about a job at PI specifically, which was kind of the light at the end of the tunnel but then also of course a little stressful because if that's... after all this and I've talked to all these people, if that's the job and the company I'm excited about and I'm putting kind of some eggs in that basket that puts a lot of pressure on myself to hope that it works out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:32
Yeah, and I remember that switch flipping there, where you sent me the email and Lisa too and said, "Okay, I found this company that I want. And now what?"

Laura Morrison 33:44
How do I get it? Exactly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:47
And what did you end up doing? Fill in that's part of the story for people because essentially at this point, as I understand it, this was your number one company at the time, where it's like hey, I like this, I want this. Let's make this happen. So what happened at that point?

Laura Morrison 34:08
Well, I think, you know, a lot of the conversation that I had with you and with Lisa was really helpful to say a couple things, you know, I think you were really helping me understand the right way to approach the conversation, how to continue to build a partnership to really actually make sure that I wasn't... like that I was actually excited about the role while building this partnership and relationships with the hiring manager there. And I think what Lisa did as well was, you know, I mentioned before that, because I wasn't super happy with the work I was doing before, it made it hard for me to feel confident in myself. And so she really helped me kind of remind me that I had a lot to bring to the table, and that I would be a good fit, not just for me, but also for the company that I could do a lot for them. And because I'm so passionate about it, that's, you know, one of the reasons that I'd be a good fit there. I mean, the PI whole thing is about engaging employees, right. And when people are engaged, they bring a lot more to the table. And so being able to be myself and show how authentically interested I was was kind of the primary thing that I focused on through the hiring process.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:30
How do you recommend, having just been through this, I think what you just described is very difficult in terms of being able to be yourself or at least be confident enough to be yourself through that hiring process and share that part because it is some level of vulnerability. Right. But, what advice would you have to other people that are getting ready to go through that or are going through that?

Laura Morrison 35:59
Yeah, you know, I think if you found a role that really does line up with what you're looking for, and something you're excited about, and the strengths you bring to the table, then it's much less important that you know how to answer a million behavioral questions. And much more important that you get yourself in a headspace to be yourself and be the competent version of yourself in those conversations. It's a lot easier to say than it is to do, right. And I think Lisa, maybe had a tip, I can't remember if it was you, Scott, or Lisa about you know, listen to a song before your interview that gets you pumped up, or I think Lisa said, watch a video of your daughter, like, just do yoga, go running in the morning, do something that calms you down, right. Or if you're a calm person that hypes you up whichever way. And I think that was really valuable advice. And I think I did a mock interview with Lisa. And I had prepared all these answers. And I've been, kind of, I like writing. So I write down a lot of things that sound great on paper. And then as soon as you try to say them, you kind of stumble over it and it doesn't come out, right. And she was pointing out to me that I would switch from myself to like the interview version of myself. And the interview version of myself is much more boring. And so just that in itself, like after that I actually kind of stopped preparing for the interview, and started thinking more about how can I be myself with these people? Like I had been on the phone calls, because I was comfortable there. So how do I go into an interview and figure out how to just be myself?

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:52
That is suitable. And I'll even distinguish, you mentioned earlier, being the confident version of yourself. And that is... that I think is a small but critical distinction too. Because we can go through, as humans, all of these head games where it's just like, I'm just not competent anymore, or I'm just not a confident person anymore, or whatever else. But I don't think that that is true. And I don't think that is helpful for any of us to be able to tell ourselves because we all have just like you pointed out a place where we can be a competent version of ourselves. And that's the both genuine plus helpful version to be. So that's interesting that you started preparing for focusing more on being yourself rather than focusing on doing the "right thing."

Laura Morrison 38:47
Yeah, definitely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:50
Okay, so we just covered a lot of ground here over seven months. How does that feel looking back? Does that feel like a long time? Does it feel super quick? I'm always curious about that.

Laura Morrison 39:03
You know, I think I had a goal for myself starting in January that I'd have a new job by the end of this calendar year. So that's exciting, right?

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:12
And you did it.

Laura Morrison 39:13
I did it and I set that goal. And I was like God, years a long time. So it's a little bit of both, it's in the trenches, it felt like a long time, I knew it wasn't going to be a month, right, two months. I knew that I needed to do a lot of the searching internally to figure out what I was looking for before I could find it. So I think, you know, parts of those seven months or so felt long. Usually, actually, the parts where I wasn't alone and wasn't doing much, I think, for me action and moving towards the direction speeds things up, or at least made me feel better about the time that it was taking. But now looking back on it, I mean, the difference from where I am today, versus where I was at the end of the year is incredible, not just in the fact that I have a new job. But my mentality about my career, about my potential in a career, kind of the optimism that I gained through the process, yeah, it feels very different in a very good way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:35
So what is... it is a completely different place. And it's been super cool for us to be able to see some of those changes along the way. But what do you feel like that is meant for you, other than some of the additional optimism that you have going into 2018 here, what do you feel like that's meant for you?

Laura Morrison 40:42
Oh, it means a lot. You know, I think, having just had a daughter, which is amazing. Of course, she's almost two now, I guess I can't say just anymore. I think for moms, in general, that you tend to shift all your focus away from yourself, and now on to this kind of little creature that you brought into the world. And it's amazing, but it's also really hard to find time for yourself, to take care of yourself. And I think for me, the career part is what I put most on hold. And again, because I didn't know what I wanted to do. But partly because I felt hard. And I was focused on something else. So now to be able to be kind of a mom when I'm home. But then the idea of going to work and being happy at work too. It's all... it's just a very different way. Yeah, it just feels very different. Right? If you're going to leave your house, leave your kid with someone else, you'd hope that you're doing something fun while you're out of the house. Right. And that's something that I really didn't have. And now, I'm really optimistic that I'll have that going forward. And I'm also optimistic that now, it won't take me three years if I am unhappy again in the future.

Scott Anthony Barlow 42:06
That is, you know, when we get the opportunity to work with people, I know that that is what, initially people are very focused on, the change that's now. I think personally, having done this for a while and being able to witness a lot of changes. I think that's the most valuable part in the long run is just knowing how and having the confidence to be able to make changes for when something else in life changes. Because it will, I mean, it absolutely will. And it's going to be something, that's going to be, you know, a promotion opportunity, or it's going to be, I don't know, your boss leaves or there's going to be something there, right?

Laura Morrison 42:53
Right. Of course.

Scott Anthony Barlow 42:54
And that is so cool that you feel prepared for when that happens the next time around.

Laura Morrison 43:01
Absolutely. And I think that's where some of the optimism comes from. I feel empowered to kind of be in charge of my career again.

Scott Anthony Barlow 43:10
Woohoo. I didn't have anything else to say that is what I wanted to add right then and there. That is amazing. I am so proud of you. And Lisa, so proud of you. And we've shared your story with our team already. We do that behind the scenes for every single person that ends up hitting their goals or getting the results that they wanted to, we share that around on, we use Slack for Team communication. So we have a woohoo channel. That's where your story got shared as soon as it happened. So woohoo to you too, and now you get to share in that as well. And you have just done a phenomenal job. And before we wrap it up, I'm curious for... if you're reaching way back to a year ago, where you resolved that and you made the commitment, hey, look, I want to... this is the year. I've been thinking about this for a couple of years now. And now I'm gonna do something about it. This is the year. What advice would you give to people that are in that spot that are just setting down this path to be able to make the change?

Laura Morrison 44:18
Yeah, I think, you know, it took me a few months to look for outside help. And that was the thing that I needed. I think, particularly as someone who has been successful, it's hard to admit to myself, it was hard for me to say I couldn't do it by myself. You know, I'm smart person, I should be able to figure this out. But as soon as I, you know, had my first career coaching experience, it completely turned around my approach to finding a new job. And it completely gave me the power back and the tools that I needed to do it. So I think, you know, if you know exactly what you want to do, well you're probably not listening to this podcast. But if you don't, just know that there are a lot of tools and resources and people out there who can help you. And for me, that made all the difference.

Scott Anthony Barlow 45:12
That is amazing. Well, I am so glad that it did. Thank you for letting us hang along for the ride and getting to help you at every little point, it was a ton of fun.

Laura Morrison 45:23
Yeah, thanks, Scott. And you and Lisa, and the whole team has been a pleasure to work with. And I, like I said, I've been talking to everyone about your program. And I just think the best of the work that you do and the tools that you put out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 45:36
Well, we very much appreciate that. Thank you for spreading the good word. And keep it up. Do not let us stop yet. That is phenomenal. Laura, thank you so very much. And congratulations, again, moving into your new role. That is amazing.

Laura Morrison 45:53
Thank you, Scott. I really appreciate it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 45:56
Hey, if you loved that story from Laura, well, if you're interested in the same type of change, we actually have, as of right now, we've just recently opened up Career Change Bootcamp 2.0. And we've made some massive improvements to the program. It's the same coaching program that Laura went through, as she made all of her changes. And we got the pleasure of helping her make a massive difference in her life and ultimately get to the company that she really wanted to be with, and the role that is super exciting for her. Check it out on our website, just go to happenyourcareer.com and click on career change bootcamp or drop us an email support@happentoyourcareer.com and we'll help you figure out if the program is right for you. And I really appreciate everybody going over, leaving us ratings and reviews on places like stitcher and iTunes and I'm so appreciative. This one actually comes from M Wills, "I listened to a great variety of podcasts. And Scott's HTYC is up there with shows that I hate to miss or must catch up with." And thank you so much for leaving those five stars because that helps other people, not just find the show, but ultimately get to work that they really love. We've got even more in store for you coming up next week, which we have a return guest on the podcast somebody you haven't heard from for a while, but I think you're going to love. Alright, let's see what we got coming up right here.

Mark Sieverkropp 47:28
My daughter is nine. And she comes home from school and no joke. This is the conversation we have, like, everyday, "Dad, can I take my shoes off?" "Yeah, go ahead." "Dad, can I go to the bathroom?" "Yeah." "Dad, can I get something to eat?" "Brooklyn Just do it. Like just go do it. You don't need my permission to do everything. Now if you want to go play in a busy street, please ask me first. But you don't have to ask for these things." And so I think it really is like we're trained in school and we're trained in society that there's authority figures and we have to let somebody else tell us what we can do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 47:57
All that and plenty more next week right here on Happen To Your Career. I will see you then. Until then. I am out. Adios.

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Is Your Fear of Other’s Expectations Holding You Back From Living Your Most Authentic Life?

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Why does the term “live authentically” seem like it’s been popping up everywhere these days?

In fact, if you just Google it,  only 2.47 Million results appear ( if you can’t tell, I’m dripping with sarcasm).

But, why do we all have this urge to “live an authentic life” in the first place?

Well first, let’s take a step back. What does “living authentically” actually mean? According to a quick Google search:

Even more simply put, living authentically:

“…IS ABOUT BEING WHO YOU ACTUALLY ARE”

While that sounds nice (and can make for a fancy facebook post–I know you’ve seen them) it’s actually a lot harder to achieve in real life than one might think. And, it turns out that if we thought it was difficult to be ourselves around our friends and family, it feels near impossible to do be our real, authentic selves in our careers.

Especially in the beginning. I mean, why do you think that a whole style of “behavioral style interviewing” has popped up so that companies feel like they need to extract the truth from us…just to find out if we’re a “fit” or not? Worse yet, why do we feel like we need to play the part of a different person just to get that job in the first place?

Then, when we finally get hired, we’re surprised–and now expected to be this person that we were during the interview process (hint: definitely not “living authentically”).

Talk about a recipe for unhappiness!

SO, WHY IS IT SO DAMN HARD TO BE OUR TRUE SELVES AT ALL TIMES?

Well ultimately, it comes down to fear.

Since most of us feel like we have to behave like one person when we’re at work, and a difference person when we’re, that in itself creates a social expectation. if you want to be yourself at all times, you’re bucking the trend.

Because, in our world today it’s  not “normal” to be get paid be who you are, using your true strengths instead of just the skills you’ve picked up in various roles along the way.

But, you want to know the weirdest part? By resisting being your most authentic self at all times because of fear, we are ensuring that we stay unhappy by default.

JENNY’S STORY: FINDING A ROLE THAT USES HER GIFTS–NOT JUST FULFILLS EXPECTATIONS

It’s been on my new year’s wish list for about three years to find a new job. It’s taken a while. I’ll be transitioning into a new role helping to develop a science and sustainability program at a university near where I live.

Jenny

Meet Jenny.

Jenny has had no shortage of accomplishments in her life. With a Stanford BA, a science PhD, and a successful track record in several different fields, Jenny is a highly intelligent, rapid learner (not to mention an amazing mother of 2 kids!) and basically, an all around a rockstar. But, three years ago Jenny came to the conclusion that her role as a research scientist wasn’t a great fit. She knew something had to change.

She started slowly (very slowly) on a journey that would ultimately completely change her life–and in the end align her career with who she was as a person.

There was only one problem: During the first 18 months of Jenny’s job search, she found that she was moving so slowly, she was actually stuck.

That’s because Jenny was making her decisions based on fear and what other people might think, instead of what she knew was right for her.

You can listen to Jenny’s entire story, and hear exactly how she began to believe she really could create a new career identity for herself based on the things she couldn’t stop doing.

I didn’t want to let down my family, which is full of scientists and academics, my advisor, my professors, my peers, other women in science, particularly I felt like I needed to live up to the expectations to fulfill the investment I and they have made in this research track.

It was in that exact moment of considering the many people involved in her current career path that Jenny realized she wasn’t going to make the change she need to make alone. In Jenny’s search, she stumbled upon the Happen to Your Career podcast, ultimately enrolling in our Career Change Bootcamp program.

When we first started to work with Jenny, we helped her to identify what her “gifts” were. Essentially, Jenny had to figure out what were the areas she naturally gravitated to, but maybe didn’t value or couldn’t use fully in her current role.

During that process, Jenny realized that the “people” side of the equation (i.e. how she related to others, built relationships with others or worked through the complexities that people bring) was where she flourished. But, this was the exact opposite side of the table from where she spent most of her time at work. Science roles really do often fit the stereotype of solitary data crunching, analyzing, and writing.

This was a huge insight for me, in my science role in my home agency I was not rewarded in the metrics of contributing to complex problem solving efforts. I’m rewarded for the number of scientific papers I publish in journals on scientific results. The more I got involved in the people side of the equation and the relationships and collaboration the less time I was investing in completing and writing up and publishing results.

This insight led Jenny to realize that her ideal role would be somewhere that allowed her to use her love of science and experience in the field, but at an organization that specifically valued and highlighted her ability to work with well with a wide variety of people and problems.

BUT, HOW COULD JENNY TRANSLATE HER GIFTS INTO A CAREER THAT FIT HER VALUES?

The good news: Since Jenny hadn’t been getting rewarded for her strengths in her day job, she had been searching for other ways to fulfill her passions.

So, Jenny began volunteering occasionally for organizations and events such as the local museums, schools, and universities’ children’s science programs. Through that process, she identified that places that had the intersection of people AND science could be a fit for her.

She began to strategically put herself out there in small but genuine ways, using her natural gifts – getting reinforcement and positive feedback.

This allowed Jenny to prove to herself that her strengths really could be useful in a different role –rather than somewhat of a liability as she had been led to believe in past roles. Also, her volunteering experience allowed her get to know people in key positions within several organizations she was interested in.

As she began having success connecting with people who had the authority to hire her (or even create a position for her!), Jenny ran into an issue. She began to worry about her supervisor and coworkers finding out from someone else that she was looking. And questioning or outright criticizing her desire to transition from an excellent research job that she “should” appreciate and perform well in.

Since Jenny was unwilling to allow this to happen, this new fear nearly brought her journey to a standstill once again.

WHAT IF YOUR BOSS COULD SUPPORT YOU DURING YOUR CAREER CHANGE?

The first time I pitched her the idea that her boss could help her through this process, instead of prevent it Jenny flat out told me, it wasn’t going to happen. She was terrified!

Eventually though, she warmed up to the idea–especially when a role opened up that she thought might be an amazing fit…and she felt like she had no other options than to be clear about her goals.

So, we coached her through the process of exactly how to have a conversation with her boss so that he would not just understand her situation, but actively be willing to support her in making this change.

This courageous and genuine discussion with her supervisor ultimately enabled her to get his endorsement on changing jobs outside the organization–even if it was almost 9 months before it actually happened.

With another barrier lifted, it became easier for her to put more energy and effort into finding a career that matched her gifts and values.

JUST WHEN YOU START TO GAIN MOMENTUM…THAT’S WHERE IT REALLY GETS HARD

Now that Jenny was much more confident in what she wanted for her career, she knew what she needed to do in order to pursue the role that she wanted. This ultimately made it possible to recognize a great opportunity for her when she saw it,…but she wasn’t out of the woods yet.

Jenny did amazing work connecting with colleagues whose roles in science outreach and education intrigued her, at a University she was interested in. Eventually she secured an interview for a position that sounded like it would play to many of her strengths. But, Jenny decided that didn’t want to go through the entire interview process  only to accept  a job that still might not be a great fit.

This realization meant that Jenny had to get hired for who she was, not someone she thought she “should be” during the interview process.

She began working with Lisa Lewis, a coach on our team, to practice interviewing authentically. It was important for Jenny to show potential employers exactly who she really was as a person AND cause them to want her even more. With Lisa’s encouragement, Jenny finally gained the confidence that highlighting her true personality and values during interviews would be more effective than trying to present herself as an ideal, but not fully “real”, candidate.

Jenny ended up getting the job offer.

It wasn’t a perfect offer though.

HOW TO MODIFY YOUR JOB OFFER TO REFLECT WHAT  YOU REALLY WANT

Most people don’t realize that it’s not just about having the perfect negotiation conversation and “saying the right things” at the right time to get the offer you really want.

Instead, it was all of the work Jenny had done clarifying what she truly wanted, building authentic relationships, and preparing for the interview in an honest way that enabled her to be in a prime position to ask for something quite a bit different than what the initial offer.

By the way: I’ve had many people tell me that when you work at a University there’s no room for negotiation or it’s “impossible” to get exceptions made for you. We’ve found that’s not the case–instead those people just don’t know how to do it any differently and end up accepting that reality for themselves.

As you know, Jenny didn’t accept their offer at face value. Even though it was outside her comfort zone, she  pushed herself to have multiple conversations to ensure she was getting what was most important to her. Again, she was amazed at how right HTYC turned out to be: asking for what you want and need can lead to actually getting it!

In the end, Jenny happily accepted a revised offer with greater flexibility in the schedule,increased compensation, and a start date delayed by 2 months to allow a smooth transition from her previous job and also a very important family vacation overseas!

After what was nearly a 3 year journey, Jenny had some advice for you if you’re getting ready to make a career change:

Trust your own instincts on what feels like a good fit for you and try not to stay too attached to that investment and identity that doesn’t feel like a good fit any longer. People do change and evolve and I keep reminding myself that new phases of our identities is what keeps life interesting.We can make a bigger difference in the world for the better if we allow those changes to happen rather than fighting them.

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Jenny 00:02
Even as a graduate student, researcher, and teaching assistant I had a lot of challenges, sort of, prioritizing when do I grade papers and meet with students who are struggling versus when do I pursue my own research and write proposals and papers. And so, my conclusion after, sort of, testing it out as a graduate student was, I’m not sure I could do this full-time as a professor for the rest of my career.

Introduction 00:30
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 00:54
This is Scott Anthony Barlow, and you are listening to Happen To Your Career, the show that helps you figure out what work fits you by exploring other stories, we get to bring on experts like Lisa Lewis, who teaches people how to reframe their future, and set goals attainable, especially in this new year. And people who have pretty amazing stories, like Adarsh Pandit, who left academia, develop scientific approach to his career change and found a job that fits his lifestyle. Now, these are people that are just like you, they've gone from where they are, to what they really want to be doing. And today's guest is Jenny, who we got the opportunity to tag along for her journey over the last 18 months and help her actually make a change. And this is so much fun to have this conversation with her now.

Jenny 01:42
It's been on my New Year's wish list, I think, for about three years to find a new job. But it has taken a while. And I’ll be transitioning into a role, helping develop a science and sustainability program at a University near where I live. I have currently a science background, but I had been looking for opportunities to do more than science or other roles in addition to science. So this job sounds like an incredible blend of different things. And I'm really curious about it and excited to get started.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:23
In this conversation with Jenny, we get pretty deep into how to stop doing what you should do, I'm using air quotes. And you know, what I should want in my current job or what other people want me to have, so I should stick with it. You don't have to be bound by those shoulds. And also how to let go of your current identity. Because if it's completely wrapped up in what you do right now, that can stop you from finding something that is going to make your heart happy. And how to let go of other people's expectations on your life more of those shoulds. But this it really impacted Jenny and take a listen for how much this impacted her. Because she's somebody who's pretty talented, she's high achieving, she went to a really reputable school. She's done a lot in her life, but still, a lot of this identity was wrapped up. And she was allowing what other people think, impact her happiness.

Jenny 03:26
Well, I had a pretty typical past as a scientist with a few added extras on the side. I did a... and I’d love to talk more about the extras because I think it is significant but my, sort of basic biography as I did an undergraduate degree in Biology, then I took a few years and I actually taught a preschool Science program, but then went to graduate school for more Science, again, Biology, Ecology, Conservation. And I got a PhD in that field and did a lot of outdoor research on mountain forest ecosystems and fire with many of the aspects of those topics and the process of research I really love. After finishing my PhD, I worked both in the education realm for a while and as a field biologist. I had a series of part-time jobs teaching college Biology which, those were some great adventures and learning experiences. But I did always know... or I realized about half way through graduate school that I didn’t want the traditional career of an academic professor. My dad actually, is an academic professor and my grandfather was, and several family members. So I’d seen lots of examples of that career path and I had been intrigued and thinking, it’s sort of, in my genes and in my environment, but the more I learned and experienced from the inside, as a grad student, the more I thought, I'm not sure this would be the perfect fit for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:16
What caused you to think that? What are some of the elements or some of the events that, you realized, "hey, this isn’t for me for these reasons."?

Jenny 05:27
Well, I think it's an incredibly challenging and rewarding profession but it's sort of 24/7. I had seen this with my dad. He was doing his own research and writing, he was advising graduate students, he was teaching undergrads and our whole family life was filled with overflow and participation in his academic life. One of the thing my dad studied is Charles Darwin. And my sisters and I grew up just actually thinking of Charles Darwin as a really bad guy, who sort of, took my dad away from the family a lot. And we sort of visualized him as a, sort of, cartoon character villain.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:24
Charles Darwin the villain.

Jenny 06:25
In college I started realizing that actually he was the opposite of a villain, he's a... many scientists hero. I secretly took my own classes in evolutionary biology and history and philosophy of science and realized that Darwin is not a villain. That, any academic study can really take over someone's life and career. And so...

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:50
So he played the villain in your early movie.

Jenny 06:53
He was the reason dad could not, sometimes come to sports days or picnics, things like that. Some of the graduate students became, sort of, there were this, sort of, cast of characters, some of them were really funny and friendly and role models for us, but it was certainly a big deal to be a professor. When I was studying with my own advisor in the different field of biology, I realized he was working around the clock. His family sometimes would come out to the research sites with us and joke that that was how they got to see him. A lot of people juggle everything very successfully including my dad and my advisor but I felt like I wasn’t sure I had the energy or the commitment to a particular research field with the degree of passion that, at least, these two had. I’m, sort of, a generalist. I'm interested in lots of things but I didn’t want to single-mindedly pursue one research track. And I also found teaching to be really demanding. I felt this very strong sense of obligation to all the students in the classes that I taught. So I would... even as a graduate student, researcher, and teaching assistant I had a lot of challenges, sort of, prioritizing when do I grade papers and meet with students who are struggling versus when do I pursue my own research and write proposals and papers. And so, my conclusion after, sort of, testing it out as a graduate student was, I’m not sure I could do this full-time as a professor for the rest of my career.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:40
I see. So this really didn’t line up with your lifestyle, at all. It sounds... oop, your lifestyle that you desire at all that... from the very beginning, and you had multiple examples of this over and over again. So I’m super curious then, what took place after that? After you tested that out and realized, "Not for me." Really great for some people that are very very much more into it but, as you said, you're much more of a generalist. And if I recall, you identify as what Emilie Wapnick back in episode 173 calls a multipotentialite, is that right?

Jenny 09:20
Yes. The problem also with my science studies was that I just could not help adding other topics and roles on the side. In the grand scheme of things, I think that type of approach is valuable to cover many disciplines or have a broader scope, but I think in the world of science, it's more typical to be a specialist and it's seen as more focused and more productive and contributes more to the individual field. My advisor was often questioning me, "why are you working on the campus writing center with all these English majors?" And I find...

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:09
What's your problem?

Jenny 10:10
And yeah, intriguing and enlightening. Why do you have so many side jobs? I think it's detracting from your forward progress. I’d say, well, it's sort of keeping me engaged and I love interacting across the whole campus and... so, we had a little back and forth. But I think, to answer your question, my next step was to say to myself, "alright. I’m going to try and find a more pure research job or pure teaching job and sort of see how those feel when I can separate the components of research and education." That worked out and I learned a lot through those comparisons. I learned that I didn’t love teaching a lot of content, a lot of information, again, maybe because of my generalist type of approach. I love teaching classes and the process of science, and I still do. Encouraging kids, or students of all ages to sort of come up with their own questions and hypotheses and investigations. I had several college teaching jobs that did this and those were really rewarding because I could see the spark of excitement and discovery in the students and how energized they were to figure out, "I can do science. I do science every day. Now I'm gonna learn to do it systematically and it'll let me find out new things and solve problems."

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:48
I’m curious, what do you think was the difference for you after all of this and making the transition and having lots of these experiments along the way? What do you think was the difference for you in terms of teaching focus on process versus teaching focus on specific information and what caused you to resonate so much with that? Because I’m guessing part of the reason that they would light up was because your involvement with that as well.

Jenny 12:24
I think I really do love, and I’ve learned this through listening to a lot of the HTYC podcast and other things. I do love guiding and mentoring, facilitating. That is always part of good teaching, I think, but definitely in science's course too, there is this emphasis on transferring information and facts. I feel like that involves a lot of memorizing and different skills than sort of the process skills. I’m not sure why, maybe I just don’t have as strong memory as some people do. But when I was teaching those classes I would sort of barely memorize all the different types of plant tissue or something, myself. I'd memorize them like, right before I got to teach the students and then I try to get the students to remember them using the same techniques that I had just learned. And I was sort of, I know it's really important to absorb the basic facts and information in any field but sometimes I would feel like we were overloading the facts and the memorizing and I would prefer the emphasis on the process of investigation and discovery and sort of went toward that side of the spectrum.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:51
That is so interesting. That even when you were teaching those types of information like, all the time on the podcast, we talked about what you can’t stop doing and what shows up everywhere. And even when you are doing those information type classes, you are still, "Hey, here's how I taught myself to remember this. Here's still the process." That is interesting.

Jenny 14:12
Yeah, I mean, I did... one of my most stressful experiences was teaching plant biology. I ended up trying to have the students do all these experiments like, let’s learn what plants need by growing a bunch of plants under different conditions rather than just telling them, "Here are the 39 things, nutrients and conditions, that plants need." We did all these experiments and now I’m thinking about it, a lot of this maybe goes back to this really fun interlude that I had in college, and after college when I was a preschool teacher and I realized that kids just want to investigate everything all the time. As we both know, we have little kids and they're just the world's best investigators and scientists and engineers. So that's how I had operated in preschool and that was encouraged in pre-school. It was a philosophy that I learned at that time called "Emergent Curriculum", it was about letting the kids sort of drive the agenda and learning process rather than having them put together, sort of, prepackaged arts and crafts activities led by the teacher. I hadn’t realized that but this has been kind of a theme through a lot of my work. Maybe I was lucky to have that formative job experience early on. And I really... it really clicked with me and I clicked with it. And I feel like there's the most genuine learning when the learner is sort of driving the pace and the process of the learning and it's not necessarily all about memorizing the facts.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:03
That is super interesting and I wanna actually come back to that and touch on that a little bit later too, because I’m curious, how much that helped you in this actual career change too. But before we get into that and before we dive into that part, I’m really interested in how you began to feel after you got into your most recent type of research and what was it there that caused you to start to think, "Hey, maybe I should be actively pursuing something else."

Jenny 16:38
Yeah, it's definitely connected to this theme and I thought about this a lot. I think I went into science and research for two reasons. One is I genuinely love this process of investigation and discovery and I really love the process of problem solving with science, both just in the simple cases of kids figuring out answers to their own questions or in my field, it's been tackling the problems of sustainable resource management like forest management, water management, wildlife management. Using science to help the resource managers identify the most effective strategies and least effective strategies. So I was, was and still am really enthusiastic about that part. I think the second reason why I stayed in Science and research was sort of to live up to the expectations of everybody who had guided me along the way and helped me pursue this track.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:48
What's an example of that?

Jenny 17:49
I didn’t want to let down my family, which is full of scientists and academics, my advisor, my professors, my peers, other women in science, particularly, I felt like I needed to sort of, yeah, live up to the expectations, sort of, fulfill the investment that I and they have made in this research track. But what began to shift for me was that, first I realized that when I was working with manager, partners who had problems to solve, it wasn't sort of purely this scientific data that they needed in doing their job. It was also connections with scientists, relationships with scientists, input from scientists that was more than just numbers. The whole situation was much more complicated than it seems from the outside, you know, I had sort of... before I took the job that I have now with a federal research agency, I had thought, oh there are these problems in the world of environmental resource management. And scientists will come to the table with the managers then will go off and design experiments to help address the problems and then, a couple years later, we'll bring the results back to that same table and hand them over and then we'll go away again, and the managers will be able to take the results and implement them and everything will get better and the problems will be solved.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:30
Whoa, it doesn’t work like that? You are killing my utopian bubble.

Jenny 19:39
It's still worth striving for that sort of effective, clean model of how the world works but I feel that I was naive looking back to think it would be that simple. The good news is that even though it's complicated and even though the relationships and the people dynamics and the politics are really highly involved, that's sort of part of the, I guess, positive side in one sense. I think... and I’ve seen that by developing these strong relationships, scientists and managers can solve or address even very tricky problems by working together. However, the huge insight for me was that, in my science role, at my home agency, I was definitely not rewarded in the metrics of contributing to complex problem solving efforts. I’m rewarded for the number of scientific papers I publish in scientific journals on scientific results. And so, the more I got involved in the people side of the equation and the relationships and collaboration, the less time I was investing in completing and writing up and publishing results. And of course, the more complex the problem, the harder it is to get clean publishable scientific papers out of it. I was kind of getting.... against the checklist of performance that I'm evaluated by, I was not doing the things that were expected from my position and I was finding meaning in what I was doing but I was also wishing that I could have a role in which part of the purpose or point was to invest in the relationships and collaborations and it wasn’t seen as a distraction or delay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:53
So you're doing all these things that you are starting to get meaning out of and feel good about and you're getting small snippets of those as you realize, "Hey. I actually really enjoy these pieces of it." You also had the same sinking realization that sounds like that, the organization you are with doesn’t value those pieces. Now, even removing right or wrong, I mean every organization values different things and different elements, and it sounds like that didn't line up very clearly, and became painfully clear, with where you were at. What prompted you to do something about that? What took place? Do you decide, "Hey, I actually need to... I need to act on this."

Jenny 22:46
Well, there was kind of this dawning realization that every year during the annual performance review discussions, I was being questioned rightfully about the time that I was spending in meetings and collaborative workshops and the investment that I was making and the people's side of the scientific problem. That was a little awkward. But I think that as kind of silly or different, as it sounds, I had a more personal epiphany related to a book that somebody else mentioned on the podcast recently. Totally different. It was this, decluttering your life type of book by Marie Kondo called “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.” I read this book and it's very... it's quite practical, and it's really insightful and philosophical in many ways. And I think I probably read it a few years ago, I think right after the holidays and with our young kids, our house was just full of toys and stuff and I was thinking, it's time to get organized, it's the New Year. But this author's approach is to guide people more broadly to really question everything in their life including, spouses, careers, any element and ask, “what about these different elements is meaningful to me and what isn’t.” And to try and focus on keeping the things that are meaningful and bring you joy and satisfaction and sort of let go, thankfully let go of the things that don’t fit or bring you meaning. And so this could be everything from the outgrown barbie dolls lying on our floor in our playroom to sort of bigger things. But the thing that really struck me was that, when I looked at all the books in our house, and in particular mind, I had this insight that if I was in charge, I would gratefully say goodbye to a lot of the science books that people have given me over the years. I’ve always accepted the books and been appreciative but I never felt compelled to read any of the science books. And I almost feel strange about admitting this. But my husband would read them, friends would read them, my dad would read them. And I just was never compelled to read them on the weekends and evenings because I did science 40+ hours a week. I always felt like that must... so I had this feeling, I don’t think I’m a proper scientist. What is wrong with me that I would want to give my science books away? And that really started me questioning the big picture of my future career.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:04
Hold on. One thing you said though, I think is very much a human tendency and I think it is something that almost all of us, maybe not all of us, but a lot of us experience where we go through something like that and then we start to question, what is wrong with me? It’s nothing wrong with you, in your particular situation, then there's nothing wrong with the next person so much. But that is so interesting that, we as smart, capable human beings will... we will question what, well, I must be broken. And it's truly not the case and definitely wasn't in your situation too. So I just wanted to acknowledge that because I know that you haven’t stayed there. What happened next after the realization and you realized, "Hey. There's all these books that are sitting on my shelf. I don’t want these" and you started to feel, sounds like, awkward at a minimum about that and questioned even yourself. What was next?

Jenny 27:04
Well, a lot of... sort of, self questioning, I guess, and worrying and wondering what to do. I mean, around the same time, I had started volunteering at my kids school to lead science activities and I was finding that really really fun and rewarding. And it was taking me back to the days of working at the pre-school with these amazing little science investigators. I was starting to think I love this process of sharing science, fostering science even though I’m not, maybe, a specialist and a die-hard 24/7 scientist... or sort of more classic scientist, myself. Maybe I should look at roles that where I could go back to teaching or facilitating science in some way, not just with kids but with non-scientists or people who'd like to learn more about science or get a little flavor of science, I think... I really think I’m good at, sort of, bridging the gap not assuming that everybody wants or needs to understand science or love it. But I think I started looking more closely at institutions and agencies and organizations that are sort of in between the worlds of science and education and real life. A couple of job ads started to catch my eye in that arena of science education. And so I put out, I think Scott, the first time I contacted you I was responding to an ad for an informal science education position that I was really excited about.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:05
Oh, yeah. I remember that.

Jenny 29:10
At the same time I didn’t want to sort of blow my cover. I didn't want to do... I wasn’t ready to do what I would think of now as a full job search where I would tap into my big network of connections and do a lot of informational interviews and start getting a sense of what's out there that involves science but isn't pure science. So I still haven’t really done that. And I think one of the challenges that maybe will resonate with other people is that, I couldn't let go of the sense that I should want my pure science job. It's a great job, it's really secure and well respected. I’ve talked with many people over the years who would absolutely love to have the job that I have. And I kept thinking, people will think that I’m crazy if I start asking around widely about alternative career paths.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:18
So let's dig into that for just a second. Because I do think that that is a... that is something that we hear all the time behind the scenes and emails that we get, and people that we talk to, conversations that we have every day especially for professions like scientists, like academic professors in other cases, doctors, lawyers, yeah. And particularly, people that are high up in different organizations too, I am a Senior Director of this, or VP of that, or CEO of this. You know, we hear that again and again and again, because we've wrapped ourselves into that world, and we built that world around it. But I'm curious, let's go into that. So what was that like for you? And how did you start unraveling that?

Jenny 31:08
Well, I think one of the insights I had again was from something of a popular psychology type book, about how there are some people in the world, and I realized that I can acknowledge that I am one of them, who are unusually highly tuned into other people's expectations. I know a lot of podcast guests have alluded to this and it's helpful. I think that the particular book or sort of, I don't know, framework that I found helpful is by Gretchen Rubin, writer who studies happiness and habits and recently published a book called "The Four Tendencies" about how people respond to external and internal expectations. And I’ve always sort of envied people who are very tuned into their own internal compass and expectations and goals. My tendency has always been to try and do what other people expect or I think is reasonable and I think somehow I had to... was very comforting to me to read more about the fact that there are more people than me in the world that share this I guess, orientation. You don’t have to beat yourself up and think that you're weird or weak willed, etc. You can try to say, given that I now recognize I follow a lot of others' expectations to the point of having a lot of credentials and experience in an arena that maybe other people expected me to follow or to be a good fit. Given that, I can still take a step back and say, "Now I realize that isn’t the best long term fit and now I want to gently disentangle from some of those external expectations and start discovering what my own internal drive is telling me." I went through this self-questioning and self-analysis process and it was significantly helped by all the material that I absorbed from the HTYC podcast, and blog, and some of the courses and exercises that you, guys, provided, Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:50
You’ve been through quite a few things with us, you’ve been through career change bootcamp, and you've done coaching, and you've been a listener for a long time on the podcast. You’ve been everywhere.

Jenny 33:59
Well I think that... one of my insights was, it's really okay to ask for help, get help and support and invest in help and support. It's a big deal to make a big transition. The thing I think was the hugest roadblock for me, mentally, and maybe for others was this feeling of lack of confidence. First of all, how could I have such... how could I have invested so many years in a career path that might not be a good fit? Why didn’t I realize this sooner? And then having a lack of confidence of not performing perfectly in my job that isn’t a good fit, and I think you or others said, "Well, it makes some sense that we wouldn’t performing at our best at a job that we recognized isn't a great fit." But something about that daily undermining of confidence like, I'm not doing what I’m supposed to be doing, I'm not good at the things I’m supposed to be good at, that sort of, drains confidence and so it was really hard... it was really hard for me to kind of get over that confidence barrier and have that energy and positive confidence to apply for better fit jobs. I think HTYC and other support people and resources were really essential for me to kind of build up confidence that had been draining away and kind of get that energy and positivity back to start making new applications. I certainly had a few ups and downs with that. Some interviews and applications that didn’t go very well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:55
Share how long you’ve been working on this. I think it'll be helpful to people. How long have you been working on this journey in order to make this transition?

Jenny 36:03
I think about three full... three and a half full years since my very first job application which was in a, I don't know if I even I’ve talked to you much about that one, but it was for a science focus role with a national nonprofit conservation organization, which I think does amazing work and I really respect and admire. But because it was sort of a blend of science and other roles, I did the interview for that job kind of wearing my science hat, and I was really thrown off because the interview and application process was a lot broader than I had realized. And I may not have... by this story before that there was this moment that I occasionally have nightmares about, during a big final interview with a big panel of people. They suddenly switched from asking science-ish questions to asking me what I was passionate about. And I completely froze up. Now I know that that's not such an unusual job interview question. But at that time, it was the first time I'd ever heard it. In the world of all the science interviews, I'd never done that. Had never never come up. And as you know, I’m also from England where people don’t tend to talk freely about passion very much. I started stammering and joking about how scientists really weren't supposed to talk about passion nor were English people typically. And I said that the only thing I could admit to being passionate about was good coffee. And maybe you can relate to that but the interview panel wasn’t very amused by that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:09
They weren't buying it.

Jenny 38:09
No. I just floundered horribly and finally said a few things that weren’t related to coffee and recovered a little but I realized after that interview, that I really needed to work more broadly on my skills and my presentation, and my applications. This wasn’t something that I would just be able to kind of wing it and succeed at in making a big transition. I’ve really benefited from all the resources and guidance that I’ve found with your team and others and feel like I should encourage people like you always have, to not try to go it alone. And try to reach out for help and resources, if needed. I realize that interviews can be handled much better with lots and lots of practice and I also really loved the episode long ago in the podcast where you interviewed a scientist with a PhD in biochemistry, Adarsh Pandit and he mentioned he had done like 30 interviews while trying to figure out his transition from a science and research role into another arena. And that made me feel a lot better, you know it really does take practice, it's not gonna happen spontaneously and organically.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:48
I think, I wasn’t around for that particular time frame when you went through that interview that now, still occasionally gives you nightmares but I think that had to happen in order to allow the other events that followed it. Otherwise, you may not have had all the realizations that you've had, and you may not have conducted all the experiments that you conducted in that took place after that and not in the way. So, I wouldn’t wish the nightmares on anybody but I would absolutely wish that type of event that caused you to think about some of these things differently. And I think many people need that type of wake up. You don’t have to but a lot of times, it does takes place before we begin to take different types of action and before we begin to reach out and ask for help and before we begin to realize that, "hey, this is the bigger deal and if I really want this, then, here's how I have to go." We’ve been in contact, I wanna say for a little over 18 months, give or take. And I just got to say that I’ve been so impressed with, particularly, how you have stepped through this. Because... first of all, let’s just think about what you've done here, you’ve been immersed every single day in a situation where essentially, some of the things that you are the best at and some of the things that really do make you happy, and some of the types of activities and the way you engaged with people aren’t rewarded for the most part in your environment. What, I think, most people don’t realize when they're in that, is the realization that you had, that it was chipping away at your confidence. When it does something that is continually chipping away at your confidence every single day, then taking and having the wherewithal to recognize that and reach out for help is, honestly, half the battle. Because, that is something most people will not do. And then, you went above and beyond that and even though it's been super uncomfortable for you, because you thought about yourself as a scientist and you have all of these other people expectations in mind, you've continually progressed closer and closer to the point where now you have this role, that is going to leverage the fun things or the things that you look at as fun and also some of the things that you have and be great about and at the same time, not so coincidentally, leverage those the experiences that you have. And I think that, that is so cool, it is not easy. And it's taken a long time for you to be able to make that journey but most people will never start or most people will stay on that same path and never get the help, never recognize that it's chipping away their confidence, never have the commitment to be able to do something about it. So I am super proud of you and I'm so appreciative that you've allowed us to be right there and help along the way.

Jenny 42:59
Thanks. Yeah, I really appreciate it and I think the experiences I’ve had hopefully are shared by others. It doesn’t have to be science that forms your identity. And I’ve taken, I would say, I've taken steps to kind of broaden that identity. I haven’t completely let it go. My new role will certainly... I realized it was important for me to find a role in which that training and experience will be an asset. But I’m thrilled that I'll be able to use my people skills, my relationship building skills, my guiding and mentoring and discovering and problem solving skills and I don’t think I would have clarified those as fully without all this great help along the way. So, thanks again. Yeah, it's been really a fun process of discovery.

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:02
Fun mixed in with some challenges along the way to say the least. I’m super curious, before we go, for other people that are in the shoes that you were in, 18 plus months ago, where they have the realization that it's not what I want to be doing forever. They are looking at the type of the change that they want to make or maybe even feel like they need to make, in order to get where they want to go and it's a big change because what you have done is a huge change, I would say. What advice would you give people that are in that place?

Jenny 44:46
Good question. I guess to try and sum it up it would be to trust your own instincts about what feels like a good fit for you and try not to stay too attached on that investment and identity that doesn’t feel like a good fit any longer. I think people do change and evolve and I keep to remind myself that, "new phases of our identities is what keeps life interesting and we can make a bigger difference in the world for the better if we allow those changes to happen rather than fighting them." It’s helped me to have a few sort of mantras about... or prepared answers to people's questions about why I might make this move. I think those will be different for everybody but it helps me to kind of practice them. Science is a great fit for many people and I love science but I think a better fit for me will be facilitating science with other partners, etc. I also think that it is daunting to look at one's whole life being sort of reorganized by a new career choice but I love how your process and others emphasize that it's kind of a holistic process of change and it shouldn’t be scary. It can definitely be positive and exciting. I also wanted to just quickly mention, it turned out that I had a friend in my neighborhood all along, who gave me great insights and confidence close to the end of my journey. And she sort of complimented your approach, Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 46:53
Very cool.

Jenny 46:55
She sort of had this perspective of telling me what she thought my strengths were, sort of in everyday life. And I know you emphasize that in the bootcamp like, have your friends and family to list your strengths. I found that really tough. It happened organically through some conversations with a friend who's starting a career coaching business called Career Five. She just was able to chat with me about strengths and say, "Yes. This is what I’ve seen you do in the neighborhood, school or birthday parties. This is what I think you're great at." I would say to others like, try and take those sources of information and confidence sort of wherever they show up and everything is relevant and keep the faith and keep your spirits up through adding everything into your week that you can, that helps boosts that confidence and reminds you of all the things outside your, not good fit job, that make you... that give you happiness, confidence, and rewards.

Scott Anthony Barlow 48:11
Very cool. I so appreciate you making the time. This has been a phenomenal conversation. There are actually so many other questions that I wanted to ask but we haven't even got to dive into. But some huge takeaways for me and how to think about yourself differently and how to move through a big change like this, particularly, when you’ve steep yourself in one type of perception about how you and your life looks and I think you’ve done such a phenomenal job with that. So I so appreciate you making the time, Jenny.

Jenny 48:52
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 48:55
Hey, if you're ready to create and begin to live a life that really truly is unapologetically you, I would absolutely urge you to check out our career change bootcamp program. We have, for the first time, just open career change bootcamp 2.0. And you can find that on our website happentoyourcareer.com click on career change bootcamp, or drop us an email support@happentoyourcareer.com. And we'll be able to point you in the right direction to learn more about how you can learn what you really want and be able to make it happen. Hey, I really appreciate all of you going over to Stitcher and iTunes and all kinds of places where podcasts are played and leaving us ratings and reviews. This helps so many other people find the show and we just... it means the world to us. And as it turns out, helps other people, not just find the show, but get to work that they love which is kind of what we do around here, anyhow, really appreciate. This one from Lauren PNDC, it says "This podcast is a lifeline as I tolerate a job that pays well believes me lackluster, and I found it by googling, should I quit or fear of taking risk, it's revitalizing my vision for meaningful work and finding the tribe I feel connected to. so grateful for this high quality content." Thanks so much, Lauren. Really appreciate you leaving that. We have much more in store for you coming up next week right here on Happen To Your Career. We have even another person and I think you're going to absolutely love this one, who allowed us to tag along for the ride. And she made such an amazing change, I think you'd be blown away. And so much of this next episode, I think you'd be able to incorporate into your life. So take a listen for what we've got coming in store.

Laura Morrison 50:48
And so for a while, that felt like a good fit, and it felt like something I could be passionate about. And then over time, it just wasn't anymore. But again, I was in the same position that I had had kind of in college and beyond where I didn't know what else to do. And so I just kind of stuck with it, kind of only half thinking about what else I could be doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 51:10
Alright, all that and plenty more right here on Happen To Your Career, next week. Until then, I am out. Adios.

Scott Anthony Barlow 51:23
Cue the bloopers. That means record just in case you hadn't figured it out. This is Scott Anthony Barlow (so unprofessional) uh, yeah, I got this. Deep breath. Like I'm at the yoga class or something. Sorry, Josh. I'm like really mixed up here. Okay.

Joshua Rivers 51:45
Not a problem. It's called a blooper reel.

Scott Anthony Barlow 51:49
Yeah. Oh, my goodness. That's ridiculous. Like I've never done this before. Oh, my goodness. My voice sounds so flat.

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Why You Should Trust Your Gut Intuition When It Comes to Your Career with Jason Bollman

by

Wherever you are in your life, do you ever find yourself asking:

Why does this not feel right?

At times we may even think:

“What am I doing?
This should be everything that I want. It should be hitting all the right things and for some reason, it just doesn’t feel right.”

Whether it is about your current financial situation, your relationship, or your job, sometimes we have these feelings that we just can’t shake.

Those feelings we don’t know how to describe exactly.

It’s that feeling at the pit of your stomach that puts a little doubt in your mind when you set out to do something you weren’t really too sure about to begin with.

And sometimes, it’s that utter and complete feeling of self-assurance that comes out of nowhere when you’re about to make one of the biggest decisions of your life — like marriage, buying a new house, or your career change.

Those feelings? That’s your gut intuition trying to tell you something. Trusting your gut intuition is important!

The definition of intuition is the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.

It’s safe to say that the decisions we make in life are usually made with our head or our heart.

But, a lot of the time with specific big life decisions, our heads will use all the logic it can to persuade us to stay in the safe zone when it comes to finalizing those big career decisions.

Many people find themselves torn when it comes to their career change.

They know and feel deep down inside that something isn’t right and they struggle with taking a chance to actually make a change in their career.

Why do we fight what we know to be true in our core?

We see how others reach their goals and we think we must follow in their footsteps to reach the same success.

But, the truth is: we don’t.

Success is defined by our own definitions and the way we reach our career milestones and life goals is up to us.

LISTENING TO AND TRUSTING YOUR GUT INTUITION

One way to breakthrough the traditional path of success that we’ve built up in our heads to be the only path of success is to listen to that little voice in the back of our head telling us where we need to be to successfully reach our own career goals (whatever they may look like).

Here’s how we can learn to listen to our gut intuition and trust ourselves enough to reach our career success.

There were other instances in my personal life where following my gut, instead of my head really paid off.

Jason Bollman
CREATE A SPACE TO REFLECT

Career change requires a lot of your time, energy, and effort.

It doesn’t do you any good if you are in a constant battle between deciding to listen to your head or your heart.

Getting in the habit of creating your own space to reflect on your life and career goals and how you reach them is something you should make a top priority.

Make time to go for a run, read a book, network, or just find some time you can set aside for yourself to sit, relax, think, and reflect.

Creating a space without an agenda or to-do list to just be present to listen to your gut intuition about your career choices is the first step to find the answers you’re looking for.

I journaled — tried to figure out what is wrong.

This looks right on paper, but it just doesn’t feel right when I wake up in the morning.

Jason Bollman
PUT YOURSELF OUT THERE AND TAKE ACTION

What is something you can do that will move you one step closer to where you want to be?

When you find that one thing you can do to bring you closer to your career goals, you can begin to put that commitment into action.

Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there.

If you decide that you want to dip your toe into a new field by volunteering for an organization to either get a feel for their organization’s culture or if it is a position that you are thinking of switching to, make it happen.

Dedicate a set amount of time to your commitment and get a feel for what your life would look like if you made the career switch.

Trusting the work that you did by listening to your heart deserves a good try.

So, listen to your gut and take action.

Trusting your gut intuition will give you the opportunity to intentionally put yourself in a situation that you can enjoy.

By listening to your instincts, you give yourself a chance to grow your career.

If you’re not quite ready to hand over all of your logic to the decisions made by your heart, we’ve got the resources to help you keep moving forward with your career change.

Check out our career coaching.  We have world-class career coaches that will ask you challenging questions, keep you accountable, encourage you to take a step back and reevaluate, and offer you a different perspective.

Read more about it here or visit our Career Coaching resource for a more personalized one-on-one career adviser.

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Scott Barlow: Welcome back to Happen to Your Career. I am incredibly, ridiculously, ecstatic to be here with our guest today because he has done some amazing things with his life and journey and career very recently. What is even more fun is our team has been able to participate. He has allowed us to share in it. He has a great story. Welcome to Happen to Your Career Jason, how are you?

Jason Bollman: Doing great Scott. Glad to be here.

Scott Barlow: We are going to get to your story and changes and progression but before we do that help people understand what you get to do now.

Jason Bollman: I have just started a new role where I oversee the offerings our company puts together in how we sell our products to our clients and how the team delivers that. As part of the offerings I’m putting together there is a big focus on training. I have a couple training developers under me putting together e-learning, training guides, and training our consultants. I run that portion of the business.

Scott Barlow: That is super cool. I have had hands in all that before. It can be a lot of fun.

Jason Bollman: I’m very excited about it.

Scott Barlow: You haven’t always been doing that. This is a recent change. I’ve talked to Lisa and she’s shared some of your story. You worked with Lisa Lewis. For those of you who don’t know her you can hear her story on episode 147. Way before that you have had quite the career. Where does this start for you way back? What did the beginnings of your career look like?

Jason Bollman: I went to school for civil engineering. A little ways from working with a software company that I’m at today. During college I did a co-op program where I worked a semester then went to school for a semester. There were a lot of engineering points I liked but it didn’t get all of me. I would get involved in campus ministry and a fraternity on campus. I was being really active on campus. I realized engineering wasn’t all of me. I did volunteering after graduating and settled on a teaching program in Omaha, Nebraska. I taught for two years while working on a master’s degree. I taught middle school math. I enjoyed it but realized that teaching wasn’t for me either.

Scott Barlow: I didn’t realize you had a detour in Omaha. I’ve spent some time there. I almost moved there. There is a lot of cool things I didn’t know until I visited.

Jason Bollman: My wife and I really enjoyed our time there and considered settling in permanently but it was a little bit further from family than we’d like. We moved a little closer to home. Omaha was a great experience.

Scott Barlow: Very cool. You went there and you were teaching and determined that maybe this isn’t the right thing for me. What happened from there?

Jason Bollman: Fortunately coming from a teaching position I had a summer buffer to figure out what was next. I did some reflection to determine what would be a good fit for my engineering and teaching background and found technical consulting getting into a software space working with clients and it is technical. It had everything I wanted. Once I got into the company I started at a help desk. Not many people were willing to put me in a consulting role with my background. I started at a help desk, learned the software and showed my abilities and was able to move to consulting. Eventually I managed I team of consultants.

Scott Barlow: Back up for a second. I think you just glossed over a bunch of stuff that took place for those to happen. You didn’t walk in and start at the help desk then boom let’s get this guy to manage a team. I’m guessing that wasn’t the case. I’m curious what happened in between there that took you from one spot to another?

Jason Bollman: Absolutely. In coming into the help desk position I knew I didn’t want to be a support analyst for a career. I wanted a more client facing role. It played out, because I was eager to learn. I was on the software that focused on multi-family division and was figuring out how the reports worked and financial worked. Let me look at the development piece. It was a constant hunger going above and beyond what was expected. It helped me give a resume to the consulting team that showed I wasn’t just doing the status quo. It helped make the transition.

Scott Barlow: Interesting. I’m curious going from teaching into making that initial move, was that a difficult decision for you or was it obvious? I’m partially curious because we are in the middle of the summer and we get so many teachers that find the podcast because they are in summer and have time to reflect. We also find that a lot of teachers don’t make the move even though they feel like they should. What was that like for you and why did you decide to do it?

Jason Bollman: During the teaching program I was part of it become apparent I love kids. I think I did well as a teacher but it become apparent I didn’t have what it takes to do it full time. I struggled with the parents. I was looking to get more into the complexity of problem solving and troubleshooting. The lesson plans were consistent each year. It hit on a number of key pieces that were helpful but not the whole package. There was a lot of frustration and I was struggling to make things happen and get the analytical pieces of me that I had in engineering. I lost that in education.

Scott Barlow: That makes sense to me. Lisa has shared bits of you story. You strike me as the type of guy that can sink your teeth into difficult or complex problems.

Jason Bollman: Absolutely I love the details. Let me dive in and see things from top to bottom.

Scott Barlow: That makes sense. You aren’t getting all of that in the teaching role and you make the move to the help desk and are taking some great steps that cause you to move through the ranks pretty quickly. What happened from there?

Jason Bollman: Working as a consultant I was doing a lot of projects on my own. Running my portion of the business without a lot of checking in. I was mentoring the younger consultants and taking the portions of the software I knew so they could do the portions of the training I was doing. There was an opportunity when a manger left the company. I had expressed a desire to take on more and had proven I was doing all right in my current role. They gave me a shot managing a group of consultants.

Scott Barlow: Very cool. They brought you on board and you are managing a team of consultants which sounds awesome and from the outside looks like a great job. So what happened for you to say it isn’t right anymore?

Jason Bollman: You have it right there. It looked from the outside the ideal position. Working with clients, doing deep diving things, being a leader which has always interested me, managing a team. It seemed it would all be good. I was on the road traveling to visit a client and wondered what I was doing. It should be all that I want hitting all the right things but it doesn’t feel right. I struggled with that for a while before asking for help and pursuing a career coach. I talked to family and friends, prayed, journaled trying to figure out what was wrong. It looks right on paper but doesn’t feel right when I wake up in the morning.

Scott Barlow: What do you feel like after going through all that and you know deep down something isn’t right. What did you determine wasn’t right or was misaligned?

Jason Bollman: Great question. In part, it didn’t come out until later, but realizing there is an entrepreneurial bug in me and desire to run my own business someday. Lisa helped me uncover that. It was part of why I was struggling to pinpoint. My dad was successful working in business as an employee moving to an executive level. I thought that was the way to go. He enjoyed it. Not until after working with Lisa did I realize I have a desire to branch out and do my own thing someday. The environment, the leadership team I was part of wasn’t as fruitful as I’d hoped. I enjoyed who I managed but my upline was not one that I gelled with as much as I’d like. I didn’t feel I was on part of a team. It was a desire to branch out on my own and not being in the right environment.

Scott Barlow: Interesting. That makes a ton of sense. The bosses and leaders you are working with, whether you feel supported in whatever it looks like, if it’s not lining up, it’s one of the biggest things that have a huge impact on your level of happiness, based on research. First of all kudos for doing something about it. What was the period of time where you said I’m doing journaling and talking and I need to do something to change this? What happened?

Jason Bollman: Great question. In part it was one of my close friends. He hired a business coach. He is in the process of launching his own professional speaking, career coaching type of company and hired a coach. And talked about how beneficial it was and having an accountability partner to keep you moving in the right direction. It was partly that and my wife and closer friends getting sick of me asking the same questions. I need some professional help instead of just complaining and brainstorming with my wife.

Scott Barlow: Part of it was you seeing other people and your wife giving you the boot to stop complaining.

Jason Bollman: Absolutely, I love you but we have to stop talking about this.

Scott Barlow: Totally understand that. Been there. Alyssa will tell you.

Scott Barlow: That is interesting because I didn’t know that part of the story. It makes complete sense. As you started embarking on this journey what did you go through to get to the point. You’ve made this shift in roles. I would say it’s not the easiest thing to do. There are two things going on if I understand. You’ve made a shift to a role that is much better in alignment for now but also you still have this desire to do something on your own on the side. Am I seeing that right?

Jason Bollman: Absolutely. This is a great role currently. It is allowing me to develop skills to branch out on my own. I know this is a shorter term game knowing I’ll move on to something on my own. It’s a good gig along the way.

Scott Barlow: To be honest that is why I’m interested in talking to you. That is real world for how some of these things happen. I think many of us want to know how to get to the point where we have four million dollars and spend our days doing whatever we want. I think most people don’t realize the things that happen in between there. That is an opportunity to still enjoy yourself or intentionally put yourself in a situation where you continue to grow. I respect what you are doing and how you are thinking about it because few people do that. Help me understand what led up to this? You and Lisa had been working on this for a while. What happened? What was hard and what was easier?

Jason Bollman: It was a rollercoaster working with Lisa. It ebbed and flowed. She identified pretty early about the entrepreneurial bug. I dismissed it. It’s not for me but for others. We discussed the roles I had. We talked about moving from project management to managing product. Building the software instead of just implementing it. Went down that route, did research, applied for jobs, networked, and talked to a bunch of people. At one point my homework was to connect with a certain number of people in product management. I talked to a couple people and realized it still wasn’t right. It feels like my current job. Still not what I’m looking for. We had to back pedal and try the focusing questions again. What do you want? What do you want your life to look like in 20 - 30 years? In 30 years I’d love to have the four million dollars and work when I want and do what I want. How do I start taking steps to that? We went down the route looking for a different type of job, company, and environment. And having to backpedal when it didn’t feel right.

Scott Barlow: What was that like being in that? The steps forward, testing if it’s right, and then as you called it, backpedaling, and coming back. What was the most difficult part of that?

Jason Bollman: The hardest part for me was to sit with the topics and get deep into why I wanted to make the change. Lisa was good about asking the questions with our coaching calls. I’d have three questions I could put together easily but she’d ask for four and it was hard and five which was really hard and then six or seven. The six or seven clarifying questions really got past the surface level to decide why I wanted to pursue certain things and why I wanted my own business in the future. It’s uncomfortable to get down to those questions in your life.

Scott Barlow: It’s interesting and I love how you are putting it. It helps people understand how this really works. I think we all know logically there will be steps forward and back as you are tackling this. It’s hard while you are in it. It’s how it actually works. You go out and you have this hypothesis about yourself and you test it. You talk to people and in your case you realized it isn’t the thing at all and you come back. It feels like a step backwards but it isn’t because it allows you to move forward in a different area or get closer to the answer. So many people get derailed because it feels they are going backwards. What caused you to keep going and not being discouraged? Or did Lisa have to drag you?

Jason Bollman: There is a little kick in the butt from her. She helped me realize that following my gut or intuition has really helped me out. That intuition that brought me to coaching. There were other instances in my personal life like relationships with my wife where following my gut instead of my head paid off. Being an engineer by default I’m analytical and don’t like to follow my gut. It was a kick in the pants and also her helping me understand what my gut is saying. Put your head out of it for a minute and let’s sit with it.

Scott Barlow: Super interesting. That is actually to be honest, the reason we didn’t move to Omaha, Nebraska. We had an opportunity to move there with the company I was with. My wife and I had been talking about this and actively planning to move there because that was where they were located. We visited and loved it but then we were talking in the kitchen one day and realized we were ignoring that gut feeling. At the same time we a realized our plan was to move to Omaha to get experience so we could move back to Moses Lake, Washington. We looked at each other and said why are we doing this? We were doing the same thing you were describing. We were “logic”-ing the crap out of it with our head and ignoring our heart. It’s interesting you bring it up. For people just starting to pay attention what advice would you give them to push off some of that stuff? Our head overtakes and we ignore the gut feeling. How have you done it?

Jason Bollman: You have to create space in your life to sit with it. It started with me journaling for the first 15 minutes of my morning. No agenda, just whatever was on my mind. Getting in the habit of being reflective, sitting and asking what I’m feeling. No lists or questions. Just where am I? One thing I did while working with Lisa was using some of my paid time off. One day a week for two and a half months, 8 - 10 days where I took a day off, switched it up, and created space to go for a run, read, and do some networking, to have time to sit and think and reflect. That was most helpful. Creating a space with no agenda or to do list. Just sitting and listening to your gut.

Scott Barlow: That is invaluable advice. It is also something some people may have heard before. Creating space. What prompted you to actually do it and take action? I think so many of us think about it, planning on using the time for other things. How did you prioritize it high enough in your life? It’s clearly paid off but I don’t think when we are on the other end it’s very easy to see the pay off. If I do this it will lead to insights and millions of cash. Whatever comes with it? What did you do?

Jason Bollman: The morning journaling. I read the Miracle Morning and hearing his story, taking care of his lifesaver, visualizations, and affirmations. Hearing all those things made it seem I could get up 15 -20 minutes earlier and do those things. Why not. That was the first seed to start me. Moving to taking the time off, which is big step. I had put together a list of what I needed to make a change. Lisa is helping me see I can branch out in my own thing. Where do I want to go with this? With my analytical mind I made a list of all the things I could do. I could do a side business and jump out a plane with the parachute on the way down. I could take a part-time job to have some income. I could move to a different company with a different role. Ultimately taking some time off to have space was the best option.

Scott Barlow: Two things I take away. One it’s the smaller changes earlier on that enable you to move down the path to get to the bigger changes. Journaling allowed you to see the benefits of the time and space and reflecting. Being able to put multiple options in front of yourself to decide and what is the best fit. It allowed you to look at it holistically rather than be in perpetual what ifs. I could quit my job but then I’m scared for different reasons. Looking at it with different options allows you to evaluate differently. Ultimately get to a better position. Is that what you experienced?

Jason Bollman: Absolutely. You touched on starting small. I can get up earlier and journal. Five minutes becomes fifteen and it becomes finding a career coach which leads to writing everything down. I have a bad habit hearing people say you have to create space and take all this time off and jumping right to this. But what’s something you can start just five minutes a day and go from there. It builds on itself.

Scott Barlow: I love that. For someone on the other side of this just starting to have the same feelings you did that something is wrong, not totally sure what it is yet but they are no longer ignoring the gut feeling. What would you advise them to do having just done it in the last 6 months?

Jason Bollman: Yes I’ve been working with Lisa in January so, six months.

Scott Barlow: Super cool. What advice would you have?

Jason Bollman: Great question. If you can just take some time. Take time this weekend to sit and reflect and ask why doesn’t it feel right? What am I committed to doing about it? For me it was journaling. It helped get things moving. Maybe for someone else, it could be I don’t feel great physically and need to start exercising. It looks different for every person. I’d challenge you to find some time, whether its fifteen minutes or a half hour to sit and think about if I could just change one place where would I start.

Scott Barlow: I love that. If I could just change one place where would I start? It happens that way for every person. It happened that way for me and Alyssa. Eight to ten years ago we were in a ton of debt and it was a huge issue. We fought all the time and bad stuff happened. For us it was just the tiny start to pay it off slowly which led to all kinds of other crazy life changes. It starts with one thing. Journaling, asking a question, whatever it might be. Super sage advice. I very much appreciate you taking the time and coming on the show. Before we leave I have one or two more questions. I appreciate this it’s been awesome.

As you thought about this and making the change what parts of it were unexpected for you? Especially more recently the last three months or so. What weren’t you thinking about or what things were unexpected?

Jason Bollman: Ultimately the role I am in now is a little of my own creation. There had been someone managing the offerings. There were individuals that worked on training development but not one single team working in the same way as I’m trying to get us to work. Creating a position out of nowhere. I was surprised how easy it was after I suggested it that they said yes. I thought I’d have to do an elaborate presentation. It was as simple as saying there is synergy here and my skill set and I’d like to talk more about it and they said let’s make it happen.

Scott Barlow: Super cool. I’m curious what do you think was in place at that point already so that it was well received and allowed creating something new? A new position. Not every situation will flow like that. Seeing this multiple times behind the scenes, I suspect that you probably already created the time and place. What do you think they were?

Jason Bollman: I had started being transparent with my leadership team that I was working with a career coach realizing this wasn’t the right fit. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go but was pursuing other opportunities. I would keep the team informed of what was going on, while I am here I am fully committed. Being open and honest and coming from a place of value that I want the team to be successful but I won’t be my best version if I stay in this role. Laying ground work, following my gut, having scary conversations. I felt it was right and it made the sell at the end much easier because I had been open and honest coming from a place of value.

Scott Barlow: I didn’t realize that was part of it. I’ve done a lot of that same thing. Probably as people hear you talk about it and how you shared it openly it probably scares the crap out of most of them. And it scared you and me but when you do things other people wouldn’t do and put yourself out there you earn the opportunity to develop trust others wouldn’t have and at the same time getting results that other people wouldn’t get which is crazy. What then took place in between there? Was it just you decided I see this opportunity I’m going to talk to them about it or was there more?

Jason Bollman: It fell into place. I had seen the opportunity and the portions I enjoyed and not having a fully formed thought. A different part of the organization was going through a re-organization, realigning to build the company for growth. We had acquisitions. I was in my manager’s office when he told me about it and a light bulb went off. Everything I’ve been thinking of this would be a perfect time to pitch it. I’ve been thinking about this and I htink it fits well with the re-organization that’s happening. He said it sounds great let’s talk to the vice president and get his insight. He was more excited than my boss. It had been marinating and I’d been thinking about it. It just came up. I’d been practicing following my gut so I put it out there.

Scott Barlow: Now I bet you are glad you did.

Jason Bollman: Absolutely.

Scott Barlow: That is amazing. Congratulations again by the way. I had only been able to tell you that over e-mail. I want to tell you face to face, or as close as we can, everyone else will hear it on audio. That is absolutely amazing. Jason thanks again for taking the time and making the time. This has been awesome.

Jason Bollman: Absolutely. This has been great Scott. I appreciate it.

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Find Your Career Calling and Own Your Purpose with Jessica Williams

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How many people do you know that are actually doing what they said they would be doing when they grew up?

How many of those people enjoy their career choice?

How many of those people are wishing they still had a chance to do something different?

Guess what?

There is still time.

No matter what age you are or what stage you’re at in your career, there is still time to go out and look for your career calling — to find that purpose, to make your mark on the world.

If you’re ready to tap into something bigger than your current job situation, you’re going to have to change your mindset from one that thinks that opportunities are limited and resources are too scarce for you to make a life change, to a more holistic approach of assuming abundance and becoming more in-tuned with yourself.

Now, let’s get to work on finding your career purpose and owning your calling.

IN ORDER TO FIGURE OUT WHAT YOUR PURPOSE IS, WHAT YOUR CALLING IS, WHAT YOU’RE PASSIONATE ABOUT, THEN YOU GOTTA DO THE INNER WORK.

IN ORDER TO DO THE INNER WORK, A LOT OF STUFF IS GOING TO COME UP THAT YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO DEAL WITH — THAT MIGHT BE HARD, THAT MIGHT BE SCARY, THAT MIGHT BE OVERWHELMING, THAT MIGHT BE CONFUSING.

BUT, IF YOU DON’T LOOK AT THAT. I THINK YOU’LL REMAIN STUCK.

YOU’LL LACK SATISFACTION.

STEP 1: REFLECT

Being proactive in reflecting and evaluating your current job situation as it pertains to your life goals is crucial in finding your calling and the next steps of your career journey.

Create little mini-getaways for yourself clear your mind and start with a fresh slate to think about your career purpose on a deeper level.

Reflect on your strengths, what you value, a purpose you want to be involved in, and the kind of people you want to surround yourself with.

This first step of reflection is the hardest, but the most valuable in finding your career calling.

Taking your time and finding your calling can help you begin to create career goals to help design a life you love with purpose.

STEP 2: ACCEPT & ACKNOWLEDGE

Our careers constantly evolve as our priorities, life goals, and interests change.

Accepting these changes as we take the time to re-evaluate where we are in our lives will help us progress along our career change process.

Being able to acknowledge that, ‘Yes, this is what I want to do. This is what the accumulation of my skills, experience, and passion has led me to want to do,’ creates a sense of knowing and a feeling of confidence within ourselves that will start turning the wheel of momentum that we need to change our careers.

STEP 3: OWN IT

Now that you’ve taken the steps to reflect, identify, accept, and acknowledge what your career calling is, you’ve got to own it. And, you’ve got to own that purpose sooner rather than later.

There will be doubts of your decision from outside perspectives and maybe even from your inner voice, but you will need to develop strong boundaries that will give you the ability to discourage those nay-sayers and negative thoughts.

You have to be very in-tuned with yourself, believe in your purpose, and own your decision to pursue it.

Create a space within yourself that will give you the ability to gain self-mastery through your strengths, skills, and confidence to protect yourself from people that question your calling.

STEP 4: MAKE A PLAN-FINDING YOUR CALLING

With a clear direction of where you know you want your career to go, the next step is making a plan to get there.

How do you do that?

You can begin by identifying positions and organizations that align with your calling.

If you find that you’re in need of more guidance in the planning step, you can look into outside resources like hiring a career coach or recruiting mentors that have been in your position of change.

STEP 5: TAKE ACTION

In order to own your purpose, you’ll need to take intentional actions in reaching your newly identified career calling.

Start making small incremental changes toward your goals.

You can even volunteer in an organization that matches your calling or network with those that work in those same organizations to get more information or dip your toes in the waters of that new career.

Remember that it is always a good idea to evaluate your progress. If you have to, you can always pivot your career course.

As high performers, we are always looking for ways to improve where we are to where we want to go.

High performers want to build careers that are in alignment with their dreams and values.

The steps above will help you jump start you down a path to reach your new career goals and aid you in finding your calling.

Once you own your purpose and take action to do something different from what you’ve been doing, you’ll build momentum to continue to live out your calling.

Remember not to rush your career change process. By doing that, you defeat the purpose of the time you’ve put into doing all of the soul-searching and goal-setting to find your next career move.

If you find that you need more support through your career journey, we’ve got the resources for you.

Check out the Career Change Bootcamp program as it was created to guide you to build a strong foundation in finding the right path to your next career.

Read more about it here or visit our Career Coaching resource for a more personalized one-on-one career adviser that can help you reach your career goals.

DOWNLOAD THE TRANSCRIPT TO THE EPISODE NOW

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Introduction 00:00
This is the Happen To Your Career podcast, Episode 189.

Jessica Williams 00:08
And I ended up moving there, sight unseen, with no furniture, it was just me and my dog. And I slept on the floor for a while. And no one would hire me. I mean, I had gone from $100,000 a year to sailing around the world to, now I can't get someone to let me pour coffee.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:35
This is Happen To Your Career, we help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what does and then make it happen. Whether you're looking to do your own thing, or find your dream job, you've come to the right place. I'm Scott Barlow.

Jerrad Shivers 00:58
Decided that maybe, you know, 80, 90 hour weeks and a young family doesn't necessarily go together.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:05
Jerrad was burned out with long hours and high stress.

Jerrad Shivers 01:09
When we started to do the questionnaire and write everything down, we started our pros and cons with where we wanted to live and who wanted to be around and all that stuff.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:17
Listen to Jerrad's story later on in the episode to learn how he used coaching to help him figure out what fits him and actually make the change to work he loves.

Jerrad Shivers 01:26
I ended up with my dream job.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:33
This is Scott Anthony Barlow, and you are listening to Happen To Your Career, the show that helps you figure out what work fits you by exploring other stories. Now we get to bring on experts like Jenny Foss, who's a career consultant who helps people define and communicate their personal brands, or people that have really amazing stories like Michael Bigelow, who identified as big value adds to follow a career path that he was able to grow. And these are people that are just like you, they've gone from where they are to what they really want to be doing. And today, we get to talk to, Jessica Williams.

Jessica Williams 02:09
I am the founder of a company called The Superwoman Project. And we do everything from training, speaking, writing, coaching, to support the advancement of women into positions of power. So helping women with their careers, their leadership, helping them run their own businesses, so kind of run the gamut, but it's focused on women who want to become powerhouses in the world.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:38
In this interview, we'll get into the importance of being very clear about your career direction, and owning your calling. And even what that means and then the internal process in which you figure out your calling, if you're still unsure, and then how to transition out of the job without burning the bridge. Because as it turns out, that's not easy to do. I've done it both ways. And you know, it's much better one way versus another. Jessica has an amazing story of how she got to where she is now.

Jessica Williams 03:07
Yeah, so it's funny, Scott, because I don't talk about this often. And it's something I'm trying to talk more about. I grew up in the deep south in Raleigh, North Carolina. And it was an environment where women weren't taught necessarily to do the kind of things that I'm teaching women to do now, which is, go after what you want. You can be anything you want, do it unapologetically, be authentic, be you, you know, you could be anything you want, but don't be too loud, don't be too noxious, you know, maybe keep your mouth shut because you want men to like you. And by the way, keep your hair long and wear tight clothes, like I was taught a certain way to be as a woman. And I knew as a child that like something just wasn't right. And my dad, also when he drank, he would get incredibly violent. And he hit my mother in front of me a few times. And I saw my mom really sacrificing herself for her children and really not taking care of herself in the way that I now know, that's how I want to take care of myself in a different way. And I want the women around me to take care of themselves in a different way. And she did it for the sake of me and my brother, which I have very confusing feelings about sometimes, but my father was like, you can go out and be anything you want, but don't be too much, you know, and so it's always like, "Oh, I'm stuck and I feel confused." And so I went to college and then literally like bolted to the west coast like, I have never been further west in Tennessee, and I've never been to California but I just knew it was the place for me and I jumped in a two seater car and drove across the country, lived with a cousin I never met in Los Angeles, and, oh my god Scott, I don't know if you... a lot of your listeners, they might be recently graduated from college. But no one tells you when you first graduated from college, how hard it's going to be to integrate into, "real life" I think. I certainly did not know. And I had also put myself on a path of really challenging times. I didn't make it easy on myself. And I didn't have any connections in California, but I had been looking for work about six months prior to moving out to LA and I had a couple interviews in the pipeline. And within three weeks, I had a job. And I had a great job. I was working as a sales rep for a wine distributor. And my territory was the LA beaches, territory.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:41
Awesome. I've been there. Learn to surf there.

Jessica Williams 05:45
Right. I was living here most of beach, traveling all up and down LA, selling this beautiful wine. And I was so lonely, like I would cry and I didn't know if I'd made the right decision to move out there. And I had a really hard time making friends and but I pretty quickly met a man who was really 22 years older than me. And he was very adventurous and charming. And he sold Italian wine. And so I was just like...

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:11
Even better.

Jessica Williams 06:12
Right? I know and I was like, "Oh, I love you." And he was like, "Let's go. Let's go on adventures." And he had a little sailboat that he had sailed from San Diego to Florida through the Panama Canal in his 20s. And he took me on that boat one day and he said, "I want to sail around the world. And I want you to come with me." And I was like, "Sign ne up. I'm in! Yes." Like get me out of this like, rat race I'm in with work. And I feel so alone in the world, I don't understand like this what life is like just going....

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:46
All the questions. Yes.

Jessica Williams 06:49
I love it. I want to check it out. And so we ended up buying a bigger boat. I ended up moving down to San Diego and I got a job working for, this is really funny speaking of careers, working for autotrader magazines. Yeah, back when like print magazines was the thing. And it was right around the time autotrader.com was coming on. And they were kind of kicking our butts. And they hired a whole new sales staff to try to beat up territory. So I had this like huge territory of used car dealerships in San Diego where I was selling print advertising. And it was one of the most challenging jobs I've ever had. Because it was so toxic. I was so sick when I went to work.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:31
What made it so toxic?

Jessica Williams 07:33
I mean, I hate to be mean, but just the environment of used car salesman and being a woman and I'm a very sensitive like person. I'm a very intuitive empathic person. And so I just pick up on things all around me. I didn't realize this at the time, but I look back. And I know it was draining on my soul just standing on car lots and taking photos of used cars with a little camera. And it was a grind, man, you had like deadlines because it was publications and advertising and quotas I had to make, and I was making big money. And like it was my first $100,000 a year job. And I was in one of the highest or the biggest territories in the country because San Diego is the largest used car market in the country. And my territory was the one of the biggest territories in San Diego. So arguably one of the largest like car dealership areas.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:27
You're in used car mecha?

Jessica Williams 08:28
Used car mecha, and it was just the hustle. But I quit in 2007, is kind of an interesting story, because I worked for this publishing company, you know, and we had people on the back end who were publishing the magazine, I was just the deliver of the content that I collected on the lot, and one day the magazine got messed up and one of my clients was pissed. And I got called into their office and it was like this mobster, gang of big brutish guys, like three of them standing behind a desk. And they were yelling at me. And I mean, they just needed somebody to yell at you know, and they're yelling at me and they're pounding on the desk and they're cursing and they're telling me what a horrible human being I am and how I'm never allowed on their lot again, and I'll never see another dealership, one of their dealerships again. And I literally like almost peed my pants. It was so terrifying. So I quit the next day because I had an anxiety attack. And I was like, this is too much. I might be making a lot of money, but this is too much. And my partner and I we've gotten married and we decided after that it was time to leave on the boat and we left in oh seven and we sailed around Southern California which was really cool. But we knew we needed to do more work on the boat and then we went back to San Diego for the winter, we worked on the boat nonstop. Like I didn't have a job, I just worked on the boat which was a lot of work.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:53
What was that like?

Jessica Williams 09:54
It was crazy. We were living with his mother in law and she lived out in Rancho Bernardo which is kind of East County San Diego and we were working on our boat down in Point Loma. And you were commuting down there. And she would like pass us a lunch and we go down and we'd work on the rigging and the painting and the bottom of the boat. We read the through holes, and we were constantly working on the engine. I mean, I took diesel mechanic classes, like, I know everything there is no, well, not everything but I know a lot about diesel engines. You know, I mean, it was just constantly like, in the grit and the grime of that life. You know, in preparation for this big beautiful dream, we had this thing, we just like... we were consumed by, and looking back, he was more consumed by it than I was. I was just kind of tagging along in a way. And I think that was part of the problem. And when we left, you know, we sailed from San Diego to Canada. So we went up the entire West Coast of the United States headed north, which is arguably one of the most dangerous sailing crossings you can do in the world, because there's not a lot of places to duck out to harbor for and you're basically going against the wind the whole time. So it's more advantageous to motor. It was a hard rough trip and our relationship too, was not healthy. And I came from this childhood where I saw my mother kind of beaten down. And I was in a relationship, just like that. I mean, it wasn't physical, but it was emotional. And it was controlling and manipulative. And we had that situation on a boat. And I literally lost myself like, I mean, I just became a shell of a human being, I became whatever he wanted me to be, which was never enough. And when we came into Canada, we sailed around the San Juan Islands in the Gulf Islands for a summer. And then we landed in Port Townsend, Washington, and I bought a one way ticket to North Carolina to stay with my family, which just felt odd because I felt like I had kind of run away from my family, and now I was running away from him back to my family, but I didn't have anywhere else to go. I spent three months back there. And it was a hard three months. I eventually came back to Port Townsend, and we tried again and by just a couple of months and it didn't work. And he wanted to keep going on the boat and I didn't. So I went to had this kind of like awakening in my life where I went to this retreat center on Cortez Island, which is...

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:27
Been there.

Jessica Williams 12:27
Oh, you have...

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:28
I have been. Yeah. All over that area, actually. On boat.

Jessica Williams 12:32
Yeah. It's beautiful. I mean, you know, it's right off of Vancouver, right off of Vancouver Island. It's a few islands in, so it's pretty isolated. And I worked as a volunteer at hollyhock. Did you go to hollyhock? when you were there?

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:45
For some reason, that doesn't sound familiar. I assume I would remember that.

Jessica Williams 12:49
It's this beautiful Retreat Center for like meditation, yoga.

Jessica Williams 12:53
Higher consciousness. I mean, it's right on the water. I lived in this cabin with 10 other people from around the world who were also there, for some reason, similar to mine. And we volunteered, 30 hours a week for room and board, which meant I got these organic, beautiful organic meals, I got to attend a lot of the sessions that were happening in the retreat center, and I made some amazing friends. And I was just kind of like, I don't know what to do with myself, like, I don't know where to go, I can't go back to California, because everything about California reminds me of my ex husband, or at the time we were just separated. But you know, when I'm grieving, and this is so hard, and I can't go back to North Carolina, even that's all my family wants me to do. Like there's no way that's happening. And a friend of mine, at the retreat center, she was a chef and she was a naturopath and she had gone to the naturopathic school in Portland to get her degree. And she said, "You're gonna love Portland, just trust me, just move there and move off of Hawthorne Boulevard." And I was like, "okay" so I like sat down one day, Scott, like meditated. And I was like, why do I want... in true visualization like this is manifestation in action, right? Like I meditated on what I wanted my life to look like in Portland and I just like, I could taste it. I could feel it. I knew like down to what the molding would look like, on the walls in my room, what this place had to look like. And I swear to you, I mean, this happens to me all the time, I don't know if this happens to you. But I went on Craigslist. And that place... that place I visioned showed up in my search results. And I ended up moving their sight unseen, with no furniture. It was just me and my dog. And I slept on the floor for a while. It was the height of the recession. So Portland was so hard headed. We had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, and no one would hire me. I mean, I had gone from $100,000 a year to sailing around the world to now, I can't get someone to let me pour coffee and I was biking around the city because I didn't have a car, I didn't have enough money to buy a car, I had barely enough money to pay my rent. And I'm biking around the city with resumes in my backpack, just like passing them out because there were no jobs online to apply for. If there were, I wasn't qualified, because I hadn't worked in a couple of years, I started just kind of like doing whatever I could to find work. And I remember I was working with this recruiting company in Portland. And they sent me on a few interviews and interviews I could get because I had done sales, or sales jobs. And they were sales jobs for software companies, which I can't think of anything I'd rather sell less than...

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:54
Intersting.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:43
Hey, I want to ask you about, but I am curious, even before, like, just to jump back for a second here. I am so curious, what prompted you in the first place to begin visualizing or anything like that, because you had up till that point, it seemed like very much lead a life where you were, for lack of a better phrase, kind of running from one thing to the next and then following what somebody else wanted. And something in there occurred, it seemed like, I don't know if it's just being around other people. But, what took place where you even got to the point where you had that moment?

Jessica Williams 16:20
Wow... that moment where I started really living the life I wanted and pursuing that?

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:25
Well, that moment that we're meditating on what you actually wanted, and then of course, had the very serendipitous, which I find that serendipity is sometimes not so serendipitous, can't always explain it. But what led up even you wanting to begin imagining what you wanted versus what...?

Jessica Williams 16:44
Well, it was kind of like, it was a lot of things. I mean, there were a lot of signs coming my way, books I was reading. A friend of mine, she's a Sikh, and she lived in Santa Fe at the time. And...

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:56
What does that mean?

Jessica Williams 16:57
For god! I'm not the right person to ask. But it's a form of religion. And it's a belief system around non violence. And there was a gentleman who kind of ran, who was kind of the leader of the community died a while back, but he was... it's very, very into yoga and non violence. And

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:15
I'm googling right now.

Jessica Williams 17:17
Yeah, they typically were the the headdress, and she very much into yoga meditation. And she sent me this entire box of books on meditation and yoga, and I was already practicing yoga. So it helped deepen, those books help deepen my practice. And then, I mean, it was just a lot of things. It was a lot of mentors that came along my path who encouraged me, like I was in a coffee shop one day, and there was a card on a cork board, and it said, 'writing group' and I was like, "okay, that sounds good." And this was when I was living in Port townsend, I was like, I liked the writing group was comprised of two older lesbian women who lived in Port Townsend, who were like, 65, 60 years old, and it was me and them, and we'd write in their little house and drink tea. And, you know, and they were just bad ass women who've done really cool things in the world. And they were just like, you know, encouraging me. And then all the people I met at hollyhock, all the amazing women I'd met, who have either been divorced, or were in their 40s and still single, had like, encouraged me, like, your life isn't over. Like, there's so much available to you. And then somewhere along the way, Scott, someone pointed me to what color is your parachute, which is like classic career book, and I sat down and did a lot of the exercises around what I was good at, what my values were, what I felt like the kind of people I wanted to surround myself with, the kind of purpose I wanted to be involved in. And right around that time that I was looking for work in Portland, I kind of had this vision, I mean, and that's kind of the moment when I realized, I want to do something to help women because I don't want other women to be here where I am, sleeping on the floor, with no possibilities in front of me, no opportunities. And I don't know where to find resources. It was just kind of like, you know, grasping for things. And I want to be home base for those women at any stage in the game. And that was when I had the vision for the summit, which I'm now doing this fall for the first time. The first annual Superwoman summit is happening in Portland and that vision came to me over a decade ago, because I thought we have to convene women, we have to talk about this, we have to have conversation.

Jerrad Shivers 19:36
It literally made me sick, the anxiety, the stress that I was under.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:42
Jerrad's job was obviously not a fit for him.

Jerrad Shivers 19:47
Decided that maybe you know, 80, 90 hour weeks and a young family doesn't necessarily go together. So I knew I needed help and I knew I wasn't going to be able to do this by myself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:59
So Jerrad came to us looking for help and found that in one on one coaching.

Jerrad Shivers 20:04
You can let life happen to you or you can happen to your life.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:07
As we worked with him, Jared and his wife really had to figure out what they really actually wanted in their life.

Jerrad Shivers 20:14
When we started to do the questionnaire and write everything down, we started our pros and cons with where we wanted to live and who wanted to be around and all that stuff. All those things added up over time in the final discussions of, okay, well, this is what I can do. And this is what I can't do. And this is what I need to do. This is how much travel I'll do in my job and how much time I will spend, you know, during the week, the immune to the concessions that I can make, what are the concessions I can't make, and all that. We've kind of just all just piled on to the end.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:45
Jerrad did a phenomenal job, not just designing the life and career that he actually wanted, but then taking the steps to make that happen.

Jerrad Shivers 20:53
I ended up with my dream job.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:56
Congratulations to Jerrad on finding work that he loves and fits his family's needs, at the same time. If you want help figure out what work fits you and find that fulfilling career that lights you up and gives you purpose, find out how coaching can help you step by step, go to happentoyourcareer.com and click on coaching to apply. Or pause this and text MYCOACH to 44222. Just text, MYCOACH to 44222. We'll send over the application quicker than two shakes of a lamb's tail or however that goes.

Jessica Williams 21:32
Everything I did after that, like I decided that I needed a break for men from the autotrader, no offense to men out there, but like for my dad and my ex husband, to the autotrader experience, to I was working in the wineries in the valley and in Oregon trying to piece together some money. And I had a bad experience with a gentleman winemaker out there who was... who stiffed me for my salary. And I was just like, I'm done, I need to work with women, I need a break. And I got a job through someone I knew, actually a neighbor. She said, "Well, this clinic I work at, my mom works at, my sister works at sometimes, it's an OB GYN clinic, it's a women's clinic, they're hiring for receptionist" and I was like "Sign me up. I could just show up and do a job every day and heal the other parts of my life and not have to focus on work so much." And I get to work around women, and women's health and like this all seem to me so in alignment, even though I was only making $12 an hour. I was almost 30 years old and making $12 an hour. But in 2009, 2010, I was the best I could find. And honestly Scott, it was one of the best things I ever did for myself was to give myself that time. And yes, I didn't have a ton of money. And yes, there was some credit card debt, but because I still like to do things that I have enough money to do things, so like, I'd worked there for two and a half years. And one day, I think your listeners will appreciate this, one day, I was at the clinic, we had hundreds of patients coming through the clinic, and I would manage like the front desk and phones are ringing, doctors need stuff, nurses need stuff, that people are coming in, they need stuff. And I'm really good at managing all of this. And I love this. I feel high from this. I'm in my state of flow. And I started to learn about what flow meant and was like, this feels good. Why does this feel good? And I started to think it's because I'm using my greatest strengths, which is working with people and managing people's expectations and keeping the relationship intact and challenging times. And I was like, what am I doing, because at the time, I wanted to become a midwife. And I was, not only working at the clinic, but I was getting my pre-reqs to go to nursing school, which is like a long path if you've never pursued that path.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:51
Yes.

Jessica Williams 23:52
I was like, in the local community college, taking some classes and I had this like epiphany, like, what am I doing, I'm not meant to be a medical professional. I meant to do communications. I mean, that's what my bachelor's degree was in. I don't have to do sales. But I think I need to go back to communications. And that's when I decided to get my master's degree in communications, which terrific, I'm like talking a lot.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:17
This is super interesting, particularly because I knew part of your story, because we met up in Portland about a year ago. And what I didn't know is all the little pieces along the way and all the decisions that led to other decisions and epiphanies and everything else. And I think it's real. And I like that, I'm a total nerd, and I'm fascinated by this stuff and what causes people to make one set of decisions versus another. So I'm having a ton of fun. I'm curious for a couple of different things, this was like 2009, as you said, right? Someplace in there. So this is still like about eight years ago or so. And it sounds like, you're kind of going through and it's getting clearer and clearer and clearer to some degree, as far as not only the things that you don't want to be doing, but also the things that you are much more interested in. What ended up prompting you to decide to go back to school? Because that's a big commitment as well, like nursing is too. But you know, so is...

Jessica Williams 25:17
Getting a Master's degree. I mean, it's a huge investment. You know I was terrified, because I was making $12 an hour, and I didn't have any money in the bank. And I started to realize, like, there's this gap between where I'm at and being able to make that decision. And so I started asking a lot of questions like calling around, you know, asking the universities, okay, what's this going to entail? How am I going to get the money? Can I make this happen? I started to realize, like, they'll just give you a big chunk of cash to go back to school.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:45
It blows me away that...

Jessica Williams 25:46
It's amazing, right? And my employer was like, "Yeah, we'll support you. We'll let you work part time when you go back to school." And it was... I applied, at first I was like, I want to be get an MBA, because I didn't... like, I couldn't find anything that was like Master's in Communications. And I also was like, I want to run my own business someday. So I need to get an MBA to do that. And I'm terrible at math. So I took the jima and it was not pretty. I got accepted on probation. I think that's the way they call it at Portland State University into their full time MBA program, and probation for my math, as long as my math did okay, I could stay in the program. And right around that time, right around the time I got accepted, I heard a ad on, I think it was OPB, or your local PBS station. And it was an advertisement for a strategic communications program. And because my bachelor's was in communications, and that was where my real strengths were, I looked at this. And I was like, "This is perfect, because they get a little into the business, a little end of the finance, but they mostly focus on the thing that I'm most excited about, which is communications." And I applied, got in right away, like kind of in the last minute right before the program started. And it was perfect for me because like I said, it helped me build up my strengths. Instead of feeling like I was going to have to be working on my weaknesses the whole time, I get to focus on the things I was really good at. And I was so good in that program. I mean, it was easy for me, I don't know why. But it program came really easy for me. One of the cool things about it was, it was a professional master's degree. So they encouraged you to partner with local organizations, all of your projects or you could use them as case studies. And so because I knew I wanted someday to build a business or do work with an organization dedicated to women's empowerment, I picked a women's empowerment company every single time. So I could learn as much as possible about that industry or that like social good cause. And so every project I did, everything was around women's empowerment. I think my classmates were kind of getting over it. But I learned so much. And also right around that time, a big moment in my career was, I had to call a colleague at school, named Laurie and Laurie worked with Mac Pritchard in Portland, Oregon on Mac's list, which I know you know, Mac.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:09
Yeah. Mac's been on the podcast too, Episode 149, I believe.

Jessica Williams 28:13
Awesome. Yeah. So Laurie works with Mac, they're very small operation running Prichard, which was a social good PR firm and Mac's list, this kind of side project he had been focusing on for many years. And he decided he really wanted to invest and someone to help him grow the business. But I think he was a little timid so and he wanted to try people out. So he was looking for like a part time sales associate to help build up Mac's list. And Laurie recommended me because she'd seen me in action and in school. And apparently, they didn't interview anybody else. They hired me within a week. And I was so excited after two and a half years of looking and trying to find work and to be working for Mac's list, plus, I had been using Mac's list for my job search. So it just felt like a really cool opportunity. And wow, that was pivotal for me. It really propelled my career, you know, I got to surround myself with a lot of organizations doing good in Oregon. And I learned a lot because Mac's was at that time, in the very beginning early stages, I mean, that was in 2012. And, you know, they were making $5,000 a month from Mac's list, and that was barely enough to pay my salary. And so, I mean, he was really bootstrapping that business. And I kind of created because there was a lot of opportunity there. I kind of created my own position. So because I did great, I got promoted really fast. And I was given more and more opportunity. And I really just dove in.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:48
Very cool.

Jessica Williams 29:49
Yeah, I learned a lot about how to build community and we had to take a lot of my experiences around building my career and translate that in a way to help others and I love doing it. Like I love talking about career development, professional advancement, leadership. People were asking me to come and speak on the topic. We were running these events and writing blog posts, and we wrote an ebook. And I was speaking at conferences. I was over the moon having literally the time of my life with this job.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:22
So you've had this entire time, you've known that you wanted to do your own thing, though. So where does that come back in?

Jessica Williams 30:28
Yeah, well, it's funny, because I always told Mac, he was going to be my last employer. And we discovered Chris Guillebeau, kind of together, Chris Guillebeau, his art of Nonconformity and The World Domination Summit, which I know for those of you who aren't aware, like sounds hokey, but it's really, really cool. Their mission is to connect people around adventure service, and community. And Mac and I would go to these conferences together, and they would talk all about quitting your job and starting a business. That was literally like, the most common theme of the conference, and Mac would look at me and go, "Don't quit, don't quit." "As long as you keep me happy, I'll stick around." And so I think, honestly, that was a big part for me, I started to see these people on stage who I felt like weren't that different from me doing the thing that they loved. And I was like, the only difference between that person and me is they're doing it, like I literally have the skills. I've grown Mac's business by over 100% in three years, like, I can do this for my own business. And one day I honestly, I just kind of woke up, I was like, it's time and I didn't want to do it because Mac and I were friends. I didn't want to hurt him, or any of my colleagues, but I couldn't not quiet the whisper inside of me. And it grew to the point where I felt like I was harboring a secret from him and from the rest of the team. And I felt like I was being disingenuous, and I wasn't living in my integrity. And they had to know the truth. So I began parting ways from them in May of 2015. Kind of transition out slowly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:13
What did that look like? Because I know that you and Mac are still friends and everything along those lines. But I'm super curious, because I get this question all the time. How did you go about those conversations, especially when you're coming in... I've been there too. So I know what that feels like, where you start to feel somewhat disingenuous, because you have this other part of you that really needs to come out for lack of a better phrase, but how did you go about doing that? And what were those conversations like?

Jessica Williams 32:41
Yeah, they weren't easy, Scott, it was hard, because I really cared about... really cared about Mac. And I really cared about the team I was working with. And I really felt strongly about the work I was doing. So I just wanted to slip out the back door, you know, to avoid everybody. But it was hard. I mean, I'll be honest with you, you know, I think Mac was caught off guard. And I think in hindsight, everybody would have handled it a little differently. So the transition out was very rocky, there were some bad days in there for everybody involved, I think, because I think Mac wanted me to stick around for a long time. And I think Mac truly cared about me, and I think he felt hurt. And so the reaction wasn't from him, wasn't what I had hoped it would be. And that hurt me. And so we just had a lot of hurt feelings around. Also, it wasn't what I thought it would be. And I would tell anybody who is thinking about quitting their job to start their own business, if, you know, I went into the conversation, assuming that he was going to have a positive reaction, or at least be open to the conversation. And that wasn't what happened. And I presented this whole transition plan and this opportunity for collaboration and partnership, and I wanted to be of service and I didn't want to abandon anybody, and I wanted to do the right thing. And the reaction I was met with was not equal to that, from my perspective, and at least initially, and I was in shock and I grieved over it, it was pretty shitty times. But I would tell anybody, if you're thinking about quitting to start your own business, be very, very sure that the person you're talking to is going to support you and if not, come up with a transition plan that works for you in advance and do it in a very clear way that sets really clear boundaries, because I think I wasn't super clear. I was giving too much. I opened up too much for like, what do you want? Let's make, you know, and instead I should have probably been more like, okay, I want to start my own business, my last date is going to be blah, blah, blah, and here's my resignation notice and that's not what happened. So I would say be very clear. Be very sure you're going to get the reaction you hope for before you go into that conversation. I get a lot of people who ask me like, "I'm really close to my employer. Should I tell them, I'm looking for another job? And I'm like, "No. Not unless you're very, very sure that they're going to be cool with that."

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:11
Well, I think that there's ways that you can make sure in advance proactively, that I can help them and you'd be more sure too, yeah,I had that same experience too, I have done it four or five times, I guess, where, like I've given well over two months notice for something either, because I was like, I gave two years notice when I was leaving for my business, I guess. And there is a lot of potential danger there. And it took three years literally, of building the relationship in a very particular way, in order to have that measure of like you're talking about of being very, very, very sure.

Jessica Williams 35:50
Yeah, but even with like, I felt like I had done that. Like, sometimes our intuition tells us like, this is how it's gonna work out. And sometimes things don't work out, like we plan and we have to be prepared for that. And ultimately, I think that's okay, like, as long as you're following your heart, and you're following what feels true to you, then you're on the path, and whatever happens as a result is they support you on your path. And so, I look back and think, you know, things happened in divine and right timing for me, because ultimately, it was a gift to be like, sent out of the nest and like, go do your thing. None of this halfway and halfway out stuff and visit forced me to really get clear on my business. And right out of the gate, I mean, I started doing everything that I knew how to do to get paid, just so I could make money, make ends meet. But what really started to transform was when I got, I finally acknowledged my calling and I said, "You know what, I got to work with women, I got to work with women on professional development, leadership and the advancement of women collectively into positions of power." And the moment I owned that, was the moment everything changed for me, it was like, the universe was like clapping and applauding, and like, "you finally get it!"

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:02
Woohoo! Rainbows and butterflies.

Jessica Williams 37:03
It took you a while, but you finally get it. Like, you owned it, right. So for your listeners, if you've got a calling, just own the calling, like whatever you got to do to own it, because you're gonna own it, eventually, might as well do it sooner rather than later. So it's been a crazy journey. But the work that I do now, it is so personal to me, Scott, like I stood up on stage last week and told portions of the story that I just told you and I literally like cried on stage, when I pointed at my business and said, "This shit is personal like, this comes from a very deep place. I feel like perhaps I've been doing this kind of work in past lives. I have been doing this work energetically, spiritually for a very long time. Empowering and supporting women is my calling. And I will do this unapologetically for the rest of my lifee, if everything permits me to do that, because I can't imagine doing anything else. I literally can't."

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:59
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm curious about your opinion on this too. But it seems like when you go through all the types of things, and types of experiences and different types of loss, and other winds and one thing leading to another, when you go through all of that, it seems like it makes it so much sweeter once you're actually embedded in it.

Jessica Williams 38:24
It totally does. I mean, you know, it's not to say that, like, I hate to tell the story that like I earned it because I struggled because I like to think that we don't have to struggle to arrive at this place. But for me, the story of my getting here is like a pushing off point. It's like, you know, it gives me, you know, when you get into the pool, and you push off the side to go swim, and you get that big boost of energy, that's what that was. Like all of that is the brick on the side of the pool. And now I'm just like floating through the water and swimming, and it's just like, keep swimming. That's all I have to do now. I'm on the path. I help women negotiate their salaries, and I see them getting higher raises, as a result making thousands of dollars more. I help women build businesses that feel in alignment. I'm a certified life coach. So I help them overcome a lot of the limiting beliefs and stories and things that are standing in their way from achieving their real dreams. I'm also a certified yoga instructor. So I like compiling all of this to help them get into their bodies and tap into their intuition. Because I really feel like we all, women and men, we need to start tapping into something deeper, to create, to build to innovate and to solve some of the bigger problems that we have to solve in this world. And in order to do that, we're going to have to get super creative and we can't do that if we're like walking around. And that scarcity mindset of resources are scarce, opportunities are limited,abilities are, you know, it's competitive out there to get things, like, we have to assume abundance.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:06
Well, I think that, that's what when you and I sat down over coffee or little great little coffee shop, and I remember talking to you about how your thought process around this works. And that's one of the things that appealed to me about you, because you are looking at this so much more holistically, and you talk about things like calling, which I think is a pretty intimidating word to a lot of people, especially if you're like, I don't know what my flippin calling is, I don't know if I'm ever going to know what my calling is necessarily. And I think for anybody to have a chance at that, you have to be incredibly in tune with yourself, in all areas.

Jessica Williams 40:46
Yeah, one of my favorite quotes, Scott, is "leadership development is self development." And I go so far as to say that professional development is self development. So in order to figure out what your purpose is, what your calling is, what you're passionate about, you got to do the inner work. And in order to do the inner work, a lot of stuff is going to come up that you might not want to deal with, that might be hard, that might be scary, that might be overwhelming might be confusing. But if you don't look at that, I think you'll remain stuck in a life of... you lack satisfaction that I know that your people crave. So doing that inner work, whatever you got to do, hire a coach, recruit mentors, you know, take courses like you offer, listen to podcasts, read books, go on adventures and journeys. I took off for a month and went to Thailand by myself when I was 30 as like a vision quest for myself, like, I have to do this. I still do stuff like that all the time. Like, you have to take that time for yourself to reflect and to figure out, hey, where are you going to go? How are you going to do it?

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:56
I think that's a must. And I know some people are looking at that when... that's part of the reason why, you know, we went to Europe for six weeks, about a couple of, geez, I guess six months ago now. And then why we're going to the UK for a month next year. But to be able to get away and have those experiences and be able to reflect and everything like that. But even if you can't go to Thailand, even if you can't go to the UK, I still think that you can create little mini versions of that, too. I mean, I started recently going stand up paddleboarding every single morning. And the main reason for that is it's like getting away on the water. There's nobody else on the water at 5am. And it forces that reflection. And I think that that is super good advice from you in order to be able to get to that deeper level. And this is super cool, by the way, there's been an awesome conversation. And first of all, thank you, by the way, this is...

Jessica Williams 42:48
You're welcome.

Scott Anthony Barlow 42:48
Yeah, and thanks for making the time, we've been trying to schedule back and forth for quite a while now. And I'm so glad that we got to finally have the conversation.

Jessica Williams 42:56
Me too. It's been so fun. And you know, to tell my story from the perspective of you know, how I navigated my career, you know, it's been just an honor. Thank you, Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 43:08
Absolutely. So for anybody that wants to get more Jessica, where and how can they get in touch with you?

Jessica Williams 43:18
I like to say all things Superwoman, like literally own all the URLs for Superwoman stuff. So the superwomanproject.com. Also, you guys, I am over the moon, summit I'm doing in the fall. And you can learn more about that at superwomansummit.com. I've recruited over 35 speakers, we have three days geared towards the professional development and leadership development for women. It's going to be amazing. And early bird tickets are on sale right now for that, you can also, I have my own podcast where I interview women around the world about their career stories. And we often get into a theme and give you a lot of advice. The name of that podcast is Superwoman Chronicles so you can find that at superwomanchronicles.com and everything else superwomanproject.com I'm @jessicajoellen that's my middle name on Twitter, everything social @jessicajoellen. And feel free to email me at jessica@superwomanproject.com I love to hear from everybody. And if I can be of service, please reach out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:26
Awesome. Thank you again, thanks for taking the time and making the time. I really, really appreciate it, Jessica.

Jessica Williams 44:31
You're welcome, Scott. Thank you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:42
Hey, I just want to cut in here and tell you that we've been getting so many questions from our listeners about how to actually use your strengths to get hired, how to career change with them, that we put together the ultimate guide to using your strengths to get hired. And I want you to be able to take advantage of it because in this guide, we actually go through and talk about how strengths operate differently than what you think they do, and why they can be one of the keys to doing work that you love and how you can actually do that. Plus, we talk about four specific ways to get started immediately, identify what we call your 'signature strengths' and then even how to represent those strengths in the interview process. And we go into how to answer some of the most common questions that you would get too. So if you want all that and a whole bunch more, there's a lot packed into this guide, we can send it over right away, all you have to do is text MYSTRENGTHS, that's strengths, plural, MYSTRENGTHS, no space, plural, to 44222, we'll ask you for what your email address and where you want us to send it, and then we'll pop it right over. That's it. That's all you have to do, MYSTRENGTHS, go ahead and text that to 44222. And by the way, I want to say thank you so much, because many of you have gone over to iTunes or Stitcher and left us a rating and review. This is the way that we get more people to find the show, and that means if we get more people to find the show, then that allows more of us to be able to make a change, which as it turns out, is the whole goal here. So I want to say thank you and read a review. This one comes from, joinupdots it's a five star review says, "happened your career should be a much or a must listen, not much listen" much listened to but how about a must listen, "I'm an avid podcast listener and been very pleased to stumble across HTYC, there was good banter, connection amongst the two main presenters and a standard of guests is very good indeed. I look forward to hearing more from Scott and the others. And we'll promote others to listen." Hey, thanks so much, really very much appreciate that. And thanks to everybody else who's gone over and taking the time so that we can get more people to work that they absolutely love. We have so much more coming in store for you next week on Happen To Your Career, take a listen to what we've got coming up.

47:03
So I went to school for civil engineering. During college I did a co-op program. So I would work for a semester, go back to school for a semester, back to work. And through that I realized that there's a lot of parts of engineering that I liked, but it didn't really touch on all of me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 47:20
All that plenty more right here next week on Happen To Your Career. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you taking the time and making the time and hanging out with us. We'll see you next week. Adios. I'm out.

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Overcoming Your Fears and Taking Action to Find Career Success with Cesar Ponce de Leon

by

“WHAT IS IT THAT I NEED TO DO?”
“WAS THIS JUST A WASTE OF TIME?”
“HOW DO I MAKE A CAREER CHANGE WITHOUT HAVING THAT BACKGROUND EXPERIENCE?”

There are so many questions that plague people that have decided to take the bull by the horns and make a career change for themselves.

The ups and downs that they encounter before they make the official jump to a new job position, organization, industry, or business venture are sometimes glossed over once they find success.

But, people that find that success as they transition to a new stage in their career know all too well the hard work, the endless days and nights they were kept awake at night, and the energy it took to put in the work to get where they are today.

One of those people is Cesar Ponce de Leon.

We had the pleasure of working with him as he took on the challenge to move from his previous job in legal affairs to a role at an organization that spoke more to his heart and true life calling.

Cesar ran into a few stumbling blocks along the way, but with the right tools and resources he was able to find success in his career transition.

His story of hard work and non-stop effort is one to take note of, so we’ve put together an outline of his biggest challenges and the process that he followed to guide him through to reach his career goals.

Check it out!

CAREER CHANGE CHALLENGES

The biggest challenges that Cesar faced when he realized that he wanted to leave his job were:

1. Jumping from the legal sector as a paralegal to work at a non-profit organization in a role that helps people change their lives  — a completely different focus in an entirely different industry, but nonetheless his ultimate career goal

2. Figuring out where to start his job search to find that new role

Even with those  specific challenges in mind, Cesar was ready to get moving on his career change and did what most people getting back into the career search game do:

HE SEARCHED FOR JOB DESCRIPTIONS THAT SOUNDED CLOSE ENOUGH TO WHAT HE WAS AIMING FOR ON INDEED,
AND HE APPLIED, APPLIED, AND APPLIED.

BUT, just like the majority of everyone else getting back into the career search game, he didn’t hear back from a single place he applied to.

Nada. Zero. Zilch.

ANOTHER OBSTACLE —

JUST WHEN HE GAINED A LITTLE TRACTION BY TAKING THE INITIATIVE TO JUMP RIGHT INTO HIS NEW CAREER SEARCH…

Cesar soon came to the realization that maybe  he underestimated the whole new career transition process.

He was faced with the fact that his career journey wasn’t going to be as easy as he had thought.

Not only did he have no background experience in non-profit work, but nobody was returning his inquiries for the positions he had applied for.

Cesar began to hit some of those internal road blocks and mental barriers that naturally come along with the career change journey — don’t worry, that is normal.

Cesar was beginning to feel feelings of fear, detachment, anxiety, and stress about the fact that he had no experience in the field he was hoping to move into. He found himself stuck and unsure of what to do next.

REGAIN FOCUS AND PERSPECTIVE

He took a step back from being paralyzed by these new challenges and decided to become more proactive about his career search and went right back to the drawing board.

And, just like all High Performers, he refused to settle and realized that he couldn’t make this change on his own and began research on career coaching programs and stumbled on an episode of the Happen to Your Career podcast.

He decided to reach out to HTYC to help him reevaluate his career transition.

IF YOU’RE GOING THROUGH SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO SHARE YOUR STRUGGLES. YOU HAVE TO REACH OUT. DON’T KEEP THEM IN. IF YOU KEEP THEM IN MOST LIKELY YOU’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE ACTION. YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BE PROACTIVE AND THAT’S JUST GOING TO DELAY YOUR PROCESS.

CESAR PONCE DE LEON

Cesar enrolled in Career Change Bootcamp and found that the program offered him the framework that he wasn’t able to develop on his own. He found the program helped him:

  • Overcome his fears by providing strategies to get over those “hiccups that he was going through“
  • Follow a step-by-step process that gave him the confidence to reach his end career goals
  • Target the specific jobs and organizations that fit his ideal career
  • Create a script to reach out to the right people at the right organizations
  • Supported him along the way whenever he lost motivation

HTYC gave Cesar a structured outline to follow that ultimately gave him the results he was hoping for.

Below, is a case study of the step-by-step process Cesar followed in order to make this career transition a success.

OVERCOMING FEAR

The biggest obstacle that Cesar had to get over before he could really move forward with his career change were the barriers that he created in his own head.

Cesar had him ask himself:

Will you do whatever it takes to get out of there?

Working with HTYC made him realize his own fears, get to the root of the cause, and accept those feelings as he worked through those fears and forced himself to take action.

Cesar began looking at his career change in a new light. He discovered that:

IF YOU WANT SOMETHING, YOU HAVE TO BE WILLING TO ACCEPT WHATEVER CHALLENGES COME.

Once you accept those challenges you have to be willing to fight for them.

With a different outlook on his career transition, Cesar went to work and learned to “do things with fear” to get the results he wanted.

I HAD TO COME TO THE REALIZATION OF SAYING, ‘OKAY, OBJECTIVELY SPEAKING, I NEED TO START TAKING ACTION.

CESAR PONCE DE LEON

IDENTIFY STRENGTHS 

Knowing your strengths helps you focus the lens of the skills and talents that you can offer an organization to benefit their end goal.

Cesar put in the work with the exercises offered in the CCB program and used recommended resources like the StrengthsFinder test to assess exactly what he could offer organizations as he continued his career search.

EVALUATE VALUES

Figuring out what you want, need, and value in your career (and life) will help you continue to hone in on not only what new position will fit the your new list of “must haves,” but finding those values will also get you more familiar with the type of organization you should be looking for to match your wants, needs, and values.

Cesar put a lot of thought into his values and what type of ideal job position would fit his (and his family’s) lives.

What he did to start was make a list. He wrote down his past job experiences and began thinking about what he liked about them and what he didn’t like.  He went on to further evaluate (based on the information that he got from looking into his past) and created a list of what he did want and all of the absolutes that his new role and organization would have to include and why.

CREATE IDEAL CAREER PROFILE

With Cesar’s new lists of strengths and values in hand, he was able to move on the the next step — creating his Ideal Career Profile (ICP).

This is where he took his list of values and prioritized which of his values were most important.

With this newly filtered information, Cesar was able to match his values with job priorities to narrow down the roles he was most interested in pursuing.

He also identified the non-profit organizations that were more aligned with his values.

Cesar was now armed with a targeted list of organizations and a solid understanding of the role he would like to have at any of the non-profits he identified. He also had a new sense of hope with the creation of his ICP.

By being able to identify and hand-pick the organizations he wanted to work with, Cesar understood exactly what he was looking for and wasn’t going to stop working until he got it.

REACH OUT TO ORGANIZATIONS

Cesar’s final step was taking that list of organizations that he identified and reach out to them.

His goal was to establish a relationship with the right people in these organizations and let them know who he was and what he could offer them.

Cesar used the HTYC script resources and tailored them to fit his needs to bypass a lot of gatekeepers within his top organizations.

I HAVE TO ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING PROACTIVE AND PRACTICAL TO GET TO THE DECISION MAKER.

CESAR PONCE DE LEON

He implemented the “Relationships Before Resumes” method of developing and fostering a relationship with one of executives of his top organization.

What is the Relationship Before Resumes method?

It’s the process in which you:

  • Establish yourself with the important people at an organization
  • Personalize the relationship you develop by digging deeper than asking for a job
  • Give love, to get love

Most of the time, the way you stand out in a sea of job applicants is by being human.

Cesar quickly discovered that the one thing that people want to see more than your skills is your character.

When you show genuine interest in someone’s life outside of work, they are more inclined to remember you for that and keep you in mind for things that come up in the future.

That is exactly how Cesar was able to differentiate himself from the rest of the job hunters.

IF I LET MY EMOTION DRIVE ME THROUGH THIS PROCESS, THEN I’M NOT GOING TO GET ANYWHERE.

CESAR PONCE DE LEON

Today, Cesar is four months into his job at the #1 non-profit organization that he had his eye on.

That’s not to say that’s just because he got lucky.

He put in the work.

He developed a relationship with key people at the organization that best fit his values. He volunteered at the organization to showcase his skills. He was given project after project, and finally once a position opened up. He was the first person they called.

He followed the process and not once did he try and rush through to land any job he was able to get.

In fact, during the process, Cesar received another job offer, but had to refuse as he was already working along his process and developing a bond with the executive at the organization that he now works for.

He didn’t even blink an eye when he turned down that other job offer. With his work in determining his strengths, realizing his values, and creating his Ideal Career Profile, Cesar fully understood himself well enough that he knew EXACTLY what he was working towards and why he was doing it.

His ICP helped him identify and guide him to the career that was ideal for him right now.

Cesar’s story demonstrates how overcoming your fears, hard work, tenacity, and resilience pays off.

It wasn’t an easy journey to switch career from one industry to another, but it is possible.

If you are willing to overcome your fears and accept your next career goal challenges, with a little help and guidance you can happen to your career, too.

You can find more information on our Career Change Bootcamp here. If you’re interested in more CCB success stories, check out Sarah Hawkins and Tanya Malcom Revell.

DOWNLOAD THE TRANSCRIPT TO THE EPISODE NOW

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Introduction 00:00
This the Happen To Your Career podcast, Episode 186.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 00:07
I guess that the changing factor for me was that, first and foremost, I didn't really have an understanding of values until that moment, which I look at some of the basics. And then HTYC reinforced it the process. You know what I'm saying?

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:28
This is Happen To Your Career, we help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what does and then make it happen. Whether you're looking to do your own thing, or find your dream job, you've come to the right place. I'm Scott Barlow.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 00:50
I knew I was looking for something. I could tell you exactly what I didn't want but I had a really hard time defining what I wanted.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:57
This is Tanya, she came to HTYC looking for clarity she needed to move forward.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 01:03
So that I had this great structure that I could talk to because it was the base of who I was, with the additional piece of what I was looking for now.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:12
Listen for Tanya's story later on in the episode to learn how she used career change bootcamp to help her finally figure out what fits her.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 01:21
It is the single best thing that I have done.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:28
This is Scott Anthony Barlow, and you are listening to Happen To Your Career. This is the show that helps you figure out what work fits you by exploring other stories we get to bring on experts like MJ Fitzpatrick, who helps people make decisions and give themselves permission to do just crazy amazing things. Or people like Eric Murphy who was in a job that didn't fit his values and made a drastic change to one that, not only did, but paid him more at the exact same time for doing what he loved in where he loved and something that lined up with who he actually is. These are people that are just like you, they've gone from where they are to what they really want to be doing. And they're people just like our next guest, Cesar Ponce de Leon.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 02:14
I used to work in the legal industry. And now I work in that nonprofit industry. I work for a large nonprofit company that helps people change in their lives. So that is what I do now.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:25
And this is going to be a super fun episode, because Cesar was struggling in a not very fun place for quite a while. And he knew that he wanted to make a change. And he was Uber-frustrated. So he actually invited us to come along for the ride, because he knew that he needed help. So you're gonna get to hear his story today. But he did a few things that were particularly amazing, and also that you can do too. And I wanted to be able to share his journey with you. And he was so gracious to be able to come on and share it with you at the exact same time. Because I think that there's a lot that we can all learn from other people that have just gone through the process of where many, many of you that are listening, many HTYCers out there want to be. Alright, here he is, right here.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 03:13
I mean, there were ups and downs. And obviously, before changing the organization, I was in the legal industry for eight years, I was a paralegal, wanted to go to law school, and then realize that's not what I wanted to do. And then the question came up, what is it that I need to do? And obviously, in that process, you know, sometimes you just think, "Oh, I'm gonna just rock the world." But when you realize that is not easy, and that you need help, that's when you start looking for help. And that's exactly what I've done. That's how I landed into HTYC.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:40
Yeah, absolutely. And we'll definitely talk about that, too. I'm super curious, though. You mentioned law school, and I knew that about your past. But what caused you to realize that law school was not going to be good for you?

Cesar Ponce de Leon 03:53
For me, it was more than likely intentions, because, first and foremost, to understand, you know, what got me there, I guess we need to go through the beginnings of...

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:01
Let's go through the beginnings. Let's do it.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 04:03
So I landed at this job because I needed cash.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:08
Verifiable reason. Yeah.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 04:10
I started as a legal assistant firm, and then after that, I moved up to paralegal. And after being a paralegal, I went to office management. Okay, and obviously, as I told you a few seconds ago, the reason why I took the job is because I needed the money to really pay my bills. And that's how I landed in the legal industry. And for the first month, obviously, it was a struggle because you're learning everything, you know, from just doing intakes, right, to just doing a whole variety of things. And that is exactly what I've done. And obviously, it was hard. In my mindset, I thought I needed to persist, because quitting was not an option for me. And once I have learned all of the duties required by my position, I saw something pretty interesting that my boss was making lots of money. He was successful, and powerful. You know, just the fact that you tell somebody, "Hey I'm a lawyer." People automatically respect to you, you know, it's like you earn people's respect. And I've seen that and I kind of crave that at that moment, particularly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:09
Yeah, isn't that funny, though, we have so many associations with different types of titles, or opportunities or positions or anything like that. And lawyers, to your point, definitely one of them. And what's kind of cool, though, is that you realize that part of it was something that you craved in that moment. So why do you think that was for you?

Cesar Ponce de Leon 05:27
I don't know. I mean, I guess it was the fact that I wanted to, at that point in my life, okay, as I was growing up, yeah, I always wanted people to, you know, respect me. And to know that if I went somewhere, or did something that the lawyer title was going to come out, and people are automatically going to be like, "okay, now we have to bill."

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:45
Lawyer has entered the room.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 05:47
Absolutely. So that was kind of like the equation part of it, you know, at the moment, and then obviously, as people also picture, I think it happens to a lot of law school students. And by the way, I don't want to over generalize here, but I believe that with some Law School students, they see you know, the Hollywood side of law, you know, that you're going to go in, and you're going to have this huge case. But when they come to the reality of what the legal job, that the position may look like, they're like, "whoa," you know, I didn't know that's what it was, you know? And at least for my position, I was attracted to the power, the security that comes out of the position, which were attracted to the at the moment. But what led to the change, I guess, just to say, you know, is it really for me, I believe that I think it was my third year in law firm, once I actually got a hold of everything. And I moved back into my role. I guess at that point, I was transitioning from college, to the university. And something interesting happened in my life. And that was, I found my faith in God, which that kind of changed my perspective on seeing things, you know, and even my motives, to pursue law, I decided to get a degree in religious studies so that as I were going to law school, you know, I will get a liberal arts degree, to be able to go into law school and what happened, but in that process of studying religion, and just to understand my faith, my values and all of that, I realized "No, is law something really worth pursuing for? Like, if my motives were power before, and chasing high financials, can I do it only with law?" I guess what my major kind of helped me realize it at the moment is that, a law may not be for me, it helped me changing my view on values.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:27
Interesting in what way? I'm super curious about that. Because values are something we spent a lot of time discussing here on the show, but also with our students and clients. And I know you know that, but what caused for you some of the change and how you were looking at values?

Cesar Ponce de Leon 07:41
I guess the changing factor for me was that, first and foremost, I didn't really have an understanding of values until that moment, which I look at some of the basics, and then HTYC reinforced it the process. You know what I'm saying?

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:54
Absolutely.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 07:55
I thought that devalues were always the same. I thought that there were a standard that I had a follow at the moment. And for instance, everybody craves for power. Everybody craves with this. And because everybody craves for those things, I should look for them, you know. But when I really came to the realization of studying theology, and doing my religious studies, I started asking, "Who am I?" That's the question, you know, who am I? What is it that really valued reality? Because, am I just looking or chasing for something that is completely false, or completely something that may align to other people's values, but not with mine, you know, or with my core being. And so that was something that I kind of realized. And then obviously, in that process of realizing things, and just understanding the 'Who am I' part of me, I continue to do it. And I was going through a lot of difficult times too, working at law firm, which one of them was, I was always fighting with industries to get great results for the client. And a lot of the fights were the first three years you kind of get the energy, but after a long time, you energy, just take it as it used to. And then secondly, I guess, part of my big issue is that you work so hard to get good results, right? As you're in the front lines. But your clients were unhappy with the results that you get.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:11
Yeah, I remember talking to you about that, too. And for you, if I recall correctly, in the way that you had identified, you needed to be able to help people, you had to have some of that positive reinforcement in a variety of different ways, or that positive type of feedback for it to be truly fulfilling for you. So it kind of like mashed oil and water a little bit.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 09:32
Yeah, what happens is, you know, like, even we know with the thing of going to law school, I envision disease or pretty much speaking to people, you know, arguing for the case, and just going for it, you know what I'm saying? Later on I realize that helping people is something that I want to do, right, but I want to actually help people change positively for the better. You know what I'm saying as opposed to a legal issue going through, you know, the legal process to be able to solve that issue, I want to be able to help people in order way, which I think is what I'm good at, which is to influence people, encourage them, helping them grow. And I realized that as a result of the why question that I had with myself at that moment, because obviously, if I work to chase money and power, and those things that, they are not bad in and of itself, I mean, we all need security, we'll need some self of knowledge, we have to not be naive about things. But if you paid and you tied those things, and you are not even sure that they fit with what you really value, then you're chasing the wrong things. And that's what happens to a lot of people in America.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:38
What you were saying about values is super interesting to me, partially, because I'm embedded in this stuff every single day. And we spend a lot of time teaching this stuff. However, it's interesting to see it in action. And it's most interesting, where you kind of made this progression, almost, where initially, you're looking at, hey, here's what everybody else is doing. And obviously, everybody wants these things. So we think that everybody wants these things. So we should be doing it too, right? So you kind of went from that point. And that part of the reason why you were initially interested in law school, and by the way, some people like never get to that level of honesty with themselves their entire life. So first of all, kudos to you. And then second of all, after you made that mental transition, and started looking at, hey, here's some of the ways that I want to help people, here's what's really incredibly important to me. And here's what lines up with my values. I'm curious what you began doing after that point. How did that change your daily life after you had some of those realizations?

Cesar Ponce de Leon 11:43
Well, for me, again, just weighing the pros and cons of deciding what was really making me happy at the moment, oh, and I realized that at law firm, I was not as happy. I was fighting all the time, it was a lot of toxicity, you know, just getting good clients that were ungrateful for the hard work that you've done for them. And I was doing a lot of case auditing and case management, which was okay to me at some point. But it was not how I wanted to help people. The legal part of it, it's amazing, because you help people through it, you know what I'm saying? But I guess when I came to the realization that, why did I really wanted to, when I was honest with myself, and realize that maybe it wasn't too much of the power, maybe it wasn't too much of the money, but it wasn't the influence. And then I came to realize, okay, how do I want to influence now? Is it at the courtroom, fighting for cases and defending clients and what have you, or with something that I'm great at, and that's where HTYC came, so helpful to me, because it kind of helped me define what my strengths, what I'm good at. And not just that, you know, because obviously, HTYC, you know, kind of gives you the platform for it. But I also went out and seek out for confirmations for other people's, which it came to the point that those were my strengths. And now I don't know what the true North Point looks like. I don't know what it is, I kind of know what it looks like.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:03
Yeah, and for a little bit of reference too, for everyone that's listening, first of all, that's awesome. And second of all, what you mentioned, there is one of the things that we'll often have people do through the career change bootcamp program, where you're actually going out and seeking out some of those validations. And we have people do that in some really specific ways. But, and it sounds like you were hearing back and getting those types of validations about your strengths and what you were great at from other people. Is that right?

Cesar Ponce de Leon 13:33
Yeah, yeah, that's what it was, you know, obviously, people were saying, "hey, you're this, you're that, you know, these are your strengths, you're very good with this." And then I was like, whoa. It's crazy because obviously, without them, telling them what the process was with HTYC, I was like, I got those plan. And it was amazing to just hear those confirmations from others. But this is at the level of HTYC after I made the decision to get to HTYC. But before that, I kind of knew that my thing was influencing, okay. And then you know, weighing the pros and cons of continuing in the law firm. I said, "You know what, I'm going to move on" because obviously, I came to the realization that love may not be exactly for me. And after that, obviously, I did some research on personality tests. I think I took them all.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:21
I remember you emailing me and saying that, like, "I think I've taken all of these."

Cesar Ponce de Leon 14:25
Some people may not your audience, I went through like Myers Briggs test, and I don't even know how many to the disc profile and whatever you want to name it. Okay, so once I got this results, I'm like, "Okay, great. So I get the results. Now I start applying to every job that I can. And I started applying and applying in the conventional way, right that people do it all the time, right? Go on indeed.com. I'm gonna go to all these websites, and I'm just going to start applying to all of his jobs. And what that did for me, it actually was more frustrating because I wasn't getting any responses. I think I only made it to one interview and then that interview, which I was not prepared for, that they never called me back, I understandably enough, you know, I wasn't prepared for it. So they didn't call me back. So I spent most of my evenings applying to different jobs and got no results. And that kind of made me anxious. And a little bit upset, to say the least, because I was like, you know, I'm applying to all of these jobs. And I'm doing all of these things, and I'm not getting any responses whatsoever. And that's what actually made me feel stuck. It made me you know, kind of lose my confidence on but I was actually starting to believe of myself. So I was like, you know, I'm a great influencer and this or that, but started losing my confidence. I was like, you know, what, maybe I'm not good enough. I started feeling stuck. And what a lot of people go through is that when you read those job descriptions, if you want to be this or work for this position, right, you have to have five or 10 years of experience in doing this, this and that. And I'm like, I think I just graduated from college like two years ago.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:02
It's fairly demoralizing, or like, even if you've got 17 or 19 years experience, or I don't know, 10 years experience, or whatever it might be, like, it always seems like no matter what role you're looking at, it's like, "Ah, that's ridiculous. Why do I need 15 years of experience for that? Why would you ask for that? Like, I can totally do that." And then yeah, it's depressing. So that's where you were then, it sounds like before you came to us, and you've gotten all of this information about yourself, you've gone through every assessment under the sun. And then you've gone on the demoralizing sending off application train. Was that the point where you began to look for help? Or what happened after that?

Cesar Ponce de Leon 16:43
To answer the question, yes. But first and foremost, that's when I came to my... to the realization that I was like, "You know what, I can't do this alone. I can't do this alone. Because obviously, one of my biggest fears at that moment was that I've been working in the legal industry for such a long period of time, eight years of my life, I invested in this to not do it anymore. You know what, I wasted eight years. How am I going to transition to a new career when I have no experience in that career? How am I going to switch into a new job opportunity or even industry when there is really nothing to give? And I think that a lot of HTYCers right now, in that moment, but let me tell you, let me give you an encouragement that that's just a mental thing. Okay, once you pass that mental barrier, which that's what we discuss in the bootcamp, right. Once you pass the mental barrier, okay, you're able to do those things. Now, I'm not gonna say that you're just automatically one day in the morning, going to wake up with no fear, because one of the things that I did was doing things with fear, okay, but I did them with fear. And that is what got me results.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:43
That is such a great point. And I think for some reason, we all have this impression, I'm either going to be able to do these things, and I'm going to be 100% confident and I'm going to be able to do them with no fear or I'm not that type of person, so I just can't do them almost. Some reason we don't allow the latitude for the in between which is reality, which is exactly what you just said, like, you are scared, it is scary. And you also have to do the things, whatever the things are.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 18:10
Absolutely. Because obviously, you know, people have this assumption that okay, you know, if I stopped people right now, I'm not going to have the symptoms, okay, it's like a scar, when you have an scar, your scar ain't go and be gone tomorrow, okay, your scar is going to be there until it fully heals. But regardless, you know, you have the scar or not, we have to continue moving, we have to continue using your arm and moving forward. And that is something that I kind of learn at that moment, or going through the process that even if I'm scared of calling companies, calling you to hiring managers or whatever how to get it done. But before we get to that, the question was, you know, how you got to HTYC because at that mental barrier, huge mental barrier that we're talking about, did not give me peace, it gave me a lot of anxiety, stress. At one point I was so stressed that I was almost... I felt like I was detached, you know from society. I remember my birthday last year, to my birthday dinner, had to step away and go to the restroom. Because I was so afraid and paralyzed at the moment that somehow I started feeling detached. And when I started seeing those things in myself afterwards, I was like, you know what, I need help. This is obviously what's causing me all of these problems, staying stuck, paralyzed, you know, it's affecting my health. And I need to take a proactive step. Now, obviously, with that, I went ahead and researched you know, for a few coaching programs. And then one day I was in my car in that Friday, and I said, I think I search for how to change careers or wherever. And that's how I landed to your podcast. And it was so amazing. It was such a blessing because I feel like you were very real. Okay. And you had very good knowledge of the situation. You knew what you were talking about. And not only that, you know, I felt that I could relate with you and the team. And that was amazing because after that, I was like, I need to subscribe to this podcast, listening, listening, listening. And then at one point, I was like, you know what I think I need to communicate. First and foremost, one of the things that I always tell people is that if you're going through something you have to share, you know, your struggles, you have to out, don't keep them in, because if you keep them in, most likely, you're not going to take action, you're not going to be proactive. And that's just going to delay your process. And I think I needed to tell my problem to somebody who has experience in it. And that's what I did. That's how I reached out to you, I think I sent you a pretty long email, which God bless you, if you read the whole thing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:39
I read the whole thing twice.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 20:41
That is something that I want to tell people is that one of the things that immediately got me more interested in going with you is that not only you took the time, because anybody could say, "Hey, thank you for your email, give me a call, or I'll give you a call. You know, when you have a few minutes." You actually responded, you actually broke down that email into small segments and recorded a video explaining the situations and that video was specifically designed for my situation, which that blew my mind. Because quite frankly, I've never seen anybody doing that before. And that actually got me motivated. Because I'm like, first and foremost, this guy, Scott, is taking his time to really hear my problem to understand what my problem is. And he's actually offering solutions on how he can help me transitioning from where I really like to be in the future. And that's why I decided to go and sign up with HTYC to help me making that transition.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:37
Well, I sure appreciate that feedback. And that means a lot to me, it's something that we are very committed to doing in a variety of different ways, we are very committed to making this really challenging process, I'm going to call it a process. Sometimes it's more like a bit of a hell than a process. But we want it to be personal because it is personal. And I'm super, super excited that you found a way too. Actually we're going to hire more people, because we get so many of those types of emails now that I'm finding it difficult to respond to those on my own. And many of our other team members are have been helping out. So it's a cool problem to have as the company in the podcast and everything has grown over the last number of years. So I'm so glad you found it that way. But I was super curious, though, because you went through this. I mean, just like you said, a year ago, you had your birthday dinner, and you felt completely detached at that point. And now you've been in this role for months. So in between, what do you feel like was one of the most difficult parts for you in making this transition and actually doing the work? Let's start there.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 22:47
Well, sure, I'll share some with you. One of them was overcoming fear, because obviously, even going through the process, I think that I guess with HTYC, you get certain weeks, you know, where you do different tasks, which by the way, are amazing tasks. But even when it's time to do the work of calling, hiring managers and getting a hold of people is, you still have the fear, you're like, oh, you still have it. And that kind of like pushes you to do other things. And to me, that was a challenge, overcoming my fears. But as I mentioned to you a few seconds ago, at one point, I had to come to the realization if I let my emotion drive me through this process, then I'm not gonna get anywhere. I had to come to the realization of saying, "okay, objectively speaking, I need to start taking actions and follow Scott's advice and recommendation and a need to be in communication with him to let him know what's going on." Because you did something great, okay. You overcome fear with good and the good that you have done is provided strategies to help me overcome those hiccups and issues that I was going through.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 23:59
I knew I was looking for something. I could tell you exactly what I didn't want but I had a really hard time to finding what I wanted.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:06
Tanya struggled with what she wanted in her career and her life.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 24:09
It really came down to my need to find a career in which I, a: could be proud of, b: could develop myself and grow more with.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:21
Career change bootcamp helped her realize what she really wanted. And she went to work on figuring it out.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 24:26
Because you're going to get so much more out of it, based upon what you put into it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:31
Tanya now had a plan to take action.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 24:34
It has brought me from a place of not knowing, a place of not being competent and being able to bring myself to others and to explain who and what I am.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:46
Having a great plan wasn't the only thing she gained from career change bootcamp though.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 24:50
Being able to present myself to my peers and having that confidence to be able to do that in a manner that resonated.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:58
Congratulations to Tanya on finding work that she loves with her dream company Wanderlust. If you also want to figure out what work fits you and find that fulfilling career that lights you up and gives you purpose, find out how career change bootcamp can help you step by step, go to happentoyourcareer.com and click on career change bootcamp. Or text MYCOACH to 44222, pause right now and we'll send over the application. Just text, MYCOACH to 44222.

Tanya Malcolm-Revell 25:28
I can honestly say that I would not be where I'm at today without the HTYC crew.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 25:36
First and foremost, you understand that once you come to the realization of what fear does, okay, you get too stuck and paralyzed. And when I realized that was a problem, I decided to take action. Action in following you know, one of the strategies that you recommended, at least to me was, okay, you need to actually go to the hiring manager, or even the executive of the companies to be able to understand more of the position or to get your foot in the door and things like that. They don't even respond to my resume on indeed, how are they going to take my call. But the reality is completely different. But it was the fear that was blocking me. But once I said, you know what, I have to actually do something proactive to be able to get to the decision maker. And that is exactly what I've done. You provided amazing scripts, which people will know that because, you provide everything, brother, so that's why I am so thankful. And then obviously I tell her that script according to my needs,, and you know what, it went really got me the opportunity to bypass a lot of gatekeepers and get to the hiring managers or the decision makers. And that's how I landed at my job. I had to go to the decision maker of the company, who was, you know, the Chief Operations Officer, and let him know, "hey, by the way, I'm interested in your organization, I'm interested in the company. And obviously, I don't know too much about the industry. But I want to know, and I want to get to learn more of it" and keep it and say, "Hey, great! Thank you for letting me know." And then he asked me questions. "What is it that you like about the company? How did you get to even this decision?" He asked me very deep questions, which, by God's grace, I was able to respond to those, and then, Scott, you know what he did, he started following up with me and started giving me small projects to large projects. And that ended in a job, but I guess overcoming the fear of saying, "okay, I'm gonna go ahead and call the higher ups and just try to get myself through it, and talk to the people that make the decision."

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:33
So many people get stuck in those fears. And I definitely hear what you're saying about once you got to action, like that was the thing that helps with the fear, ultimately. But I'm curious, what was an example of one thing that worked for you to be able to take you from that place, you know, they're not even returning my calls, when I'm going through the regular process all the way to making the calls from them, and moving through that fear so that you could get to that action at least one or two times. Because after you started seeing that, hey, this is working. But there's... it seems like sometimes there's a big gap in between there. And I know it's different for everybody. What was one thing that worked for you to force yourself to take action, if you will?

Cesar Ponce de Leon 28:15
Well, first and foremost, I guess it was a process. You know, I wouldn't say that it was one thing particularly, but I know that when we were going through the bootcamp, we talked about relationships before resumes, right? But in order to send your resumes, I think that there is a step. I don't know if it's before or after that, but that was select an ideal companies that you'd like to work for. Okay. And establishing a relationship with those companies. And to me was, okay, how am I going to do that by send them an application, and they're just gonna throw it away? How can I stand out in a way that would be different, you know, unconventional, if you will?

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:56
Yeah, absolutely.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 28:57
What I've done particularly in that situation is based on your advice, right, was to get their email address, get their phone number, bypass the gatekeeper. To me in that situation, particularly, I actually attended a non profit organization. And I volunteered before but not as a high level volunteer. I never know who the execs work for the company. So I had to actually find out, we don't ask the questions to people, who is the one of the execs here and that's how I got to the Chief of Operations, who makes the decisions for their organizations. And so I had established myself, I had to introduce myself to this person, I had to start building a relationship, you know, asking him questions, personal, and that's something that I want to tell is that we have a corporate mindset that we have to ask, what do you do because it's all about personal love that's what it is. You have to be able to give love in order to get some love. And I think that's one of the things that I mentioned before in one of the comments for the HTYC bootcamp, in order for you to receive love, you got to give love. Okay? And love is authentic. You don't just go to somebody and say, "Hey, I love you. Can you please help me out with this?" I established that friendship, because this is actually one of the organizations that I love the most. And that's the one that I needed to prioritize, I then went ahead and told the person, "I've been attending and coming to this organization and done some volunteer, but I really love it. I love what you guys do to help people. I love the fact that you, I genuinely care for people, and that is something that I am very interested. And I don't know how that's going to happen. But I am here available for whatever you guys need." I didn't really say I'm looking for a position, but I said, I'm available for whatever you guys need. And I know that for some people, that's a hard thing to do. Because if they actually go up the ladder, and you reach to a certain level, sometimes you have to come to the realization that you may have to step down the ladder to be able to potentially get back up in the right field. Okay, but not a lot of people are willing to accept that. And that's what the question does sometimes, sometimes you may need to bring you down here to potentially get you up here in the field that feeds you particularly. So what I've done in this situation, I told the person, look, whatever you guys need me, I'm here, and I'm available. And guess what this person did, keep it in just this base me and say, "Okay, get away from here." He said, "Really, I thank you so much." And then we kept in touch. And then I told you that I was going to the Middle East for vacation. And I was intentionally thinking of him. And I went, and based on our conversations, I got him a small souvenir that was very meaningful. And then obviously, when I came back, I said, "Hey, I went to the Middle East, and I got these gift for you, I hope that you appreciate it, that you value it." And that gift obviously came as a result of listening of the things that this person told me. And he said, "Oh, thank you so much." And then he actually started following up with me and give me a small project. And here's the key, okay, he told me, "even though you told me that you're interested in even knowing that even volunteering the company, I still don't know you as much. And I want to get to know you. So we're gonna work on some projects together."

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:23
Very cool.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 32:23
A lot of companies, not only they look at your strength, but they also look at your character. Because character means a lot. I think that a lot of people see that 20% on top of the iceberg, but they don't see the 80% that goes underneath. And the 80% that goes underneath has to do with a lot of hard work. And that hard work is called character. If you have the character to be successful, you're going to be successful. And I guess that's what they were trying to see, you know, because you remember Scott, I volunteered for like three or four months. And then at one point, I was like, I'm just gonna just dump it of the truck, because I was already getting drained. But it was that volunteering persistence of being available for anything that landed to an opportunity. Now when people say, what did you do? You know, with those five months, I did everything, Scott. One day actually had me direct traffic outside. Okay. I was like, how can I help and they were like, "okay, just get a jacket." Okay, and no directing traffic outside with my orange sticks.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:23
I love it.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 33:23
At that moment, I was like, you have to be kidding me. Like, it's cold. I'm here directing traffic, I thought I was meant for more. But it was at that moment that I had a realization that maybe one of my issues was pride. And that in order to be able to succeed, I needed to be more humble in the tasks that were given to me. And that was a big turning point. Because after that, I said, okay, I'm just gonna... even if they haven't washed dishes, I'm going to go ahead and do that. The optimism that I'm doing something great, you know, and even if this opportunity doesn't work out, at least I pop or something that was meaningful, and beyond yourself. And I had to come to the realization of being optimistic about it, and know that a better opportunity was gonna come in spite of whatever the outcome was gonna be.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:16
You know, what's super cool about that is, one, your point about finding for something that is meaningful to you, I think that I've seen so many people succeed, and so many people never even get close to opportunities, because they were or weren't willing to fight for something that was meaningful to them. And I think that looks completely different to different people. Now, I think that part was absolutely super cool. And I think the other parts, I just want to clarify, because I think there's danger here that some people can look at your situation and say, "Hey, do I just need to go and volunteer? Or do I just need to get out orange sticks and go drive traffic for some organization or something?" And people I think would be missing the point which is, that you were not just willing to fight for something that was meaningful for you. But also, you were willing to invest the time and energy into building a relationship with people that you wanted to be around.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 35:11
Yes, that's the heart behind. The heart behind this story is to let the audience know that if you want something, you have to be able to be willing to accept whatever challenges come. And secondly, obviously, to fight, because if you're stuck, and you're paralyzed, and you're going through the process, believe me, there were times that I wanted to quit, there were times that I did not really follow through the schedule, there were times that I was like, you know what, I want to clean my room, because that looks more appealing to me than doing what I'm supposed to be doing. But at the end of the day, do you really want to get out of there? And will you do whatever it takes to get out of there? And that's the heart behind, you know, just you have to be willing to do and like you say, right now you don't have to deal with traffic, you know, you don't have to do any of those things. But you have to be willing to accept some challenges, especially if you're trying to get into a huge company, or change of organization, or whatever it is, okay, or even start your own business, you have to come to the realization, there will be challenges, and you have to be up for them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:12
Yeah, absolutely. That is so cool. I am delighted as the right word, I don't use delighted often, but I'm so delighted that we got to, one, have this conversation, and, two, you got to share your story with the HTYC audience. At the beginning, you were talking about how just a little over a year ago, you found the podcast and you were flipping through it on your phone and everything like that, and then ended up subscribing. And now a year later, just a year later, you're on the podcast, and you've been in your role for four months. And that is such an amazing story. And I appreciate you taking the time and opportunity to actually share it with us.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 36:45
Yeah, I'm so excited right now. I mean, because I've never thought that would be in your podcast. Like being able to share my story, you know, and obviously, right now I'm into catalyst. I'm not going to say that I got to the perfect place, you know.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:57
I don't think anybody gets to the perfect place necessarily. It's a continual revision.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 37:01
Absolutely. But what one thing that HTYC did help me is to affirming those values, you know, affirming the strengths, affirm on what is it that, you know, I'm looking for NBA season, because obviously things change. As you heard my testimony before I was in law school of power and things like that, you know, you had think that your values change over time, okay, and depending on your convictions as well, and what HTYC gave me is hope, to say, "I will be okay, that it is possible to change from one organization to another" one of the things that I was actually doing in going through the process, and I think I don't know if I told you this, we were in the process of buying a home with my family as well. And there were some conflicts, you know, in the whole transaction, and whatever. But I also got an offer as a marketing consultant for a large communications job, which when I got the job offer, the manager told me, "we know that you have zero experience. But one thing that we really loved about you was the fact we were able to relate with you, and that you are teachable. Okay, because there were other people coming with mass marketing degrees, and some even master's degree applying to the position, but we really like your personality." So to me, that was like mind blowing, because I was like, wow, but because of what I was going through that process, I had to turn it down. And I was volunteering with this other organization, which to me, that was my priority. But it is possible, okay, to change of industries, even if you don't have the degree, even if you don't have the major. A lot of companies are looking, for instance, the company that I'm working for was looking for character. Now this other company was looking for one of the characteristics of character as well, which is teachability. Are you going to be able to learn? Are you going to take on tasks and be willing to be okay, with, you know, the responsibilities? You know, are you willing to be molded into what they want to mold you to afford that position, particularly? So that's another one.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:53
That's amazing. That's absolutely amazing. And yeah, you did share that with me. And I totally actually forgot about it up until this moment. So that is behind the scenes, actually, I don't know if I've ever told you this. But one of the ways that we measure success, behind the scenes, for our students and our clients is, can we get people to the point where they have the capability to get job offers, and they also understand themselves well enough to be able to turn them down. And that is something that has happened so many times, when people go through this process, it boggles my mind. But at the same time, that is super cool. And that makes me happy, because that's one of the ways that we evaluate success for ourselves. So awesome job, and congratulations again.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 39:39
Thank you so much. Thank you for helping me. You and your team were very, very huge part of it. And I always tell people, when you go through situations, don't do it alone. Always seek for counsel of somebody who has experience and in this situation, you have experienced if you're, you know, just listening to the radio show, you're thinking oh, you know, I can apply, I can do this, you know, myself, you know, I'm just going to look for a couple of inspiration things from Scott. Call him, okay? Because you don't know, he actually works in strategies of helping you succeed through this moment. And he will hear you, and he'll go through the process with you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:14
I very much appreciate that. And I'm so glad that you trusted us to be able to take along for the ride and help throughout that process. And, hey, thank you so much, again, for taking the time to share your story. This is just super, super cool. This is gonna make my entire rest of the day.

Cesar Ponce de Leon 40:30
Well, he's making my day, by the way. I love helping you, thank you so much for helping me. And obviously one of the things that I like to say that I love to, you know, keep in contact with you. And obviously, now you know what I'm going to do every time you know, there's a time to transition to the next space, I know who to contact, and I'm going to keep you on speed dial.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:01
Hey, we put together a case study of exactly what Cesar did, to be able to make his change. And you can actually go to happentoyourcareer.com/186. And be able to download that case study along with the transcript of this podcast for this episode. Everything right there happentoyourcareer.com/186. And you can get every little thing that he did to be able to help him out and be able to make this change because it's pretty amazing change. Gotta admit that, right? So head on over there happentoyourcareer.com/186. And we have so much more coming up for you next week on Happen To Your Career. I want you to take a listen right now, for what we have in store for you.

Rebecca Maddox 41:45
Well, I came in thinking I was a math and science person coming in the college. And then after taking chemistry and calculus, I mean, these are pressure cooker kinds of classes, because they're meant to beat out all the weaklings. And then I say "weaklings" with quotation marks too. This was to weed out the people who are just, maybe you're waffling, and they're trying to just bring out the people who were completely and totally dedicated. And I remember getting back a grade on one of those tests. And it was I think, 50 something average and there was no curve. I thought, this is insane. Like average on this test is failing. I don't know what I'm doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 42:29
All that and plenty more next week on Happen To Your Career. If you haven't subscribed to the podcast, go ahead and do so just hit the subscribe button on whatever podcast player you're listening to. And also, thank you so much. We have had even more people go over and leave us a five star rating in review. This one comes to us from iTunes, and this is Evangelia, she says, "Scott and his team and guests provide premium value in this podcast. There are so many great episodes here. And I tune in to sharpen my own side as a professional in the Career Development space." She's a career coach. And she says, "I recommend this to many of my clients, and to listen to this podcast and even send them direct links to those that I know are relevant. There are great people on this podcast and working behind the scenes for it." Thank you so much, Evangelia. Really appreciate that. And really appreciate all of you that have taken the time to share feedback with us in the rest of the world and left us five star ratings and reviews. This helps so many more people find the show and we get to get more people to work that they love, which is kind of the whole point here, right. All right. We'll see you next week on Happen To Your Career. Adios. I'm out.

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Give Yourself Permission to Create a Life You Love with MJ Fitzpatrick

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“WELL, WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO IS ____________,
BUT SINCE THAT’S NOT AN OPTION…”

Have you ever caught yourself saying something to that affect?

Whether it’s a career change or any kind of life change, so many people have a clear vision of what they want, but seem to quickly brush that vision off and end up settling for what they have in front of them or what is easily attainable — that’s usually the much safer option. Are you giving yourself permission to make a change?

In your ideal world, what does your life look like? What kind of work would you be doing?

What is stopping you from achieving that now?

Seriously, what is stopping you?

Here’s a hint: NOTHING IS STOPPING US FROM MOVING TOWARD OUR GOALS, VISIONS, LIVES WE DREAM OF…

…well, except for ourselves.

There’s this interesting concept about “learned permission-seeking.”

We’ve been conditioned by parents, teachers, and society to ask for permission to do things.

Now when it comes to change, as adults, we still wait for that permission to make a change.

We look for someone to give us permission or validate our choice to try a new hobby, go back to school, quit a steady job to start our own businesses, flip career paths, or create any type of change within our lives.

Permission stops so many people from moving forward.

Oftentimes, we find ourselves in these situations where we seem stuck because nobody has given us the green light to proceed with our actions — which is crazy, since these are our own lives we are talking about (!). Are you giving yourself permission to make a change?

But, there are ways to create that permission for yourself to be more, do more, and achieve more of your goals.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF WAITING FOR PERMISSION

STEP 1: QUESTION WHY YOU THINK YOU NEED TO GET PERMISSION TO LIVE THE LIFE YOU WANT TO IN THE FIRST PLACE

Why do you feel like you need someone else to tell you that, ‘Yes, you CAN do this’?

Do you feel like someone needs to have accomplished what you want to do first? Why?

You can be a trailblazer. You don’t need permission to start down a new path to your own success.

Once you get down to the reason of why  you need to get the ‘okay’ from someone else, you’ll be able to acknowledge the main reason you need permission to create a change and overcome that obstacle to move forward.

STEP 2:  ROCKING CHAIR TEST

This is where you create some type of leverage for your current situation and what you’d like to accomplish. It usually works in the form of:

“WHEN I’M OLD AND GRAY, WHAT WILL I REGRET MORE?  
GOING AFTER MY DREAMS, OR SETTLING FOR WHAT I ALREADY HAVE?”

What do you think is more beneficial for you? Finally making that career change, or staying in the same place as you are now?

When you are faced with these little decisions, it’s time to take a step back to treat the symptoms of what is paralyzing you to wait for permission.

“THE KEY AREA FOR GROWTH IS RECOGNIZING THAT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE CERTAIN. YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE THE PERFECT ANSWER. IT JUST HAS TO BE GOOD ENOUGH.” – MJ FITZPATRICK

HOW TO MOVE FORWARD TO CREATE A LIFE YOU LOVE

Now that we’ve gotten down to the root of the issues of WHY you have been waiting to get permission to continue working towards your ideal world, let’s move onto how  you can start and follow through with reaching the goals you want to achieve.

TRY!

Most of the time people stop themselves from reaching their goals well before they even take a moment to give it a try. So many attainable goals have been missed because there was a lack of an attempt.

So, challenge yourself to make it happen for you.

Put yourself out there — although it is terrifying, realize it is absolutely normal to be scared to try something new.

Acknowledge all of your feelings of fear. What is it that you’re really scared of?

If you’re scared of the failure or rejection you may encounter from trying something new, acknowledge it.

Get comfortable with that fear.

We’re all truly fearful of failing at things that are important to us. But, you need to give yourself permission to feel that fear and GO FOR IT!

“IF YOU JUST FEEL THE FEAR AND THEN RUN AWAY, THEN YOU’RE NEVER GOING TO MOVE FORWARD.” – MJ FITZPATRICK
EXPERIMENT AND EXPLORE YOUR OPTIONS

Think about how easy it is to test out your options. Creating those micro-experiments for yourself is a ‘safe’ way to move forward on your goals.

Investigate your skills and do things for free. Take a stab at your marketing skills by volunteering or test out a position at a new organization by finding an internship.

There are so many ways to feel out your options before diving into the deep end.

The most important thing you NEED to do is TAKE ACTION and MOVE FORWARD.

The biggest thing that I had to learn was that I was the only one that was thinking that I needed to stay where I was. Everyone else around me wanted me to be happy. Everyone else was just looking for me to make the best decision that I could.

I was just walking around with these expectations that I had to be a certain way. So, I really had to give myself permission.

Most of the time, it’s the expectations that we’ve set for ourselves that keep us locked down on a specific way we think  we should be living our lives.

We’re afraid to make changes (that we know deep inside our hearts that we need to change) because we are looking for certainty that our changes will be the ‘right’ ones.

If you’re in a career that you know you don’t belong in, or you’re burnt out and looking to make a greater impact with your work, don’t let the unknown stop you from moving forward and giving yourself permission to make a change.

Try out your options before you come to the conclusion that a career change isn’t for you or that the shift is something that you can’t handle.

Society creates a FALSE feeling of certainty. You’ll never be sure on the outcomes of anything, unless you actually take the actions to try and experience it for yourself.

And even then, you’ll learn something.

It either works for you or it isn’t your cup of tea.

If it doesn’t work out for you, the next thing you do is cross it off your list, and move on to the next thing.

And, if it just so happens to fit you perfectly, the rewards for stepping through that fear to try something new are so incredible, that it is worth it.

If you find that you need an extra push of support to go down a new, unknown path, we’ve got the resources for you. Check out the Career Change Bootcamp program as it was created to guide you to build a strong foundation in finding the right path to your next career.

Read more about it here or visit our Career Coaching resource for a more personalized one-on-one career adviser.

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Scott Barlow: Welcome to Happen To Your Career. I’m so very excited to be back with you as always. I’m particularly thrilled because of our guest today. I have someone you are going to love, not just from what they do now but where he has come from and his past story. Welcome to Happen To Your Career MJ. How are you?

MJ Fitzpatrick: I’m fantastic and very happy to be here. Sometimes when I recording podcasts I have to get up at 2 or 3 a.m. but it’s a lovely, beautiful 10 a.m. here.

Scott Barlow: A balmy 10 a.m. Because you are on the other side of the world from me. Where are you?

MJ Fitzpatrick: I’m staring out into a beautiful city as we speak and it’s a lovely winter’s day.

Scott Barlow: I sometimes forget the winter summer switch thing.

We are going to dive into your story. How do you describe what you do now?

MJ Fitzpatrick: I help people make decisions. Everything from someone in a career that they’ve been in 10 to 20 years moving to something else, people trying to improve their relationships, to people who have been through tough times trying to move forward. Anyone open to moving forward I help get clarity, a deeper sense of self, grow emotional intelligence and use those skills to move forward.

Scott Barlow: You aren’t a decision maker but maker of decision-makers?

MJ Fitzpatrick: Something like that. I try to stray from the term coach because it’s not what I do. I help people think through their life and what is important and reading people well enough to know when they are talking about what they really want to do and help them move the obstacles to move forward. It’s a cool job. I love it and it’s fascinating. You are always seeing new things and every time you think you have a rule someone breaks it. It’s a lot of fun and there are times when I heavily persuade someone to a decision, but I can’t ever truly get them through the door just as close as I can and remove the obstacles. If the person doesn’t step through the door themselves the change won’t stick and I’m not doing what I should.

Scott Barlow: I love that. You can’t make people get up in the morning. They have to shut off their own alarms or go through the door. Pick your analogy. I absolutely love that and think you have a unique perspective. Where does that start for you? Have you always been a maker of decision-makers?

MJ Fitzpatrick: If you can come up with a new word for what I do I will pay you all the money in my bank account. I’ve been struggling for a number of years and we’ve had the conversation.

Scott Barlow: Challenge accepted.

MJ Fitzpatrick: I think I was an extremely analytical kid growing up trying to analyze social situations and stuck in my head the majority of my adult life. Over time, as I started to learn social skills and emotional intelligence and who I am, whether it’s a natural skill or I have somehow put a lot of work into it, I seem to be able to hear people speak or see and quickly see what is important. When I do my job I meet a new person, they talk to me for five or seven minutes where I listen and look at how they speak and their facial changes. It’s the skill to say you have said five minutes’ worth of words to me but it’s the three words you said in the first two minutes that we need to focus on. I think that is what my mind is good at and what I’m good at. It’s transportable to many arenas.

I love people; human beings. I love them so much. The second thing, the key competitive advantage, is I’m not trying to diagnose people or pull them into my world and tell them how to live. I go to them and their world and appreciate how they look at the world. Evolution has given us millions of years of advantages communicating with each other and to feel what others are feeling and mirror neurons so I can understand what they feel while they are speaking. I trust that and I try to be as empty as I can and be as present in the conversation. I think when those are your mindsets I don’t think it’s that hard to really understand people and see what is quite obvious. It’s extremely rare I’m speaking to someone and they don’t already have the answer. Maybe 80 percent of the time I’m there just to give them permission to think through what they want to be doing. About 20% are really blocked from the answer and I help them glide towards where they want to go.

Scott Barlow: I want to come back. One thing I wanted to talk about is the concept of permission. I want to come back to that but before that if I recall you had a number of things happen in your late teenage years that cover a lot of this for you.

MJ Fitzpatrick: Yeah I had a couple fun experiences. I was a willful and very intellectually aggressive kid. I didn’t really have a lot of self-esteem and confidence and tried to compensate with bravado. I don’t have physical strength so I used intellectual bravado. I went to a boarding school in Sydney and played rugby, which is a different version of American football with no protective gear. It is awesome. In one of the snaps I had my head in the wrong position and broke my neck. You have seven bones in your neck and pieces of rope that connect the bones together so they don’t move too much. If you put your chin on your chest and put your hand where your nipples are my chin was where your hand is now. That is how far my neck got pushed. The bones bent so much one piece of rope snapped. The bones slid together. They are there to support your structure and protect your spinal cord. My bones started going down the path to be a quadriplegic. The referee blew the whistle and I fell on my back. The likely outcome was death.

The second most likely was being a quadriplegic. I could have talked, which I like talking, but everything below my neck down would be a piece of meat. I spent the next five months in the hospital. I was on significant amounts of drugs to help the pain. Developed post-traumatic stress disorder and social anxiety. Take a kid who is already very anxious, and very logical, analytical and not a lot of confidence and put him in a neck brace to wear all the time.

Scott Barlow: The perfect storm right?

MJ Fitzpatrick: Yes exactly. The bullying in school got worse. My nickname was shit neck. Sorry for swearing, but it was the name they called me. It wasn’t a good place. I was operated on two days after my eighteenth birthday party. I couldn’t have a party because I was in a neck brace and didn’t have many friends. I left there and went to college. Because of the trauma and being in the hospital where I was the youngest patient by fifty years I was struggling with many existential questions: What is the quality of my life going to be? How often do I have to be in pain? Why did this happen to me? Why did I get caught in this? Why did God decide I was the person who had to have their neck broken? I was surrounded by young people that just wanted to have a good time and I was stuck in my mind with deep and intense questions. I spent the next year struggling to get along with people and it wasn’t going well. My college had people choice awards and I was voted the least liked person at my college.

Scott Barlow: That is a thing to vote to?

MJ Fitzpatrick: I was telling this story at a school and some kid put up his hand and said why did they do that? Evidently it’s just something we decided to do.

Scott Barlow: I wonder if that is still a thing. I kind of want to google it.

MJ Fitzpatrick: Hopefully not. Hopefully kids have grown up.

Scott Barlow: Oh man. What happened from there? After you go the Facebook thumbs down?

MJ Fitzpatrick: I was in my second year and I woke up one day and had a pain in my calf. No explanation. It became a numbness down into my foot, up to my knee and to my hip. I had ruptured a disc in between my back. No trauma but one leg was longer than the other. It was bound to happen eventually. It was the perfect storm because of how big my spinal column is and how big the canals are. The disc burst pushing on my sciatic nerve. 10 out of 10 pain for the next 11 months of my life all day. Back on pain killers and to see the neurosurgeon. I was told I had to have a second spinal fusion and I was only 19 years old.

I got to this place where I gave up. I couldn’t fathom living past the age of 21. My 21st birthday was one of the weirdest experiences of my life because I didn’t think I would get there. I put on 35 kilos of weight - depressed, anxious, PTSD, and addicted to many substances. I decided that my hand dealt by life was so bad I wasn’t going to play anymore. To cut a long story short that was my life and who I was: fat, smelly, few friends. I had to get away and try to process everything. I had such low emotional intelligence and awareness I didn’t realize I had been through trauma. It was normal. No part of me decided to take a step back and think about what happened to me.

I moved overseas. I had a friend develop social anxiety. We would go out and we would have to leave the club because he thought people were talking about him. I was confused because he hadn’t hurt his neck or back, nothing is broken so your brain must have created this. There is no causal link between your physical body and mind. You must have caused this. As we talked about this over the next months it was my starting position. My starting proposition was I don’t believe that this is set and who you are, we can change it. He was eventually able to let it go and he thanked me and my life changed. What I had been through taught me lessons. If I could figure those out and teach them to other people they will be happy. That sounds lovely but it was selfish because I thought if I could make them happy they would thank me for making them happy and that moment would allow me to feel joy. I learned of the growth mindset and realized I didn’t like anything about myself but I could work on all of it which was exciting to me.

Scott Barlow: Curious, when you are in that moment, in that place, clearly it was a progression, when you learn of the growth mindset what caused you to realize you could change?

MJ Fitzpatrick: I was reading blogs. I can’t remember the name but I was reading the story of a guy who had changed. He was really insecure in the past but now he was confident. The idea you can get better as a human being makes me smile like a four year old boy. That idea. It was salvation to me. I looked at my life and didn’t like a single part but saw that wasn’t important. What is important is you can change.

It seems simple but it goes to show you how unemotionally intelligent I was. I was 22 years old when I learned I could get better. It was salvation. I looked at my life and realized I was in the hole. I am overweight, I have mental health problems, I am addicted to a lot, but there is a way out. I just have to work on myself.

Because I was in such a hole there was no ego involved. I wasn’t so fancy that I wasn’t willing to put in the work and have the brutal conversations. I was able to let go of the past: my anxiety, depression, lost weight, learned social skills, all because I realized I could get better as a person. I could teach the lessons to other people and they will be happy and I will have joy. That is where my life started.

Now I am in a place where I started thinking why didn’t anyone teach this to me in school. My life started changing and I saw resilience. Confidence is a teachable skill. We in self-development land understand it quite well. There are five to seven principles that if you practice and use you will become a confident person. Why did no one teach me this when I was thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen?

Scott Barlow: This is something I think a lot about. I’m curious on your opinion. I’ve had the same thoughts so many times. Why don’t we teach this in school? Obviously. The one thing I keep seeing that tugs on me on the other side is it seems like to absorb those lessons, a lot of times, not all the times, but when it gets the best absorbed is right time, place, and context. When there is potential loss or something else creating that time and space and willingness to listen. For you, you were in the right time and space. You didn’t have anything else to lose and you found evidence that created hope that was the light at the end of the tunnel causing you to know you could move forward. That is how I think about it, you looking at the end of the tunnel.

MJ Fitzpatrick: It’s something I think about a lot. The way I look at it if I sat down with a 10 or 12 year old and told them I could teach you how to be confident I think they would be so open to it. There is something about this transition. You go through puberty and your parents stop being the most important thing in your life in regards to your identity. It shifts to your peer group. There is something in this period between - I don’t know the ages - I’m not a developmental psychiatrist. There is something in this period where kids are developing their identity and they think it’s set in stone. I think and believe that if we teach kids in a way they can understand and create leverage where they are open that we can get through to them.

Even if that is false and what you say is true, that they need to be in the right time and place. The whole point of what I am doing is trying to give them something so compelling the growth mindset gets buried in there somewhere. They can live the rest of their life, and even if its five or ten years along, and they go through that challenging experience they remember they heard about it and can change as a person. I’m trying to approach it from both sides.

There is truth in what you say, but I wonder if that need for it to be the right time and place is something our society has conditioned over time because the way we educate kids. Is there is one answer? Don’t look at the back of the book or collaborate. Change is impossible, you are who you are. Or is it an actual fundamental principle. I have no idea. Maybe in 80 years I will. I really look at the work I’m doing at schools and I think I get half of them, when I’m on form and pay attention I think I can get half of the kids and make an impact. The other half I can at least, maybe I’m not helping them see themselves in a different way, but I present it in a compelling enough way that they will remember something I’ve mentioned so they will have a path forward when they are ready.

Scott Barlow: It’s possible. Just like when you discovered it, it was possible.

MJ Fitzpatrick: I’m not sure. It almost doesn’t matter which is true. I’m going to keep doing it.

Scott Barlow: I don’t know if it’s one or the other based on the research or application. I haven’t seen evidence that it is just one or the other. I was super curious on your take because of what you’ve done and been through. Your insight is interesting.

MJ Fitzpatrick: Sorry for interrupting. The most curious thing happened after speaking to a school on Monday. I was speaking to fourteen and fifteen year olds. I finished my speech and a couple people shook my hand. This one young man came up and shook my hand and said thank you for not patronizing us. That piece of feedback fascinated me so much. Whatever he is going through and perceives the world for that to be the thing he wants to say of all the things. It gives me a window to see what it is like to be fourteen and fifteen. I try to angle everything I do to that. I’m exactly like you, I’m not a teacher. I’m exactly like you and I have a message that has taken me a long time to learn and I can save you some hard times if you are open to it. If you aren’t it’s fine but take notes because one day you will need them.

Scott Barlow: That is fascinating. That particular message. That one tiny message says so much about what is going on in not just his life but other kid’s lives and how they look at it. I’m fascinated. Where for you, going from having the neck brace, to the second downhill, realizing that there is light at the end of the tunnel, being able to connect with schools and youth - How did it all come together for you?

MJ Fitzpatrick: I started improving. I spent about two years, still at the University, I took a year off overseas where I lived with my friend. Came home still at university and realized that someone should teach this in school. I thought maybe I should do it. Maybe it could be my purpose. I was absolutely terrified. It was so terrifying because I’d have to leave university and have a conversation with my parents and better myself. None of that. That was option A and it was not possible because it was too scary. I can’t do A what is option B? I love people and want to help. I’ll go be a doctor. Because obviously of all jobs I could choose that was it. I convinced myself I should be a doctor. I spent two years studying and taught myself science. All the things. I got into a medical school in Sydney. I was stoked my first day of med school. Everyone was talking about being a doctor. This is where I was supposed to be. It’s weird about med students when you tell someone you are one they say congratulations. You are surrounded by wonderful validation.

Scott Barlow: I’m laughing because I haven’t been saying congratulations all these years and I realize I’m missing the socially acceptable way to do it. I didn’t realize it was a thing. It explains the validation.

MJ Fitzpatrick: These people you’ve never met ask you what you are doing and you tell them you are studying to be a doctor and they say congratulations or well done. You have these beautiful systems to make you feel amazing. First day of school I’m going to be a rock star. My second day, first genetics lecture, my stomach says Matthew you are in the wrong place. That was terrifying because the sunk cost of two years of my life getting into med school was huge. That feeling and nagging that it wasn’t what I was supposed to do would not go away.

I spent the next five weeks, and I want to press pause here, I teach this for a living and it’s easy to listen to my story and think he had it all together what a beautiful progression. I realized I wasn’t supposed to be in med school my second day and it took me five weeks to drop out. I’m the person who helps people think about decisions for a living and even in my own life it didn’t happen instantaneously. It took time.

That first day I had the feeling the question was this the right thing for me? After five weeks it had improved. Is this right for me? Is this the best way to help people? Am I really supposed to be a doctor? Eventually at 11 o’ clock on a Thursday evening it became am I willing to live the life of a fraud? Because I know I’m not supposed to be a doctor and I’m supposed to help kids learn confidence.

The second the question became that, I dropped out of med school 20 minutes later. Courage only lasts a certain amount of time. You don’t get courage and just walk around thinking you are the most courageous person in the world. You get courage for literally 20 minutes. You say I’m going to do it, I’m going to quit. You have twenty minutes to quit. Write your resignation letter. For me it was going on the online portal and dropping out. If you don’t do it in that time and commit when you have courage it will disappear. All emotional states are transient and fade. You will lose the courage.

I dropped out of school and worked at a gym as a personal trainer three days a week and built my business on the side. Now I do two things. I spent a day a week in schools and I have another company called One Scope that places me in schools and I spend the other five to six days a week working one-on-one with people or with corporations or speaking. I wasn’t sure it was what I wanted to do.

I dropped out of school with the idea of being a confidence person even though I didn’t know what that meant. I knew enough of a direction that if I took action, and because I knew it was my purpose I went in that direction and over time it became clearer and clearer. It was a messy process. I spent the first six months of my business trying to teach university students. I realized they don’t care and they didn’t have enough money to make a business there. I didn’t waste my first six months, just made a mistake.

I shifted to entrepreneurs helping them think about business and themselves in a more effective way, that was the progression. Now it’s helping people think about their life better and going into schools and giving them what I think they should have been taught in school.

Scott Barlow: Let’s talk about this concept of permission. From what you just described at some point, as the question got better, you had the pressure in med school and sunk costs, you felt the pressure and it’s simmering over five weeks. Where did you find the permission, not just the courage, but the permission for yourself to release from that?

MJ Fitzpatrick: I think it was the power of the language of the word fraud. I know that may sound strange but it’s a different question if I ask myself am I willing to live a different life? A safe life? Versus am I willing to be a fraud? I didn’t have an option but to drop out because I knew I wouldn’t be doing what I was supposed to. You can create a mission for yourself and there are a lot of different ways to do so. You can speak to friends or a parent that will give you good advice or have your back. If you are 80 what will you regret the most not doing and give yourself permission that way. The big thing for me to realize was that I was the only one that was thinking I needed to stay where I was. Everyone wanted me to be happy and make the best decision I could. I was the one placing the pressure on myself to live up to the expectations of being a doctor and had to be a certain way. I had to give myself permission.

Now when I look back and see with the people I work with there are two ways to create permission. Many people are looking for someone to say you can do this. We get inspiration and then say now I have permission. I see two ways: The first is to question why you think you need permission in the first place. One of my clients thought she needed her mom to be proud of her and that was her definition of permission. I told her to have a conversation with her mom who she was close with and ask her if she is proud. Her mom said yes. She was suddenly free and didn’t need permission.

The second way is to try and create some form of leverage. The most famous way is how Jeff Basil created Amazon. He thought about where he was. He had a nice job as a management consultant. He wanted to start a business. When I think of my life when I’m 80 and 90 which will I regret more? He called it the rocking chair test. He was allowing himself to have permission to go for broke and see what happens by thinking about the future. The other way people use it: For most people currently in a job and want to start a business or shift heir career, usually the worst possible outcome is they will end up exactly where they are. They will have spent some time and money but if it doesn’t work they can just go get another job somewhere. Permission is so important but mostly it’s us just walking around with this belief that we need permission when in actuality there is nothing stopping us from moving forward.

Scott Barlow: That is super interesting. And relevant. I am fascinated by this concept of permission because I see it stopping so many different people and I know there are people that are listening that have been unintentionally waiting on permission for one thing or another need. I love the rocking chair test in particular. I didn’t realize it was a Jeff Basil thing. I use a variation of that all the time when I get stuck on something. When I’m on my death bed which would I do?

MJ Fitzpatrick: It’s the most common form. It can be called permission or leverage. Getting a reason to make a change that is more important than your reasons for staying where you are. It’s the most common form. People talk about it all the time. You’ll hear someone say just what you said. I thought about ten and twenty years from now which one would I regret?

Scott Barlow: One of the things I hear constantly is people saying “well, what I really want to do is ___. But since it’s not an option” they just roll right onto the next thing. “I just can’t figure out what I really want to do because what I really want to do is ____. But since it’s not an option.” It’s almost like we need some level of permission to stop ourselves from settling. When it’s right there in the first place. I’m curious, when people find themselves there in that situation where they think they can’t do something for a reason what do you recommend?

MJ Fitzpatrick: I had this happen all the time. The most recent was when I was out for coffee with an extremely successful lawyer who wants more. I was having a conversation with him and said clearly you want something more, what do you want to do? And he said I don’t know. I said if you did know, in a hypothetical world, what would you want to do? And immediately he said interior design. That’s fascinating, why don’t you go start a business? He said I’ve given myself five years to do that. I stopped him and said where did you get the number 5 years? I can tell you what people are doing when they say that. They are looking for certainty.

When you grow up in the corporate environment with a stable paycheck and easy career progression, and I’m oversimplifying, but you have so much certainty. You don’t worry about your paycheck and things you worry about in your own business. You are 15 to 20 years in an environment ruled by certainty and the most uncertain thing you can do is leave your job and start a business. It’s bonkers to most people. When he said I’m leaving this for five years. What he was saying was I believe if I think about this for five years then I will create enough certainty that I can go pursue it. When people say they want permission they want certainty. They want to know for sure. The key area of growth is recognizing it doesn’t have to be certain. You don’t have to have the perfect answer. It just needs to be good enough.

I left med school knowing I couldn’t get back in. There is a gentleman’s agreement with the medical school people in Australia where if you leave once you never get to come back. They don’t say congratulations and you are on the bad person list.

It was so vague. I want to help people be more confident. That was it. I had no idea what that would look like but I knew I had a reason to leave more than to stay. My reasons to stay were not as powerful. The moment it flipped, I had permission to leave. The key point is two-fold: One, you have never actually tried. People say I want to do this but I know it’s not possible so I’m going to do something else. But have you actually tried? If they write it out and work out and challenge all the stories and meanings you’ve created about yourself. The second thing is how easy it is to test these things. My friend that wanted to be an interior designer had this giant business plan in his head; I need a website, I need to study.

Scott Barlow: Business cards. You need those.

MJ Fitzpatrick: Okay, back up a couple of steps. Do you have friends who are renovating their house? Yes I have two. Great ask one of them if you can design their house for free. They pay for all the furniture, you treat them like a client, and you won’t charge them anything. If they like it you can take photos and put it on a website. If not then its fine. There is zero risk on their end and maximum upside on your end and you are heading toward starting a business. You are taking action and moving forward. The key point in that moment is he is terrified of that because he is putting himself out there and immediately all the people that live in his current world that think it’s crazy to start a business and to quit being a lawyer to become an interior designer will challenge him. It’s a strong argument he will get feedback.

The second thing is he could get a no, get rejected. I think the fear of rejection has killed more new businesses and careers than anything else because it’s terrifying. You are putting your heart and soul out there and people could tell you it’s ludicrous but deeper you are putting your heart and soul into the world and someone could tell you no it’s not good enough. I can see that fear and help people through it. Just because you feel fear doesn’t mean you can’t do it. You should investigate that fear. It’s not a superpower or mythical fear investigation process. Just ask yourself what am I afraid of? Figure it out. Once you know your fear, try to move through it. If you just feel the fear and run away you will never move forward.

Scott Barlow: I love that and what you are talking about with the fear. Sometimes it’s a good indicator you should lean in, especially if it is important. We do not feel fear for things that are unimportant. We don’t feel nervous or afraid. We have a coach Lisa Lewis and she calls it being nervcited. You are nervous and kind of excited and it’s important to you that is why you are nervous. I love what you are talking about with feeling that out and exploring it. You have to lean into it to know what it is.

MJ Fitzpatrick: I think the other thing is it is normal. You are going to be scared.

Scott Barlow: You are human.

MJ Fitzpatrick: Obviously I will be terrified if I’ve been a partner at a law firm for fifteen years, everyone in my life knows me as a lawyer and thinks I should be a certain way. I want to leave that and not do a law start up but be an interior designer. Of course that is going to be scary. It’s fine and normal. You are who you are. The only reason you are scared is because decisions you have made unconsciously and the environment you were raised in. It is what it is and it’s normal. You can move through it if you want. The only person stopping you is you. There is no master step. It’s messy and not easy but the key thing is that the rewards are so worth it. I’m preaching to the choir but the rewards of stepping through that fear and carving out your life and career, the rewards are so incredible that it’s worth it. It’s hard to see what it will be like on the other side of the door. If you haven’t stepped through yet you look at it as though it’s scary and you can’t see it.

I see this most when working with people who have motivated themselves to prove other people wrong in their whole life. Those people bet me that I couldn’t do it so I’m going to go do it. It’s their modus operandi. When I ask them what if you didn’t motivate yourself from that place but motivated yourself because you wanted to do something rather than running away? In one hundred percent of cases they say I wouldn’t do anything I’d be a bum or hippy. You wouldn’t do anything because the current way you look at yourself and life has been motivated this way. To change to something else you have no clue what it looks like. But you can decide what it’s going to be. There is no blueprint. You haven’t made decisions yet. You can decide what it is going to be like.

Yes you feel all this fear and quitting may be the scariest thing you do and you shouldn’t quit until you have a plan and money. Don’t just quit your job today and send me an email unless you have a lot of money in the bank. I take zero responsibility for quitting your job. But you are terrified what your life will be like because you don’t know what the new world is. The second you step through you can decide.

I’m getting goosebumps talking about it because I love it so much. It’s easy for me to talk about the process now because I’ve been through it. If you had seen me during those five weeks in med school I couldn’t sleep. I was a mess. Now that I’ve stepped through and understand the process and courage and giving myself permission it’s easier because I can understand the process. I’ve done it. I’ve jumped off the cliff and other cliffs are now easier. It’s possible. It’s radical acceptance. This is who I am and what I’m feeling now. It doesn’t mean you have to stop. You can keep moving forward.

Scott Barlow: You can get better at cliff diving. This absolutely fantastic. One quick question. For you, it seems you intentionally went away. That is what I wrote down. You are talking about deciding who you are, and I’ve done the same thing like five to seven years of my life where I’ve gotten away and the act of doing so gives you permission to evolve yourself as someone different. Have you seen that be the case in a lot of people? I haven’t explored it or seen research. I’ve just observed it and you’ve mentioned it.

MJ Fitzpatrick: I copied this from Bill Gates. Twice a year he does a thinking week. He goes away for a week. It’s no phone or internet. Just him and books. He thinks about himself and his life. I’ve seen it work in other peoples’ lives but the key variable is time. A weekend is not enough. It has to be 4, 5, 6 days. Your mind is built to have an internal and external ward that are always interacting deciding where and what you should do because of your environment. When you make a radical change in your environment after three or four days your brain stops doing all the things it’s supposed to do because of the old environment and you get to look at yourself from the environmental pressures, shoulds, and meetings to make and you are free and can decide how you want to be when you go back into your world.

You have to make habits and decisions or it will force you back. Anyone listening and thinks they need permission to start a new business: number one I give you complete permission to do what you need to except quit your job without a plan. Number two is go away. Spend five days. Leave your phone and computer at home. Take a journal and books, book an Airbnb in the countryside and just go be. Massive epiphanies will happen if you allow your mind to think about your life.

Scott Barlow: That is super cool. I appreciate you making and taking the time. Coming to us from the other side of the world. I am curious for people that want more MJ how can they get more?

MJ Fitzpatrick: My website MJFitzpatrick.com. I give away 99% of my content. That isn’t just me saying it because it sounds nice but it is literally 99% of my content. You can’t buy anything on my website. Go there and I give my work away to people that take action. Click on a button that opens a box to send an email and introduce yourself. You will find all my podcasts, videos, and speeches, except the ones in schools I can’t film, all my blog posts, a bunch of guides. There is enough life changing material and you don’t have to pay a dollar. Anyone listening that feels I’ve given them value or want more stop at my website I’d love to start a conversation and build a relationship.

Scott Barlow: Very cool. Head on over there. Great place to be. Been there myself. Thank you so much again. This has been awesome. Thank you for all your thoughts on permission and sharing your story. Super cool.

MJ Fitzpatrick: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

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