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This is the Get a 6-Figure Job You Love Podcast. This is episode 55, Curiosity, Depth. 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 and 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 6-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. Welcome to the podcast this week. All right. So another thing, I always get my content from coaching people. After I get off a coaching call, I get super excited and I’m like, I have to record a podcast right away. So that’s where I got most of my inspiration from, and as my clients uplevel, and we get to depths of new areas in their mind and they get to expand, I get to put all this out to you and you get to benefit from it too. Today we are going to zero in on a problem that I see a lot of people have, and once they’re able to identify this, things can really change. One thing that causes our nerves and our insecure feelings when we go into an interview, before we do a presentation, before we put ourselves in a position where we’re going to potentially be judged, which is always. If you didn’t know it, you’re being judged by everybody. That’s what humans do. We judge positively sometimes, negatively sometimes. It’s how we do it. It’s how our brains work. But when we are about to put ourselves in a position like that, for the purposes of this podcast, an interview, when you are about to go into an interview, the biggest mistake is we focus on ourselves and we don’t really know that we’re doing it. It’s always our default to think about us, right? What if they don’t like us? What if they don’t like me? What if they don’t like what I have to say? What if I say it wrong? So this is our default that we just need to be aware of. And we need to be aware of it because it hinders us. It stops us. It blocks us. When we are self-focused, it makes it almost inevitable and very easy for all that self doubt to come up, that fear to come up. And so that’s what I want to talk to you about today, how we can shift that. And the second big hindrance, when we go into an interview is we often hear the phrase, it should be a two way street. The candidate is interviewing them as much as they are interviewing the candidate, but we really don’t take this to heart at all. Because if we did, we’d have a big list of questions, we’d have a plan, we’d have a strategy for picking the company, but we don’t do that. So that’s another thing I’m going to cover in this podcast is, how to actually interview them. And we’re going to go deep. It’s going to be fun. Are you ready? All right. So the reason why we think like this, the reason why we get on default is because our human brain, that is how it works. It’s in survival, protective mode all the time. We have the lower brain and the higher brain, and the lower brain has a bunch of names you might’ve heard them, lizard brain, monkey brain, animal brain. It has a bunch of different names. And I might’ve talked about this before but in this case, this is what brings us to that self-focus, that self protection, like what if they don’t like me? And so our brain thinks it’s being helpful by bringing all those things to the surface. So our default is to go into the self-preservation mode which makes us freak out and act weird when we go in. So what we try to do to solve the problem is we don’t identify the problem as that’s what’s happening. We don’t say to ourselves, okay, it’s just your brain trying to keep you safe, you’re not in actual danger. We don’t really catch on to that. So we just try to overcome it and say, it’s okay, you got this, it’s okay. And really
 
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you’re still feeling that nervousness because you’re still allowing your lower brain to be in the driver’s seat there.
And then we have our higher brain and our higher brain, the prefrontal cortex is what wants what we want for the future, right? And it wants us to do the big things and the big goals and it can see ahead for us. And the higher brain is the thinking brain, the logical thinking brain that makes a lot more sense than your lower brain. So what we don’t do is we don’t really identify that and see that this is a problem. So we don’t really understand that the lower brain is running the show when we’re in that self focused mode. And anybody, when they’re self-focused like that, anybody if they’re going in and they’re thinking, I hope they like me. I hope I’m good enough. I hope I can perform and answer these questions to their liking, anybody who’s thinking that is going to feel a lot of pressure and is going to show up all nervous and weird, it’s normal.
So then what happens is they can sense it. The interviewers sense it. They’re like, okay, this person’s not very confident. They might not say that outright. They maybe not even think that outright, but they know something’s going on, right? And then that creates this nervous tense feeling energy in the interview. And then it ends up that we get into the same cycle where we’re trying to cover this and it’s not working. It’s like how people say fake it till you make it, and then you feel like people can see right through you anyway. So some people are better at faking it till they make it, sometimes they can, it doesn’t work for me.
So authenticity and just being real and just being honest is the way to go. So an example of that that I did was even when I was in an interview and I was nervous and I was answering really well, and I ended up getting this job but I was still nervous. And they said to me, at the end they were like, oh, I hope that you’re okay. You seem really nervous. And instead of saying, no, no, it’s all good. I said, “Yeah. I totally am.” And then we all laughed. It broke the ice. It was good. So it’s never really worked for me to try to fake it till I make it to say, oh, I’m not nervous. All good. Or I just had too much coffee or whatever. No. I’m yeah, I’m nervous, but that’s okay. I’m still totally capable of doing this and I’m still totally happy to be here, but yeah.
So sometimes we get that confused with, we need to fake it till we make it and that works. And so yeah, some people can do that, most people can’t. So what is ultimate creative is an ineffective vibe in the interview. The sense that something is off, an awkwardness, like we give off that awkwardness in a way. And then the way that we show up is very self focused whether we know it or not, we’re self focusing. What I’m suggesting here is you can shift the focus by way of curiosity. I’m not suggesting, oh, just tell yourself it’s all good, tell yourself you can do it, tell yourself like rah, rah, rah. I have ways of rewiring yourself to see your own value, really understanding all that. But I see a lot of people trying to cheerlead themselves and then still flunking out and being like, well, I told myself I got it. And I really thought I had, right?
I’m going to suggest a completely different approach here that works way better is to shift that focus by way of curiosity. And you can never go wrong with being in a curious state. It means you’re open. It means anything can happen. It means you accept. You’re willing to accept anything’s going to happen. You’re willing to hear anything, even if it means that you don’t like some of the things they say, and maybe it’s not the right place for you, you’re just willing and open for any outcome and you’re just there for the experience. And so you want to cultivate on purpose feelings for the interview by way of curious thoughts that help you to navigate the interview in a powerful, knowledgeable, confident, calm, curious
 
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way that don’t involve you making it mean anything about you if it doesn’t end up being the right place for you.
So when you’re naturally curious, you will learn more. You’re just naturally going to learn more and take in more from this interview experience or whatever that is the experience is. You’re going to have a richer, deeper discussion, and you’re actually going to figure out if this is something that you want that’s right for you versus just trying to get it so they will like you. There’s a few levels of curiosity, the depth of curiosity that you can take this as very deep. And we don’t normally even think about this at all before the interview.
The first level of curiosity is to get curious with yourself and you know how I love questions, I’ve got a bunch of questions here. So the first thing you want to be asking yourself is, is this opportunity in line with my future vision of myself, with my future version with my longterm goals? Why am I actually interviewing here? Why am I taking the time to do this interview? Because I have had some clients they’ve ended up inadvertently taking these interviews that aren’t even aligned with what they want and I’m asking them why, and they’re like, because I don’t think I can get anything else maybe like they haven’t really questioned it. They’re like, I don’t know why I don’t really want that. I’m not actually really interested in these opportunities, but maybe it’s for practice. It normally comes down to a lack of belief that what they want is really there available to them or that they can get it.
So ask yourself, why am I actually interviewing here? Why did I take the time to entertain this opportunity. On a one to 10 scale, one being not at all 10 being the best thing ever, how aligned is this opportunity with what you want, right? And you can, you can rate that before and after the interview. And if it’s below an eight, you want to ask yourself, why am I doing it? Like really why am I going on this if it’s not aligned with what I want, probably a lack of belief that you can actually get what you want. And then do I want this? How excited am I about this? How does this feel to me right now? How was the interactions felt up until the interview, etc. So first do you want to check in with yourself and get curious with yourself. So that’s the first level of curiosity, depth. And this high value candidate thinking, which I go very deep into in my program is deciding ahead of time what it is that you are trying to achieve and having that belief that you can, right?
And a lot of people, they don’t have the belief. And if you don’t really have the belief then it’s going to dictate what opportunities do you entertain? What offers you take on what you actually do. It’s going to be based on what you believe is possible for you. So then, okay, assuming that opportunity’s great. It’s like a nine out of 10 or a 10 out of 10. You’re very excited for it. It’s very in line with you, then you want to get your interview questions ready for them. So you want to be like, okay, for real, I’m going to interview them. So this is high value thinking. Assuming you have the pick of whatever you want to do, whatever company that you want to work for. I want you to imagine now that you are choosing the company that you want to work for, you’re choosing the role that you want.
And imagine that you have other offers that you know are coming in. You’re already got a couple in your inbox, you know this is happening. You’re not worried about anything. You’re not worried about yourself or your own survival or what’s going to happen to you. You’re not worried about that. So from a place free of worry and nerves, you want to get deeply curious. You want to wonder about them. You want to know things about them. You’re going to be interested in them for the sake of being interested in the role, the company, their mission, what they do, how they’re adding value into the world, what they’re
 
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doing and whether or not you want to be a part of this. So questions to ask are, and you want to put together your interview questions that you want to ask, and then you want to come up with your own.
You want to be like, what do I really want to know about them? Why do I want to know that? Why is that important to me? So here are some example questions. What are they looking to achieve? What are their goals? What projects are they working on right now that they need help with specifically? And what I’m suggesting here is when you’re asking these questions, you want to be listening to what you do, how your skills, your characteristics specifically apply to them. They want relevant information from you. And a lot of candidates make the mistake of not making it relevant to what they want. So people always just want to know what’s in it for them, how they can benefit. That’s all people want to know. So if you speak to that, you’re already ahead of other candidates. So by getting curious, you’re going to be able to speak to that on a much higher level than anybody else because most people just go in there and they just answer questions. They’re not thinking at this level, they don’t even have this awareness.
What projects are they working on that they need help with specifically? So you want to get some specifics about what they’re working on. What are the gaps they’re looking to fill that require the need for someone to be paid in this position full-time like, what are the gaps? What are the skillsets? What are the things they want done. In six months, what will this person that they hire have achieved in order for this to be deemed a super successful hire? What would their dream come true candidate be? What would that look like for them? What characteristics does this person have? This is something that I’ve asked in the past in an interview I’m like, who’s your favorite person to work with? And what did you like about working with them?
And so then you’ll get information about somebody they really enjoy working with, why and get information about the culture and this is a good discussion that you get into. What are the top three priorities that you’re working on right now? What is the biggest obstacle you think is in the way of your next milestone that you want to achieve? And then you want to be asking yourself throughout, I wonder how I will be able to best serve them with what I bring to the table. I wonder what I will be able to do for them. I wonder if I will want to do this work for them and with them. Do I want to do this? Do I want to add value in this way? And do I want to work with these people? I wonder what type of people they are and what the culture is like. I wonder how they communicate amongst themselves. What do I really want to know about them?
So when you get into this space of deep curiosity and you pick out the questions that align best with you, what do you really want to know? You got to make those decisions. I’m just giving you examples. You can’t really go wrong because that’s when you get into the best discovery conversations, you get in flow, that’s when the best stuff opens up. So when you start asking these questions in interviews, you will get a lot of really good information and some of it will be the same.
A lot of hiring managers will tell you very similar things. I’ve done this [inaudible 00:15:45] like had lots of conversations with my clients about it. And then some of them will be more specific but for example, so a really common answer to this question. If you ask them, okay, so what is your dream come true candidate look like. Surprisingly enough, and this will surprise you, they don’t immediately start talking about the type of experience they have. So their answer will also really show you how this hiring manager thinks.
 
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A lot of the times they will say they can run with things. They don’t need a lot of hand-holding. They’re good at figuring things out and they take initiative, right? The answer will be something along the lines of that. And so they don’t automatically start by saying, oh, they have five years experience and they have a master’s degree in this and they have this, they don’t say that. And the reason is because the truth is that those things are not actually the most important things. And so I’ve learned this by asking lots of questions. I’m very fearless when it comes to asking questions. And because of this, I realized that there’s no harm in it, there’s nothing to be afraid of. You only get good information. And if you don’t get the information, you get somebody thinking, huh? You asked a really good question that I actually have to think about.
So either way, it’s a win-win, you either impress them with your question or they give you some good information. I want you to get really curious. And that’s the challenge I have for you. I noticed when we get into this mindset, we completely take away the whole, oh, my God, what if they don’t like me, right? We’re not even there. It’s like, I’m focused on what you’re doing and whether or not I match up with this, whether or not I can help whether or not I want to help and whether or not this seems like an aligned fit and no longer are you wondering what if they don’t like me, right? That’s not even a consideration, don’t even go there anymore because it’s not even something you need to waste brain power on because we know it’s not effective.
So why this work’s for so many reasons. First reason, we all know this, this is a human principle. People love other people who are interested in them. They just like that, they are drawn to people who are interested in what they’re doing and they want to talk about them, right? So when they sense that you have this nature of really wanting to help and you’re digging and asking questions and being like, okay, how can I help? What are you doing here? Oh, that sounds really cool. When they see that they’re going to get the sense that you really care about what it is they want to achieve.
And if you align with their values and their vision and you have a story that can attach to something they’re doing, that really brings in meaning for you and the why for you, then that’s going to strengthen the connection as well. You want to know what’s relevant to them and talk to them about what’s relevant to them because people love when you care about what they want, right? Don’t you love when someone cares about what you want and is really trying to help you get what you want? Yeah. Right. I love that. Those are the people that I’m most drawn to. So it’s human, it’s normal, it’s natural.
When we can take ourselves out of that, I hope they like me, right? Then we get to open up that gift that we get to give, which is our brain power on what they are doing, which benefits you mostly in the end anyway, because you’ve heard that saying, I don’t remember who said it, but when you can help enough people get what they want, then you will always get what you want. And when you’re interviewing, you just need to show one high-quality company that you can help them get what they want. And you do that by way of curiosity, questions by getting into that state.
So the second reason is you will be perceived as a high value candidate because you are in that discovery mode of interested, right? You’re like, okay, I want to know what you’re doing. And I want to figure out how to help you. And I want to figure out how I match to what you’re doing. And you want to have that vibe of a high value candidate. Whereas a low value candidate is going to be thinking, oh, my God, I hope they like me. Did I say that right? Did that work? Oh, what if I didn’t wear the right colored tie? What if they don’t like the tie that I chose? All of these things, your brain can just go and our brain will spiral on the negative if that’s where you start, it will always go there. So you have to bring it in to
 
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where you want to focus on purpose. So you’ll be in a high value state when you go into curiosity because curiosity and discovery and high intention is of high value.
The third reason is because when you approach it from curiosity, you’ll be at a higher level of thinking yourself. When you feel curious, you’re going to align more to asking questions, right? And so some of my clients have done this. They’ve told me how amazingly this has worked for them. And they will come up with these amazing questions to ask in the interviews, right? Questions that I did not give them because they came up with them because they were in that really deep, curious state.
I encourage you to get into that curious state. And when you do this, you won’t make anything mean, like if they don’t align with you, if it ends up not being the right opportunity for you, if it doesn’t work out, you won’t make that mean that there’s something wrong with you. You won’t make that mean that you said something wrong or you should’ve did something differently. You will not make it mean something about you, that doesn’t help you, right?
So what you’re going to need to get into this curious state is you need to be open and aware that your default is probably going to be, if you haven’t been listening to me for a while, if you’re new, your default is probably going to be, I hope they like me. I hope I’m good enough. What if I’m not, right? And you’ve got to notice any of that stuff. It’s very subtle. It’s like, I should have done this. I should have known that. It’s all going to be very subtle coming back to you, self-focused in a negative way and you’ll know because it doesn’t make you feel good.
So you’re going to need to have that awareness and that openness that that happens. And that’s fine, you’re human, it happens. We just need to bring awareness to it and we need to shift it. And then you need to have neutral… You want to go into the interview feeling positive neutral, having positive neutral feelings. And then you want to feel on purpose. You can definitely decide what it is that you want to feel. So curiosity is an emotion that you can never go wrong with.
So when you’re coming from curiosity, you fuel really good quality conversations, and you’ll discover whether you’re aligned or whether or not. You want to feel calm, confident, empowered, you decide how you want to feel. And then what you will end up creating is a better experience for yourself that is not fueled by pressure, nerves, tenseness, all those feelings that we associate with the interview.
There is no reason for you to have those when you are in a completely wide open, curious state, where you actually just want to see where the mutual fit is, how you can help, and you are just building your skill to identify that, talk about that, and sell that. And so when you do this, you discover regardless of the outcome, you’re just in a conversation to see where you’re both at, you’ll explore the true capability of your own brain to think of solutions, to think of possibilities, to think of questions, and you’ll have more relevant information about what they need and want.
And no matter what, this is a value, because next time you go to an interview, you’re going to have that information. So you’re going to be able to identify that some companies are going to have the same needs and wants. Everybody has foundational needs and wants. They’re going to be a little bit different. But like I said, a lot of the times when someone asks a hiring manager, what’s your dream come true for this person? They are going to say, I don’t want someone who wants a lot of handholding. I want someone who takes initiative, who thinks for themselves, who runs with things, who problem solves, right? That’s what they want. And a lot of hiring managers want that same thing. So you’re going to see
 
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a pattern and no matter what, it’s not a waste of time. You’re going to gather this information and it’s going to be super useful, and you’re just going to start to convey yourself as that person, right?
You’ll be in your own authentic state, which allows you to show up naturally, have the conversation from a neutral space, not like looking to have something, be like, oh, I have to get something from them. I need them to hire me. That’s the worst energy you could be in, is that needy state of I need to get a job immediately. I have to have this now. I need to make money now. I know that our brains want to tell us that and they want to tell us that we’re going to die if we don’t. But that is what repels interviewers and employers and everybody from wanting to actually give you a chance.
I don’t know if I mentioned this before, it came up to me, my client said, “Wouldn’t you be more compelled to help somebody if they were in that situation?” Right. Like when you be like, oh, I feel bad for this person. They really needed a job when you’ll be compelled to help them. And as a hiring manager, we can’t really, it’s not in the best interest of the company to hire someone from that standpoint, right? And also we normally have other people to choose from, right?
It doesn’t make sense to choose the person who’s like, I need to make money immediately. Even if they’re in that vibe, they wouldn’t probably never say that in the interview. But a lot of the times they give off that needy energy, desperate vibe versus somebody who’s calm, confident and is like, yeah, I’ve got other offers on the table, but I’d like to work for you. This is the value I’m bringing. It’s a no brainer choice.
And then the other thing that you get to create for yourself is you are not going to be affected or super depressed if they don’t select you because the thing that you need to understand here is interviewing is like sorting. It’s supposed to eliminate the places that were not a good fit for you, that were not aligned for you. So don’t look at it as, oh, they rejected me. I’m not good enough. Look at it as, okay. That wasn’t the one. What did I learn? Take your quick learning and move on.
All right. My friends hope you enjoyed this week’s podcast and leave me that review. Remember you can get the free stories guide. It’s got 50 examples and it’ll give you so many examples. You won’t even want to read another example after you’ve got it. You can’t have too many examples of stories that have successfully landed job offers that have been told in interviews. And they’re just word for word concrete examples. You get the fill in the blank templates to come up with your own stories. You get all the questions, you’re going to get 50 of these if you just leave me an iTunes review, send me the email with a screenshot and I will send it to you personally. Thank you so much for listening and I will talk to you next week. Bye.
Hey there. So if you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, I want to invite you to something very special. And as you know, you know I’ve been coaching one-on-one for years and you’ve heard me talk about all my clients and you’ve heard them come on the podcast and from these experiences and from all these hours that I’ve done coaching, I’ve created the ultimate program where I take you through the steps that I walked everyone through to achieve the unreasonable results that they’ve achieved. And I don’t just mean getting a job, just getting any job or making things a little better here or there. I mean, life-changing results, doubling salaries, switching industries while doubling salary. Getting six-figure positions with no official paid experience and just creating a life that they didn’t imagine was possible. And this isn’t for special people or unicorns, this is for everybody as long as they’re willing to be open and apply the work.
 
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