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You’re listening to the Get a 6-Figure Job You Love podcast. This is episode 43, an interview with my client Nicholas on making a successful career change.
Hey there. Welcome to the Get a 6-Figure Job You Love podcast. I’m your host, Natalie Fisher. I’m a certified career mindset coach who also happens to want to skip all the BS and get to what it really takes to create real results for you in your career. On this podcast, you will create real mindset shifts that will lead to big results and big changes in your career and your income. No fluff here. If you want to get a six-figure job you love, and create real concrete results in your industry, and make a real impact, you’re in the right place. Are you ready? Let’s go.
All right. Well, here we are. Welcome to the podcast today, everybody. We’re here with one of my star clients, Nicholas. And Nicholas has been able to achieve something that a lot of people would probably think is impossible for them. So, I’m excited to get into his story and journey today, as he’s going to explain to us how he made a big career change with a significant salary jump, and a bunch of roadblocks along the way that he got through. And without further ado, Nicholas, why don’t you start out by telling us a little bit about yourself?
Okay. I graduated from the University of Georgia a semester early. I was one of those students who tried to get through school as quickly as possible. I enjoyed it, but school, to me, was always a means to an end. I graduated early, got a job through a connection, was there for a few months, got another job through another connection, and that has been my job for the past eight years.
My job experience, job search experience, rather, has always been connections based, who you know kind of thing. I always knew that was how the job search really functioned. I’d been in my current job about eight years, and the last few years, I was struggling with knowing what I wanted to do, what was the next step for me, and kind of that fear paralysis induced by fear of the unknown, which held me back.
That was my experience with school, job search, and then a few years into that, was struggling with that. And then that’s when I decided to find a job coach to help me kind of discover what I should be doing, what’s the next step forward, what’s a good fit for my talents and abilities. And that’s what got me with Natalie back in December. And today I am starting at a software company as an implementation specialist. I’m going from accounting, which is my background, I was essentially the controller of a company, to now a software specialist.
And we can fill in the details from there, but that’s my path. Economics degree, accounting for about eight years, and now accounting software as a consultant.
Yeah. It’s amazing. A couple of things I want to touch on there. First of all, you were in this job for eight years, and you talked about how you just got it easily through a connection, and there was a while where you felt like you didn’t want to be there anymore. For how long do you think you were like, “Ugh, I know this is not for me anymore,” before you were like, “Okay, I’ve got to do something?”
It started, I can remember the day, it was January 2018. Every year, it had been a new challenge at that company. There was a lot of stuff we were implementing, changing, and whatnot. And January 2018 rolled around, and I was like, “You know what? This feels like Groundhog Day.”
We’d changed what we needed to change. It’s not getting exponentially more difficult anymore. We fixed everything. I’m getting kind of bored. I can do what took me forever very quickly. It’s very cyclical, what we do. It’s busy, our fiscal year. We’re fiscal-year based, so September is our fiscal year, and so, it’s busy through October, December, then you have calendar year stuff, and that’s done usually by March, April. And then after that, it’s pretty much summertime, and it’s just not that crazy. Before, we’d use that time to implement new systems or improve old processes, or maybe a new audit or something
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would come in, so we would have to prepare for all that. And it’s like, okay, this is not that hard. So I tried to find some new stuff to do. That didn’t really work, whatever.
And then it got busy again, 2019 rolled around. I was like, this is even worse than it was a year ago. So that’s when I started really looking into a career change, was 2019. I talked to connections, let recruiters reach out to me. That was kind of one of my struggles. If I could get into that scene. And the problem with it, I wasn’t seeing anything I really wanted to do, and I was just getting frustrated, so I kept on dragging my feet.
So, 2020 rolls around. In late 2019, early 2020, I was already this close to probably getting a new job, because I had a few recruiters and companies highly interested in me. So I knew I could have jumped then. COVID hit, and honestly, it changed everything. And for me, I used it as a time for some self-growth, some time to relax, break my routine. Not to show up to the office. I used some time for relaxing, and the last half of the year to really get into looking into the job, finally, again. Yeah, it’s about a year or two worth of time that I was like, I’ve got to move on. And part of me, I psyched myself out, and part of it was also COVID-related, too. And once we got that behind us, I was able to really finish the deal.
Yeah. Yeah, so that was really well explained. Impressive that you remember the dates of your journey. A lot of people don’t remember that. But yeah, so being really hyper-aware of, okay, this is boring. I’ve heard lots of people say that before. My job has turned into Groundhog Day, I feel like this is the same thing over and over. If you’re listening and you can relate to that, then definitely keep listening to the progress that Nicholas has made here.
One thing that I noticed about you right when I met you was that you were very decisive. You had a way of making decisions where you were just moving forward, and I think that’s what led to your success being so fast, was because you were just charging forward, right? You decided to hire me right away. You decided to continue with the work. You didn’t really stop. Can you talk about how you stay in that decisiveness and how you motivate yourself to continue at that fast pace?
At the end of the day, I realized it was all going to be up to me to make progress and the change I wanted. As you know, my title that I was getting recruited for automatically, for lack of a better term, through LinkedIn was not what I wanted. My title and qualifications just didn’t really match completely. So I was just getting really frustrated with that. But then it gave me that realization of, there’s no one out there, a magical tooth fairy kind of person, who’s going to give me the job and find me and do this. It was up to me.
So once I realized and bought into the fact that it’s up to me, I have to take action. You have to fail forward. You have to just keep on trying, and trying, and trying. And the thing that really woke me up to that was one of your early podcasts about the pottery experiment, where one group does the pot and they spend all day trying to make this perfect ceramic pot, while this other group just tried hundreds of different pots. And that group actually had a better pot. Even though they probably failed at 99 of them, the hundredth one was way better than the supposed perfect one.
Yeah, I love that you took that in. Yeah.
Yeah. So, that really resonated with me. There’s no one out there. There’s not a knight on a white horse waiting for me to help me out. Once I bought into that fact, it’s all up to me, and it’s just really how many times you try doing stuff. And you might get someone who’s rude to you on the phone or someone who doesn’t respond to your emails. Okay, main message I’m backing is just keep on going as fast as you can in a lot of ways. And there are speed bumps on the way. There’s no micro quips and limiting beliefs that pop up. And that’s obviously what a coach does. You helped me to realize where my
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blind spots are, even though I think I’m more clever than I am sometimes. It really helps to have someone point out, “Hey, you’re lying to yourself,” or, “You’re just taking a mental shortcut.” Yeah.
Yeah. And I think that’s so ironic that you say that, because I think that having that knowledge, just being like, I can’t see what I can’t see, I don’t know what I don’t know, that is probably the smartest awareness to have, because that happens with everybody, right? And if we just make the mistake of thinking, “Oh, we know it, we can do it,” it’s like, if you don’t have the results you want yet, then obviously, that’s not the case. So I think that’s the smartest thing, is knowing that there’s stuff you don’t know that’s not in your awareness yet. And that’s okay, right? Because then that knowledge gets you to go and find what you don’t know, right?
So yeah, let’s talk a little bit about the struggles you had with the transition, because it was a big leap from controller to implementation, because they’re totally two completely different jobs. And I know that for a while, you were thinking maybe sales. Either way, it was going to be a transition. And there was going to be somebody who said, “Oh, you don’t have this experience.” And that demotivates a lot of people. So, why don’t you tell us how you worked through that? How did you navigate that challenge?
Well, first, I started with finding companies that were in a similar field to what I already knew. So, I was trying to prevent too much of a shock for myself and other people, where there’s literally no box that you check that is relevant. So, I tried to avoid some of that problem of, hey, at least these five boxes, you check off. You have industry experience. You understand what the software does. You understand the problem the software seeks to help. You have accounting knowledge. That really shone through on my interview. So, a lot of which kind of narrowed down something that I was already familiar with. And then that gets a pretty wide basket of companies that fit that.
And then from there, it was just knocking on doors, so to speak, on LinkedIn. And sometimes you don’t get replies or whatever, or they’re not hiring or whatever. But just really getting people on the phone to talk to, I realized, was the big thing. So really getting to talk to them. And when they hear me talk, I’m pretty good at presenting myself. And they know I know what I’m talking about when it comes to the accounting. So, that logical leap of, okay, this person’s in a different field. Is it too hard for them to bear? Okay, he understands this, he understands that. The only thing he doesn’t know is how our software works to a tee, and he doesn’t have implementation experience. But we can teach him that. That’s not hard. This other stuff’s actually the hard part, and he knows that very well.
So, that was my thing. Find something I understood, and then just talk to as many people, network. That really helped. The way I got this job was, I planted the seed back in January, and I noticed that this connection had posted on LinkedIn about job openings at his company. So even though the call didn’t go anywhere initially, just the fact that I kept him in my loop, I reached out to him, and within two weeks, I had a job offer. So yeah, just really networking. Don’t disregard anybody. You never know how they might come back into your life, especially in social media. And yeah, just narrow it down to what you know. I mean, that’s what I did.
Yeah. Lot of good stuff there. Yeah. So how would you describe what your challenges and experience was before we started working together and then after?
So, my challenges before I started were not knowing exactly what I wanted to do. I kind of knew what I didn’t want to do. But that’s not a positive. Negativity doesn’t really create action. It usually just creates kind of a mental block. And that’s what was happening with me. It was like, okay, I don’t want to be a cost accountant at some Fortune 500 accountant, and all I do is the same journal entry over and over, or a financial analyst thing, where it’s just very cold calculation things. I kind of knew what I didn’t want to do. So that was one of the challenges.
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On top of it, when I was setting my LinkedIn profile available for work, my job title would attract those kind of things. So I was fielding leads for something I didn’t really want to do, and I kind of knew I wasn’t 100% qualified for, even though I could do it. But, like I said, my job title was financial analyst. But when it gets searched, it was for a different kind of financial analyst. Because I worked at a smaller company, so the titles don’t really match. So I was getting even more frustrated talking to people. I’d get really far in the interview process, and they’re like, “Oh yeah, they need somebody with five years, this kind of experience.” I was just getting frustrated with being recruited, not really knowing what I wanted. And then I guess the last part, my challenge was, after that…
Yeah. And then after we started working together, how did you kind of change your view on?
Oh, okay, yeah. Okay. So, really, it was focusing on what I wanted and tuning out some of the noise. Because I was tempted to circle back around. Well, I’m still getting reached out, and I’m in round three of this interview thing. And it was kind of distracting me, because I had limiting belief of, there’s nothing out there for what I want to do at the moment, or I’ve talked to all the people I can know, so let me field these same requests, which wasn’t working in the past, obviously. So, it was really just tuning out the noise in a polite way, and just getting really focused on what I knew I wanted, and if I were to get offered, I would say yes to. So that was the challenge, was the limiting belief, frustration, and then pivoting to positive actions and positive thoughts.
Yeah, for sure.
And that probably got me where I got today.
Absolutely, yeah. And I remember that we talked about that a lot, because you did know very clearly what you did not want.
Yeah, exactly.
Which is a good place to start. Sometimes we got to start there, but then it doesn’t end there, right?
Yeah, it does not end there. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And then also, with having the recruiters and fielding all these calls for things you weren’t really interested in, and we worked on that. It came down to the belief that if you don’t really believe fully that you can get what you want, then you’re probably going to settle for something that you don’t want, which was something that you realized quickly. And that’s when you kind of stopped spending so much time there. So yeah, really valuable lessons there.
So how do you look at those challenges? If you were to look back now on your three-month journey, how do you look at that now as you’ve come through to where the success has actually happened?
That it was necessary to go through to, A, know what I wanted to didn’t want to do, and then also, B, kind of wrapping it up with a bow of, okay, at least I tried. As you know, I got to the final stages of an interview, four or five different rounds of interviews. I didn’t get the job. But at least I could tie it up with a nice bow of, okay, this is done. I didn’t really want to do it anyways, even though I was getting recruited for it. And I went through the process for a few different companies, and it didn’t work. And it’s like, you know what? I don’t ever have to revisit this again. I don’t have to have that lingering date of, oh, what if I had said yes to this person, or what if? I don’t have to worry about that.
So, I think that was the challenge that, looking back, it was frustrating, and it made me want to pull my hair out sometimes, because getting people on the phone, sometimes they’re kind of snarky with you. Recruiter type people, they can be nice, and sometimes they can be kind of sarcastic with you. I’m glad I went through it. It’s finished. But at the time, it was honestly very frustrating, and it hurt me at an ego level. I’d say, well, what’s wrong with me? That’s kind of hard, that thing is like an ego thing more than
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anything. It’s not like a true desire, just being rejected sometimes means more than being accepted. I think it’s kind of human nature.
Yeah. Totally.
And kind of accepting rejection was one thing I was kind of not allowing myself to do. I’m glad I was able to go through it, be rejected, and I’ll accept, you know, it’s over. So, that’s probably the biggest takeaway from that experience.
Yeah. And that’s really wise. It’s like, yeah, you had to go through all that. And I always say, it’s like, when you look back at your results, you’re going to look back, and it’s going to be a bunch of stuff that didn’t work and a bunch of stuff that did. And that’s what gets you there. Yeah.
So, what would you say your biggest fear that you had to overcome, if any, to say yes to us working together?
Part of it was kind of at an emotional level of, I knew this was going to be the end of my current job, and just that emotional connection of saying goodbye to people that I know, and a schedule of events, and just stuff like that. That’s part of saying goodbye to myself in a lot of ways, because it was essentially my second job. And I had it starting at 22 years old. And it’s like saying goodbye to yourself. And I think that was one of my emotional anchors, that once you get to a certain point, it’s harder to leave than not. So, I think saying kind of goodbye to myself in a lot of ways. Like, hey, it’s time to move on, in a good way. But it’s also, you have memories of people and of yourself, things that went on in your life. And your work experience fits into all that. So, I think that’s part of it, was just kind of letting go of the past, my past self, past experiences, that kind of thing.
I think that was probably the hardest part. And then also just looking forward to, okay, well, yeah, there’s that issue. And then it’s like, okay, well, what’s next? And I think that was part of it too. That what’s next thing kept on driving me crazy for years and years. So, I think just finally accepting, hey, it’s okay not to know. That’s what a career coach [inaudible 00:19:12] help yourself, and you can’t just do it for a week or two and then kind of quit on yourself. It’s a sustained process. So I think the committing to not knowing, but working through the ambiguity, that’s part of it. I hadn’t really let myself work through it. I knew that the vagueness was there and I was dealing with that, but I never really let myself work through it for months at a time. And that was part of it. So, saying goodbye to the past and embracing the unknown was what I had to overcome to start working with you.
Super, super well said. And it’s what a lot of people are struggling with right now, because growth is hard, right? Doing that was not easy. Saying goodbye and accepting, okay, I am going to become a different person now. It’s like shedding a skin, your old skin, and shedding your old identity. And that’s why so many people do stay stuck in something that’s like Groundhog Day, because it’s called being comfortable in discomfort, right, and you having that realization that, yes, while I am comfortable and while it will be hard, I still want what’s on the other side more, and I’m willing to do that work, and I’m willing to overcome those fears. So huge. And how old are you? Because you said you were 22.
I just turned 30.
Yeah. So, just turning 30 now. Imagine what’s possible for you starting this early. Amazing. And so, we talked about it briefly on our last call, but three months. So, it was three months in the search, basically. It worked out perfectly. Was it worth the time spent and all that frustration, all the ups and downs, to get to the result that you have now?
Hindsight, 20/20, definitely. At the time, there was times you wanted to quit sometimes. But that’s part of having a coach. They get you where you can’t get yourself. So that’s what you honestly helped with. But it’s worth it. And going forward, it’s going to be easier, because now I have, in theory, a career path of, okay, this is a very broad field in consulting implementation. There’s a lot of direction for me to go
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forward. So I don’t have that stuck feeling. So, it was a lot of work. At the time, there was times it didn’t feel like it was worth it. But that’s just little tricks you play with yourself. But even at the time, I knew, this’ll be worth it. You’ve just got to keep on going, keep on going, tune out some of the negativity.
And now, okay, I got a job, and then I feel so much ease. I don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel. Networking stuff, I’m better at. I already know what I do and don’t want to do. I’ll be in the field already, so I don’t have to worry about getting offers for stuff or reached out for stuff I don’t want to do. I’ll be getting reached out for things more similar to what I’m doing now. So, it’s more than worth it, where the job search never quits, I don’t think. Because I think that’s one thing I’ve definitely learned working with you. It’s not a binary approach, where you have a job or you don’t have a job. I’m looking for a job, not looking for a job. It should really kind of be a perpetual process.
And if you’re starting from scratch, it might be more intense. But once you get to a big milestone, like a new job or something, that mindset of it’s reaching out, talking to people. You don’t have to be searching, that perpetual process that’s just not ingrained into us. I think it’s always been this binary approach that we’re told, and I think that holds people back, because, “Oh, well, I’ve got to do my time at this company,” or, “Let me stay here for five or six years, then see,” when in reality, it should be, you have a job, and you’re always talking to people and helping other people out, and value for value. And you never know what happens. Hey, this is a good guy. I’m hiring a good person to work at our company [inaudible 00:23:04]. Maybe down the road, someone else that you talked to randomly is like, “Hey, Nicholas, we’re starting this. I would love to interview you for the VP of something.” You never know. So I think that’s the biggest thing I learned, just it’s a perpetual cycle, and it was definitely worth it. And it’s definitely a huge relief for me.
Yeah, absolutely. It’s a known thing that when you’re in motion, you’re going to stay in motion. And if you’re at rest, you’re probably going to stay at rest. It’s more likely, right, because that’s just how we go. So, when you’re able to look at it that way, you’ll never have to worry about getting your next job offer or making your next move, because you’ve always been kind of having that in the back of your mind. And I absolutely see that that’s the truth with everybody else that I work with and with myself. So, it’s the best way to think about it.
And also, you get those tools for the rest of your career, right? And so, you’re going to have quite a few years ahead of you. And you want to be able to enjoy what you’re doing. You want to be able to have options. You want to be able to have people in the community that you know. And that’s all setting the foundation for what you’ve done in just three months.
So, what specific results, improvements did you experience, tangible, intangible, while working together?
Tangible, definitely learning how to use LinkedIn well. I think that was the biggest skill. It’s not that hard to learn. I know you have a module on how to use it. I mean, you could probably find YouTube videos too. Essentially, it’s Facebook, so if you can use Facebook, you can use LinkedIn. But that was probably the biggest skill, is how to use LinkedIn, how to find people on there, find jobs, companies, you name it. So, that’s how I got my job, was just using LinkedIn to its fullest capacity. Going forward, if I were ever asked to do something again, I would feel way more comfortable doing that.
Intangible, definitely embracing, I guess, ambiguity. I’m a very binary thinker in a lot of ways. I like extremes. That’s kind of how I operate, either extreme rest or extreme action. And what makes life interesting, I guess, is that gray zone of ambiguity, where you can apply those extremes, but you have to understand, there might be times you don’t know which extreme to apply. Do I need to be patient, or do I need to have action? And then what you teach is essentially it’s that sustained action through the fog. And so, that’s probably the biggest thing, just embracing ambiguity through effort and just trying.
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And also, limiting beliefs too, where that fog can feel like it’s getting denser and denser, because we put these filters up of, “I’ve tried everybody here,” or, “These people aren’t hiring,” or, “There’s no more companies in this thing.” So, our brain is very good at… It’s a survival mechanism. It’s an efficiency mechanism of, okay, what’s the quickest answer? Okay, that person’s mean. Okay. We’re very efficient at using filters. I’m getting into psychology, I guess. But it’s very true how, in order to operate, we very quickly put things in buckets. Okay, I’ve done all I can there. Okay, that person is not ever going to get back. And that’s just what we do. And it’s like, wait, is that true, or am I just doing the quick categorization thing?
Yeah. Is that really true? Yeah. And that’s part of the blind spots thing, right? And that’s what stops most people. They get into a blind spot that they don’t know, and they just think it’s the facts. Yeah. And then also, just willing to get it wrong sometimes. And that’s something that you did right from the beginning that I think was a leading factor in your success, was that you were just willing to get on the phone, just willing to talk to people, and just willing to do it. And then you were like, “I don’t know if I did this right. I didn’t have a question for this. I didn’t do this.” And I’m just like, “That’s perfect. Nothing’s gone wrong.” And the fact that you did it, right? So yeah, just that willingness to just get it wrong sometimes, that’s huge and so underrated, right?
Yeah.
And yeah, because it was ambiguous. I mean, if you’d never done that before, you’d never spoken to that person, you’d never done any of these things before, then of course you weren’t going to know how to get 100% the first time, right? And we expect so much of ourselves. So yeah, really well said.
Yeah. Definitely the pottery analogy. That’s still the best one. Just keep on making the pot.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, just go. Yeah. And you will get a perfect one at the end, as we can see. Yeah. So, what will you take with you moving forward going into your new role with what you’ve learned?
Definitely, I guess, internal networking. Always be communicating with people and creating value, because it’s harder when you’re job searching, to some degree, but it is about creating value for other people and good communication skills. That’s something definitely I learned better through this. Definitely the discipline of time management, because I was doing another job and doing this at the same time. So, having that discipline and structure of doing multiple things. Granted, moving forward, I won’t have to do two things at once. I’ll be working. But just, yeah, definitely discipline.
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And knowing that it’s possible, right? You can work a full-time job and do your job search and be successful in it. Yeah.
Exactly. And then finally, I started off just so not far behind, but I had a lot of work to do, in terms of where to go, who should I even talk to. Just there’s so much fog out in front of you. And if I can do this, as you know, I started doing this even a month before I started working with you. I see how it kind of works, but I need the actual discipline of a coach to make sure I’m not missing anything, to keep me engaged. So I can do all of this, and massive ambiguity, for a career shift, for lack of a better term. I’ll be okay at my current job. There can be ambiguity, there will be frustration, there will be times I mess up. But that kind of failing forward and get up and trying again is what I’ll take to this new job.
That’s more about mindset I’ll be bringing versus I learned some new accounting skill or something like that. It’s that mindset shift. Embracing what you don’t know, but trusting yourself to figure it out.
Yeah. Nailed it, yeah. And with that, there’s really no way that you fail, because you just know that you’ll figure it out eventually, right?
Exactly.
So, how would you describe your experience of us working together, and did anything surprise you?
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I think it was a good balance of keeping me in check on our calls, but also giving me a lot of leeway to do what I needed to do during the week to make it happen. So, I think sometimes you can get a career coach or any kind of coach, and they’re on you a little too much. I think it was good for me to see things for myself internally, and then if I had questions, of course, you always were very quick to respond. But gave me that freedom to fail, or wonder, or get frustrated, and then revisiting it later, versus constantly, “Okay, well, you need to message this person,” or, “You need to fill out this little Word document for your journals” and all that kind of stuff. It was very open-ended, which I think I need. I like structure, but I think I needed to see that ambiguity and work through it, to have that touchstone, either through email or our call during the week. Okay, that makes sense. Let me try that now. I think I needed to really be in that sound of silence period and not constantly be, “No, okay, you need to call me or text message me once a day,” or all these little things. Too much. I needed that.
Yeah, absolutely.
I needed someone like you to allow me to be. It’s a good balance.
Yeah. I think the best results come from that, right? Because like you said in the beginning, it’s like you realize you’re the one responsible for your life and your future. You’re doing it. I’m your guide, but you’re the one who’s going to be figuring this out. All the credit goes to you, right? You’re the one who created the result. And then, yeah, the day comes where we’re not working together, and it’s like, you are going to be able to take all that with you and be able to continue to have the same level of thinking and the same level of processing on your own and learning. And that’s kind of what I aim for, is to be able to give people those tools and empower them to be able to go off on their own and create amazing things, and not be dependent on someone.
Yeah. That’s a good way to put it. Yeah, exactly. Every day, you were talking or something, and then all of a sudden, I’m like, whoa, I’m not used to this. I’m kind of used to being on my own and just having you to talk to during the week. So it’s not going to be a huge gap, like okay, what part of it was her and what part of it was me, or something.
Yeah, for sure. And then letting you come to your own realizations, because those are the most powerful ones, right? That’s when you learn the most. And same for me when I work with my coach. It’s like, when I come to my own realization, that’s when I really have breakthrough. So yeah, good way to sum that up.
So, what does your life look like? What do you have to look forward to now after working together and after you landing this amazing offer?
So, I start on the 12th. So, right now, I’m wrapping up with my current job with transition. Start the 12th. So, it’ll be a busy few months just getting trained and everything, learning the system. I’m nervous about that, of course. That’s going to be another thing I need to work through, just being patient with myself. Knowing I can do it. This can’t be the hardest thing on earth. And they took a shot on me, so they obviously saw something in me, so just having that self belief. And any job always is going to be difficult at first. Even though something might not be technically hard, just the newness makes it feel harder than it really is. So just kind of embracing that fire hose feeling that’s just not that uncommon. It’s like, it’s okay to not know. It’s okay to be frustrated. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed.
Absolutely, yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
It always gets easier. So I think that’s what I have to look forward to. And on a personal level, I also will be hopefully moving in the next few weeks to few months, so that’s kind of my next project. So, working remotely and moving to Atlanta. So, that’s my, I guess, next three to six months in a nutshell.
Very exciting. Very exciting. Yeah. Well, congratulations! I’m so excited for this.
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Thank you.
So, what would you say to somebody who’s on the fence about working with a coach, or working with me specifically, because this is my podcast?
Sure, yeah. I think regardless of where you are or who you are, it’s good to have someone who’s not your family or friend keeping you in check, and someone who’s unbiased and doesn’t have skin in the game, so to speak. So I think that’s always good. Our company, our CEO gets, I think, quarterly coaching. Well, monthly coaching, but paid quarterly. But he gets coaching. He’s the CEO of our company. Once you’re out of high school or college, that mentorship aspect that you get from a good teacher, or a good professor, or whatever, it kind of goes away, and you’re more in the, “Hey, what have you done for me lately?” feel. And it’s not really the same as your favorite history teacher, or your favorite math teacher. You don’t really get that anymore. You’re in the zone of figuring it all out on your own.
So, it’s good to touch base with somebody. Even if you think, “Oh, I have the perfect career, and everything’s great,” I think it is good to reevaluate, okay, now how could I provide even more value? It’s like a physical. It’s a career physical. And maybe for some people, it’s once a year you need it, whatever. I think it’s a good thing for any direction. And if you’re frustrated with your career, it definitely helps to have someone to work things out, sound things off. For me, I’m very extroverted. I need to talk things out. So that definitely benefits me. Some people might not be like that, but that’s fine. I mean, that’s what you’re there for. You meet people where they can meet you.
So yeah, if you’re looking for a job, it definitely helps. If you’re nervous about, oh, this is going to be so much work, this is going to be so difficult, it is a lot of work. And I would never lie to anybody about that. It is work.
Yeah. And that’s how you get to the point where you’ve gotten to go, right, is by understanding it, embracing it. Everything you’ve said on this call has been super helpful. Embracing the ambiguity, just going forward, being willing to fail forward. And those are the types of characteristics of what it takes to be successful and get through it. And in three months after starting the process, sitting where you’re sitting, right? Almost doubling what you were at to where you are now, and being able to say, “Yeah, I did that.” Looking back and being like, “I made that happen,” right? Yeah.
Yeah. And it gets easier. I do it, and I think we all as humans do. We imagine worse than reality. We imagine, “No one’s going to want to talk to me,” or, “I’m not qualified enough,” or, “I need to get another certificate,” or, “I need to do this.” We think all this stuff, versus, okay, let’s start doing. Let’s start talking. Let’s really figure it out. And then once you start doing things, your body naturally kind of goes in this adrenaline mode of, “Oh, I’m in this fifth round of interviews, and I’m getting grilled for this. I don’t feel scared or whatever.” You kind of get in the zone of action.
That is the feeling of up leveling. Yeah.
Yeah. So just start doing stuff. It’s definitely worth it. And I don’t care who you are or where you’re at, it’s always good to touch base with somebody who’s unbiased. And it might give you a breakthrough in any direction. So, I think it’s definitely worth it.
Yeah. Great way to describe it. And then, yeah, any last words on how you would describe coaching to somebody who’s never experienced it before? How would you explain it to them?
It’s kind of like part therapy. I know you’re not a licensed therapist, but in a way, just by talking, talking things out, it’s part talk therapy, it’s part strategy, strategy on a tactical level. And it’s also just being asked good questions. So, you don’t know the right questions to ask yourself. You don’t even know that they exist. Like, okay, yeah, I didn’t think about that. It’s a lot of talking for me, because I like to talk. But then also, you ask me some good questions, and some strategy, and it helped me kind of tinker with things. I think that’s probably the biggest takeaway I got, was being better about making adjustments.
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Because if you’re relying on yourself to make the adjustments, sometimes you don’t know, like hey, try something different, or why did that work? Why didn’t that work? Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I mean, you’re probably articulating what a lot of people are thinking about it. Often it comes up, it’s kind of like therapy. And yeah, I’m glad you said that, because I think a lot of people think that too. And so, the way that I usually explain it to people is like, yeah, therapy is more about your past. It’s more about digging into your past and why things happened the way that they happened, way back in your childhood and stuff like that, is how I imagine it. And I mean, I do think it’s helpful. I do think therapy’s helpful. But coaching is more about focusing on a specific result and everything it takes to get to that specific result, and fine-tuning as we go, and just everything that you described, basically, that you went through to get to your result is basically what the goal of coaching is, is to move forward with a specific result in mind.
Exactly.
And then be like, okay, now I have all these tools and this new way of thinking, and I’m feeling empowered to go create my own results after that as well. So, therapy, I feel like you can go to therapy for a long time and not necessarily make any progress, because it’s kind of an ongoing thing. And I mean, coaching can be the same, and you can always up level every time to a new result that you want to create. But you don’t have to. It’s kind of like learning the tools, giving you the ability to fish instead of just giving you fish.
Exactly, yeah.
Yeah. So, thanks for bringing that up like that. And then, yeah, is there anything else that you want to tell listeners who are frustrated where they are right now? Maybe they’re feeling like they’re in Groundhog Day. They want to make a change, but they’re not seeming to be able to do it. Anything you want to share?
Yeah. I think it’s being okay letting go a little bit, where it’s okay. Hey, this is then. This is my past. And being okay. Like I said earlier, you think it’s one thing. “Oh, I just don’t know what I want to do,” or, “If I just stay on this thing, I’m going to be at this level.” But in reality, it’s like, there’s deeper emotional connections to things. I think being okay embracing who you’ve been, where you are today, being okay, like I said, saying goodbye to yourself if you need to, your past. Like hey, yeah, this company’s important to me. The people there are important to me. I had a lot of great formative experiences here, or whatever. When I started here, my child was just born, and now I’m 50 years old or something. They have that connection growing up, they’re having their kids grow up while they… There’s a lot of emotional connection. I think it’s being okay to embrace that, feel it, to help you move forward.
So yeah, it’s definitely that and making a change. It’s just one step. And if you don’t want to leave, you don’t have to leave, unless you get laid off or fired. If you just give it a shot, you never know who you’ll meet, what you’ll find. Like, oh wow, I didn’t think I’d be good at this. It’s worth just finding out sometimes. Because I think that nagging feeling, if you have that, maybe I should try something else or look into this, but I just don’t really know, and I don’t want to spend the time doing this.” I think it is worth everyone just being okay to say goodbye and embrace the past, but also find out what’s all out there. And there’s opportunity out there, I think.
Yeah. And that’s how you become an example of what’s possible, like you have been, right? It’s by thinking in that way and being able to, yeah, I love that, say goodbye to yourself, your old self. Because that’s basically what it’s going to take. And not everybody can and wants to do that. But if you do, then you can see what you’ve got waiting for you on the other side.
Yeah. And then also, just having someone there. Doing it yourself is kind of scary, but having someone… You work in HR, so you’ve seen a lot of stuff. You’ve been doing this for years, the coaching part. So,
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having someone there to help you deal with… Maybe the past stuff is kind of up to you, you have to deal with. You still can talk about it on the call. You can talk about pretty much whatever you want on the call with you.
Yeah, totally.
But it’s just having someone, like hey, if you mess up, or you get scared, or you don’t know what to do, okay, at least there’s someone here kind of helping me. Not like you’re doing all the work. You’re there just like, “I’ll pull you back up.”
Yeah, exactly.
Someone’s there. Then that’s good, at least knowing I’ve got this touchpoint. Every Monday at 12:00 Eastern Time, I know there’s someone in my corner at least. I’m scared, I’m frustrated sometimes. I don’t know what to do. But that touchpoint is there. So I think it’s definitely worth it for that.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. There’s nothing that cannot be coached on. There’s nothing that cannot be worked through so that you can see it in a way where you can move forward in the direction you want to go. So yeah. Thank you for putting that so beautifully.
Thank you.
Yeah. So I think that’s all the questions that I had. And it’s been amazing having you on the show. And I think everything that you shared is going to be incredibly useful for so many people who are at the beginning of the journey, where you were three months ago, and are hoping to get to where you have gotten. So, thank you so much for generously sharing all that with us. And yeah, I can’t wait to see the big leaps that you’re going to make in your career and what’s next for you over the years. And it’s going to be really, really big and exciting. I know it.
Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
If you’re resonating with what you’re hearing on the podcast, I want to tell you something. If we ever talk, or work together, or interact in any way, I will not, even for a minute, buy into the story that you can’t get the job you want at the pay you want and deserve. I will not buy into the story that the recruiter said you needed to have more experience, or that you were told that you needed to get another degree or certification before you could be considered, or that there are so many other great candidates out there that are more qualified who have already applied, or that you need to check with your accountant first, or whatever the excuse you have that robs you from your power. I will not buy it. Because what I know for sure is that if you’re not being valued and if you’re not being paid at the level you know you can and deserve to be, there is a clear reason why. And it is a reason that is completely within your control.
If you want to learn what’s really been holding you back so far, and you’re ready to get some help, head on over to www.nataliefisher.ca/apply. I will be able to help you identify why you’ve been stuck so far and exactly what you need to do to move forward. And I will help you do this by showing you how to take control of your career, how to set the frame for what you want, instead of thinking that you have to be at the mercy of what you have. And as we all know, if you don’t believe that the job you want is available and that you can have it, you will always settle for the jobs you don’t want. If you are ready to move out of that space and into a better situation, I am here to help you.
I’m going to teach you exactly what to do with lots of examples. Head on over to www.nataliefisher.ca/apply. I’ll see you over there.
When you leave me an iTunes review and send me a screenshot of the review directly to my email at natalie@asknataliefisher.com, I will send you a free gift as a thank you. And this free gift, I usually sell it for $100, so it’s a $100 value. And it contains 50 examples of behavioral interview questions. So if you’ve
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ever stumbled, second guessed, rambled in an interview, not sure exactly what to say, I have this free guide that’s going to give you so many examples that there’s no way you’ll be confused at the end. It’s helped thousands of people land jobs just from understanding so clearly what needs to be included.
So, if you don’t know how to tell a good story, inside, you’ll find the exact words. If you don’t know what stories to tell, you’re going to see the components of a successful story in action, and 50 at that. You don’t think you have any good stories to share? Don’t worry. There’s 25 questions in there to ask yourself to pull the stories from your own brain. To get your hands on this, all you have to do is leave me an iTunes review and send it to me to my email, and I will respond with this guide.
Thank you so much for listening, and I will talk to you soon.