Tom Rath 00:01

The current apparatus and language we have for describing why we do what we do and kind of summarize in our careers, it's resumes and job descriptions, for the most part. And I couldn't imagine a more cold and sterile and lifeless way to sum up a person if I worked on it, than a resume.

Introduction 00:22

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:46

Tom Rath, is a best selling author and researcher who has spent the past two decades studying how work can improve human health and well being. He's written a variety of books, his newest out is now available, and it's titled “Life's Great Question” discover how you contribute to the world. And if you don't recognize his name right away, I'm 100% sure that you'll recognize Strengths Finder 2.0, and the assessment that goes along with that book. We've talked about it many times on this show, but I'll tell you that additionally, while doing all of his research, his writing and many other contributions along the way, he's also spent the last 25 years battling cancer, tumors and other health challenges. And one other point is that even though he's written many books, he was also a reluctant author and Tom, that's where I would love to start. Can we go way back in your life for just a second? Your life and your career for a moment and can you share how the author part of your life came to be? Because as I recall, at first, you never really considered yourself to be much of a writer.

Tom Rath 01:51

You know, I still don’t, just for the record. It was fascinating. I grew up as kind of analytical, still I'm a numbers guy - I'm far more comfortable with a really good spreadsheet or a data set instead of in front of an audience or sharing my writing with people. But I've learned to do the latter out of necessity, for both out of necessity, I guess, and that really got the writing piece got started when, as you mentioned, I'd been battling cancer, I lost an eye to cancer when I was 16 and been battling cancer, my kidneys and pancreas and spine ever since then. And so when I was about 25, I'd been working with my grandfather, Don Clifton, on the real early versions and iterations of Strengths Finder, I was the project manager and we're trying to pull together all the science and ideas that Don had for many decades into one web based assessment and we were a few years into that project and we found out that Don had stage four gastroesophageal cancer. I was the one in the family, I was kind of the resident expert in cancer by that time. And so I decided to dedicate most of my time to traveling around the country with Don to various medical centers, trying to figure out how can we help him to live a little bit longer and keep him alive as long as possible. And as a part of that process, I remember at some point that when I was a kid growing up, Don always said he thought it was a tragedy that we waited to eulogize people until after they were gone. So, I was determined to make sure that didn't happen with Don and I wanted him to know everything that he contributed to my life. And so I stayed up for several nights in a row and wrote a 15 or 20 page handwritten letter to Don about the big influence that he'd had on my life when I needed it most and I gave that letter to Don on a hot summer day when we were in Houston at a medical center there. And one thing I've learned from that was it was a deeply moving experience. I highly recommend everybody do that for someone who's had a big impact on their life. But then what surprised me most from that was two days later, Don pulled out that letter and said, "You know, I've been reading and rereading this. And I think you have a real talent for bringing things to life with words." And he said, "Do you think we could write a book about your story?" And this kind of different bucket topic that he'd been talking about for years. "Do you think we could do that in the next two months?" Is what he said to me. And I was taken aback by a challenge, because I would never have shared a word for public consumption if Don hadn't given me that very specific challenge and said that he identified and saw something there. And to make a really long story short, we ended up finishing a draft of that book just before dawn passed away about a year later. And that book went on to be called “How Full Is Your Bucket” which originally took off in the business world and now it's used in, I guess most of the schools across the country is a core part of their behavioral strategy with kids and it's turned into a children's book that I worked on with Don's daughter, my Aunt Mary, and her very meaningful project. But there's no way I would have gotten into the writing at all if Don hadn't said he spotted something really specific there. And I think as you alluded to before I'd had an AP English teacher telling me to stick with math and numbers instead of writing. I'd been through StrengthsFinder, 15 times at that point, and every other psychological test you can imagine growing up in a family of psychologists, and no one had ever told me that I had a talent to write until that point. So big learning for me from that experience is that, you know, one of the most valuable things you can do for another person is to help them spot a talent they may not have uncovered.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:16

I think that's so interesting. And we see that again and again, and again, to the point when we end up getting the opportunity to help people, we actually embed that into the process to be able to, well, we've engineered some ways in order to solicit that type of feedback as well. You're talking about it from one pretext. The most important thing that you can do is be able to share that with other people, which I totally agree with and benefactor of that many times throughout my life and turned me on to things I would not have otherwise have done. However, I think that there are ways to solicit that feedback too and that leads me to my next question. Have you ever thought about it or experienced it from the other side, too? Well, I guess suppose you know, the Strengths Finder Assessment is actually one way to do that. Now that I think about it.

Tom Rath 06:03

Yeah. And, you know, I think it's a big leadership challenge for anyone who wants to lead in the future, is how can you view it as a big part of your job to, kind of, hold a mirror up, be observant, help people identify unique areas where they're making an important contribution, they may not have noticed, and in addition to just kind of spotting some of the raw talents and examples of excellence, to help that person connect their daily efforts, with the meaningful and positive influence it's having on other people. I think that may be one of the biggest and most valuable leadership exercises in the next 25 years.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:42

Well, when you think back to, I mean, probably everybody's had this conversation, when you think back to people that have made an impact in your life, you know, whether it be teachers or family members or whatever, I have noticed the pattern over the years that a lot of the times it's been those people that have believed, that's what people will say in conversation, like this person believed in me. However, in the functionality of it, it often is that sharing of that type of feedback that you're describing.

Tom Rath 07:14

It's a great point. That’s a unique insight there because I agree with you that the outcome is that a person testifies that a mentor believed in me, but in reality, what was probably occurring pragmatically in the moment was that person was identifying a few real specific things, and helping you to see that. So I think to break it down to that level is important.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:37

Well, I don't know that I thought about it in that way until this moment, this conversation. So I'm glad that we're talking about it. Before we actually hit the record button here, I was telling you a little bit about, you'd ask me how on earth did I get into this, you know, what we do now with our company and getting to impact people in this way? And I started sharing with you a little bit of the story where I had, you know, been in a role that was really unhealthy for me and certainly was not a great fit for a variety of different reasons, including strengths. But along the lines that you mentioned, most of us don't share what it is that we appreciate about somebody until they're gone often in the eulogy. I've got to say that I got turned on to your work, maybe I think it was approaching 15 years ago or so. And even before I knew, you know, all about you, I came into contact with this idea that strengths are a different way to look at it, a different lens to look at it through. And actually, that is what made it possible for me to begin to view work differently. So the reason I'm bringing that up is I want to say thank you, it's made a tremendous impact on my life. Actually, I can't think, now that I'm talking out loud about it, I can't think of any other guests that we've had on the podcast where they've impacted my life and my views for as many years. So thank you very, very much. I appreciate that.

Tom Rath 08:57

Thank you. I appreciate your saying that and it's meaningful. And I, you know, it's one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot lately is, I mean, really, what I've been trying to kind of continue to help a lot of those efforts that my grandfather and others started to continue to grow even more now that he's gone and continue to help more people. And I think maybe 20 plus million people have now been through the online tool that we put together back then, which is wonderful to see. But that's one of the things I've realized I worked on this most recent book, “Life’s Great Question” about what are the things that you and I and any of us can work on yet today that at least get a chance to continue to have a positive influence with someone a week from now, a month from now, a year from now, whether we're there laboring on that task or not, or whether we're even here a decade from now, or generation from now. Because the more time we have the opportunity to allocate to efforts like that, that can grow in our absence in a given day. I think it also makes days easier and smoother and less stressful, because it takes some of the pressure off of days where you're just responding, everything flying at you, and maybe looking inward a little too much.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:06

So here's what I'm curious about that, particularly as it relates to contribution. Actually, semi-recently, I had a conversation with Dan Pink. We were talking about it from a different standpoint, we're talking about passion being an overused and misleading word. And he was saying that he felt contribution was a much better way to measure what you're getting out of your work in a variety of different ways. But you have shifted some of your views, I'm going to call it for lack of a better word, over the years to focus more on this contribution element. And I'm curious, what are some of the events along the way that have caused you to really shift and place a lot more focus on, you know, how a person can contribute to the world?

Tom Rath 10:48

Yeah, you know, and some of it comes back to what you said, Dan was touching on who I've had good conversations with on that topic as well. And it's when you're giving someone guidance at a college, for example, to just follow their passions. I think the problem there is it assumes that that person is kind of the center of the world and all the needs of the world need to circle and alignment around that person when one the world usually doesn't work that way, unfortunately. And two, the problem is it's almost like we're ignoring the entire demand side of an equation and an economic model, right? Where I think it's important to focus on personality and it's important to focus on passion. And it's important to focus on things that you're interested in. But unless there's demand for that supply that is you, it's really not that helpful to the rest of the world and the big job market of what people need out there. So most of my work in the last few years has kind of been focused on, I think, what I like a lot of your work on, how do you begin to pull together the center between who you are and what the world out there needs. And so, on this project, I probably overcompensated and just focusing on what the world needs, because I think a lot of us have done a lot of work already on how do you look inward and have more self awareness and look at who you are personally, what your passions are. So now it's about mapping the other side of that equation. And then essentially bringing arbitrage a lot closer between the supply and demand of people and what the needs are out there and the rest of the world.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:18

You're absolutely right that I feel very strongly, that's a lot of the work that my team and I get to do every single day is help find, I don't know if you want to call it the intersection between a lot of those areas. But I'm curious when you think about that as a whole, what are some of the myths that surround it currently, particularly as it relates to contribution?

Tom Rath 12:37

Another myth that I stumbled on when I was being interviewed a couple months ago is, someone asked me about my purpose in life. And when I found it, and I hadn't given it much thought I just laughed when I heard the question, because I don't think I've found any purpose. And I'm not looking for one either. Energy, I mean, it just kind of hit me because there's so much talk about that I almost titled this book, something about pursuing purpose, I think. And then the more I got into the meaning of what were what I was really trying to say, I realized that, as I'm sure you've learned from all your work on careers. A career is kind of a spiky pattern and trajectory over years and over decades, and I've yet to meet a single person who fell out of college into the perfect job that they stayed with forever and just enjoyed as much as they could. It's usually, you might start off in a tough place. Make a little bit of progress after a year, you kind of backtrack for 18 months and things spike up again, when you get involved in something new at work, and it's this very erratic, bumpy pattern over time. But one thing that matters is that you're making some forward progress. And you have a good trajectory over the span of years, and especially over the span of decades. And for the most part I found that to be pretty true is people learn more about themselves, they learn more about how they can serve their community, they learn more about how they can find a job that also serves their life, like we were talking about a little bit earlier. At the very highest level, I think all of us need to rethink there were fundamental relationship we have with our effort and our work in life because organizations to be really frank, organizations have got it down to a science in terms of determining how much discretionary effort they're extracting out of us on a regular basis. But we as individuals have not done anywhere near enough work to ensure that our lives and our families and our communities are better off because of the work that we're doing, I think the more we begin to connect those dots, not only is it good for the trajectory of our careers over time, but it helps us to do more meaningful work on a daily basis as well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:39

Part of what I believe I'm hearing you say in there that's behind what you said, for lack of a better phrase is, the more that you're taking control, or the more that you're taking agency in that process of determining what that is probably the more that you're going to be able to contribute to any given organization or determine what really is the right fit for you. Am I getting that right first of all?

Tom Rath 15:02

Yes. And it's an important point because I, honestly, you mentioned earlier, you know, a good day for me is when I prove myself wrong and challenge one of my existing assumptions. And 10 years ago, I was really convinced that after the big wave of employee engagement work that I've been a part of and seen companies get really good at showing how they can emotionally engage workers more during the day, I thought, well, hey, this big movement around, we can measure well being, we can quantify someone's overall well being. So now companies should care about that. And companies should begin to prove to workers that they're better parents, and they know how to manage your finances better. And they're better physical health, because they're a part of this organization instead of another one, and so forth. And to be honest, I've spent the last five or 10 years just running into wall after wall after wall on that topic. And I think eventually, a few organizations will get there. Where they're, they care about and they're proving that they're demonstrably improving a person's well being because they work for that company. But I don't think 99% of us as individuals, I don't think we can wait until companies finally get to that point. I think we probably need to take ownership ourselves to make sure that those conditions are present because companies just are not structured to be adapt, and good at that yet today.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:15

That so interesting that you say that and from that perspective and I'm very interested in some of the walls that you've run up against to, as we have looked at the impact, and I say we, my team and I, the impact that we want to make on the world, you know, we made some choices early on about are we impact it from a one on one level and, you know, consumer standpoint, or are we impacting it from an organizational standpoint? And I think the real answer is that we have to do some of both. However, part of our philosophy for choosing to go heavy on impacting one person at a time is that we believe if we can create enough movement in what people are expecting out of their organizations and taking control of their own career and what they want, then that will be able to set some level of new standard for guiding leadership in the organization too, and that will impact it in a different way, partially from the bottom up, if you want to look at it that way. But my question becomes, though for you is, how do you see that people can play more of an ownership role in that? What are the areas where you would encourage them based on your experiences based on your research?

Tom Rath 17:29

Yeah. And you know, it's also a part of the answer to the organizational question is, what I have learned works is when one leader individually can view themselves as being a role model for valuing the well being of employees throughout an organization. And that's the one thing that leaders I spent time with are comfortable with, and some of the best ones are learning to do. So I think if for a leader to understand that if they're talking about their need for kind of making the right physical health decisions, being more active throughout the day, value in sleep, talking to people about their schedule so they can get more sleep, talking to people about how they want them to be involved in their communities and talking about the importance of close relationships and being good parents when they get home and like if organizational leaders can demonstrate those values or each of us as individuals can, I think we can be very powerful role models. And over the span of years, that changes the cultural expectation where each employee of an organization knows that it's not only okay, it's valued that you should take care of your own well being unexpected. Not only is your life better off because you decided to join this team and this organization, but you really feel like your communities are better off your customers, your clients, the people you serve, their lives are better off because you chose to be a part of that organization. And you know, some of this gets back to the real practical kind of brass tacks of let's say you're in food service, for example, and you're preparing food in a kitchen. If you're stuck in the back of that kitchen and there are no windows and you can't see people out there in the booths eating the food and enjoying it. You make poor quality food, you feel less satisfaction about your job and you make less nutritious food when scientists study this and that holds true everywhere from cooks, to radiologists, to software developers to people in manufacturing environments, we need to find ways to see the positive impact of our work on a day to day basis, in order for it to give us that energy and well being so that, I really do believe that in the future, we should expect that we can go home after a day of work with as much or more energy than when we showed up in the morning and that's a good bar and litmus test for people to think about.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:42

I love that. Love that. Obviously, I'm a little biased, as you might imagine, however, I think that is a great way to think about it. And on a slightly different note, one of the things that you've done a lot of work over the years and is in the areas of energy and health and particularly as it relates to well being and when you're talking about this idea of you know, being able to go to work and then come home with as much or more energy as you had, you know, at the beginning of the day, I'm curious, what are some of the most impactful things that you have found? If you were to take what you've learned over the last, you know, X number of years and say, you know, here's some of the things that people don't realize or don't know, what would those be?

Tom Rath 20:29

Working on the book “Wellbeing” that I co-authored with my friend and colleague at Gallup Jim Harter, we learned a lot about, what the key determinants of well being and it sinks pretty well with what I've learned personally as well. I mean, a lot of it starts at just a basic physical level, where, if no matter how bad your day is today, if you get one good night of sleep, it essentially functions like the reset button on a smartphone or video game where you get to wake up the next day, you're more likely to be active throughout the day, you're more likely to eat a lot of the right foods. I realized that if I eat some of the right things early in the day, I have more energy in meetings or presentations later in the day. I have a lot more energy to keep up with my 9 year old, my 11 year old when I’m done with the work at the end of the day. And it also gets into I think, to have a really good day you need to have pretty frequent social interactions and regular contact with people. That's one of the biggest drivers of well being. The other big key in the workplace is just the minimization of unnecessary and chronic stress is one of the biggest factors and all of the research that I've conducted and looked at. So if you can help people to avoid those recurring constant moments of unnecessary stress throughout the day, and then as we talked about a little bit already, to be able to connect a little bit of your work with the influence it has on another person or on community or customers that you serve, that’s another big bar in the equation.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:50

That totally makes sense. But it also makes me think of a lot of those things we know already and I'm a total nerd for behavioral change and those type of topics. However, what do you see are the some of the biggest reasons why, even though we might know some of those things, that we just don't do them or we don't choose to do them or maybe we don't realize just how big of an impact that they can have in our lives?

Tom Rath 22:16

You know, I think there are a couple things. One, is that, I've grown up in, and seen a very admirable kind of hard working culture and mindset when it comes to work where I mean, when I was young, nobody I knew would admit to needing a whole eight hours of sleep or talk about it, I need more sleep. And it wasn't socially valued. And even to this day, every single day, I encountered leaders who I admire a lot, well meaning people, and they say, “Well, of course, I want all my employees to have good health and well being” but they say, “I don't need to.” So they're still up on email, midnight, shooting off emails to people and bugging people on the weekends and saying, oh, it's just me. I don't expect that. Well, if you're in a leadership role, you're setting the tone and that is expected of everyone whether you say it or not. So I think some of those cultural elements, you see where they come from, and they probably come from good intentions and good work ethic, we need to begin to turn that around back a little bit. I think one of the other challenges is, we just have so much stuff flying at us from text messages and dings and emails and phone calls that we don't take enough time to sit back and say, “here's what's important that I need to make sure I have the energy to be my best every day.” And so we need to begin to prioritize things like building some activity in your day, whether it's getting up to go for a walk or walking to the second closest Starbucks or just taking the time to go eat and digest a healthy meal in the middle of the day. So you can continue to get more done in less time throughout the afternoon. And a part of that I think, starts with building some of the right defaults into an environment. So if you know that there are only healthy snacks within arm's reach, and you structure your environment in your workspace for that to occur, and I mean, I know in my house if the sum of the unhealthy things like the chips or the peanut butter, pretzels make it into my cabinet, from the grocery store, they're going to get eaten...

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:09

They will be...

Tom Rath 24:10

Ours. And so to kind of structure your environment to avoid some of that temptation to make you need to go out and take a walk to, when I travel, for example, I know that I need to allocate about 10 hours to get eight good hours of sleep. And that means taking an earlier flight, going to bed two hours earlier, and working back from what I know I need to be sharp at eight o'clock in the morning when I'm on the road. And so I think to structure our days so that we can be our best is... that's one way to start to manage around it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:41

I have taken a ton of steps personally to remove myself from all the stuff that flies at you, like you mentioned a minute ago, you know, ranging from I have an amazing executive assistant that helps with a lot of that. I've set up a lot of systems in place, but even back I don't know, you know, 20 plus years ago or so, like keeping as gross as it sounds to a lot of people like I'd keep a can of tuna fish and a can of black beans in my desk so that I would never not have food available. But what I'm curious about is, what are some of the steps that you've taken personally, to filter yourself from all the stuff or remove a bunch of the stuff or be able to handle it differently, and then to build some of those pieces in or out of your environment.

Tom Rath 25:29

I've taken a lot of steps in the last few years to try and get myself more opportunities to focus time during the day on projects that can continue to grow when I'm not working on them. And a part of that gets back to a question that Dr. King post many years ago, it kind of anchored this most recent book where he said, “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?” And, you know, that may sound like a big broad existential question. I've actually used that exact question, try to ask myself that every single day before I start my work to say “am I anchoring at least an hour, ideally more in a given day towards efforts that really make a substantive contribution for other people and can grow in my absence.” And I've found that when you do that, it makes it easier to both literally focus time on those efforts. But it also makes it easier to be objective about tuning out some of the things that matter less. So I just this week had a conversation with a team that I'm working with. And we were all kind of getting to know one another and going through the talking about the contribify exercise. It's a part of the book. So we kind of understand why we do what we do. And I said, “you know, I'll be really honest, and I had to frame this up a bit. So it didn't sound too callous, I guess.” But I said every extra email that I don't get as a gift from above, I mean, even if it's I know a lot of times it's pleasantries, and we've been burst and thank you and thank you in person for thanking you and doing all this. But the more I can minimize what I need to go through every few hours when I check back into my inbox, that really does save a lot of time and a lot of cognitive effort. And I've learned that when I have some of those conversations early on with people, then we view it as appreciation of one another's time.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:12

I love that idea. It was probably about four years ago where I really got turned on to that idea to the point where when I work with my team now, and when we bring somebody on board to our team, we talk about, like, we don't necessarily need to say thank you to every thing that goes through our Slack channel, or we can do everybody else on the team a favor by putting in our end where it says no reply needed or, you know, little things that add up drastically over time. But what I've noticed in an average environment, that type of shift feels insurmountable sometimes. So I'm curious what you have found that people can just start doing to minimize those types of things that don't need to be there so that we can focus on contribution?

Tom Rath 27:56

There are some roles where you need to be just immediately responsive for emergency purposes and the like. And if you're in a role like that, I think to kind of bracket the time where you need to be in that mode, so that you at least hold out a little bit of time in a day where you can have more clear and productive thoughts. It's not being constantly interrupted is really important. But I do think one of the questions that Bill George, who's who I really admire and respect over the years asked me when we were talking a few years ago was about, you know, “how do you prioritize between what's really urgent versus what's truly important?” And there are a lot of things that fly at me in a given day that on the surface seem to be urgent. But when I take a breath and step back and say, “is it really important?” it changes my response. So instead of getting back to something that just claims to be pressing, but really isn’t, I've found that if I wait until tomorrow morning, and batch process and respond then, not only is that more efficacious for me getting things done in a day, it also sets a better expectation with the other person who maybe have never had a conversation with before about whether they can continue to email me. And I'm just going to be on 24/7 to respond to them instantly. And so I like where you were going with that, where it's really about learning to have more respect for your own time and showing respect for the time of the people you're interacting with and working with on a regular basis. So they know that you're working to value their time, just as much.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:32

One of the crazy things that on that note that you're mentioning, it seems like a lot of that is prioritization. And I feel like if we would really oversimplify what we get to do here, at Happen To Your Career, a lot of it is teaching people how to better prioritize and behave around, you know, what is actually most important, and I feel like that's a lot of what you're describing in one way or another, but also, I think about this idea that you're talking about, and, you know, how can I contribute and how can I make that important, and I still find that it can be really, really difficult. And I don't know if I necessarily have a question about that, except to say that or except to ask that so far, we've talked about, you know, those things that stop contribution. Yeah, our conversation up till now has been a lot about, hey, what is getting in the way of contribution. But when we focus on the profile itself, can you share a little bit about that so people can understand, you know, how they might use that tool or any tool or just an understanding how they can contribute better.

Tom Rath 30:39

One of the reason one of the things I've learned is I try to help people get more focused on contribution and some of the meaning that's connected to their work is that the current apparatus and language we have for describing why we do what we do and kind of summarize in our careers, it's resumes and job descriptions, for the most part. I couldn't imagine a more cold and sterile and lifeless way to sum up a person if I worked on it, than a resume. I think we've got to find ways to bring the humanity of what we do and why we do it back into the discussion. So the way that we're trying to help readers when people who buy the “Life Great Question” book or the e-book, get a code to go to this contribify, our website and assemble, they go through an inventory and ask a bunch of questions. And then they get to build this profile. That's, I hope, a far more human version of a resume about kind of a positive baseball card synopsis of a person. But what it asks you about is it starts with what are the big roles you play in life. So for me, that's being a dad and a husband and a researcher and a writer. And then it asks about the miles or most influential life experiences that you've had over your lifetime. And some of those are positive. Some of those, like I mentioned, my own example, were negative, or they were more challenging or traumatic events, but they really shaped who I am and why I do what I do. And then it asks about what your natural talents, your strengths are in your own words, and it takes people through a series of about 50 questions where they prioritize how they want to contribute to a given team they're thinking about and they can go back and take out as many times as they want as they join new teams and are thinking differently about how they want to contribute. But the product is a nice one page scorecard and then a lengthier report with ideas about how you can optimally contribute to a team. My one hope is just that people will use that and share the second code in the book with a friend or a team member or colleague so that they can have a conversation as a team, when ideally when you're forming a new team, to say, “here's who I am, here’s what's important to me, here's how I want to be known in life, here have been my most influential life experiences and here's how I think I can uniquely contribute to this team into this effort.” And I think if people have that discussion upfront, it should enable a bit of a negotiation process there so that you don't have a bunch of like minded people who are all trying to do the same thing. And so it should help teams to move a little smoother in parallel, and it should help individuals to continue making that connection between who they are and how that effort makes a contribution to customers, clients into the world.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:16

I took the time to go through it and when it first popped up the instructions after I created an account everything it said something to the effect of it'll be a series of open-ended and closed-ended questions and like, “Ah, how on earth are you going to integrate the open-ended questions into the profile?” And did not disappoint. So that one page scorecard, as you're calling it, actually was really interesting to see and really helpful to see too because as you said, it's got those defining roles on one side and you know, some of your strengths on the bottom left and then those contributions that you're talking about as well, which for me are achieving, initiating and adapting. But one of the challenges we have had in working with people over the years is helping them put words to what creates more meaning for them, or how they can contribute, or what makes them feel more purposeful in one way or another because it's, quite frankly, slightly different for everybody. And everybody has kind of their own unique definition and in some way without getting into the weeds on it. So I thought you did a really, really nice job in doing that. I'm also curious, miles did you start with the word miles? Or how did that come about?

Tom Rath 34:43

I think I was drawing on a whiteboard and was trying to think about, what are these? One area we have not done enough work on is, what are the real influential and searing life experiences people go through? I actually think we need to kind of push people through intense experiences to sort out what they might be good at. They haven't even tried before. So I was trying to think through, how do you bring some of these stories to the surface that are a little more narrative than kind of the roles you play in life? So that's where that came from. But what I've been learning is you have five people on a team, for example, and you all go through and do that and bring that baseball card to the table and just talking through that could be a really good kind of relationship expectation setting experience, I hope. And it's a good way to get to know people quickly in a more human way than looking at LinkedIn profile or whatever.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:30

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, nicely done. I've enjoyed it immensely. And where can people get the... and the assessment?

Tom Rath 35:39

They can get the book anywhere books are sold, and each book includes a code. The first edition hardcover has two codes, so you can go through it with someone else and do it as many times as you'd like. And you can find more on that at contribify.com/ and more about any of my books at tomrath.org

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:56

Tom, just one last question, you know, for people that are in the place where they do want to a different level of meaning they do want a different level of contribution as many of our listeners are, what advice would you give them with where to start?

Tom Rath 36:11

I would suggest that they've probably done enough looking inward already. And that life in the end is really more about what you put into it now what you get out of it. And so if they can start to examine the world around them, the people they care about, the community that surrounds them, and find some of the most pressing needs of the people that they hope to serve, that they can start there and then work back to how they could meet some of those needs. It might enable more rapid growth.

Ross Loofbourrow 00:01

I want to be a speaker that motivates others that empowers them that brings them hope and helps them take those first steps to becoming more than they ever thought they could be.

Introduction 00:17

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 00:41

Strengths. Signature strengths. Particularly, we spent a lot of time on the podcast discussing this idea of strengths, finding them, appreciating them, talking about them in job interviews, using your strengths to find your ideal role. What we don't talk about as much, our weaknesses, we know that people are generally more fulfilled at work when they spend more time focusing on their strengths and less on weaknesses. That's what makes the story of Ross Loofbourrow so fascinating. You're gonna meet Ross in just a second. Ross didn't avoid his weakness. Instead, he turned his greatest weakness into his greatest strength.

Ross Loofbourrow 01:27

Energy like dude, you're the energy guy and that's the word. And it's by far the thing that people have said the most about me in such a positive way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:43

Ross has ADHD. And throughout his life, he's always thought of it as weakness until he realized he was thinking about it completely backwards. This is a pretty unique story from the HTYC library. I want you to listen to how Ross completely reversed the way he saw himself and the world saw him instead of focusing on weaknesses, focus on something else that we haven't spent a lot of time on, which we call "anti-strengths" or the shadow side of your strengths. Listen for it, as Ross tells a story, later on in the episode, but first, here's Ross sharing a little bit about where his career started. And what led up to what he's doing now.

Ross Loofbourrow 02:25

I started my career at Apple. How that happened? Well, my parents basically said, “you better get a job” and all the goals and the things I thought was gonna happen when I graduated college didn't... ended up moving in with my grandparents. Just very uncool in my mind and started saving money, started trying to buy ring and get married and I fell into a job at the Apple Store. A friend of mine worked there and someone I really respected had amazing thing to say about it and five interviews later for a part-time retail specialist role. And I was in. That was over nine years ago today.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:05

Yeah. I'm curious what you said. Some of the things that you thought would happen didn't as you came out of school and then that led to moving in with your grandma, which you thought was uncool maybe some people do. My grandma was pretty cool. But I don't know that I would have wanted to live with her necessarily so kudos to you. But, what were some of those things that you thought would happen that didn't in that way?

Ross Loofbourrow 03:28

Yeah, so when I graduated, I mean everyone talks about in their Senior Year, what are you doing when you graduate? And you know, if you really are having things and you got your life in order, you know exactly the job you're gonna have when you step out of that school. And so, I lined up what I thought was a great opportunity as an admissions counselor at my school and I've been, had been a tour guide all four years, love doing that, I just felt pretty confident that it was gonna happen because I knew everybody in the office and I was ultimately told “Hey, Ross. After the extensive interview process. Hey, Ross if we had one more spot, it would go to you. I'm so sorry.” So that blew up my world and I thought I was gonna be a live my friends in Santa Barbara after I graduated. And I had to move home and moved in with my grandparents who are awesome, but I never dreamed I would live with them .

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:25

Yes. Totally.

Ross Loofbourrow 04:27

So, yeah, that's the plan I had that completely crumbled in front of me and it was an ultimate low at that moment where I was like, what am I doing?

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:37

What happened from there then? You’ve got, you ended up working at the Apple Store five interviews into it. And boom. You got your part-time a role and...

Ross Loofbourrow 04:47

That’s right

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:47

What happened at that point?

Ross Loofbourrow 04:49

Yes, I started at store. It ended up being the last Mini Apple Store in the entire world, is the store that I started at.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:57

Really?

Ross Loofbourrow 04:58

This store people can't even conceptualize how small it was. It was the size of a shoebox. Honestly. It was a little crazy like a submarine at times. So, I stated there and I thought man I'm here for maybe three or six months get a little work experience. Slap it on my resume and I'm out of here. I'm gonna go get a big boy job for, and have a college degree. I loved it and I started getting so much affirmation really quickly. "Hey man, how are you so good at this like, where did you learn how to do that? Like how you talk to people like that? Man, the way you just described the iPad was like so cool and fresh. Like I never thought of describing it that way." And I can’t remember a time in my life where I was receiving so much affirmation for just being me. I thought that's just kind of fun. So, I stuck with it and I basically went from part-time role into a full-time role. Then I became one of the first experts when Apple rolled up that role to their stores and then within about two years, I became a manager. Which was really rare at the time. People really realize that in 2009, you know what the percentage chance was that you got a job at Apple any role: part-time, retail specialist, you name it. Guess what’s the percentage chance was 80%, 40% and this is for iPad or before watch.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:26

Oh, my goodness. I would say like 20%, 30%.

Ross Loofbourrow 06:33

2%.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:33

2%? Oh my goodness, I highballed it.

Ross Loofbourrow 06:36

About getting a job at Apple or so. And so, I got in and... I was loving it. So, became a manager which was really rare at the time to be promoted from within to that role and then ultimately have worked now at five different Apple stores in the bay area, have worked alongside hundreds of different people, have had a plethora of different coworkers. And now, I’m a manager at the Monterey location. So yeah, it's been a ride for sure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:05

So, here's what I'm curious about then. You got into Apple, realized very quickly that hey there are some of these things that people are appreciating about me. Obviously latch onto those and doubled, it sounds like double down in some of those areas. Started realizing that, "hey this is... I’m enjoying getting this feedback. I'm enjoying getting this affirmation. I'm enjoying actually doing these things that are getting there and then dive further into it." Clearly that was rewarded as well, which I think is super cool by the way leaning into some of those areas that you are already loving and already adding value to the world. I mean, that's obviously something we spend a lot of time talking about here. So, you were able to do that there. But also, somewhere along the way I know that you became interested in doing additional things too and...

Ross Loofbourrow 07:58

Absolutely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:58

You know, I alluded to this at the very beginning. I know that you’ve experienced ADHD and I know that somewhere along the way you decided you were interested in integrating the speaking component into your career, too. So how did that come to be? What was, what caused you to begin even thinking about that way back when and then later to start doing it?

Ross Loofbourrow 08:21

Yeah. It all started a few years ago. I was at this point in my journey at Apple, had been a manager for quite a while at that time, had held a bunch of different roles. As a manager, managers will oversee different areas of the store. So, I done that for quite some time and, I was kind of getting this age like, “Man, I’m a millennial. And I don't feel like one because I've been at the same company for so long. I haven't resisted moving but so many people my age are jumping from company to company.” So, I was getting a little restless kind of wondering like, am I doing right thing? Am I becoming stagnant? I don't wanna be stagnant.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:01

Am I really a millennial?

Ross Loofbourrow 09:03

Yeah. Exactly. I've always been called an old soul.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:07

I get that too, totally understand. Also, a millennial just barely.

Ross Loofbourrow 09:13

So, I hit this point, you can call a career made a moment, a career staller and in the biggest way. The first time in my career, I had coworkers and I had people that I reported to sharing with me, "you know it, Ross, I don't know if you really have what it takes to continue being a successful leader here at Apple any longer." And dumping like a lot of negative feedback on me. And more than that I never seen, this was caught me totally by surprise I thought I got hit by a truck, and I started spiraling which we can do with ADHD. I thought, what’s Plan B? I don't have plan C. All I've done is Apple, like what in the world am I gonna do if I'm not here? Well, that is when I decided, “you know what, Ross? You can't keep ignoring your ADHD” because I graduated college I said, “Forget this. I've never thinking about my ADHD again.” It has been a nightmare for me worrying about school and ADHD made it worse. I'm gonna go live my life, so I do. What workout up to that point pretending it wasn't their, didn't talk about it, never let other people know. And then this moment occurred where, "holy smokes, I absolutely felt like, I could lose my job if I don't pivot quickly in a different direction." So, I got the help I needed. I started looking for a clinic. A place where I could really start to harness and understand my ADHD brain because really at that time I didn’t and that’s where I found my first ADHD coach. Working with ADHD coach week over week for a year and no it was not cheap it’s significant that myself and that was the start of unlocking the new ways that I view ADHD and then ultimately that's what led me to Happen To Your Career. And that's what led me to working with you guys, is that I continued to ask this questions of, where can I add more value to the world? Apple has blessed me with understanding here is where I can, here are my gifts, here are my strength, but what else I can do with those things?

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:26

So, there's so much there and just a little bit of backstory. I am very high on the ADD spectrum kind of middle as far as when you're looking at it, if you’re looking at it on the Spectrum, kinda middle to high on the... what many people consider the ADHD spectrum and I have three children that all fall into various different ranges of that too. So, this is very much my world in a lot of different ways. So that's part of the reason why it's near and dear to my heart. What I'm curious about first, ‘cause I am really interested in some of the things that you have since done with that, but I'm curious where did you recognize was this when you were a kid? Where did you recognize that it created some of these differences for you in one way or another?

Ross Loofbourrow 12:13

Yeah, it was when I was in second grade. Second grade was kind of a culmination moment. I had noticed for quite a while there. People were laughing at me and ridiculing me when I would raise my hand and ask a question in class. I would be paying attention, I would be focusing as hard as I could. But ask these questions and everyone would giggle and laugh and as a second grader you feel horrible. Like, you know they’re not laughing with you, they’re laughing at you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:40

And the world is over after that, too.

Ross Loofbourrow 12:41

The world is over and your life is ending. And my mom, who is an angel, I don't know if I would be here today without her to be honest. She helped me identify and figure out that I had an auditory processing deficit and what that means is that I can be listening as hard as I want but things that come in to my brain, certain things sometimes just don't compute they get left out so I can be comprehending everything you're saying but then I don't even realize that 30 seconds or 2 minutes or a big chunk of what you are sharing, I do not remember. I can't recall and so that's why I would ask these questions, that’s was a big unlock moment andwas like, okay this is happening. And then we also found out that I had ADHD it was a double whammy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:35

Wow.

Ross Loofbourrow 13:36

Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:36

So, recognized it way back in second grade. Fortunately, you had your mom there to help you begin to make sense of this in some way and start moving down that path and eventually started having the show back up all the way later, fast forward, what eight, ten years fully into your career. Actually, after you got out of school. And then now for the first time you're having to reconcile with it again, and... It’s sounded like that caused you to get some help and get some guidance on how to look at this thing and utilize it differently and we got the pleasure of working with you through as you were seeking out that out too. What point did you start realizing that I can take this thing and really help other people understand and begin to understand through speaking and engaging other people in different ways, to help them look at it as more of a gift than anything else. Where did that enter for you? Where did you first start thinking about that?

Ross Loofbourrow 14:40

Well, I think really go back to Happen To Your Career’s, career change bootcamp. The webcast and call that you guys offer I had stumbled on your podcast around this time. I found it and I never found anything quite like it. I'm like this exactly I would be listening to. Like where canI pivot, how can I find something that fits me more...

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:01

Now you’re on it, just a year later.

Ross Loofbourrow 15:04

Yeah and ultimately, I've seen that bootcamp, and I'd like, “Oh got on time, I have time” and it finally came up again on my radar and I thought I'm gonna do this. I did that and that was when I met for the first time, in that environment, Lisa got to hear more from you and ultimately started working with Lisa after my ADHD coach and what was really interesting is my ADHD coach said he started to prime, my thinking of, he’s said, “have you ever thought of doing like, video stuff, like you're so animated like that. That could be something that you really enjoy doing and can resonate with people” and he started to plant seeds but working with Lisa. She was the first person ever to validate my crazy dream and that was she said, “Ross, what do you really wanna do?” I said, “I wanna be speaker. Like I want to be a speaker that motivates others that empowers them that brings them hope and helps them take those first steps to becoming more than they ever thought they could be. And she immediately said “yes.” And we really talk on the phone about 30 minutes, but I already trusted her enough. And for her to say, Ross you can totally do that. That was a massive unlock and then it was figuring out. Okay? I wanna do this. But who am I to speak on anything. Like what am I gonna speak about? I'm not an expert on anything and that was when I ultimately started to dig down deep through those sessions with Lisa. Uncovering what are my biggest differentiators, is the fact that I do have ADHD and that I have, you know, seen both sides of it. I've seen the ugly and I've also seen the good. And what can I do with this. And that led to getting in to relieve that focus around mental health and specifically, an ADHD brain.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:13

That's amazing and the thing I love about your story and what Lisa's shared with me and I told you she shared some tidbits along the way too. You didn't know about the, she was like, “Ross, there’s this awesome guy, you got like some point along the way you gotta meet him.” And one of the things that I was really impressed with that she had shared is, it was relatively short period of time that you started acting on this dream too. It wasn't like hey, okay, let's talk about this and then five years later, maybe someday kind of will start doing this but to the point where even as you and I got on this call got to be able to record this interview this morning. You had just come off of a speaking engagement. Was yesterday is that we said?

Ross Loofbourrow 18:02

Yeah yesterday.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:03

Yeah, and I would love if you would share a little bit about that and what you got to go speak and how that turned out because I think it’s, you use the word humbling, but I really think that that's good. So, set the stage for us. How did how did this happen in the first place? What led up to this speaking engagement? And who were the kids and what did you get to talk about to them about? What came out of it?

Ross Loofbourrow 18:26

Yeah, it was to a couple schools over in Palo Alto.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:30

Yeah.

Ross Loofbourrow 18:31

A private school that you know really focus on supporting kids with learning and attention challenges and differences. The schools are right over the hill and ultimately is a connection that I made at a conference I spoke at last spring.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:46

Yeah.

Ross Loofbourrow 18:47

So, last spring was my breaking out moment. It was the first time I ever talked about ADHD being a superpower, and the advantages and the gifts and so this a continued connection from that and ultimately yeah, I walked in there. I didn't know any of the kids. The first group was 7th to 10th graders and then about 30 of them are so and then the second group pretty much immediately afterwards about fifth to eighth graders about another 30 or so kids. And yeah, I mean, there are kids and some of them are, they're dealing with their own challenges and so, you're there sharing, my message and I'm questioning myself the whole-time thinking, "is this even resonating with this guy over here. I mean this little girl over here it seems like she's really feeling what I'm sharing but I don't know" and I was just filled with all kinds of doubt and thinking and this is a train wreck. This is all horrible. And I came to discover afterwards that it actually went really well. All of the teachers had shared with me that the kids loved you and they want you to come back. Like you're welcome back anytime. You should come back and ride bikes. We’re going morning bike rides, and I had kids coming up to me afterwards and tears. Just sharing. I mean, fifth grade kids, seventh grade kids sharing. "Hey, like I wanna tell you my story" They don't say that there's dive into it telling you about how hard there go at life has been and how now they're at the school that really understands them. Things are so much better.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:24

That's amazing.

Ross Loofbourrow 20:24

And then those are the moments that fill my bucket and it makes me feel this monumental sense of purpose and like wow, this is partly what have designed to do. I want to do more of that helping people in that way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:40

That is amazing on so many different levels and I love talking about those moments where you or anybody for that matter where you get a taste of that and you realized I have to do this more like in one way or another in...

Ross Loofbourrow 21:01

Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:02

I've had many of those over the course of the last 10 years and know exactly what I'm talking about for the first time I went and spoke on careers. Actually, just this last week and I did a keynote and I totally understand by the way what you're talking about when you're looking at the crowd and you like things seems to be resonates with this person, this person’s like taking a picture with her phone and that person looks so bored and not even connecting, so I totally understand what goes through in that like the speaker brain in that way. So, can absolutely it looks like

Ross Loofbourrow 21:29

And the kids it’s like amplify.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:30

Oh, my goodness! Yeah, like times a hundred at least. Yeah on steroids for sure. So, absolutely understand and appreciate that. Here's what I'm curious about then. Obviously a little biased for a number of reasons in terms of how I think about ADD, ADHD and other types of things that the world has a tendency to look at as disabilities in one way or another. But I'm really curious for you, why do you believe that this is such a super power for you? Why do you believe that this can be such a super power for other people as well?

Ross Loofbourrow 22:13

Yeah, so one of the biggest reasons is my energy.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:17

Yeah.

Ross Loofbourrow 22:18

And I always put this to disclaimer out there if you are listening to this and you're thinking “Why I have ADHD, but I don't have that energy factor.” It doesn't mean you don't have ADHD and you don't have a brain like that. It just means, it's a spectrum. Like you were just mentioning and some of us fall on the spectrum with the energy component and I certainly do. I don't drink coffee. This is all natural.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:43

This is all… yeah awesome.

Ross Loofbourrow 22:48

As a kid that's never looked as a positive thing. It’s like, hey sit still, be quiet, pay attention. Like stop it, like they wanna control you and that's the exact opposite of that's a nightmare for this energy component of mine. When I got to Apple, that's one of the key ways people describe me. I mean all see people now have been there so long that. I run into people I haven't seen in years and I'll say, hey, you don't remember my name? Energy, like dude, you're the energy guy and that's the word. And it's by far the thing that people have said the most about me in such a positive way. And like I really appreciate the energy that you bring like, the way that you light up our room, I feel like when you're here, like it just rubs off on me and like I'm more excited about the day just by default because of you and so like that was definitely a specific and I will call it a super power of ADHD and I sort of recognize, whoa, like most of the people don't innately have this and someone told me recently I told them, yeah, I'm ADHD and these are some of the things that I have believed and they looked at me and said well, we're all jealous, because of my energy. So, that’s absolutely one of the key moments I started just to think, there's gotta be something more to this. What other things could there be, you know, at Apple, I spent a lot of time as a manager, working with my team and connecting with them on, I mean, it’s one of the reason I still love Apple so much is ‘cause we are such a human focused organization and we connect with our team around personal stuff. That's going on the highs, the lows and we help them understand, like, their blind spots. And we remind them other gifts and things are amazing at it. The ability that I have this intuitive nature relationally to know the right thing to say. And know at the right moment to say it and almost to describe things in a way about people that have others around me go, “oh, no one’s ever describe that person that way but you just nailed it. Like how is your gut so often right?” I feel like it's most of the time spot on. So again, like that intuitiveness, that gut instinct my energy like those are some of the ways I might, there's something different about this, that I wanna share.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:45

That’s fantastic and I find it so fascinating and well, obviously, I'm very interested in this sort of thing, but the way that ADD, ADHD brains are wired for lack of a better explanation, allows different, I mean, it completely allows different types of connections when compared to the average person. It’s been so interesting for me to see myself and then my three kid who have all completely different elements of it. Like I didn't understand just I didn't understand till he's really start my wife and I really started diving into this and she's been a teacher and actually did a number of projects on ADD and ADHD and a couple other things to throughout college way back when and then as part of her some continuing course work and so at the time she didn't know she’s gonna have three children that we're going to test this knowledge later on for her.

Ross Loofbourrow 25:46

Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:46

But it's been really interesting to see all of the different ends of the spectrum. So, for example, like you mentioned that incredible energy and how you show up differently and my son, my middle son Camden. We see a manifest in similar ways, but also like to the point where people as a whole are terrible multitaskers, right? This, like as a whole. So, this kid...

Ross Loofbourrow 26:49

Don’t get me start on multitasking.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:49

Oh, my goodness. Yes.

Ross Loofbourrow 27:17

It doesn't exist.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:19

So, it doesn't exist and not in any ways that are really helpful, but I am amazed at the capacity with this kid and his brain. He can be like out playing sports or doing something that occupies like 100% of his physical energy and still be able to like have perfect dictation and recall of exactly what somebody was saying over off to the side in another conversation with all of those with several other conversations around the side and just it blows my minds in the ways that those types of things will show up which does not necessarily mean that, that’s how it shows up in everybody to your point earlier.

Ross Loofbourrow 27:55

Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:56

But it's fascinating how it can turn into such a gift in a variety of different ways. So, I appreciate you sharing it.

Ross Loofbourrow 28:05

Yeah, oh absolutely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:11

What's next from here because you have, I feel that in some way like you are unlocking a really cool piece of your own journey, and I so appreciate that you have allowed us to participate in a portion of a ride. And I'm just very thankful for that. And I know my team is as well and Lisa too and what is next and what is upcoming for you? Where do you see yourself going from here?

Ross Loofbourrow 28:36

Yeah. So, I'm just getting started and I have to constantly remind myself that it is a journey and it's just one step at a time ‘cause one of those things that in ADHD brain is proud to do is we have this gross misunderstanding of how much time it takes to accomplish things and so, I will have 25 different large things on my to-do list on any given day. And so, treating this journey the same way, it's really important to remind myself. Okay, like it's one step at a time, and I'm just figuring things out. Right now, I know that I want to continue speaking. I know that, that's an area where I can add so much value and really help others. I've already seen that. And, I wanna continue to share resources and you know these differing thoughts and opinions and even ground-breaking researches out there that people are just not even aware of the things that we're finding on ADHD. Like there's so much to still unknown, but it is fascinating and it blows people's minds. For example, I have to share one of those things. So, what some of the latest like brain research were fighting with ADHD is that, you could actually rename the condition a diagnosis of boredom. Wait, what do you mean? Well, ultimately what they found is that a brain with ADHD when compared to a brain without ADHD. All of our brains have the dopamine receptors that exist in this reward region of the brain that is deep beneath the cortex and in ADHD brain we have vastly fewer of these dopamine receptors. So, in layman's terms like so what well essentially anyone beneath areas in your brain is likely walking around just generally disinterested in the world. Like in most of things around them there just not most things don’t light their fire like a normal brain would, so that's why it's so critical for an ADHD here to find the final thing that passion about. Find the thing you love doing. And the thing that's right in your wheelhouse, right in your strengths because that is the area where you're gonna be able to hyper-focus in the best way, not the worst way. That's the way that you're gonna be able to discover, kind of like I'm last couple years like it's the unlock moment. Oh, my goodness. This is something I can do. This is the place I wanna stay. Yeah, so that's one piece that I've just found fascinating learning about and it helps you look at yourself seriously and not look at your ADHD as a joke or this thing doesn't exist, but you really start to understand. Whoa. This is how I work. Okay, like let me take some steps in your directions but to answer your question. Yeah, I wanna speak more actually set a goal this last year of I was gonna write my first book. And you know that goal is probably not coming to fruition by the end of 2018.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:08

There are still a short period of time in 2018 left, go ADHD brain go.

Ross Loofbourrow 32:17

Exactly. It's one of the spinning plates that is dropping and you can't beat yourself up if you say, hey that’s not gonna get done, but you try to do too much and that's all right, you know, let's keep it going. So, I'm definitely gonna do that in the future. I also wanna get into coaching. That’s the component I think it massively helped me with at Happen To Your Career. And then with my ADHD coach at the clinic that I worked with that it changes my life, massive. So, I really wanna get into that and see how I can, yeah help others, learn more about themselves, self-reflect and really pivot and moving those directions that they really feel called to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:02

Very cool. Well...

Ross Loofbourrow 33:04

Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:04

I so appreciate you taking the time and coming and sharing a portion of your story and I said thank you again, but I really meant it for allowing us to sit a front row seat along for part of the ride and it's just been amazing to hear a little update from Lisa and to finally get to meet you and people aren’t going to see you on here, but we're chatting via video and it just been fantastic. So, I very much appreciate that. Thank you.

Ross Loofbourrow 33:38

Yeah. No. Thank you Scott. It was surreal when I started actually listening to the Happen To Your Career podcast and your voice I recognize obviously and then to have us connecting and talking today. It was a moment like, “is this happening?”

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:57

This is happening Ross. This is happening right now. Hey, this really has been very cool. And I've had a ton of fun and so that we can support what you're doing. And obviously I am a huge fan of that for many different reasons. But if you are interested in having Ross come and speak and want to get in touch with them. What is the best way that they can do that Ross?

Ross Loofbourrow 34:21

Yeah, so my website is the best place to get in contact with me. That's gonna be my full name: RossLoofbourrow.com. It’s kind of a doozy two OO’s. Well several OO’s and a couple more ‘r’s’ so definitely check the show notes on that, but you can also just type in https://heroicADHD.com and that will redirect you to my website as well https://heroicADHD.com

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:47

We've found that one of the six keys to having an incredibly fulfilling career and much more meaningful career is doing more work in your signature strengths. And in fact, we've also learned that you can even use your signature strengths as you're making a career change or as you're making a career transition. And we put together this pretty amazing guide to help you, not only begin to get very clear on your strengths and discover your strengths, but also to use them as you're getting hired for the right job. Find out what most people miss about, why strengths are so important and how strengths operate differently than what you think they do and why they are one of the six keys to doing work you love. And four ways to get started immediately identifying your signature strengths. And you can do that by going to hiredforstrengths.com that's hiredforstrengths.com to get started right away. Or you can text MY STRENGTHS, that's mystrengths, plural, to 44222. That's mystrengths to 44222.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:02

Everyone loves a happy ending. And a lot of time on the podcast, we talk to people, they share their stories, and they come off as pretty straightforward. They were unhappy, they felt stuck. Then they decided to change careers. It was challenging, but eventually they succeeded. And now they're incredibly happy. Hooray. But we've been having conversation behind the scenes for about two or three years now that there's a danger in that. And we want you to understand how it really looks from the inside when you decide to make a career change. So today, we wanted to highlight a different kind of career change story when that wasn't as simple.

Laura Parker 36:45

It's just that's the job. It wasn't, you know, there are plenty of people out there that will love that sort of moving fast paced, moving from customer to customer, but it just didn't sit well with me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:56

That's Laura Parker. She made a big career change to get out of her role, where she was unhappy, but just two years into her new role, realize she was not thriving and needed another change. The truth is, the career change is a journey. You don't necessarily achieve your dream job, achieve your dream career in just one step. And even if you do, it turns out you're human. Your life goes on. You continue to change and develop new interests. And you may find that, you need to make another change. And not only is that okay, it's actually great because it means you're listening to yourself and keeping track of what you need to feel happy in your role. Laura does a great job of describing how she made a career change, and then made another one. I want you to listen just for that and in our conversation. Later in the episode, Laura will talk about the experience of knowing when it was time to change careers after she had just changed careers. 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.

Jenny 00:00

I’ll be transitioning into a role helping develop a science and sustainability program at a University near where I live.

Introduction 00:15

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 00:39

One of the largest obstacles to career change, most people don't ever guess. What is it? Well, it's our fear of letting others down, our family, our colleagues, the people who helped us get where we are, even if where we are, is making us unhappy. We don't want to disappoint people or threaten our family's financial situation by changing careers.

Jenny 01:02

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.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:12

That's Jenny. She was a research scientist from a family of academics and scientists. She had a PhD and a very prestigious research science job. Well, turns out science, she loved. Her job, hmm, not so much. But she was terrified to leave for a lot of reasons. Jenny does a great job of articulating the fear that many career changers share about disappointing others, whether it be their team's, families, other people that maybe they've ever never met in some cases. Later on in the podcast, she talks about how she overcame these doubts, and went after a role that fits her. Take a listen as she describes what led up to that change.

Jenny 01:55

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 03:45

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 03:58

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 04:46

So he's totally the villain.

Jenny 04:55

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 05:19

So he played the villain in your early movie.

Jenny 05:22

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 07:09

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 07:49

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 08:38

What's your problem?

Jenny 08:39

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 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, do science everyday. Now I'm gonna learn to do it systematically and it'll let me find out new things and solve problems."

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:16

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 resonant 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 10:17

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 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 12:20

That is so interesting. That even when you were teaching those types of information like, all the time on the podcast, we talk 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 12:41

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 14:32

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 15:07

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 16:17

What's an example of that?

Jenny 16:19

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 with 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 scientist, input from scientist 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. 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 18:00

Whoa, it doesn’t work like that? You are killing my utopian bubble.

Jenny 18:08

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 the strong relationships, the 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 20:22

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 21:15

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 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 that struck me was that, when I looked at all the books in our house, in particular mine, 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 24:33

Hold on. One thing you said though, I think is very much a human tendency and I think it is something that almost 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 25:36

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 science... 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 was 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 in real life. A couple of jobs has 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 27:34

Oh, yeah. I remember that.

Jenny 27:39

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 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 28:47

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 29:37

Well, I think one of the insights I had again was from something about 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 you, guys, provided, Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:17

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 of the podcast. You’ve been everywhere.

Jenny 32:28

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 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 34:25

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 34:32

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 the 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 35:34

They weren't buying it.

Jenny 36:40

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 win 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 38:18

I think, I wasn’t around for that particular time frame when you went through that interview that now, still occasionally give 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 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 the 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 41:28

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 42:31

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 43:15

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 45:22

Very cool.

Jenny 45:24

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 46:40

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 in 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 47:21

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 47:24

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

Scott Anthony Barlow 48:43

Hey, I hope you loved this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And if this has been helpful, then please share this podcast with your friends, with your family, with your co workers that badly need it. Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you next week.

Scott Anthony Barlow 49:03

Overtime, you've definitely heard the word clarity come up as it relates to careers, career change, everything in between. And certainly once or twice on this podcast. The interesting thing is that most people think clarity means knowing what you want, and it does in a way. But interestingly enough, clarity comes from the root word, which is the same root word that declare uses. So when you think about clarity, it really is about declaring what you want. In fact declaring what's most important to you. That's what creates the knowing what you want. Now, here's also an interesting thing, you can't get in to your ideal role unless you know what ideal means for you, what's most important for you. And the truth is, most people just don't know what they want or have the courage to declare what is most important. One of my favorites success stories about landing an ideal role comes from Kristy Wenz. See, Kristy travelled around the world for about seven months with her family, thinking that she would be able to have clarity at the end of that. She was visiting wineries, tasting wine and she learned that she loves wineries and wine. However, she still came back without clarity. We got the opportunity to help her answer the question and declare what she really wanted. And once she figured it out, things really opened up for her.

Kristy Wenz 50:31

I get to write, I get to be a manager, I get to jump in with ideas. I have a seat at the table and work with a dynamic group of people that are really amazing. And that was important to me as well. Everything fell into line and I honestly did not think it was possible even six months ago.

Scott Anthony Barlow 50:48

Kristy had a very successful career in PR for about 20 years before she just kind of hit a wall. And she really found out that the work was no longer satisfying to her and she started experiencing emotional problems, even physical problems before she finally realized she had to move on to something that suited her better at that point in her life. Kristy does a great job of articulating her struggle to understand what she wanted. And I want you to listen, because she explains how she figured it out. 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.