Career Relaunch®

Today marks our 100th episode of the Career Relaunch® podcast!🎉. For the past seven years, we’ve shared the personal stories of people around the world who have reinvented their careers, and today, I’m thrilled to have Anne Tumlinson, CEO of ATI Advisory and founder of Daughterhood, join us again on the show. Anne was the very first guest I interviewed for this show over seven years ago before it even launched, and today, we’re going to talk about how her career and life have evolved since then. She’ll share her reflections on her journey as a founder turned CEO, the complex dynamics of growing your own organization, and the impact changes in her personal life have had on her outlook on life, career, and her own perspectives. During a special Mental Fuel® segment, I’ll summarize my top takeaways from the nearly 100 guests I’ve featured on this show, including a montage of key highlights to help you understand the dynamics, challenges, and upside of changing career paths to pursue work you find truly meaningful. 💡Key Career Change Insights Consistently showing up is half the battle when embarking on any major career endeavor. Your unique collection of gifts, talents, skills, and interests can fuel you to do work you find truly meaningful. You just have to open yourself up to fully tapping into them. Even when you’re building momentum and achieving “success,” still questioning whether you’re completely on the right track is normal. 📒Resources Mentioned In the book Great By Choice by Jim Collins, he describes the 20-mile-march concept. Past Career Relaunch® episodes mentioned: Creating Steady Progress with Anne Tumlinson– episode 3 Deciding What Matters with Bruce Daisley– episode 26 Giving Yourself Room to Explore with Audrey Lemargue– episode 9 Embracing Uncertainty with Stephen Satterfield– episode 15 Setting Realistic Expectations with Chinwe Oneaygoro– episode 59 Creating a New Image with Deepak Shukla– episode 51 Letting Go with Karen Hing– episode 52 Doing What Excites You with Alex Trochut– episode 56 Being Your Own #1 Fan with Sandeep Johal– episode 20 Taking Care of Yourself with Erika Russi– episode 77 🚀Listener Challenge During this episode’s Mental Fuel® segment, my challenge to you is to decide what choice you feel you could make for your career that you can be proud of. One that you’re confident you can look back on 10 years, 20 years from now, and not regret. What matters most to you right now during this chapter of your life and career? And what step will you take to honor this? 🎧Episode Chapters 00:00:00 – Overview 00:01:07 – Introduction 00:04:53 – Chat with Anne Tumlinson 00:48:39 – Mental Fuel® 00:59:32 – Listener Challenge 00:59:56 – Listener Thank You 01:01:59 – Wrap Up 👤About Anne Tumlinson, Founder & CEO of ATI Advisory and Daughterhood Anne Tumlinson and I have known each other for over 20 years. As one of the very first managers I had after I dropped out of medical school, she played an instrumental role in helping me navigate my first big career transition in my early 20s. She was also the very first person I ever interviewed for this show seven years ago, and she continues to possess a wealth of personal and professional insights that I and many of our listeners have found so useful. She currently advises the nation’s top public and private leaders in healthcare as the Founder and Board Chair of Daughterhood, a non-profit national community that connects family caregivers with each other for support and information. She also serves on the non-profit board for Mary’s Center, an FQHC, and the Board of Directors for Bluestone Physician Services and Harmony @ Home. Anne is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and was named an Influencer in Aging by Next Avenue. Anne spent her early career working in government, first in the office of Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) and then at the Office of Management and Budget. She joined the private consulting firm Avalere Health in 2000, growing and leading the firm’s provider practice and developing its first business intelligence product. 💬Did You Enjoy This Episode? Please Let Us Know! Review: I’d also love for you to leave a positive review and rating for the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Follow: Be sure to follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android to get each new episode on your device automatically. Full instructions. Stay in touch: Follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow host Joseph Liu on most major social media platforms. Connect with Joseph 💬Comments, Suggestions, or Questions? If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered in future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners! Leave Joseph a Voicemail You can also leave a comment below. Thanks! 🙏🏻Thanks to Vista Social for Supporting the Career Relaunch® podcast Vista Social is a versatile, time-saving tool to manage all your social media accounts in one place. You can easily create, schedule, optimise, and publish content directly to multiple social media profiles from one simple dashboard. I actually use it myself to manage all my online profiles. 🎵Music Credits Thanks to Reeve for producing the music for this special 100th episode and to Electrocardiogram for composing the Career Relaunch® podcast theme music. ✍️Interview Transcript Joseph: Well, hello again, Anne. I am very excited to have you back on the Career Relaunch Podcast. Welcome back to the show. Anne: [05:00] Thank you. It’s exciting to be back. Joseph: The last time we spoke was a few weeks ago actually over dinner when I was in D.C., so we did manage to catch up a little bit. Before that, the last time we recorded a conversation between the two of us was way back in 2016. I’m not sure if you remember this, but you were the very first person I interviewed for the show. Anne: [05:24] I do. Joseph: Because the podcast hadn’t even launched. It did eventually launch with your episode being one of the first. Exactly seven years ago in September 2016. Anne: [05:34] It was thrilling because you did such a good job with it, and you made that beautiful illustration. Joseph: You were featured in the trailer, yes. Anne: [05:44] That was pretty neat to see that come to life so creatively. Joseph: Probably, the show may not have happened without you. Just to go back in time. So now, this is now the 100th episode. Anne: [05:54] Wow. Joseph: Yeah. I thought it’d be very fitting to have the very first person I interviewed on the show to come back and to share your story again, just to check in on how things are going. Anne: [06:05] That’s awesome. We’ve really been on this journey together. Joseph: Definitely. This is going to be a little bit of a different chat from other episodes. Because I guess the idea here is for us to have a bit of a conversation about how things are going for you and for me, and seven years after that chat we had back in 2016. At the time, on your end, you had just launched off on your own. You had just begun developing the concept of Daughterhood. You were a solopreneur. And now, you’re a CEO overseeing a whole team at ATI Advisory. For me, I was about three years into running my own business. Beginning my shift from one-on-one coaching to more content creation and public speaking. I wasn’t a father then, I am now. Your kids were living at home. They’re in a completely different phase now. So, a lot of change for both of us. I was hoping that we could organize this chat in the past, present, and future, where you were, what you’ve experienced along the way, and what’s next for you. Maybe you should go first here. Let’s just go back in time. Can you try to mentally transport yourself back to 2016? What do you recall you were focused on at the time? Maybe we should start with the personal. What was your family life like in 2016? What was going on with you personally? And then, we’ll get to the professional in a second. Anne: [07:23] In 2016, I called myself a single mom. I was co-parenting with my ex-husband, so it wasn’t I was in it all by myself. Certainly, I was the head of the household that I live in and the sole earner with two teenage children, 16 and 13. We were looking at colleges for my oldest child. Now, she has made her way all the way through college. She has graduated, and she is fully employed. My youngest is in college. So, I’m in a really different place in parenting. And, I got married in 2018. Joseph: Do I have this right? Your separation had not happened that long before we recorded our episode in 2016? Do I have that right? Anne: [08:15] Yeah. I separated in 2011 and was divorced in 2012. If you’ve never been through anything like that, this may sound weird. If you have, it will ring true. It was a 15-year marriage. It takes a long time to reset from that and get to your new normal. I definitely wasn’t quite in it yet. I was still trying to figure out who I was in the world without a spouse. When you’re married, it’s really hard to imagine just how much your identity starts to absorb being in that partnership. I was like, “Who am I in my personal world, and who am I in my professional world?” In the middle of all that, I quit my job and started my own enterprise, so to speak, which had two parts to it. One was supporting myself through independent consulting, business-to-business. And then, the other was developing this platform. I didn’t really know what it was going to become, but I knew I wanted to start to form a relationship with family caregivers who were taking care of their parents and have an interchange of ideas across this transom. That’s them in their day-to-day experiences, and me with my expertise, and for people who are listing my expertise as in aging and health policy. Joseph: How did you get interested in this aging topic? I know we haven’t talked a lot about your own parents that much. I am curious how did this end up being your focus. Anne: [09:56] It’s so funny you asked that question. Just as a quick aside, my kids are now in their 20s. They and their friends are all in the very beginning stages of, “What do I want to do with my life?” I have a lot of 20-somethings standing in my kitchen. One of them was there last night at 11 o’clock, asking me. He’s pre-med. He’s like, “How did you end up here, in doing what you’re doing?” They’re always interested in that story. He just asked me that last night. I was always drawn to the phase of life that is the last phase of life. I can’t explain why. Even as an undergraduate, I did my work or my psychology undergraduate degree on the last phase of life and aging. And then, my very first job out of college was on Capitol Hill working as a congressional aid to Congressman John Lewis from Atlanta, Georgia, who was on the Aging Committee and then on a health subcommittee. And so, I was able to jump right into that and I loved it. I love policy because I like the challenge of all of the different systemic parts and how do you think about systems. I also really like, in reason I started Daughterhood was because I felt I was missing that — you can’t really work on a system we don’t understand how it’s affecting people on the ground, on a day-to-day basis. Joseph, you were right there with me in 2014, when I was going through all of this. Just really in the heart of the struggle, so to speak. You held my hand and walked me across the bridge into entrepreneurship. Joseph: I remember that. That was a surreal moment for me. For people who don’t know this, you were my manager actually. You’re one of my very first managers I think, in full-time employment for me. This is after I dropped out of medical school. I was trying to figure out my life. I was one of those kids “who were kind of in your kitchen,” who was trying to figure out what to do next. Anne: [12:11] Yeah. Joseph: And then, we started working together professionally when I was a coach. I had just started off in 2013, so about a year into that. You’re one of my first clients, which was weird. Anne: [12:24] I know. Joseph: Kind of flip for me to be in the role of coach for who had been one of my coaches early on. That was really rewarding and really just a special, unique relationship I think that we’ve had. Anne: [12:41] It is. It was for me as well. The second we started to talk, you’d call me I think just to let me know. I was like, “Oh. Oh, this is what I need. Could you help me?” Joseph: I remember sitting in your office when I was your direct report in Washington, D.C. I remember you telling me about your kids at the time. This one, I was in my early 20s. And so, another major change I think for you, Anne, was in 2016, both your kids were at home. Anne: [13:13] Yeah. Now, they’ve grown up. Joseph: Where are they now, and how has that change been for you? Anne: [13:19] In 2016, my oldest was just looking at colleges. And now, she’s fully graduated from college and is in her first professional role working at the National Institutes for Mental Health, doing work she really likes. That’s a small miracle really, when you think about how hard it is to find work right out of college. She actually still lives with me because she’s saving money. All good Gen Z’ers have to do I think in this day and age. And then, my son is a rising junior at Emory University. He lives there or he’s getting ready to go on foreign study. My house feels full right now because it’s the summer and he’s home. And so, even though they’re here though, my relationship with them is completely different because they’re adults. I still see them. We spend time together. But, I only get involved in their lives when they ask me to. That’s drawing all these new boundaries, trying to figure out the relationship, and how to be a parent to an adult, that has been mind-blowing. Joseph: That must be surreal. I’ve got a 5-year-old daughter, coming up on 6. So, I guess roughly maybe the age of Grace when you and I worked together in D.C. I’ve always been curious what’s it like the day after, in your case, both of your kids are off to college and your house is empty. Do you remember that day? Anne: [14:52] Yeah. I had a much tougher time when my oldest left. Because that was the moment when I was going from one phase of life to another. When my son left, I felt more prepared for it. Honestly, I enjoyed it. I got remarried in 2018. Just about the time that my son — he lived here for a couple of years after I got remarried, and then he went off to college. So, it was enjoyable for me to be able to be in my home alone with my new husband. There was a lot of relationships still to discover and enjoy, getting to know each other in that environment. That was a nice distraction from having the bittersweetness of watching your children leave you, which is what they’re supposed to do, but it is still — bittersweet is the only word I can think of to describe it. It’s an incredible privilege to watch them go out. It’s thrilling to watch them go discover themselves, and go through all of the exciting things that they get to go through as young adults out in the world but it is also heartbreaking because your relationship with them is not the same. They don’t need you as much. The intimacy is to a certain extent diminished. That beautiful intimacy that you have with a 5-year-old, where you’re in there still in that magical, that 5-year-old is still in the world of magic. Joseph: Yes. Anne: [16:36] I will say this for all of you who have youngsters is that, what helped me a lot was that I had no regrets. I had worked very hard and I devoted myself a lot to my career. I also really had done everything I wanted to do with my children. I read all the books. We went on all the trips. We had all of the movie nights and the popcorn nights. I felt, as sad as I was, there wasn’t anything that I could have done differently to have gotten any less sad. Joseph: I know. Anne: [17:17] Life is just full of these, as now that I’m 56, just full of these transitions after transition after transition after transition. Just when you think something is one way, it changes. One other fact that in these last seven years is that also my parents went from being incredibly independent to my father getting very sick and died. And now, my mom is in her 80s and living in an independent living community. My kids are transitioning. My parents are transitioning. My business was transitioning. So, not boring. Joseph: I know that there’s a lot in there to unpack. I mean, this is a career show, so I would be interested in — Anne: [17:58] Yes. Joseph: Before we talk about the evolution of everything that’s happened to you over time, can you remember in 2016 just factoring in everything you just mentioned about the difference that was happening? Your kids are getting older, you have come out of one relationship, you’re just starting your business. What were some of your biggest concerns at the time? If you can remember back to 2016. Anne: [18:21] I was just concerned about paying the bills. That’s not the only one, but I think one of my primary concerns was money, just money. I was scared. I didn’t have any visibility into whether or not the business would be there. Maybe there’d be three or four months. Anybody who’s done consulting knows how this is, or professional services of any kind. You will have this onslaught of work. If you’re on your own, you have to do it all yourself. And then, all of a sudden, there won’t be any work. Instead of just enjoying the moment of break, you’re worrying. Joseph: You’re panicked. Anne: [19:03] About where that business is. You’re either freaking out because you worry about execution risk, or you’re freaking out because you’re worrying about whether or not there’s enough business. By the way, that has not changed. Joseph: Right. I think that does happen. Anne: [19:19] I’m still there. Joseph: I still have that a lot. I’m now a decade into doing this work. I wouldn’t say it keeps me up at night, but I definitely have this productive paranoia. I don’t even know if it’s productive. Sometimes, this is unproductive paranoia about what would happen if all the clients I now work with, what if they all went away, which a version of that happened to me in 2020 with speaking engagements. And so, I think as a business owner, you never take for granted, the business that you do have coming in. One thing I know that has really changed for you since we spoke was, at the time, you were a solopreneur and you’re, as you described, thinking where the next client’s going to come from. And now, you have a team of over 20, I think. Is it like 20? Anne: [20:04] Thirty. Joseph: Thirty now. Okay. You got 30 people you’re managing, whom you’ve hired. How did you make that decision? At what point did you feel like, “I need to bring somebody on”? Anne: [20:17] I was doing a lot of work that I am actually not that good at or efficient. I felt like wasn’t great service to the client. So, they’re paying me a rate that is encompassing of all of my expertise and my time in the planet, and I’m spending hours dealing with the spreadsheet or a PowerPoint slide deck. I contemplated a couple different models, it’s not uncommon to contract some of those things out through a 1099 relationship, or a contracting relationship. But, to get the constancy and consistency in service and delivery, I wasn’t that I thought, “Oh, this has to grow by some amount.” It was more that I felt if I didn’t do that, I was always going to be in a a scarcity mindset. I don’t want to be in a scarcity mindset. I want to be in a, “We have plenty of resources. We can do this. We’ve got what we need.” And so, there’s also the serendipity of their own. Then, there’s this person who is looking for a job, and I’ve worked with her before, and I knew what she could do. I was like, “She could really help me.” Another very interesting thing happened. Because obviously, if you’re worrying about money, and then you’re hiring somebody. Joseph: You’ve got to pay these people. Anne: [21:40] Now, you got payroll. I had a mentor who was a very wealthy individual, and he’d taken an interest in the work that we were doing in my career, which was nice. He called me and he said, “I will be your safety net for a while. So, if you need some money you can come to me.” What he said was — this is the awesome thing. He goes, “I don’t want you to have any excuse not to do this.” Joseph: Wow. Anne: [22:19] By the way, P.S. I could not get a line of credit at the bank. He was going to be my bank. And so, I took it and it worked out great. And then, in 2017, I hired a second person. Then, in 2018 was a slow year. It was a tough year. I thought, “This might not work.” I think we even talked about this in 2016, and that’s normal. Joseph: I’m still solo. I do contract out with independent freelancers to help me with this show and some other things, but I don’t have any employees. One of the challenging things for me is just my bandwidth, and that is because I’m by myself. I have been resistant to bringing anybody else on board. And so, I’ve just dealt with that scarcity that you have mentioned, and just sometimes turning away stuff. Anne: [23:08] That’s okay. Joseph: But, yeah, it’s a trade-off. It’s a trade-off. Anne: [23:09] Yeah. That’s exactly right. Some businesses are meant to scale the way that I’m scaling, and some businesses are meant to be sort of the individual level. Everybody makes a big deal out of scaling, “Scaling is everything,” it’s not. It’s just not. It comes with an enormous number of headaches. I will say — and this is where I think you and I are quite different. A theme in my whole life has been, a little bit of a leaping without looking. Joseph: Just go for it, yeah. Anne: [23:44] Yeah. I get impatient with the analytic piece of things. Whereas, you have so much patience and you’ll look and consider all angles. At a certain point, I’m like, “I don’t have the patience.” I can’t play chess or checkers. I don’t have the patience for that level of anticipating every move. I just go for it. The outcome of that is that sometimes there’s wonderful rewards on their side. But also, that I end up going, “I can’t believe I did that.” Joseph: It actually worked out. Anne: [24:20] I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but here I am. Joseph: Well, let’s talk a little bit about what you have observed, and maybe what has been on your mind lately after thinking about the evolution of your life, and also your business over the past seven years. What do you feel is going really well right now for you? And then, we’ll talk about the challenges in a second. What’s working and what’s going on for you right now? Anne: [24:46] Taking my life as a totality right now, I feel very solid. My mother, my mother-in-law are going through their last stage of life in their 80s. My children are going through a time of change. I feel I’m well-equipped, mentally and physically, to be solid. Be the solid center of their lives and my life, and it feels great. From a business perspective, what I have discovered is that I am really enjoying working on building a business. As opposed to working in the business, I very much still enjoy consulting. I enjoy the clients and the work that we’re doing in the subject matter. But also, the learning. Not just learning about business, but learning about I’m always motivated by the challenge of stepping into the role of CEO. I had to actually write down what my job was and post it on my board because I didn’t know. What does a CEO do? I had to think about, “Oh, I’m in charge of setting the strategy in the direction for the company, finding the resources people in talent, and solving the big problems.” Joseph: That’s a good list. Anne: [26:13] Those are my big three. Trusting people that you hire and not getting too into the weeds with their work and what they’re doing. And so, it’s been great. I don’t know that I’ve nailed it, but I think that it is exciting to be able to grow. It’s exciting to find out what you’re capable of. I think it’s iterative, you’re not capable until you put yourself in the position, and then you learn how to be capable. And then, you’re like, “Oh god!” Joseph: Yes. You almost have to do it. Anne: [26:44] I think a lot of people wait for the capability to come before they attempt it, but that doesn’t work that way. Joseph: Yeah. It’s very chicken or egg, isn’t it? Because you want to have the skills before you go out there if you don’t embarrass yourself. At the same time, you have to go out there and do it to develop the skill set. I remember, early on, I think I gave a TED Talk. It was in 2014, and that was one of the first talks I gave, which got me thinking about shifting from doing more one-on-one coaching to more public speaking. It wasn’t my best talk, but it got me out there and it got me starting to think about that, to experience what it’s like to do that. It is very hard to decide what’s going to be my first move in this particular space and when will I feel comfortable doing it. You’re right. I think it does need to happen just before you feel completely ready. Otherwise, you’ll never do it. Anne: [27:39] One hundred percent. There was a moment in my life very, very early on when I learned to overcome that feeling of shame or embarrassment for putting yourself out there. It was a similar formative moment in my life. Actually, to do with my dad and the advice he gave me in a social situation. It was very formative. I realized, “Oh, you can survive it. You can fall on your face in front of a lot of people and be fine.” That lodged itself in my subconscious. And so, I have been more willing than I think most people to have a more public failure, which isn’t to say that I don’t absolutely dread it. Joseph: Yeah, it’s not fun. That’s not the best time of your life. Anne: [28:32] You have to learn to tolerate it. Joseph: Yes. What have you found most challenging over the past few years? What have you struggled with? Whether it’s related to the scaling of your business or just running an independent consultancy, versus being an employee, or anything in your personal life, what’s been the toughest? Anne: [28:52] The theme that has been very challenging across personal and professional has been relationships. I don’t mean client relationships. When you scale quickly in your life, relationships change. I feel the same person. I’m the same person. But, I am seven years older, and I have grown children, and I have a parent who needs care, and I have a business that’s 30 people and growing quickly, and it has a lot of visibility out in the public space and a non-profit platform that also has visibility. And so, even within the business, just how people perceive you and what you are doing and what you say to them and you go from having these intimate, maybe this is the theme. Your children are little, and it’s very intimate. You’re in a small organization or you’re an employee with a team. It’s pretty intimate when you grow an organization. When you grow, sometimes, those bonds tend to fray. The role change. The sort of perceived elevation or distance, what it does is then, it has the potential to damage trust. Everybody has their issues, and their insecurities, and their desires, and they’re all colliding against each other in this organization now. So, the biggest challenge is, “How do I set up the infrastructure?” That human resources infrastructure, and the clarity around roles, and the clarity around expectations, and values, and mission, and that’s all quite challenging. I, in fact, hired somebody with expertise in human resources because I realized I was way out, way out over my skis. Joseph: Yeah. It’s more complicated than it can seem. Initially, you feel like, “I’ll hire these people and I’ll just work it out.” It can be complicated. Anne: [31:01] No. You just can’t even imagine all of the different things that come out. I mean, it’s just mind-blowing. Joseph: I’d also be interested in maybe talking through some of the things that you mentioned to me back in 2016, to revisit these ideas that you had at the time. I went back and, as you know, I was just in Chicago a couple of days ago. On the plane ride over there, I was listening to our old episode. One of the things that you mentioned to me was the idea that your self-worth was driven by your last full-time employer, versus your value coming from your own skills and knowledge and experiences. I was just curious how you now think about your value. Maybe this ties into what you’re just talking about, about your evolving role in your organization. How do you think about those days when you were full-time employed versus now running your own organization? Anne: [31:54] It’s still a challenge. Maybe the lesson is that you never stop questioning your value. Once the consultancy started to pick up steam and got off the ground, and there was 10 of us, or 12 of us, maybe I felt pretty secure. I was like, “I was doing a lot of consulting. I was helping people learn. I was teaching. We were coming up to speed.” Maybe there’s a break from having to question it. But then, a funny thing happened. Just I hired these amazingly talented people who are smarter than me and better at it than I am, and if the business is going to operate well, I got to get out of their way. And so, there was a period of time, and it’s still going on, where I think, “What do I have to offer this organization?” I think I may have told you when we had dinner, I have a really great friend and coach now, Gretchen Alkema, I was her grand team and she was in a foundation. And then, she left and she started her own enterprise. I brought many of the lessons and I told her about our conversations. And now, she’s out on her own doing strengths-based coaching. She’s like, “Your job now is to tell everybody where you’re going.” I was like, “Oh crap! That I have to know!” The value question is just ever-present. I think that might just be either my insecurity or maybe that’s just how we all are. We, as people, as humans, we want to be valuable. Sometimes, I jump in, and I’ll edit papers, or I’ll look at deliverables, and offer suggestions. I feel really valuable when I’m doing that. Joseph: Right. Anne: [33:50] How are we going to grow the business? I’m like, “I don’t know if I know how to do this.” I’m still questioning. Joseph: Figuring it out as you go. Anne: [33:59] Yeah. Joseph: One of the things that you mentioned to me also in 2016, was that a lot of progress is just about showing off. Anne: [34:05] Yeah. Joseph: Do you still believe that? Anne: [34:07] Yes. You know that feeling of panic? I’m sure you feel this way, too. I assume you do. Which is that the nice thing about getting a few years under your belt is that when you get into a trough from a business perspective, you can look back, you don’t have a history. Joseph: Yeah. Anne: [34:22] You can say, “Oh, look. There were five other troughs that always works out.” And that, this showing up thing and wrestling, just like I have a lot more faith now I think about this value question that if I just wrestle with it, the next thing will unfold. Then, shining your flashlight on just the next right step, it’s still scary. I could make a big mistake, make a bad decision, and it will affect a lot of people. I can only just do the best that I can. Showing up is everything. Consistency is everything. Joseph: I don’t know if you know this, but I featured a little clip from your discussion with me back in 2016. When you said that just because something is hard, it doesn’t mean you’re failing. Anne: [35:08] Yeah. Joseph: It’s less about talent and more about commitment and consistency. I think word for word, that is what you said. Because I play it a lot for people. Do you still believe that? Anne: [35:17] Oh, yeah. I get a lot of nice positive reinforcement now from the outside world. You can almost hear the tape playing in their head like, “I don’t know that I would have ever thought you could do this.” Me either! Me either. The only difference between me and the many, many phenomenal people who aren’t creating and building their own companies is that I just do it. I just do it. There is an element of taking risks. I do think that I have a tolerance for risk. It’s not about being particularly smart, or particularly talented. It’s about being willing to put yourself out there and just keep going. Joseph: Well, this ties into the last thing I was hoping to talk with you about before we wrap up with what’s next for you. It was this idea that you shared with me about how the universe tends to respond when you open yourself up to change. As you just mentioned, just going for it and doing it. I am just curious to hear what you think of that. Now, when you think about your personal life — I guess I’ll just direct you to one idea here, which is just the fact you’re now remarried, but also anything in your professional life. How do you think about this idea of opening yourself up to change and putting yourself out there for that potential change? Anne: [36:47] I just believe in this, there’s a momentum in the larger fabric of the universe. There’s momentum. That our jobs are really just to start the momentum, and that you can put things in motion. I should just say, because I do strengths-based work with [unintelligible], and my top five strengths: ideation and activation, are among my top five. So, it’s easy for me to say, having an idea putting it in motion, having an idea, putting emotion. My biggest challenge sometimes is just actually to not put an idea in motion because there’s enough things in motion right now. Joseph: I’ve got a lot of ideas. Anne: [37:31] Not going to start playing the flute again, nope. Having those strings has allowed me to observe that when you put something in motion, and you put a little bit of muscle behind it, and you commit to it, physics law here where then it picks up steam. There’s going to be things that are going to come along that are going to facilitate that. It’s really cumulative. I’m seeing things happen now in my world that I would never have ever imagined. Like big companies coming and saying, “We want to acquire you.” It’s amusing actually. Joseph: I bet, yeah. Anne: [38:15] They know getting to what’s next, that’s not what I’m interested in. But, it’s a signal that there’s this momentum. Because what I’ve been doing is just, hands down, doing the work. I think you said this to me, and I still have it on my bulletin board. Yes, you did, Joseph. You said this to me. Joseph: I’m curious what this is. Anne: [38:34] Doing the ‘20-mile march’ every day. Joseph: Oh, right. Yes. The Jim Collins concept. Anne: [38:40] Yeah. Joseph: From his “Great by Choice” book. Anne: [38:41] I wrote down in 2016, I still have; anything truly great will take at least five to 10 years to build. At some level, “This might not work” is the heart of all important projects. Joseph: Things do take time. It’s very easy to just give up when you aren’t getting the traction that you want. One of my issues is just having such high expectations of what I think is going to happen tomorrow, and it doesn’t pan out that way. And then, I get disappointed by it. And then, the problem is that you might give up on it. Anne: [39:13] Right! Joseph: Or, you’re 99 percent of the way there, and right when you’re about to turn a corner, you drop it. Anne: [39:17] I have had some disappointments. Daughterhood, which is the non-profit platform. Joseph, I did not become as famous as Oprah. Remember? Do you remember me saying, “I want to be like Oprah for caregiving?” Joseph: I remember, yes. I want to talk about Daughterhood! Yeah, I do remember that you had a certain vision for it. Anne: [39:37] It’s not so much about not doing what you’re doing, but about reframing your expectations. Joseph: Yes. I know one of the things you mentioned to me also at the time was, and I’ll just ask you the same question again today. If you were to give your advice to your younger self, one of the things you said was about suffering less. I’m wondering what your perspective is on this now. Is there any sort of advice you might share with Anne in 2016 when you were in the earlier days of starting and running your business? Anne: [40:06] You’ve got everything you need. You’re not missing anything. I think that I’ve lived a lot of my life thinking that I wasn’t smart enough or talented enough. But, my strengths, your unique constellation of gifts is enough. It’s enough to do the things that are meaningful to you, and that’s all that matters. So, it’s not about success, as it’s defined by the world. It’s more about what it is that you want to get up every morning and do. You would absolutely have everything that it takes to do what’s meaningful to you on a day-to-day basis. There’s no question. Everybody does. I think that’s what I would say. Just remind myself that you are enough. Joseph: Well, I want to wrap up with what you are doing now. I know there are all sorts of things we could talk about. I’m probably most interested in what you just mentioned. At the time you had just launched Daughterhood Circles back in 2016, or you’re thinking about the idea of it, which was to provide women with these resources to care for their aging parents. How did you envision that going, and how has it gone, and what’s next for it? I know there’s a lot of questions wrapped up in that one question. Anne: [41:25] For people who don’t live in the United States listening to this podcast, we have a very broken system for supporting older adults and their families when their ability to function in their day-to-day life starts to diminish. They need support and services. There’s no front door to a system. There’s no front door to a front door. It’s just you’re really on your own. So, the idea behind that these grassroots circles formed by volunteers in every community was that they would serve as the sort of peer-to-peer coaching, and support, and connection to resources. Like, who better to tell you where you can go for things and people who’ve been through it. It turns out that trying to scale a grassroots volunteer-led organization that is highly disaggregated or disparate across the country is really, really hard. And, people still don’t know the answers to those questions. We really, really flailed for many years in trying to build this network of circles at the local level. We had a handful of really high-performing ones. We had a bunch that didn’t ever get off the ground. Eventually, we’ve pivoted. My father’s death in COVID coincided with really pushing me into a new approach, which is a virtual circle platform, and making it more topic-based. And then, we’re now getting ready to launch a whole new way of connecting our community to resources at the local level that will give them the resources they need to get going. We are moving it into a non-profit and getting the 501(c)(3) designation that will enable us to hopefully raise some money and truly scale. There are a couple of relationships that broke up between myself and some of our leaders and volunteers that were really excruciatingly painful for me. Joseph: I guess whenever you’re going through these moments of change and evolution, it’s hard to keep every relationship intact in a positive way. Just there are so many important parts. Anne: [43:39] Yeah. You fail people. You can’t meet everybody’s expectations for everything all the time. Sometimes, they’re coming from a place that you couldn’t control it even if you wanted to. Like, you could trust yourself under a pretzel and they would still — doesn’t have anything to do with you. Joseph: Yes. Anne: [43:57] But, it’s still painful. I’m really excited that I have an incredible partner now, and all of this somebody who sort of appeared at the right time to help me turn this next phase into a reality, and that’s made all the difference. Joseph: Last question then for you, Anne, because I do want to end on a positive note here because it sounds like you’ve gone through so much change, and you’ve grown your organization, your life has changed over the past seven years, both personally and professionally. At the beginning of our chat today, you mentioned that little animated trailer that I put together to launch this podcast a few years ago. In that trailer, we featured something you said at the time about how you wished you had known just how amazing it is to be in the process of doing something new. What has been the most rewarding part of your career change journey? Anne: [44:48] It’s still the creation of something that is not lived in the world before. I mentioned this at the beginning, working on the business. Probably, a little bit more of a big picture way of saying that is, getting up every morning, getting to think about what’s next. For me, it’s 100 percent about creativity. But, you have to have all of the business fundamentals there, and you have to have all the right people who know how to execute. I mean, there’s a lot of things that go into it. But, when I’m really in the zone, when I’m really feeling great, it’s when I’m thinking about, “We’re going to be a 50 percent business in a year and a half, and here are the things that we’re going to be doing, and here’s the content we’re going to put out around that, and the reports we’re going to write, and the money we’re going to raise for Daughterhood.” Just being able to not just have the idea and not just activate it, but then move it along and see it appear in the world. It’s my art. I’m not an artist. I’m a terrible artist. A terrible musician. I’m a really bad gardener. All of those things, but this is my art. And so, for me, it’s a creative process and that’s what gets me up in the morning. It makes it all worthwhile. Joseph: Thank you so much for chatting with me again today and about your journey. Anne: [46:13] Thank you for having me. Joseph: Yeah. You’ve gone from independent consultants to now, the CEO of your own advisory firm. Your life has changed so much over the past few years. I appreciate you sharing with me and everybody else what you’ve learned along the way. Thanks for joining me on this very special 100th episode of the show. Anne: [46:31] Woo-hoo! Joseph: Also, for your willingness to record that chat with me way back in 2016 that really planted the first seed to get this podcast off the ground. Anne: [46:39] Joseph, you’ve done amazing work. You’ve helped so many people along the way. So, huge congratulations to you as well. Joseph: Thank you. Anne: [46:48] I’m reflecting that actually. There’s a little bit of a container for us to have this conversation that is important. We need to do this. We need to have a way to go, “Okay.” Gosh, I didn’t realize. I got married, my dad died, my kids grew up and left the home, the business grew. All in seven years. I don’t think I fully reflected on all that. So, thank you. Joseph: Of course, of course. Anne: [47:14] I really appreciate it. Joseph: Thank you for sharing it all with me, too. Yeah, it’s just nice that we can stay in touch after all these years. How long is it? It’s 20 years now. Anne: [47:22] Well, we’ll be in touch for the rest of our lives. Joseph: I hope so, yeah. I hope so. Well, in the meantime, best of luck with your work at ATI Advisory, the future of Daughterhood, and of course, the rest of your life there in D.C. Anne: [47:34] Thanks. Joseph: Hope to talk with you again soon, Anne. Anne: [47:36] Okay.

If you’re like most people I cross paths with out there, talking about your accomplishments or showcasing your achievements may not come that naturally to you. Communicating your successes can feel like you’re bragging or shamelessly self-promoting. Asking for what you want can feel intrusive or presumptuous. And just sharing your own accomplishments with others can feel awkward or forced. At the same time, if you don’t advocate for yourself, you run the risk of disappearing into the background. If you don’t drive visibility for your work, no one may be aware of your accomplishments. And if you don’t ask for what you want, opportunities are unlikely to just fall into your lap. In episode 98 of the Career Relaunch® podcast, Claudia Bruce-Quartey, a political scientist turned key account manager shares her thoughts on why making a career change often involves a leap of faith and why you have to be the one to advocate for what you want. I also share some thoughts on how I manage the delicate balance between modesty and self-advocacy during the Mental Fuel® segment. Key Career Change Insights Focus on the things you can control, not those you cannot. Sometimes, you just have to take a leap of faith in your career and jump. The onus is on you to make yourself seen and heard in your career. Listener Challenge During this episode’s Mental Fuel® segment, my challenge to you is to pick one aspect of your work that you feel deserves more support . . . and to advocate for it. Maybe it’s a project you feel deserves more visibility within your organization. Or an overdue promotion you feel is worth getting onto your manager’s radar. Or a piece of career news you’ve been keeping to yourself but want to share with your network. Whatever it is, take ownership of your career and proactively promote it. If you don’t advocate for it, you can be sure others won’t either. And you might just be surprised how people respond. Episode Chapters 00:00:00 Overview 00:01:07 Introduction 00:03:44 Discussion with Claudia Bruce-Quartey 00:42:38 Mental Fuel 00:48:45 Listener Challenge 00:49:25 Wrap Up About Claudia Bruce-Quartey Claudia Bruce-Quartey has followed a career path that’s required self-advocacy throughout. Raised in Germany as a first-generation immigrant after her parents moved there from Ghana, Claudia eventually completed her Master’s Degree in Public Administration in France and most recently relocated to Switzerland. Originally a political scientist with no knowledge of IT, Claudia’s now a Key Account Manager for the software company Red Hat. She also passionately works with underrepresented youth and female professionals to help them confidently speak about their accomplishments and ask for what they want in their careers. With over 8 years of experience in the Swiss Tech industry, Claudia describes herself as an agent for transformation, on a mission to create equal representation and opportunities. She’s also the author of the book My Hair, My Choice, a book that encourages young children to understand that being unique and different is great. Follow Claudia on LinkedIn and Instagram. Join her newsletter to access that worksheet she mentioned during our conversation and learn more about how to cultivate confidence at work. Did You Enjoy This Episode? Please Let Us Know! Review: I’d also love for you to leave a positive review and rating for the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Follow: Be sure to follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android to get each new episode on your device automatically. Full instructions. Stay in touch: Follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow host Joseph Liu on most major social media platforms. Connect with Joseph Comments, Suggestions, or Questions? If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered in future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners! Leave Joseph a Voicemail You can also leave a comment below. Thanks! Thanks to Grammarly for Supporting Career Relaunch The Grammarly app finds and corrects spelling and grammar mistakes to make your writing more clear and concise, leveraging AI to make suggestions based on your context and preferred writing style. I use it nearly every day myself across all my desktop applications, Office documents, and mobile device. Download Grammarly for free at CareerRelaunch.net/Grammarly. Interview Segment Music Credits Bio Unit – Fairground Podington Bear – Floating in Space Podington Bear – Three Colors Podington Bear – Big Blue Podington Bear – Sunbeam Podington Bear – Sidecar Bio Unit – Docking Episode’s Interview Transcript Joseph: Hello, Claudia. Welcome to the Career Relaunch Podcast. It is so great to talk to you on this show. Claudia: [03:50] Hi, Joseph. Thank you so much for having me. Joseph: Okay. Well, let’s get started by first of all talking about what you have been focused on at this moment, in both your personal and professional life. What’s been keeping you busy? Claudia: [04:04] My children. First and foremost, I’m a mother. I’m a mother of two. We are about to head into the big summer break. This is what’s keeping me busy. Also, preparing everything at work in order to make the transition to holidays as smooth as possible. I am a key count manager working for a major open-source software company in Switzerland, and this is kind of my main job. Secondly, I help women advocate for themselves. That’s what I do passionately and I love doing that. So, these are the three key things that are keeping me busy. If not, it’s summertime, I love going out with my bike. Joseph: Sounds good. Let’s take those one at a time here. You said mother of two, you got summer vacation coming up. How do you balance your ongoing demands as a key account manager there at Red Hat? With idea that I’m assuming, your kids are not going to be in school most of the day. How do you balance that on a practical and personal level? Claudia: [05:02] I think the key word here is flexibility. And then, my partner, of course, helps me out a lot with regard to how we manage our schedules. The key part here is really flexibility. Being able to do remote. The pandemic has done us, actually somehow, a great favor in understanding that you can do your most effective work without having to be on-site every single time. That’s one thing. And then, setting the expectations with customers, but also at home, and setting boundaries. I think this is the most important part. Joseph: Before we go back into your past, can you also explain just a little bit about what you do as a key account manager for Red Hat? What’s your day-to-day look like? Claudia: [05:49] The easiest part to say is that I work in sales. I’m a key account manager. As a key account manager, my day-to-day job consists of helping customers through digital transformation. Every customer today needs to be at the forefront of innovation, at the forefront of their competition, and be successful. That is through tech and through IT. My job as a key account manager is that I support roughly about six accounts on this transformation with the solution to their open-source solution that provides. The easiest way to understand is that everything that happens in the background. When things run smoothly, that’s how Red Hat provides its services. When something breaks, you know where to find us. That’s the easiest way to describe it. Joseph: Well, I know that you haven’t always been a key account manager for Red Hat. You haven’t always worked in sales. In fact, you are in a very, very different sector before. I would love to hear more about your time working in political science when you started off your career. And then, we can move forward from there. Maybe the best way to start here is just to get an understanding of, how did you get interested in political science originally? Claudia: [07:02] That’s true. I never even anticipated being in sales or being in the tech industry. Everything that had to do with STEM, it was repellent to me. So, when I graduated and then started studying in 2010, for me, naturally, I gravitated towards international organizations, and then also policies. Not per se, being involved in politics. That’s a big misconception for anyone that thinks, “Okay. You’re going to political science to become a politician.” It’s not that. For me, it was really integrating international organizations, being in international relations, the United Nations or European Union, being in one of these institutions. With that being said, there were no sales involved; there was no tech involved or so I thought. That was kind of where I started off and where I really found myself. I thought that this would be my career. Joseph: Now, I was just in Washington, DC last month, Claudia. I used to live and work there many years ago. Have you been to DC before? Claudia: [08:15] I’ve been to DC last year. Joseph: Okay. You’ve been there recently. One of the things you might notice about DC is it’s one of those places where the professional scene is kind of unique compared to other major cities. Because there are people there who certainly work in the more traditional corporate for-profit world, but you’ve got a lot of professionals there. Especially, young professionals — me, including, when I lived there, who are much more focused on the non-profit, governmental, more social policy-type, cause-based organizations. So, that’s what I would describe as a major split in the professional world. Why were you originally drawn to that world, and not initially the more corporate-like, more for-profit side of the professional world? Claudia: [09:05] Some is also part of my heritage. I’m originally from Ghana. I was born and raised in Hanover, Germany. For me, I wanted to create an impact that would either help advance our community or help advance Africa, in general. That’s why also, international relations was so important to me to be able to shape policies or shape programs that would help advance Africa as a whole. More importantly, also Ghana, and then also the Ghanaian community within Hanover. So, that is the reason why I was rather drawn towards that. Also 2010, 2012, there were lots of different programs out there, especially for young people. For me, I was a youth mentor also. Everything and anything around helping the youth out, and with regards to their professional development, with regards to their integration into society, is something I was very, very much drawn to. I wanted to professionalize that. The European Union, at that point in time, first of all, there were not a lot of people that looked like me inside of this organization. So, for me, it was really, “Okay, I can make an impact here with my voice and also with my work.” So, that’s the reason why I was naturally drawn to that. Joseph: How were those early days for you as you were looking for professional opportunities in that space? How did that transpire for you? Claudia: [10:27] Lots of these opportunities come through either connections or just sheer hard work. Because for me, I had different types of opportunities, of course. Lots of them were either very, very short-term or were entry-level positions. For example, I used I lived also in Paris during my studies. At the same time, I was working. I was working for a governmental institution over there. It was very short-lived, number one. It was faced by multiple short-lived opportunities, that’s one thing. Secondly, the pay wasn’t also the best, to be transparent. I was looking at myself and the vision that I had created about myself of what it means to be what I thought would be successful, and that was not it. To have a master’s degree and still be struggling in finding a real proper job and a long-term job. This is kind of also where I was really questioning myself whether or not this is the path that I want to take. Even though I love it, I wasn’t sure whether my love, my passion for the field would sustain me there. Joseph: That’s really interesting, Claudia. One of the things I hear from people as they are either embarking on a new career path or even just the career path they had thought they wanted to go on is sometimes, the going is a bit rough and it’s a bit bumpy. I suppose one of the decisions you have to make is, do I keep trying to make it in this industry or do I walk away and do something else? How did you think about that? How could you tell when you should keep trying and when you should call it quits? Claudia: [12:12] That’s very much a good question because I struggled with that a lot. Because I was looking, “Okay. What are the skills that I can actually apply within this industry or within the field I was working in?” So, I speak five languages. Maybe anything around languages, and could help sort of translation jobs. For example, I was one in more facilitating conferences. So, there are a lot of different areas actually within the field, which is great. The field is very rich. Again, finding these opportunities, at least for me, posts to be a challenge. As I was also growing, and graduating, life caved in. I got married. Also, I had a baby. This is what’s really the turning point for me. To get an understanding is that, “Okay. First, I’m single and I can hustle.” But, with someone else in this world where she depends completely on you, on you to make it happen, things shifted very quickly for me. To me, the turning point was in 2015, when I had been in a position that absolutely had nothing to do with what I had studied. It was an entry-level sales position. I got to the realization, “This cannot be it. There has to be a better way.” To be honest, I didn’t know what this looked like. I certainly didn’t think that it was IT. I just knew something else has to come up for me. Joseph: Let’s talk about the transition that you went through here. Things are taking a little bit longer than maybe you had expected to gain some traction in the political science world. You have gotten married. You’ve got a baby. Now, you’re feeling like the phase of life that you’re in right now might require you to reconsider your career options. Take me through the transition as you went from what was political science to then eventually a sales role. The first question I have about this is, how easy was it for you to let go of the idea of pursuing political science? Claudia: [14:14] That was very difficult. Because I chose political science after having taken a break from my studies for a year. So, when I did my A-Level degree, I went to France for a year to find myself, to find what it is that I want to do. I knew, again, nothing about STEM. I knew the law wouldn’t cut it. Because also in Ghanaian communities, either you become a lawyer, a doctor, or a banker. These are the three career paths that you’re open with. Anything else, we don’t know, so you don’t pursue it. So, I have to find something where I can still become successful, and political science was that field where I could bring so much of my abilities into it. And then, studying it, doing my bachelor’s degree, doing my master’s degree in France, and then not finding a job in which I could thrive, not finding ground in a field that I had studied and had worked in for some time was very tough. I was like, “Now, I’m out of my studies, I need to have a proper job. I need to have a contract.” It was the very basic necessities of, I have a job, I have a contract, there’s a long-term thing and I see myself progressing in that career. I didn’t see that. Then, I was like, “Okay. Will I keep doing things that are not working and dragging my entire family into it? Or, will I start opening up my eyes towards opportunities that are out there?” So, I started then, not randomly, I would say more openly applying to jobs that were outside of my field. Some had the sales component to it but definitely not the role that I’m currently in and the career I’m currently pursuing. Joseph: I know along the way, if I’ve got the timing right here, I’m just going to broadly describe them, as the stop-gap or like transitional hold-yourself-over-for-a-while jobs. Claudia: [16:16] Yes, lots of things. Joseph: Can you give me a sampling of what were some of the other jobs you took just to make ends meet, just to hold you over while you figured this out? Claudia: [16:23] Wait tables. I was a waitress. I was teaching children at some point in time. I did translation jobs along the way. I help people with some administrative work also. It’s really little petty jobs that kept me along the way, that kept me afloat. I was a tour guide for a very, very short amount of time. Joseph: In France? Claudia: [16:48] In France, right. What are the odds, right? I’m from Hanover, Germany. I am Ghanaian. I go to France and became a tour guide. It was a very, very short amount of time. Somebody couldn’t fill the role, so I hopped in. I also promoted flyers. Different kinds of brands and shops and just works outside giving out flyers and promoting flyers. The accumulation of that brought more and more frustration, very much frustration. Because it wasn’t steady. There was no strategy behind it. It was just, “Okay. What am I doing to get to the next paycheck?” To me, that wasn’t it. I just had a much bigger vision about myself and where I wanted to see my family than what I was currently doing. Joseph: How long did that period last for you? Claudia: [17:40] Right after my pregnancy, I think about a year and a half. To me, it was an eternity. Joseph: Yeah. I’ve had those phases in my career also. I have actually waited tables briefly also. I worked in a retail store for a while. It can feel like a very long time, these transitional periods. Even though we’re talking a few months to a year, it can feel like an eternity. You eventually decided to do a masters in France, as I understand it. What did pursuing an advanced degree allow you to do? Claudia: [18:15] In 2010, exactly, I was still pursuing a career in political science. I had not let go of that idea. I thought, “All right. Well, let me have an advanced degree. Let me have it in a foreign country to open up my chance to be considered for roads inside of the European Union, inside of the big NGOs.” Because this was the profile that they were looking for. Somebody that is international, versatile, has done several things and understands the system. To me, it was like, “Oh, great!” It opened up opportunities. Again, being able to work in some of the French institutions, in different cities, in Paris. At the end of the day, it all didn’t help me to really build the career that I was looking for. It helped me today, absolutely. Because I think all of the experiences that I made moving from Germany to France and then coming here to Switzerland, have absolutely helped me. Because I know today, for a fact, that it is my stop in France that helped make the transition to Switzerland very smoothly because I speak French. Joseph: So, how did you eventually make your foray into the tech industry and the sales role? What was the first breakthrough for you in that sector? Claudia: [19:37] There was a program that was being run by Cisco. Cisco, at that point in time, was looking for junior sales representatives. The way it was conveyed to me was, “Hey! Yes, this is a tech industry, but look at all the things that IT touches.” This is where I started to listen up. I was like, “Hey, it’s true.” To me, the perception of tech was you have to code; you have to be a nerd. When I was studying, the people that I saw pursuing anything in tech or engineering were nerds. When they opened up their textbooks, I understood absolutely nothing. This is not the field that I want to be in. But this program was completely different. This program was something that I was already doing but just realized was sales. In every type of industry or every type of job also that I got, and being qualified/overqualified, I was still able to sell myself somehow and sell the fact that I’m the best candidate for this position. That type of presentation skills, that type of sales skills, helped me then make the transition. Again, it was, someone saw my CV, and being headhunted. Someone saw my CV and said, “Hey. We believe you’ll be great in this industry. You would be great for this particular company.” I just gave it my all. I just gave it my all. I said, “Okay. I have nothing to lose at this point in time. I am jobless, so let me go.” Joseph: Before we started recording, Claudia, when we spoke before, you had said that navigating careers for women can be quite lonely, costly, and scary, without a support system or without some sort of a road map. What were those early days like for you in a brand-new industry in tech, in sales? Do you remember what it was like? Claudia: [21:34] In Switzerland? Joseph: Yes, in Switzerland. Claudia: [21:38] Yes in Switzerland, definitely. It was definitely a moment. The beginning was very exciting. Going through all of the interviews, and being given the prospect of joining an industry that gives you the chance to establish a career. That was what I was going for, the idea that I had. I didn’t know what I actually signed up for. I didn’t know that I was signing up for an industry that was chronically underrepresented by women, and then women that look like me. Women that were at the intersection of women, Black, mothers. So, I fell into a very, very traditional company then at that point in time. It was, yes, Cisco, but there was a partner in between. So, I worked with a partner organization. Yes, even though there were small bits of support, it was very lonely and very scary. Because I had no knowledge and no background in IT. I had no knowledge, and no background in sales, besides the academy and the sales program that I went through. It was pretty much that I was pushed into the cold water to start doing the job. Which, in the end, helped me get into the job and get the ropes of this job much faster. It is because, naturally, I’m a person that doesn’t give up easily. I can tell you that I shed lots of tears. I think six months into Switzerland, I was very much doubting whether or not this was the right decision to take, to make, and to bring my family here. Joseph: This is probably a hard question to answer but, how much of that challenge do you feel you attribute to just the fact of being in a completely new industry? How much of that do you attribute to being an underrepresented minority female in the tech industry? Claudia: [23:22] Sometimes, one or the other plays more. Because, in the beginning, again, I went in with an open mind. I didn’t go in with, “Okay. I’m a woman. I don’t see a lot of women here, so this might be it.” I was trying to understand what will this industry give me and how can I apply my knowledge, and be more knowledgeable. Because in my understanding, if you become more knowledgeable, things will get easier. That was, for me, the baseline. What can I do professionally? What can I control? The fact that I’m a woman, or I’m a Black woman, or a mother; these are things I cannot control. So, I focus on the things that I can control. When you then go up the industry, move up the ladder, and then there are still certain glass ceilings that you face, there’s where you start questioning. When you walk into every single room and you’re the first or the only. When you are being questioned on certain things that your male colleagues are not being questioned on. When you face challenges that you make clearly don’t even recognize as challenges. Here’s where you stop asking yourself, “Hey, is this normal or is this because I’m a woman?” So, yes, in the beginning, it was really the knowledge gap. Then, eventually, very quickly, I understood it is not just knowledge. It’s really very much also the fact that, surely, there are not enough women here. Joseph: I do want to come back to this topic toward the end of our conversation. Because I think it’s an important one that navigating, not only being a minority in terms of your experience, but also minority in terms of how you look, where you’re from, and being underrepresented in that way. Right now, I would be interested to hear about the evolution of your career in the face of all this challenge, you did manage to actually progress and navigate your way through the tech sales world. Can you describe what was the evolution like for you going from that first role at Cisco to what you’re now doing for Red Hat? Claudia: [25:20] I started really at the bottom. Meaning, I was a business development representative. Even though my title was account manager, my role was entitled to bring in new business. This is really business development. Meaning, cold calling, prospecting all these types of things. And then, further down the line, there was the evolution in account management after I had gained knowledge, after I had understood really how do our solutions help our customers, and how can we also help broaden the market. I started really with small and mid-sized companies, to prospect on them. And then, further down the line, I became an account manager properly for mid-sized companies. Also, completely leading the French-speaking market for the company I was then working with. Also, as a second — this is where really everything that I learned within politics science came in, was building their relationship with our external partners. That was very much important also in transitioning into that role solidifying that relationship that we had with external partners. Joseph: That’s interesting you mentioned political science. Because, obviously, one of the major challenges and I guess opportunities in any organization is to be able to navigate the politics of the organization. I know you mentioned that you could feel it playing out in your current workplace. Can you just share more details on how did that training and education in political science end up benefiting you in a completely, and seemingly, unrelated industry? Claudia: [26:57] One major factor that attributes to the success I find currently, and also the rewards that I find currently, is my ability to communicate, my ability to present in complex environments and situations, and build the bridge between how a tech solution can help the business. That’s one thing. Within political science, mostly also, you have lots of data. When you go through lots of data sets, you have to make sense. You have to make sense with the data that you have for different stakeholders. This is also something that I do day-to-day; convincing stakeholders, internally and externally. In external, the solution that we’re providing is the best one. So, I would say communication, definitely. Stakeholder relationship also, secondly. And then, reading the room. As in something I would even say, very intuitively, understanding the dynamics of the room. Understanding, “Okay. Can you bring this to the table or not? Can you have this discussion right now or not? Or do you need to convince different stakeholders individually before you come to the bigger table?” This is very much politics. Joseph: Well, before we talk about a few of the lessons you’ve learned along the way of your very interesting career change journey, Claudia, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you a little bit more about your life in sales. For anybody who’s interested in switching into sales, and maybe this is someone who has had zero exposure to sales, has maybe had no experience in sales, what’s something that you think they should know that you wished you had known about the world of sales before making the decision to pursue that route? Claudia: [28:44] I think one thing that I encourage everyone to do is first, just give it a try. There’s a huge misconception about what sales is. We have sleazy car salesmen or women that are trying to oversell you and underdeliver. But, in essence, professional selling, there’s an art and there’s a science to it that entails lots of different elements. Such as negotiation skills, communication skills, and consulting. It is really the consultative approach that, to me, was very appealing inside this industry. If you look at the challenges that customers and companies face today in order to serve their customers better, it is through technology that we help them advance. If you have any type of transversal skill; such as being a good writer, being a good communicator, being a mathematician also, any of these transversal skills that they have. So, being very analytical, being structured. These are the types of characteristics, hard skills, and soft skills, that are being currently looked out for at companies. The most important lesson is just give it a try. Don’t limit yourself. Joseph: That’s a good point, Claudia. I don’t know if I told you this before, but many years ago, I sold life insurance for a large financial institution in Hawaii. I have to say before I went into sales — and this is coming from somebody who was going to pursue a career in medicine. I would say that I did have a sort of a negative perception of the sales industry. Like, pushing products and services onto people, trying to convince and persuade people to buy things they don’t really need. I have to say, I really had my eyes opened when I was in that sales internship. That it is a lot of times about helping people. It’s about helping people identify what can actually benefit them in their right careers. What’s one or two skills that you feel you’ve actually developed as someone in sales that you feel have been especially important to you, in both your professional life but also in your personal life? Claudia: [30:54] Being able to help people. We have the notion, or at least, I have the notion that if we help people, it has to be non-profit. You cannot help people if you are for profit. Being in a professional sales field can show me, first of all, it is your job to be able to help people. If you want to do it right, you really have to get an understanding of what is currently going on in an industry and how your solution can help them. So, very much developing that skill of understanding, that listening skill, was something that I had developed in the past. Being in this industry for so long and for the past eight years has really helped me develop that skill even further down the line. Also, just keep up with the trends of what is going on in your field. I mean, what are the next tech trends? What is the next way? What are the next challenges that companies will be facing? These are the things that I have developed even furthermore. Joseph: Well, the last thing I want to talk about before we wrap up, Claudia, are just some of the key takeaways that you’ve had from your career change journey. I know that one of the things you’re passionate about is the idea that women and underrepresented minorities should advocate for themselves and to speak about their accomplishments in a way that raises their profiles within their current organization and beyond. You had shared a few takeaways from your journey with me before we started speaking. I was hoping we could go through them one at a time. You shared three with me. First, you mentioned that courage is especially important for women. Tell me more about what you mean by that. Claudia: [32:36] I believe courage is so important because, especially when you are from an underrepresented group, I mean women, minority, whatever it is. At times, speaking up for yourself and speaking about accomplishments is very difficult. In the absence of confidence, what do you have? There’s fear and there is a limiting belief. So, how do you overcome that? It is by finding courage and just making the jump. That’s why courage is so important. Because at times, you just don’t have the elements of confidence. For me, that was it. I didn’t have the elements of confidence that I could succeed in an industry, succeed in a role, succeed in a country, that I knew nothing about. So, the only thing that I was left with was my courage to just take a leap of faith, jump, and see what is going to happen. That is why I encourage everyone just find it within you to jump. Joseph: What are a couple of ways that you feel people can advocate for themselves? You had mentioned to me before we start recording that you got to advocate for your accomplishments, and you’ve got to successfully position yourself so that you can be considered for promotion, raises, and opportunities. Claudia: [33:52] Absolutely. I think one of the most important things is to write down every single week — and I’m going to make it very actionable because this is one thing I do. It’s that every single week, block your calendar for 20 minutes and write down 10 things about why you are great, of the things that you do very well. Whether it’s a presentation that you failed; whether it is a co-worker that you helped out; or whether it is a new business that you brought in. Write those things down. Because the misconception is that people see you. The wake-up call is people don’t see you. Especially, with women, we work and work and work, because we think somebody will see us. But, one thing I’ve seen is that, when we work hard in school, we get good grades. When you transmit that same mindset into the workplace, you get frustrated and burnt out because people simply don’t see you. People have their own things on their plate. So, if you don’t advocate for yourself, you’ll be passed by promotions, and salary increases. So many opportunities will just pass you by because you’re not making yourself seen, known, and heard. So, it is your job to really write down those accomplishments, set a one-to-one with your manager, and say, “Here are the three things that I’ve done. Here are the five things that I’ve done that’s helped advance the company. Do you notice, first of all? Can we maybe think about a promotion? Can we talk about a salary increase? Can we talk about my professional growth inside this organization?” Joseph: Yeah. It’s a really good tip, Claudia. As you were sharing that story, I was just thinking about — this might not seem like it’s related. Actually, I was on an airplane yesterday and there were these guys who were trying to catch a connecting flight to South Africa. We were landing in London, and our plane was delayed. They were just standing there in line, and a woman behind him actually said, “Why don’t you just ask people if they can let you through?” Because they were just standing there. They did. And then, people let them through. She was saying, “I don’t know why they didn’t ask for that earlier?” I do think it’s important to not assume that people know what you want but to actually verbalize it, articulate it, and be very specific about what you’re looking for. Claudia: [36:00] We think that people will say no. Very specifically, HBR released a study on how women negotiate. The sad truth about this is women negotiate four times less than men, and women start also with a much lesser salary than men. So, what did accumulate to is that not just are you leaving money on the table, but you’re also leaving money out of your pension, out of any dream that you can aspire to. But, simply by asking, just having the courage to ask, you can really up your salary in a very easy way. Without having to learn the ins and outs of negotiation skills, but just simply asking. Joseph: The third and final point here is that you mentioned the currency for pivoting careers is your professional network. What would you like people to know about the importance of their professional relationships? Claudia: [37:01] This is something I learned very late in my career because one that that, retrospectively, I believe would have made my transition within political science way easier would have been if I had an established network. I did not have any establishment program. Within my family or my close immediates, there was no one that was in the industry I was in, the working industry that I wanted. In IT, in the first place, also no. One thing that helped me a lot was building up a professional network. That network became really my currency with regard to opportunities; job opportunities, and professional development. So, I encourage each and everyone, especially women, to build up that network as soon as possible, if you haven’t done so. If you’re looking especially to pivot into careers, or transition into different careers, such as how we doing now. The easiest way is to reach out to someone in a career that you’re interested in, that is completely different from the one that you are in currently and to have a conversation. Ask, “Okay. What is your day-to-day? How do you become successful in this role? What does it take? You might find that it’s not as far-fetched as you think. That career transition can become much easier and much smoother than if you’re just all by yourself and trying to figure things out all by yourself. Joseph: I was hoping to wrap up by asking you a couple of final questions about some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way. Also, I want to ask you about your book. What’s one thing that you’ve learned about yourself now that you have successfully broken into the tech industry as someone who, at least on the surface, initially, maybe didn’t seem like you had any business being in that industry? Claudia: [38:43] I learned about myself that I have an innate value, and that value is growth. I’ll find to grow in no matter what industry. To me, in the beginning, it was just sheer frustration. Why can’t I make it? Why can’t I become successful? It’s because I had the value of growth. So, today, if I approach companies, this is the first thing that I bring onto the table. What are the possibilities in which I can grow? Because I’ll find them. If I don’t find them inside, I’ll find them outside. That’s I think the biggest lesson. The second one is very much that if I have courage and I stop limiting my beliefs, I can achieve what I want to achieve. I can also reach out to ask other people for help, and that is not a bad thing to do. I don’t have to figure it all out by myself. Joseph: You also wrote a book called, My Hair, My Choice. What’s that book about? Claudia: [39:36] The book, My Hair, My Choice, is a book I wrote for my daughter when she was around 7 years old. She had an encounter at school that wasn’t so pleasant about her hair, about the afro hair that she has. I had that experience too when I was much younger. I wanted to give my daughter an empowering narrative. Because I understand that there will be times when she has to become an ally for herself where nobody will stand up such as when she added incidents in school, and I wanted to give her something that will remind her of her beauty and her strength. So, the book, My Hair, My Choice, is that narrative that she can carry her hair any way she wants, and this is her power, her superpower. Being different is completely normal and being different is your choice. That’s why the book, “My Hair, My Choice,” was written. Joseph: I’m definitely going to check that out. We will include a link to that book in the show notes. Where can people go, Claudia, to learn more about you, and also how they can advocate for themselves in the workplace? Claudia: [40:39] The easiest way that I hang around lot on LinkedIn. You can connect with me at “Claudia Bruce Quartey,” LinkedIn. You connect with me also on my website. I’d be happy to chat with you. Yeah, you mentioned that, in order to help you advocate for yourself, I developed a guide, a very short sweet guide that you can download in which you can write down what other things that make you remarkable, what are the things that make you great, and start advocating for yourself. Joseph: We’ll include a link to that resource also in the show notes. I just really wanted to thank you so much for your generosity in giving us some of your time today and telling us more about your life as a key account manager, how you broke into that industry, and also just the importance of advocating for yourself in the workplace. Especially, if you’re someone who is coming from an underrepresented background. Best of luck to you, Claudia, with all of your work there at Red Hat. I hope it continues to go well for you. Claudia: [41:40] Thank you so much, Joseph, for having me.

Making any major career pivot involves a lot of bravery, risk, and complication. You’re dealing with not only the practicalities of switching career paths but also the insecurities associated with starting over. On Career Relaunch® podcast episode 96, professional ballerina turned Mooch product designer Rina Takikawa describes what triggered her to walk away from a career that was years in the making and the surprising links you can find between two seemingly unrelated careers. This sort of decision to let go of a dream you once held onto so tightly turns out to be quite a common one amongst the clients, listeners, and audiences I cross paths with in my line of work. Rina and I talk about why people make these brave leaps, what you can do to manage the pivot, and how much you end up learning about yourself when you’re forced to reconsider what truly makes you happy. During today’s Mental Fuel segment, I’ll also share a few of the insecurities I wrestled with when I started over in my own career. Key Career Takeaways Your goals can change over time. When you lose the passion you once had for your career, you owe it to yourself to try and move on. Making the decision to walk away from a lifelong dream is never easy, but if you can manage the complexities of letting go of the investment, you may just end up finding much more career fulfillment. If you look hard enough, you can find the surprising, common threads across your seemingly disparate professional endeavors. Listener Challenge During this episode’s Mental Fuel® segment, I challenged you to identify, name, and share one of the insecurities you’ve felt recently in your own career so you can identify it when it shows up, accept it, and not allow it to paralyze you. Remember, having doubts doesn’t mean you’ve made the wrong choice for your career. It just means you’re dealing with a common dynamic that emerges when you make any unconventional move. About Rina Takikawa, Ballerina Turned Product Designer Today, I’m speaking with Rina Takikawa, a product designer based in Los Angeles. She’s one of the founding members at Mooch, a fintech startup building a Gen Z budgeting app, where she leads design and product experience. Rina has been featured in press outlets such as Business Insider and Built In and has spoken at the University of Arizona, UX Copenhagen, Ideate Labs, and CareerFoundry among others. Before transitioning into the tech sector, Rina was a professional ballerina for the Ballet de Catalunya in Spain. Follow Rina on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and her newsletter. Did You Enjoy This Episode? Please Let Us Know! Tweet: If you enjoyed this episode and have a few seconds to spare, Tweet to let me and Rina know! Tweet a thank you! Review: I’d also love for you to leave a positive review and rating for the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Follow: Be sure to follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android to automatically get each new episode on your device. Full instructions. Stay in touch: Follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow host Joseph Liu on most major social media platforms. Connect with Joseph Comments, Suggestions, or Questions? If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners! Leave Joseph a Voicemail You can also leave a comment below. Thanks! Thanks to BrandYourself for Supporting the Career Relaunch® podcast A2 Hosting offers simple tools and services to help control what people find when they Google you. To clean up, protect, and improve how you look online, visit BrandYourself.com and use promo code ‘RELAUNCH’ to get 50% off a Premium membership. Interview Segment Music Credits Podington Bear- Pives And Flarinet Podington Bear – Puppy Podington Bear – Trillium Leimoti – Leave a Mark Podington Bear – Jetsam Bio Unit – Across the Valley Scott Holmes Music – Ambient Meditation Scott Holmes Music – Life In A Moment Episode Interview Transcript Joseph: Hello, Rina. Welcome to the Career Relaunch Podcast. It is great to have you on the show. Rina: [03:18] Thank you for having me. Very excited to be here today. Joseph: Me, too. Alright. Let’s get started here by, first of all, talking about what you’re up to right now. And then, we’re going to go back in time and talk about your former career. I would love to start off by just finding out what you’ve been focused on recently in both your professional and also your personal life. Rina: [03:39] I am currently a product designer at a financial technology start-up called “Mooch.” We are a budgeting app powered by Blockchain, and we focus on budgeting for Gen Zs. So, we have a big Gen Z community of over 50,000 people. In my personal life, I enjoy participating in speaking events. I’m also focused on writing a newsletter every week. I do content creation here and there as well. I’m just very passionate about overall personal branding and sharing my story. So, that’s a little bit about me. Joseph: Now, as I understand it, Rina, you are a product designer at Mooch. In layman’s terms, explain exactly what does a product designer do? Rina: [04:25] A product designer is focused on the product development of an app. On top of actually designing the actual app, I’m also focused on the partner’s experience using the app. So, I mostly focused on how can we design a seamless experience for these people. So, it’s a little bit in factoring everything about a business and a product and experience, in general. Joseph: Do you also get into user experience? So that UX versus product design, do they overlap? Are they related? Rina: [05:04] That’s basically, the partner experience that I was talking about. It’s essentially user experience. What is the experience like during onboarding, during their sign-up process? What is their experience like using an edit functionality? What does your experience look like creating something on an interface? How does the feature function? Whereas, user interface is more so visual designs. How does the layout work? What do they see on the actual app? Product design is basically a coupling UX and UI together, but also focusing on the actual product division and business goals. Joseph: I know that this is a big part of your life right now and definitely what you’re focused on at this moment. You haven’t always been a product designer in the FinTech space, and this show is all about changing careers. I understand you used to be a professional ballerina. Let’s go back in time and talk about your former life as a ballerina. And then, we can talk about how you transitioned into FinTech. I’d love to go all the way back to the beginning. How did you get interested in ballet? Rina: [06:11] I started ballet when I was 5 years old. I believe the reason why was my aunt was a former ballerina as well. And so, she persuaded my mom to put me in ballet classes. Joseph: This was in New York. Is that right? Is that where you grew up? Rina: [06:30] I grew up in New York, but I was born in Singapore. I actually started my baby ballet classes in Singapore. Joseph: Do you remember those classes? Like, do you have memories of being in? Rina: [06:41] I do! Joseph: What was that like? Did you like them? Did you think it’s different from the other activities you were involved with? Rina: [06:47] Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Lots of great memories there. Very happy memories. I know my parents were quite busy when I was young, so I couldn’t go to ballet classes every week. It was more so like once in three weeks. But, I was always very, very excited for my next ballet class. I remember all the ballet kids would exchange candies after class, and I would bring a whole bag of chocolates, and I would just give them to the other kids. It was very wholesome. Joseph: I can’t remember if I talked with you about this last time, Rina. I’ve got a daughter who’s 5 and 1/2 years old. We took her to baby ballet right down the street. I would take her once a week. It was pre-pandemic. She was going at like the age of 3. We’re not doing it anymore. I guess the question that’s running in my head is, at what point does this go from being kind of like a fun thing to do as a kid to something that became more serious for you. When did that happen? Rina: [07:47 8 to 10, when I first started going to point classes, when I first got my point shoes. It was difficult, but it was a challenge that I was excited about. From there, I was kind of imagining my future already as a ballerina. And then, I moved to New York. The teachers there were also very inspiring. That is the real moment where I was like, “I want to be like my teacher.” My teacher was my biggest role model when I was like 12 years old, all the way up to 20. I remember always looking up to her, always fascinated whenever I see her dance. I’m like, “I want to be like her when I grow up.” That was when I was, “I really want to make it to this ballet world.” Joseph: What does it take to make it in the ballet world? Did that become clearer to you from the start? How do you assess whether you are one of the, I guess, few ballet students that can make it professionally in the world of ballet? Rina: [08:48] Ballet is a very, very competitive industry. There’s a lot of females, so it’s very competitive. All I knew at that age of like when I was trying to plan out my future and kind of break down the steps in order to go professional, is I have to keep being persistent, keep training, go to competitions, get awarded, get scholarships, get exposure to international schools and companies, go to summer intensives, and get exposure from other prestigious schools so that directors can start seeing me. I never once had a summer vacation. I’ve always been training every weekend, every day, every holiday, every summer vacation, “vacation.” I would be at a summer intensive at a different school. You don’t go to college if you are pursuing to be a professional ballerina. Just because if you want to be a professional ballerina, you have to start young. Usually, people aim to sign with the company at the age of 18. Joseph: It sounds like this is the level of commitment that it takes in order to break through in that industry. I know you mentioned school before, so it sounds like your schooling was actually focused on the performing arts. Also, you went to the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts for high school. You eventually would go on to the University of Cincinnati. Is that correct? To do your BFA in ballet. Rina: [10:21] Yes. Joseph: Could you give us a glimpse into your journey as a ballerina, and how that evolved then over time? Going from high school, through doing and studying ballet at the University of Cincinnati. Rina: [10:32] I got accepted to Performing Arts High School in New York. My schedule when I was in high school was a lot of dancing. I would dance in the morning. I would go to education classes. Your regular high school, like English, Math, Science, those things. After those, I would go to rehearsals in school. And then, after rehearsals, I would go to my pre-professional intense training studio and train more there. And then, came the decision to make on whether I should be auditioning for studio companies or applying to college. That was a big, big question. Because if you’re not a prodigy, you need a plan B. Ultimately, my decision was go to school. Because, I guess, I could make my parents happy, plus also get the ballet experience that I wanted. I chose the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. Because from what I saw, they had a good reputation of graduates going on to professional companies. It was a really good experience. I went there for two years, instead of the regular four. Just because at the age of 19, that’s when I signed my first professional contract. I decided to drop out of school. Just because being a professional ballerina was the ultimate goal, and I signed that contract which was my dream. When I signed that contract, I dropped everything and I moved to Spain alone to pursue this full-time. Joseph: Before we get to your time working as part of that company in Spain, can you give me a sense of some of the roles that you had up until this point as a ballerina? Rina: [12:23] I was “Kitri” in Don Quixote. Very, very exciting. One of my favorite ballets. In the University of Cincinnati, I had a lot of soloist roles. I was “Cupid” in their Don Quixote production as well. I was the “Silver Fairy” in Sleeping Beauty. I was one of the fairies in our Cinderella production, in collaboration with the Dayton Ballet’s artistic director. Joseph: “Winter Fairy,” is that right? Rina: [12:53] “Winter Fairy,” yes. Thank you. I was one of the fairies. I forgot which one. Another role I was part of the quarter ballet in La Bayadère. I was the first person. This is like all ballet terminologies. There’s this part of the scene in La Bayadère where every dancer has to do an arabesque to penché, and I had to do that 36 times because I was the first person. That was also one of the main highlights of my time at the conservatory. Joseph: I want to switch gears here, Rina, and talk about your time in Spain because here you are as someone who has now left college. You are 19 at this time, so a teenager still. You move to Spain all by yourself. Can you take me back to the moment when you landed in Spain, what was running through your head? First of all, being in a new country. But also, getting ready to sign this contract to join a company there. Rina: [13:52] It was very exciting. It was like a dream come true. Especially, when I got to Spain. We could also talk about the whole annoying process of getting a Visa, and getting an apartment, all in Spanish. That was a real pain. Especially, doing it alone at 19, too. It was very overwhelming, I remember. I don’t know how I did that. I don’t think I could even do it right now, to be honest. I give props to myself for that for handling that whole situation alone. I remember being very, very happy. I’m like, “Okay. This is the start of my professional journey. I’ve made it through pre-professional training. All those long hard years of working hard, and I finally made it to my goal. This was the moment that I’ve been waiting for since a very young age, and I’m here now. I can’t wait to work hard.” And so, those were the feelings that I was feeling when I first landed in Spain. Joseph: Now, I don’t know a ton about the world of ballet, Rina. I guess my only real exposure to it was, I went to Northwestern University as an undergraduate student. Between the school of communication and the school of music, there are actually a pretty sizable group of students that are focused on the performing arts. I was actually an R.A. my junior year at a Humanities dorm that was very popular among students majoring in things like dance or theatre. I got a bit of a glimpse into how hard it is to make it as a dancer. Especially, when it comes to ballet, I feel like it’s typically portrayed as extremely competitive, almost cut-throat, at least in the popular press and in Hollywood. I’m thinking about things like “Black Swan.” Let’s just talk reality here. The good, bad, and ugly of your time at that company. Maybe it’s best to, first of all, start off with the good. Because it sounds like you landed there, you’re very excited. What did you like about being a ballerina in a professional company? Rina: [15:55] I was definitely very humbled. It was hard work getting to where I got. I didn’t want to take anything for granted. I consider myself very lucky too because, as mentioned, this is very competitive. Even signing a contract to be with a ballet company, I was over cloud nine. I consider myself very lucky, very grateful for this opportunity, and very humbled that I’m even at this spot because a million girls would kill to even have this spot in the company. Those were my emotions. Joseph: What was your relationship like with the other competitive, I’m assuming, girls who are also part of your company? Rina: [16:40] The reason why I was so grateful and humbled, not of course being in the ballet company, but aside from that, it was because I was surrounded by people that were so talented. Never in a million years would I have ever thought that I would be training or dancing next to people that were training in the most prestigious schools in Europe. Like, schools that I could never get into, I was dancing next to them in a company together. That was when I would step back and I’ll be like, “Wow! I can’t believe I’m dancing with all of these talented people, almost prodigies, that we’re at the same company dancing together. What’s going on?” That’s why I felt so lucky, so grateful, so humbled. I learned a lot from them. They were very nice people. I definitely knew my place at the company. I’m not trying to be cut-throat here. All I wanted to do was learn from them. That’s part of the good news that we’re starting with, is that I was exposed to a lot of very talented people and nice, nice people. Joseph: What was the hardest thing about being part of that company? Rina: [17:53] Especially, since we’re talking about an international company here where I don’t speak the language, it was extremely hard for me to even be in this country because Spanish was the only language that people were talking in. Building upon that pressure, I ideally wanted to have more support from the leadership team, but it’s not very common unless you are a very big government-supported company that I feel like the leadership would be good. I was kind of expecting not being too supported, but it really hit me when it was my first professional year. I’m like, “Oh, it is very hard when there’s no strong base of leadership.” Joseph: I know when we were talking before this recording. You’d also mentioned that there were some toxic aspects of working in a company. Would you mind walking me through just what aspects of it felt toxic to you? Rina: [18:56] Directors, how they valued their dancers, how they treated them, in terms of just, I guess compensation, but also hours and performance opportunities, and values, and morals. Those things. That’s where we’ll get into why I am who I am today. My values and my morals, it’s deeply rooted in my experience as a ballerina. Joseph: It sounds like on the one hand being, a professional ballerina, it was incredibly exciting. You’re surrounded by incredibly talented individuals. At the same time, sounds extremely intense, long hours. Perhaps some elements of there being a toxic environment, what was your mental health like during this time? We’ll get to your physical in a moment. Rina: [19:544] It wasn’t the best, but I don’t know if I have just toxic positivity. I still remember, literally drilling this in my head like, “Don’t think like that. Don’t think like that. You’re so lucky to be here. You don’t have the privilege to even be thinking about your mental health right now.” I still remember telling myself that. Like, “A million girls would kill to be in your spot. Why are you even thinking about mental health?” That’s because ballet is so competitive that just to be in this spot, you should be so thankful. I don’t think I even gave myself the space to even think about mental health. Even if it’s toxic, I don’t care. Joseph: You’re going to power your way. Rina: [20:43] I’m here. Yeah. This is the world. This is the reality. I can’t complain. I knew that that was what I signed up for. Joseph: Kind of comes with the territory. So, why allow yourself to complain? I know when we spoke before, you also said something that really struck a nerve with me. You’d said that as much as you had put your whole life into ballet, you didn’t know if you wanted to keep doing it. What exactly were you questioning at that time? Rina: [21:10] That was right before I pulled the trigger to make my career change actually. It was a growing pressure of I guess my mental health and my physical health. Just taking a step back to see the experience that I was having in this company, is it really worth it? At a certain point, I was like, “Okay, is this sustainable?” Because I can drill a million positive affirmations into my head, but I just had a breaking point. Even if I change companies and dance at a different company, is this also going to be my experience at that company? The weight of my experience at this company, it being my first professional experience, it just took a big toll on me and it gave me a very scared impression of what I would be going through for the rest of my career if I were to stay on this path. That’s when I really had to face reality. By facing reality, I had to be completely transparent with myself and what I wanted out of life. It was extremely hard just because I was finally at this path of being a ballerina because I signed my first professional contract and dancing in my first professional company. It’s just very ironic that I was even questioning this. But, because of everything that I was going through, I really just had to step back and see if I would be down to put myself through more of these just to climb a ladder. That’s when I remember I was just sitting in my apartment in Spain just literally crying a lot. There’s also the investment of my parents and my teachers. They put so much money into my training. They’ve put so much belief in me. They’ve seen my growth. They see my potential. Do I really want to let them down? Joseph: It’s tough. We talk about this on this show, Rina. You’ve invested so much time into one particular career path, and you almost don’t want to even allow yourself to entertain the idea of walking away from it. Was there a particular moment that you can remember when you did decide that you’re not going to pursue ballet anymore? Rina: [23:35] After my whole breakdown of me thinking about all these factors in my head in my apartment in Spain, seeing if I should pull the trigger or not, what I decided to do after that was go to Japan to get treatment. Because I was also suffering from an injury that couldn’t really be diagnosed in all the hospital visits in my time in Spain. I decided to go back to Japan just to take a little bit of a break. Because I thought maybe time was what I needed to form a decision. There were a lot of things that happened in Japan. I remember being so traumatized by ballet that I couldn’t even watch any ballet videos or listen to any classical music. Every time I saw a ballet video on my Instagram page, I had to skip it over or else I would get anxiety. It just ruined my passion for ballet as a whole. That’s when I decided, “Okay. If I can’t even be listening or watching ballet, I don’t know how I’m going to even dance in a company given my mental health towards ballet at this point.” Joseph: Now, you would eventually move back to New York. Is that correct? Rina: [24:56] Yeah. Joseph: And then, you started to think about doing some other things. Can you walk me through how you started to then pick up the pieces and move forward having now decided to walk away from ballet? Rina: [25:11] When I went back to New York, I started becoming more active in my career change exploration per se. That was when I started exploring courses, and seeing what fields are even outside of ballet. What normal person my age would be doing. I had to re-educate myself on those things and figure out, “Oh, there are internships. There are work studies.” Like, “Oh, these things exist. That’s interesting.” During that process as well, that was when I started also exploring other potential career fields. Such as there’s business, there’s marketing. I took a lot of intro classes just to get my feet wet into different types of industries and fields. During that time, it was actually the start of COVID, too. It was a very scary time. But, even though it was scary, there was also opportunities in terms of everything became virtual. It gave me chances to explore things all online in my own time. It did benefit this exploration period. Joseph: And then, which direction did you ultimately decide to go in with your continuing education? Rina: [26:25] I was debating between psychology, languages, and design. I ultimately chose design. The reason why I chose design is because I remember when I was little, I had to choose between design and ballet. I was actually very passionate in creating things since a young age. I loved scrapbooking. I love playing with clay. I loved just designing, in general. But, I loved ballet more, so I chose ballet. So, when I stumbled upon design again, I’m like, “Okay. Maybe this is my chance to actually take this seriously and learn more about design.” Like, it has some sort of psychological aspect. It has the actual creation aspect. It has this problem-solving aspect. Understanding that, I saw the potential of me actually enjoying it. That’s when I pulled the trigger, and I decided to go to school for it, and I decided to enroll in career foundaries year-long boot camp just to get a better understanding of foundation and more about what this field is like. Joseph: Last question for you about how you end up going into this current industry of yours before we talk about some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way. How did you end up landing your role at Mooch? Rina: [27:54] I knew that ultimately I’ve wanted to inspire other people using my career journey. That was when I was being very proactive and investing in my personal branding as well. Doing so, actually led me to a couple of opportunities starting with internships. Also, that eventually became job roles. And then, my first employer found me through LinkedIn. I think that’s because of all my content creation that I was doing since starting the boot camp. Joseph: You were blogging at the time, is that right? Rina: [28:28] I was doing a lot of content posting on LinkedIn, on my blogs on Instagram. When I was working on my first full-time job, which was a B2B SAS product, I already knew that FinTech is an industry that I’ve always wanted to work in. That was my goal. I knew I wanted to work in the B2C space as well because I do love to understand how consumers behave and think. I’ve always known that. It’s just very fascinating to me. I knew that my first full-time job was just a transition state just to get my experience going. That’s when a friend of mine actually introduced me to Mooch. From there, I became one of the founding members. I was like number four into the team. I’ve been with the team since pre-launch, and it’s been just an amazing journey. It really feels like I’m building with friends. I can’t be more grateful that I am at this company. I’m building a product that I love. I’m building it with people that I love as well. Joseph: The last thing I want to talk about before we wrap up, Rina, are just some of the things you’ve learned along the way of your career journey. You’ve gone from ballet, went through a very challenging period, eventually decided to walk away from that career, and then have now landed in a place that sounds like you’re really, really happy I know you recently spoke at UX Copenhagen in early 2023. As I understand it, you drew some parallels between ballet and product design. What are one or two ways that you see the two being somewhat similar? Rina: [30:11] These are things that I never even thought could be similar when I first started my career change, and it all started making sense when I started becoming more involved in product design. Product design and ballet are both creations where emotions are very important in the process development. For example, how do I want my audience to feel as they watch me dance, is a big driver as to how I’m presenting my movements and how I am even showcasing artistry while I dance. For example, in Swan Lake, it’s a very sad story. In Don Quixote, I’m very sassy and I want it to be a fun experience when the audience is watching this ballet. In Sleeping Beauty, it’s very happy. If I’m a fairy, it has to be very light and very like staccato, very happy light feeling. And so, the takeaway here is what’s the emotion that I want to express while I’m dancing. Same in product design, what do I want my partners to feel as they go through these screens and go through these experiences? The second thing I covered was structure, in ballet, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes that goes on into presenting a movement. From the audience perspective, it might look like I’m just lifting my leg or I’m just dancing on my toes. But, there’s actually a lot of technical sides of how I’m actually presenting that movement. In comparison to product design, how am I structuring complicated technical logic of how this feature is supposed to work into very processable designs where people using the app will be like, “Oh, this is super easy. I just toggle this on and toggle this off.” The hierarchy ways of looking at a specific screen is very easy. It’s very easy to use. The usability is there. The experiences there. Like, we’re not supposed to make people think when they use a design. The result of that is how well do you structure those complicated logics into processable designs. Joseph: One thing we’ve also spoken about before, and something I know you have written about, is this idea that you should prioritize fulfillment in your career and life. Although I know that makes sense intuitively, I also know that fulfillment is not always an easy thing to prioritize because sometimes, it feels at odds with practicality, or societal expectations, or investment, or other constraints that you have in your life. I would be interested to hear how would you describe how you’ve attempted to prioritize fulfillment in your career in life. Rina: [32:58] It comes down to a lot of things but the first thing that I want to emphasize is values and morals when it comes to deciding what you want to do. I feel very humble to even be able to say this because I am able to prioritize fulfillment in my life, but I know that that’s not the case for everybody. So, in order to understand what fulfillment means to you, I have a very strong basis of what I want from a company and what I want my day-to-day to look like. Transparency and awareness around mental health. I would like to work with in a company that values it as much as I do and doesn’t ignore it because at the end of the day, we’re all human and I want to be in a company where they know that we’re all human. I really try to evaluate a leadership team before I say yes to what offer, or before I decide to continue or not continue with the company. That drives fulfillment for me a lot, mental health, well-being. Also, are you working towards a vision that you want to work for? For me, modernizing finances has been a goal of mine. Even if I am experiencing hardships at work or work stress, the vision is there. I know that my teammates and I are aligned on our vision together. That is how I persevere and can persevere. Going back to the whole values, vision is also a big part for me. If the team is right and if the vision is there, then I know I can do it. That plays a big role in value, and then fulfilment. Joseph: Last question for you, Rina, before we wrap up with what you’re doing now. Sometimes, if you come from a very different industry, trying to break into a new sector or job, you might actually see your background as a bit of a liability, especially if you’re competing with more traditional candidates for a specific role. Rina: [35:10] Tell me about it. Joseph: I’m just speculating that this may have come up with you. I’m just wondering if someone is struggling with this, do you have any tips on how you can see your background as a strength instead of a weakness? Rina: [35:25] This is something that I’m still struggling with. It’s definitely a big liability. At a point, it was kind of an insecurity, to be honest. Because after I changed careers, my accomplishments in ballet didn’t mean anything. It was kind of a pride to clear as well. I had to literally start from scratch. Especially getting to that first job as well because again, accomplishments in my previous industry did not matter. Those 15 years of hard work did not matter. There are workarounds, but also what I did was embrace my background and the way I did that was through personal branding. How do I make myself more valuable by utilizing my previous experience? There were no hard skills that could translate over to technology. I really had to see how I could work with my background, and that was by actually embracing my background and seeing how I can use my soft skills that I learned in ballet, translate to technology. I really tried to market myself through personal branding. The first thing not to do is to be insecure about your background, like how I was at the very start, and to think that that means nothing because it does. If I were to continue being insecure about my background when I first started career changing, I don’t think I would have given a talk at UX Copenhagen. Because ultimately, my talk at UX Copenhagen was one of the parallels between classical ballet and product design. The reason why I got to do that talk is because I start embracing my background and started trying to break down how I was able to transition into a totally separate industry from ballet. Joseph: I want to wrap up, Rina, with what you’re doing right now. Tell me a little bit more about your growth newsletter. Rina: [37:27] I recently, very recently, started writing about my growth and documenting my journey. I’m very passionate in growth in general. I’ve always had a passion for documenting things. I was documenting my personal branding and all of that, and that was how my first employer found me. Even now, even though I do have experience and I have a job and all of that, I still prioritize growth in my day-to-day. And so, I created this newsletter where I share with other people what I’m learning at work. If they are interested in product design or start-ups, I write a lot about that. Even when I have conversations, like the one we’re having right now, I write my takeaways in those newsletters. Basically, it’s a newsletter about life, growth, and everything in between. It’s been an exciting journey. Joseph: If people want to learn more about you, or if they want to sign up for your growth newsletter, where could they go? Rina: [38:30] You can search me on LinkedIn or Instagram. It’s just my first name and my last name, pretty standard. Joseph: Finally, are you still dancing? Rina: [38:39] Yes. I am dancing. I am. I dance at least once a week just to keep my technique up. It’s been a great time. I made the right decision at the end of the day because I now have my passion back. Joseph: Well, thank you so much, Rina, for taking me through your life as a ballerina and the steps you took to open up a new path for yourself in product design, during the pandemic, by the way. And also, the importance of prioritizing fulfillment in your life. Best of luck with your role at Mooch, and your newsletter, and also your dancing. Thanks for joining us today. Rina: [39:21] Thank you so much, Joseph. It was such a great time.

Controlling your own professional narrative is especially important when you’re changing career paths. Proactively taking control of your own narrative helps you ensure that your unique value and aspirations come through clearly and convincingly. On episode 94 of the Career Relaunch® podcast, HR adviser turned executive coach Maura Lightfoot shares her thoughts on finding your voice in an environment where you’re an outlier and the importance of identifying the common thread across all your diverse professional experiences. I also share some thoughts on the importance of owning your own narrative during the Mental Fuel® segment. Key Career Takeaways Working abroad gives you an opportunity to find your unique voice when you are an outlier and minority in your workplace. When you’re proud of the work you do and an organization values someone with your unique skillset and background, that’s a sign you’re working for the right employer. Working in a mission-driven world doesn’t preclude you from burnout. In fact, you may be more susceptible to burnout because you’re so passionate about your work. Find the common thread across your work. Everyone has the power to author their own story. Often, you must go through a bit of messy upheaval in your career before you eventually find your way. It’s just part of the journey. Listener Challenge My challenge to you is to take some time to identify the common thread across all the work you currently do and have done in the past. What’s been your common motivation across your roles? What’s the singular purpose that gets you out of bed each day? Try to capture it in words and see how it sits with you. Share that statement with others to see how it lands with them. Making an effort to articular this can hopefully provide you with some clarity and direction when exploring new opportunities and communicating what you bring to the table in those situations. About Maura Lightfoot, Executive Coach Maura Lightfoot knows a lot about taking control of your professional narrative. Consistent throughout Maura’s career has been her drive to empower others in their work. From human resources in the Middle East to financial services management consulting in London to nonprofit organizational culture in Washington D.C., Maura’s international experience equips her with a unique perspective that’s both grounded and global. Now an executive leadership coach, Maura works with clients around the world including North America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Learn more about Maura’s coaching work or connect with her on LinkedIn. Did You Enjoy This Episode? Please Let Us Know! Review: I’d also love for you to leave a positive review and rating for the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Follow: Be sure to follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android to automatically get each new episode on your device. Full instructions. Stay in touch: Follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow host Joseph Liu on most major social media platforms. Connect with Joseph Comments, Suggestions, or Questions? If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered in future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners! Leave Joseph a Voicemail You can also leave a comment below. Thanks! Thanks to Wise for Supporting the Career Relaunch® podcast Wise is the world’s most international bank account. It lets you hold and convert multiple currencies all in one place, offering a smarter, easier way to move money internationally without the typical bank fees or foreign exchange commissions. I’ve used it for years myself to handle many of my own international transactions. Try Wise for free at CareerRelalunch.net/wise. Interview Segment Music Credits Podington Bear – Bountiful Podington Bear – Many Hands Ookean – Paintings Podington Bear – Pink Gradient Podington Bear – Loll Podington Bear – Leftover Fog Bio Unit – Aerial Episode Interview Transcript Maura: [03:01] Thank you so much for having me, Joseph. It’s wonderful to be here. I’m so delighted to reconnect in this way, and really looking forward to the conversation. Joseph: Well, let’s get started by getting a glimpse into what’s happening for you at this particular moment. What are you focused on right now in your career and also your life? Maura: [03:19] I’m currently based in Bethesda, Maryland, which is just outside of Washington, D.C. It’s wonderful because it’s rich in culture. It’s an incredibly diverse place to live, and so we’re enjoying that. As a result of that, and sort of related to that, I’ve had the benefit of working for an international non-for-profit over the past few years. Most recently, I’ve moved into executive leadership coaching. I’m now working with leaders on how and where they show up in the workplace, which is very exciting. Joseph: I also know that you are a mother of two young boys. How do you go about balancing that with starting a new coaching practice? Maura: [03:58] They are a handful, 4 and 6 years old. We do have help. I wouldn’t be able to do this without our wonderful nanny who’s been with us for a few years. One of the benefits of coaching for me, and the reason I made the transition, is to spend more time with them. Being able to spend time with them in the afternoons, and have special time together has made a big difference. Even just the last few months in our relationship, which have been great. Joseph: I’m also, as you know, a career consultant. I know that since moving into working for myself, it has definitely been helpful as a parent. I wouldn’t have it any other way. It definitely offers you some flexibility that you wouldn’t necessarily get if you were in a traditional full-time, corporate role. As I know, you and I have both been in the past. You haven’t always been an executive coach, and I do want to come back to that toward the end to explore your journey into coaching. But could we just go back and talk a little bit about some of the major transitions that you’ve had in your life? We’re going to cover some major geographical transitions, some functional and role changes that you’ve experienced. But I’d love to just go back in time and talk about really the beginning part of your career. As I understand it, you did your undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. What were you studying at the time and what were your initial career plans? Maura: [05:21] I was at Penn. I was an Anthropology, major; African studies, minor. I pursued that because I loved people. I mean to put it very simply, I loved connecting with people and understanding more about their systems and the dynamics between them, intra- and inter-system connections and dynamics. And so, I was able to pursue that in my studies. I did know at the time that I didn’t want to be an anthropologist sort of an academic professionally. So, that opened the door to what’s next. I had this incredible study abroad experience as part of my African studies minor where I was able to spend almost four months in South Africa in an immersion program. We had four homestays. We learned Xhosa through an intensive language study. I found myself in environments that were completely foreign to me and absolutely loved it. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do after undergrad, but I knew I wanted to sort of replicate that experience in some way. Joseph: Now, you posted on LinkedIn last month, which reminded me of you and the work that you’re doing, that you said that one of your top priorities when you were graduating from Penn was to get a job overseas. Why was that so important to you? Maura: [06:40] It all started with that experience studying abroad. I can’t sort of thank the people that were involved in that enough. I grew up in South Jersey. I went to school 20 minutes from home, and very supportive family, and really wonderful environments. I wanted to experience a diverse setting, an environment that was different from that in which I grew up. I was able to do that in my undergrad studies. Wanted to do that again when I graduated. And so, I applied for programs and jobs that were in really kind of remote places. Places you wouldn’t think of necessarily. Joseph: Could you give a sampling of a few of the places you were thinking about going to? Maura: [07:25] Mexico was probably the closest place. I was looking at Peru. I was looking at Vietnam. My two job offers — actually, I only had two in the end. It came down to teaching in Ulan Bator in Mongolia and becoming an HR recruiter in Doha, Qatar. And so, that’s how I ended up in Doha. Joseph: How did you make the decision to go to Qatar over Mongolia? What was the main motivation there? If you can think back that far. I know this is a while back. Maura: [07:56] For me, it came down to the job description itself. It came down to the role that I was doing. I was looking not just for what that was going to be in the moment, but something that would put me in a position that I could sort of leverage that into something, at a later time, that was more a longer trajectory that I was interested in pursuing professionally. So, it was teaching English in Ulan Bator. Very exciting, huge geographic area. I mean there’s so much to do in Mongolia. Doha, Qatar itself, I should say is much smaller. I was moving at the time into an HR role, which I think for myself and my interest gave me kind of a bigger platform that I could then use to springboard into something else in the future. Joseph: Now, I’ve never been to Qatar myself, Maura. I know it’s been in the news a lot lately with the World Cup. I have hosted a webinar for some execs out there. But I don’t know what life is like there on the ground. Could you give me a glimpse into what daily life was like for you there, as someone in her early 20s who had just moved there from the United States? Maura: [09:04] Well, the country itself is only about 2 or 3% Qatari. Not sure exactly the latest numbers, but it’s 98 to 97%, at the time at least when I was there, foreign nationals. There are people from all over the world that go to Doha to work. I was moving into a position working for a construction management firm. We had staff from all over the Middle East, from Australia, from Malaysia, from Canada, from the United States, from the U.K., from Ireland. I mean, all over the world. For in terms of the people that were based in the office, which I was, that was a smaller percentage of staff. Because most of our employees were actually out on construction sites and project sites. So, for those who are in the office every day, I was, myself, the youngest by at least 10 years. I was the only woman who wasn’t a secretary in a secretarial position. I was the only White person. I was the only native English speaker. And, I was the newest person to arrive to the office. Everyone else had been there for at least a few months. It was an incredibly intense, intimidating environment. The people there were very kind, very nice, for the most part. But it was a lot it was a huge transition. On a personal level, I didn’t know anyone when I moved to Doha. I’d gotten the job in the U.S., and was on a plane within two weeks of my job interview. I [knew] a friend of a friend of a friend kind of thing, had one tenuous connection over Facebook that ended up kind of connecting me into a whole social network that I became friends with. But when I first landed, and for a few weeks, I was completely on my own. So, it was very intense. Joseph: We are, coincidentally, we didn’t plan it this way. But we’re recording this on International Women’s Day. Maura: [11:03] That’s true. Joseph: You mentioned that you were the only female in the office who was in a non-secretarial role, one of the youngest, clearly someone who was an outlier and a minority in so many ways, age, race. What was that like for you in the office on a day-to-day basis? Did you think about it? Did it manifest in any way? Did it affect you? If so, how? Maura: [11:25] It did certainly manifest. There are also cultural differences, which I came across, I mean continuously throughout my time there. I think the biggest thing that I had to figure out in that setting was, how do I find my voice? I would say find my feet, but it really became, how do I find my voice? As a woman who came from a family and a culture of strong women, that supports women, wants women to flourish and do well. Not everyone that I was with in that environment shared that sentiment. I, myself, experienced harassment, and inappropriate comments, and managers who didn’t want to support women or kind of thought women had a place that was different than the office, and told me as much. Told me that I would have a ceiling that was very low because I would have to have children someday, and that wasn’t very far off. Not only did I have to find my voice and stand up for myself, I also found that as I did that, other women both in the office and out on the project sites, came to me for support in dealing with the kind of situations that they were facing themselves. I became an advocate for them as well. To the extent where I ended up moving to the Dubai office. I actually ended up putting together an anti-harassment training, which I delivered across the region to other regional offices across the UAE, Qatar, and also Bahrain. That became a key part of the work that I created for myself in that role, and what I wanted to kind of leave behind. Joseph: Very interesting. Sometimes, I think about this, Maura. Because this is 2023, and you kind of hoped that we’ve made some progress in terms of gender equality and women being able to have the same opportunities in the workplace. Again, I’m making some broad generalizations here, but I’m assuming that they’re in a more patriarchal environment. That no matter what you do, it’s kind of hard to get ahead. Would you say that’s a fair characterization or not? Maura: [13:37] I don’t disagree. I would certainly say that women are seen very differently in patriarchal societies through the lens of those who hold on to that view because it’s not just a society as a whole. We all know people who see life in that through that lens, and women are seen differently. It manifests and kind of shows up in the way that they’re spoken to and the expectations that are put on them. Opportunities are not seen to be connected to women in the same way as they are with men. It was a very bizarre experience to have that in 2008 to 2010, not that long ago. I found myself at the age of 22, educating middle-aged men as to the art of what’s possible for women because I grew up with very strong female role models, including my mother who worked and raised four children. And, these men telling me, “Well, enjoy it while it lasts because in a not too distant future, you’re going to have to get married and have kids. And then, your career will be over,” was not my story. I found it important that they knew that, and that they understood that expectations for women don’t have to be different than they do for men certainly. Joseph: I just got back from Pakistan just last week. I was out there for a few days hosting some workshops and I did have a conversation with a woman out there who was talking to me about the gender dynamics there. Again, broadly generalizing a slightly more patriarchal society, just the challenges that still exist right now and it’s hard to navigate it. As someone myself, who is American, when I go into a different culture, sometimes I struggle with how much to voice my views on how things could be versus just the way that it’s been accepted in whatever society I’m in. I struggle with that sometimes. How did you manage that? Like balancing your opinions versus the societal norms in a very different part of the world. Maura: [15:45] I think what I did was not try to project. The big exception being a straight-up harassment case because I did deal with those. That’s, of course, inappropriate. My opinion is that that’s inappropriate in any culture and regardless of gender. But with that being the exception, I mean I tried to explain to people what my views were for myself. Rather than say, “Hey, your expectations for yourself as a woman in this culture are lower than they should be.” Or, “Your expectations for your wife are lower than they should be.” It wasn’t a judgment about others. It was just to say, “Look. This is what I expect for myself, and I know I can do it because I’ve seen other people do it.” So, trying to kind of raise that ceiling through the stories about myself and my own narrative rather than judging others. Joseph: I’m going to shift gears here a little bit. I want to talk about your transition. I know this is just one of the many that we’re going to cover today. So, you’re working in this firm in Qatar, and you’re working in HR. What triggered you to move to London after that? Can you remember what your motivation was in making that move? Maura: [17:10] I can. I’m married to him now. Joseph: That is often the reason why people make international moves. Maura: [17:18] That was very professional and sort of personal driven by me. I ended up, as I said, I didn’t know anyone when I got there. I ended up meeting this great group of people. One of whom I started dating. He got into a Master’s Program in London and said, “Do you want to come with me?” I said, “Sure. I’ll go. I speak English,” which was a big mistake because the English language in the U.K. is very different from American English. I managed to get a Visa for myself, a work Visa, while I was still in Dubai. And then, I moved from there to the U.K. with my work Visa, but with no job. Joseph: I see. This was 2010. Is that right? Maura: [17:54] Yes. Joseph: But I guess the Visa restrictions were not quite as well restrictive at the time. Maura: [17:59] When you’re applying for a job in another country — and I think this is true in most countries. You either need your own Visa, which has a work status, or you need to be sponsored by an organization. Being able to get that U.K. work Visa in Dubai meant that I was applying for jobs in London with the Visa. So, I didn’t need the company sponsorship, which just helped to be honest. Joseph: Can you remember how it felt when you landed in London back in a predominantly English-speaking country? That is, I guess, at least for all intents and purposes, as different as it can get from a place like Dubai, or Qatar, or Doha. Maura: [18:40] I still say this: it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I thought moving to London would be easy for all the reasons that you would assume. It’s incredibly bureaucratic. I wasn’t at the time a British national. We luckily had a family connection, and so we’re able to kind of get an address. Even just getting a cell phone, which you need to apply for jobs because they need to be able to call you, was really actually very challenging. Joseph: Yeah. It is tricky. Maura: [19:12] As much as there wasn’t a language barrier, it was much more bureaucratic, which I found challenging. Joseph: So, you do land in London, you do finally manage to get a mobile phone, and a bank account and those kinds of things you need to get your life started there. Maura: [19:24] Exactly. Joseph: You move to ERM, environmental resources management, and are still working in HR. Could you explain what your trajectory was there? And then, ultimately, what triggered you to then decide to pursue your MBA? Maura: [19:40] So, the challenge in working in HR, and then moving to a different country, is that there’s an expectation when you’re working with personnel that you understand employment law, which I didn’t and still really don’t in the U.K. However, ERM had this great position open which was in the international HR team. So, in their global HR team. Where I was able to work on more strategy-related projects, and I fell into learning and development, which I loved. Always on a global scale, supporting the staff around the world. That worked out really well that I was still applying my HR skill set, and the work that I’d done previously, but on a global scale. I was able to sort of overcome the lack of local employment law issue in that way. As I kind of really got into that work more, I identified that my area of interest was, is/was, the overlap between business and culture. Obviously, I had a degree in culture anthropology. I’ve lived and worked in, at the time it was five, now, it’s almost 10 countries. I had done the HR work, kind of working with people across different cultures. On the business side, I’d worked for these international organizations. But I felt that I wanted to really bolster my business acumen to more to really round out that side of things. That’s where the MBA came in. To give me kind of a stronger business skill set, that business knowledge, if you will. Joseph: This was an MBA at the Cambridge Judge Business School, which is where you and I first crossed paths. Maura: [21:11] Yes. Joseph: It must have been early 2015, or something like that. Maura: [21:16] Yeah, that’s right. Joseph: I guess eight years ago. During that time, you made another shift, and this is oftentimes, the motivation in pursuing an MBA is to make a bit of a pivot. Now, in this case, you made a pivot into the management consulting world, which is not an easy pivot to make. It’s a very esteemed sector. Can you explain how you managed to go from working in HR and learning and development, and then landing a pretty high-profile management consulting role at Deutsche Bank in financial services? Maura: [21:50] I really wanted to round out my professional experience and expertise. I did use the MBA as a pivot opportunity, exactly as you said, and was able to find through one of the recruitment events that business schools often host. A management consulting group that was actually internal to the organization — so Deutsche Bank has an internal management consulting arm, which is a very German model. There are a number of companies that do this. They have a slightly different mindset and approach to the more externally facing management consultancies. I ended up connecting with this group that was really open to people of diverse backgrounds and experiences and saw the value in getting people’s kind of perspectives that weren’t strictly from financial services. I think that’s key to any transition, is kind of being able to find people that are attracted to diversity and attracted to maybe a different skill set and see the benefit of that in the work that they’re doing. And so, GMC group management consulting did that. I found a home there and a team that was really wonderful, and I had an incredible experience there. Joseph: How would you describe the major differences between working and consulting, versus your prior roles? Maura: [23:06] Working in consulting was a painfully steep learning curve, I have to say. I moved from talking with people around the world and developing training that I delivered over webinars to staff across different countries, to sitting in an office for 10 hours a day with no windows in front of a laptop, crunching client data. Using Excel skills that were way beyond my capabilities at the time, and was completely thrown in the deep end. Very high pressure, very high profile, hyperintense, and just completely different with a life that revolved around Excel and PowerPoint. More than kind of the people connection, which I was so used to in the past. Part of my job in the Gulf was driving around the different construction sites, or even flying out to different offices and different countries, and meeting with people and hearing about their issues. My first 10 months at Deutsche Bank, I was sitting as I said in a windowless room in front of Excel with four other consultants. That’s kind of where we were, which is when you think of consulting, that’s often what you think of. Not all of my projects were like that, but it was a complete 180. Joseph: I’m going to read between the lines here a little bit, and correct me if I’m wrong with it. It sounds like you were perhaps more in your natural element in the HR world perhaps because it was your first set of roles, and perhaps because you’d always had an interest in the human side of things. And then, you go into this role, which is very different. As you mentioned, focused around PowerPoint and Excel. How do you reconcile this situation? Where sometimes, you’re in a role where you’re learning a lot, but maybe you don’t feel like it is quite you. How did you think about how long to continue doing that? Because sometimes, what happens is people go into these roles and they do it because they want to learn something, or they want to “do their time.” Especially in consulting. How did you think about how long to stay in that world? Or was that even part of your thought process at the time? Maura: [25:22] It absolutely was. Part of my frustration with HR was people see it as really soft. Or sort of out of touch with the operations or the business side of things, which is why I wanted to kind of connect in that business and culture, those two pieces together, and therefore, I needed more of that business side. I sort of jumped in the deep end in that sense and kind of went to a place that was much, much more focused on the business than the people at least in so many ways, and I anticipated that. And so, I went into a thinking, “This is not forever.” On those really long, really painful days, I thought, “This isn’t forever, right?” I sort of thought that three years seems to be this kind of magic number that I hold in my head when I make transitions. “If I could do this for three years, that’s fine.” Sometimes, it’s two, and sometimes, it’s five. But I sort of hold three years as some type of number for me, which feels manageable and comfortable because it’s a commitment, but it’s not a life sentence. Whatever that number is for others, even if again it doesn’t work out that way. But just to kind of go into something thinking, “Okay. Well, what am I comfortable with? What can I commit to? So, that I’m fully present to what I’m doing and able to really kind of make the most of this time, but I’m not also overwhelmed by, ‘Oh my gosh! I’m stuck here.'” That’s how I looked at it. I ended up staying at Deutsche Bank for almost five years. It did work out quite well for me. Joseph: You would eventually move back to the U.S., which is where you’re now based. How did you come to that decision to move back to the U.S. after going on this incredible journey through the Gulf region, and then to Europe? What triggered you to make that move? Maura: [27:16] While I was at Deutsche Bank, we had two children, our two boys, and had outgrown our flat in London and needed to make a decision of, “Okay. We need to move out. Do we move out to a bigger place in the U.K., or do we move to the U.S.?” For family reasons, for personal reasons, we decided to move to the U.S. I struggled sometimes to say, “Is it back to the U.S. or just to the U.S.?” Because our professional lives, I made my entire professional life, at that point, had been overseas. So, we made the decision to come back here, as I said, just outside of Washington, D.C., which is a very international place which gives me a lot of solace and joy. We have neighbors and friends from all over the world, and also who have a lot of global experience which kind of eased that transition a bit. Joseph: I’ve always wondered about what it’s like to go — I know you said you’d never worked in the U.S. So it was moving to the U.S. At the same time, you’d spent your whole childhood and college years in the United States. What’s it been like for you? Because this was in 2020, right? So you’re coming up to, I guess, three years back in the U.S. Is that correct? Maura: [28:31] Yeah. We moved in late 2019. It was actually six months before COVID lockdown, which is a weird time to transition to a new place. Joseph: I’ll bet. Maura: [28:40] I found that people assumed that we were from here. I mean, we are from here. I’m from New Jersey. But people ask you, “Where are you from?” And you say, “New Jersey,” and they say, “Okay.” Then, they’ve kind of fill in the blanks and assume that that’s been your life, and they don’t understand. They don’t know that I identify as from New Jersey, and so much more than that. It was confusing coming back here and talking with my sister about Roth IRAs, and things like that that my younger sister had more experience with this than I did. Getting frustrated with utilities, and things in my neighbor saying, “What do you mean you don’t understand how it works here?” There are sort of assumptions that because I sound like I do and I look like I do, is that I understood how things work here and I have that lived experience. But, actually, I didn’t necessarily have that lived experience of working professionally in the United States. That’s been a very odd transition, and it’s very easy for us to compare life here to life elsewhere. Primarily, in the U.K. The D.C. area is a great place to be, and we’re enjoying that as well. It’s wonderful to be closer to family. That’s been wonderful. Joseph: So, you go back to the United States, and then you shift into what I’m going to describe — I’m going to put a label on this, but into more of the “mission-driven world.” Oftentimes, when I speak with people who have spent time working in the for-profit corporate world, as you had up until this point, I know that people can sometimes be drawn to more mission-driven organizations. I’m curious what your motivation was in shifting into a more mission-driven world? Then, we can talk a little bit about the realities of that world. Maura: [30:30] While I was at Deutsche Bank, there were a number of corruptions and scandals that were uncovered in the press. As I said, the management consulting group that I was part of was wonderful. The organization, as a whole, was not a place that I was always proud to say I worked when people ask. And so, that’s when I was then leaving, I wanted to find a place and land somewhere where I was really proud to say that I worked there. The D.C. area has a lot of international organizations, international [not-for]-profits. I had the benefit of looking around and saying, “Okay. Well, what are the organizations that I would be proud to work for?” And so, as you say that mission-driven component was very much important to me and a key part of what I was looking for in that next step. Joseph: What were your perceptions of working in the more mission-driven world, and then what was the reality that you experienced? Maura: [31:23] I thought it would be everyone sort of gung-ho supporting a cause that we all believed in. I ended up at the International Baccalaureate. The global component of my work up to that point was still part of the work that I was doing as the head of global employee experience. I loved the work. It very much was gung-ho. We’re all supporting this cause: creating education to make a more peaceful world. I mean, what a mission! The people that truly are passionate about it. That was a wonderful place to be. There’s the flip side to it. People that are so passionate and so mission-driven expect a lot of themselves. One thing that I learned is that there’s a lot of burnouts that happen in mission-driven organizations. Not that there isn’t elsewhere, but certainly more than I expected. I thought, “Well, I’ll be leaving behind these crazy hours at Deutsche Bank,” and that wasn’t the case. I found in the mission-driven, not-for-profit world, people are very much working their tails off and some people are really burning out. In part, because they are so passionate. I was not expecting that. Joseph: The last thing I was hoping to discuss with you before we wrap up by talking about your recent shift into the corporate world are some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way of your interesting career journey. Something you said in your LinkedIn post was that, “Our greatest learning often happens outside our comfort zone where we’re forced to grapple with the uncomfortable, the challenging, and the uncertain.” What’s something that you learned by working in those environments where you were a complete outlier? Maura: [33:10] I would say the key thing is being really aware of yourself, who you are, what you need, and being able to advocate for yourself is critical. That’s where I think became grounded in who I was out of necessity. That’s made a huge difference then in being able to kind of make other pivots because I know where I’m centered from. I know where I’m sort of moving from at my core. Joseph: Speaking of which, what is something that you wished you had known about making major career changes and making major geographical moves that you now know? Maura: [34:09] I wish I had known that I would be able to tell a convincing story that people would actually be attracted to that. So often, I was told that there should be some kind of worry or concern, a fear of making a change, or reasons, focus on the reasons to not do it. What I found was I was always able to find opportunities where that was an advantage. I wish that I had known that that was going to be the case. To not kind of move from a place of worry, but actually to move from a place of opportunity. Joseph: I want to wrap up with what you’re doing now. I know that you’ve recently made the move into the coaching world. Can you explain what that has been like for you to move from working as a full-time employee to starting your own coaching practice? Maura: [35:05] For myself, to be able to explain that, and for other people to kind of follow, those shifts is to have sort of a common thread throughout that. For me, the connection throughout all the changes I’ve made is that I am motivated by the ability to empower others in their work. That’s what gets me out of bed. What I’ve done most recently is I’ve moved from empowering others in their work from a kind of organizational level, working in employee experience at a global organization, to empowering others in their work on a one-to-one level as an executive leadership coach. What I’m finding is that the frustrations that I’ve had with organizations in the past, that change is too slow. It takes too much time for organizations to really make meaningful transitions, et cetera. That is all wiped away when you’re working one-to-one with individuals. There’s change happening you know within 45 minutes, within a single call. Let alone over six months or so. It’s been incredibly exciting, energizing, gratifying, and humbling to be witness to that change and to be part of people’s journeys as they’re figuring out where they want to show up, and how they want to show up and to support them as they grow and transform. Joseph: What have you found challenging about this specific transition? Maura: [36:31] It can be a bit lonely. I’m a very collaborative person. I love working with teams. Being a one-to-one exec leadership coach is a bit lonely. I’m starting to expand that and work with teams and do more consulting work, which is great. That’s been kind of the biggest challenge so far. Joseph: When we were prepping for this call, I remember you mentioning something about this concept of a metamorphosis related to a caterpillar going to a butterfly. You mentioned this concept of “bug soup.” Could you just remind me, what’s that all about, and how has that related to your journey, into coaching? Maura: [37:09] I started this transition back in August, September last year, which is around the same time in the northeast of the United States when Monarch butterfly caterpillars go into their chrysalis. We happened to have a caterpillar and we’re doing this with my kids as an activity. We’re doing a lot of research into what’s happening, so we can explain to them. I learned at that time that actually when a chrysalis is formed, if you were to open it up prematurely, in the middle of the metamorphosis, it’s actually a green goo that you’d find inside. What happens is the caterpillar breaks down all of its — okay, I’m not a scientist, that’s my disclaimer. It breaks down kind of all of its softer parts, into this bug soup, and then, it reconstructs into the butterfly. And then, when it’s ready, it opens and we know what happens after that. And so, I was really struck as I was going through this process of establishing my own coaching practice by also learning about this concept of bug soup. I thought, “Well, that’s what’s happening to me.” I’m in the middle of this bug soup, where I sort of feel like I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m stepping out on my own, and I’m moving from the comfort and security of a pay check in an organization and a team to being completely on my own and building a business. I’m bug soup. I think the lesson there for me is that kind of acknowledging that it was — as I had an MBA professor said, the messy middle, that that’s okay. That’s part of the process. And, sort of trusting that I’ll come out on the other side in some form or another. Hopefully, a good one that can fly. But that was comforting for me at the time to kind of know that even animals go through, our bugs, go through this and I wasn’t so different in that sense. Joseph: Speaking of this metamorphosis, the final question for you, Maura. What’s something you’ve learned about yourself as you’ve made this shift from the corporate world into starting your independent executive coaching practice? Maura: [39:15] A key lesson for me has been, and continues to be, that I can and do every day author my own story. It’s something that I talk with my coaching clients about in terms of what’s your story and the power of stories. So often, we tell ourselves certain things, we tell ourselves stories. There’s a narrative in our heads, and that is so powerful in terms of shaping who we are and how we show up. We’re talking about career transitions. Everyone has the power to author their own story. I talked to my coaching clients about this. The power of stories that we tell ourselves, the narratives in our heads, we all have it. The stories that we create, that we narrate, both looking back in terms of what we want to glean from where we’ve come from and also looking forward, in terms of where we want to go and how we’re going to get there are instrumental in shaping us as personal, as individuals and as professionals. I think there are kind of three key things in terms of making those transitions successful. The self-awareness and reflection to actually consider what are your skills, what are the gaps, what do you desire, and what’s the rationale for that. There’s a need to understand what others need. Whether it’s an individual or a system. How can you fit into their needs? How can you kind of bring, as I sort of mentioned as an example, the human side to the consulting work? How is that going to benefit that organization, as an example? And then, the third is to be able to tell a convincing and authentic story. If you can do those three things, that’s it. That’s the magic. Everyone can do that. I truly believe it. Everyone has the ability to do this. Joseph: Well, if people are interested in learning more about what you do, or if they need some help with figuring out the human side of their own career story and crafting their own narrative, where can people go to learn more about you or the coaching work that you do? Maura: [41:21] LinkedIn. I’m Maura Connell Lightfoot. My organization is MCL Coaching and Consulting. Anyone can find me on LinkedIn, or at mclcoaching.org. Joseph: Thank you so much, Maura, for reconnecting. It’s nice to speak with you again after all these years, and telling us more about your life and the Gulf, your various InterContinental moves, how you’ve overcome the challenges along the way, and also some of your own reflections as you have continued to evolve your own career. So, best of luck with your executive coaching endeavors, authoring this chapter of your own career story and also empowering others to do the same in their professional lives. Thanks for coming on to the show. Maura: [42:02] Thank you so much, Joseph. It’s been my pleasure. I appreciate it. Maura: [03:01] Thank you so much for having me, Joseph. It’s wonderful to be here. I’m so delighted to reconnect in this way, and really looking forward to the conversation. Joseph: Well, let’s get started by getting a glimpse into what’s happening for you at this particular moment. What are you focused on right now in your career and also your life? Maura: [03:19] I’m currently based in Bethesda, Maryland, which is just outside of Washington, D.C. It’s wonderful because it’s rich in culture. It’s an incredibly diverse place to live, and so we’re enjoying that. As a result of that, and sort of related to that, I’ve had the benefit of working for an international non-for-profit over the past few years. Most recently, I’ve moved into executive leadership coaching. I’m now working with leaders on how and where they show up in the workplace, which is very exciting. Joseph: I also know that you are a mother of two young boys. How do you go about balancing that with starting a new coaching practice? Maura: [03:58] They are a handful, 4 and 6 years old. We do have help. I wouldn’t be able to do this without our wonderful nanny who’s been with us for a few years. One of the benefits of coaching for me, and the reason I made the transition, is to spend more time with them. Being able to spend time with them in the afternoons, and have special time together has made a big difference. Even just the last few months in our relationship, which have been great. Joseph: I’m also, as you know, a career consultant. I know that since moving into working for myself, it has definitely been helpful as a parent. I wouldn’t have it any other way. It definitely offers you some flexibility that you wouldn’t necessarily get if you were in a traditional full-time, corporate role. As I know, you and I have both been in the past. You haven’t always been an executive coach, and I do want to come back to that toward the end to explore your journey into coaching. But could we just go back and talk a little bit about some of the major transitions that you’ve had in your life? We’re going to cover some major geographical transitions, some functional and role changes that you’ve experienced. But I’d love to just go back in time and talk about really the beginning part of your career. As I understand it, you did your undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. What were you studying at the time and what were your initial career plans? Maura: [05:21] I was at Penn. I was an Anthropology, major; African studies, minor. I pursued that because I loved people. I mean to put it very simply, I loved connecting with people and understanding more about their systems and the dynamics between them, intra- and inter-system connections and dynamics. And so, I was able to pursue that in my studies. I did know at the time that I didn’t want to be an anthropologist sort of an academic professionally. So, that opened the door to what’s next. I had this incredible study abroad experience as part of my African studies minor where I was able to spend almost four months in South Africa in an immersion program. We had four homestays. We learned Xhosa through an intensive language study. I found myself in environments that were completely foreign to me and absolutely loved it. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do after undergrad, but I knew I wanted to sort of replicate that experience in some way. Joseph: Now, you posted on LinkedIn last month, which reminded me of you and the work that you’re doing, that you said that one of your top priorities when you were graduating from Penn was to get a job overseas. Why was that so important to you? Maura: [06:40] It all started with that experience studying abroad. I can’t sort of thank the people that were involved in that enough. I grew up in South Jersey. I went to school 20 minutes from home, and very supportive family, and really wonderful environments. I wanted to experience a diverse setting, an environment that was different from that in which I grew up. I was able to do that in my undergrad studies. Wanted to do that again when I graduated. And so, I applied for programs and jobs that were in really kind of remote places. Places you wouldn’t think of necessarily. Joseph: Could you give a sampling of a few of the places you were thinking about going to? Maura: [07:25] Mexico was probably the closest place. I was looking at Peru. I was looking at Vietnam. My two job offers — actually, I only had two in the end. It came down to teaching in Ulan Bator in Mongolia and becoming an HR recruiter in Doha, Qatar. And so, that’s how I ended up in Doha. Joseph: How did you make the decision to go to Qatar over Mongolia? What was the main motivation there? If you can think back that far. I know this is a while back. Maura: [07:56] For me, it came down to the job description itself. It came down to the role that I was doing. I was looking not just for what that was going to be in the moment, but something that would put me in a position that I could sort of leverage that into something, at a later time, that was more a longer trajectory that I was interested in pursuing professionally. So, it was teaching English in Ulan Bator. Very exciting, huge geographic area. I mean there’s so much to do in Mongolia. Doha, Qatar itself, I should say is much smaller. I was moving at the time into an HR role, which I think for myself and my interest gave me kind of a bigger platform that I could then use to springboard into something else in the future. Joseph: Now, I’ve never been to Qatar myself, Maura. I know it’s been in the news a lot lately with the World Cup. I have hosted a webinar for some execs out there. But I don’t know what life is like there on the ground. Could you give me a glimpse into what daily life was like for you there, as someone in her early 20s who had just moved there from the United States? Maura: [09:04] Well, the country itself is only about 2 or 3% Qatari. Not sure exactly the latest numbers, but it’s 98 to 97%, at the time at least when I was there, foreign nationals. There are people from all over the world that go to Doha to work. I was moving into a position working for a construction management firm. We had staff from all over the Middle East, from Australia, from Malaysia, from Canada, from the United States, from the U.K., from Ireland. I mean, all over the world. For in terms of the people that were based in the office, which I was, that was a smaller percentage of staff. Because most of our employees were actually out on construction sites and project sites. So, for those who are in the office every day, I was, myself, the youngest by at least 10 years. I was the only woman who wasn’t a secretary in a secretarial position. I was the only White person. I was the only native English speaker. And, I was the newest person to arrive to the office. Everyone else had been there for at least a few months. It was an incredibly intense, intimidating environment. The people there were very kind, very nice, for the most part. But it was a lot it was a huge transition. On a personal level, I didn’t know anyone when I moved to Doha. I’d gotten the job in the U.S., and was on a plane within two weeks of my job interview. I [knew] a friend of a friend of a friend kind of thing, had one tenuous connection over Facebook that ended up kind of connecting me into a whole social network that I became friends with. But when I first landed, and for a few weeks, I was completely on my own. So, it was very intense. Joseph: We are, coincidentally, we didn’t plan it this way. But we’re recording this on International Women’s Day. Maura: [11:03] That’s true. Joseph: You mentioned that you were the only female in the office who was in a non-secretarial role, one of the youngest, clearly someone who was an outlier and a minority in so many ways, age, race. What was that like for you in the office on a day-to-day basis? Did you think about it? Did it manifest in any way? Did it affect you? If so, how? Maura: [11:25] It did certainly manifest. There are also cultural differences, which I came across, I mean continuously throughout my time there. I think the biggest thing that I had to figure out in that setting was, how do I find my voice? I would say find my feet, but it really became, how do I find my voice? As a woman who came from a family and a culture of strong women, that supports women, wants women to flourish and do well. Not everyone that I was with in that environment shared that sentiment. I, myself, experienced harassment, and inappropriate comments, and managers who didn’t want to support women or kind of thought women had a place that was different than the office, and told me as much. Told me that I would have a ceiling that was very low because I would have to have children someday, and that wasn’t very far off. Not only did I have to find my voice and stand up for myself, I also found that as I did that, other women both in the office and out on the project sites, came to me for support in dealing with the kind of situations that they were facing themselves. I became an advocate for them as well. To the extent where I ended up moving to the Dubai office. I actually ended up putting together an anti-harassment training, which I delivered across the region to other regional offices across the UAE, Qatar, and also Bahrain. That became a key part of the work that I created for myself in that role, and what I wanted to kind of leave behind. Joseph: Very interesting. Sometimes, I think about this, Maura. Because this is 2023, and you kind of hoped that we’ve made some progress in terms of gender equality and women being able to have the same opportunities in the workplace. Again, I’m making some broad generalizations here, but I’m assuming that they’re in a more patriarchal environment. That no matter what you do, it’s kind of hard to get ahead. Would you say that’s a fair characterization or not? Maura: [13:37] I don’t disagree. I would certainly say that women are seen very differently in patriarchal societies through the lens of those who hold on to that view because it’s not just a society as a whole. We all know people who see life in that through that lens, and women are seen differently. It manifests and kind of shows up in the way that they’re spoken to and the expectations that are put on them. Opportunities are not seen to be connected to women in the same way as they are with men. It was a very bizarre experience to have that in 2008 to 2010, not that long ago. I found myself at the age of 22, educating middle-aged men as to the art of what’s possible for women because I grew up with very strong female role models, including my mother who worked and raised four children. And, these men telling me, “Well, enjoy it while it lasts because in a not too distant future, you’re going to have to get married and have kids. And then, your career will be over,” was not my story. I found it important that they knew that, and that they understood that expectations for women don’t have to be different than they do for men certainly. Joseph: I just got back from Pakistan just last week. I was out there for a few days hosting some workshops and I did have a conversation with a woman out there who was talking to me about the gender dynamics there. Again, broadly generalizing a slightly more patriarchal society, just the challenges that still exist right now and it’s hard to navigate it. As someone myself, who is American, when I go into a different culture, sometimes I struggle with how much to voice my views on how things could be versus just the way that it’s been accepted in whatever society I’m in. I struggle with that sometimes. How did you manage that? Like balancing your opinions versus the societal norms in a very different part of the world. Maura: [15:45] I think what I did was not try to project. The big exception being a straight-up harassment case because I did deal with those. That’s, of course, inappropriate. My opinion is that that’s inappropriate in any culture and regardless of gender. But with that being the exception, I mean I tried to explain to people what my views were for myself. Rather than say, “Hey, your expectations for yourself as a woman in this culture are lower than they should be.” Or, “Your expectations for your wife are lower than they should be.” It wasn’t a judgment about others. It was just to say, “Look. This is what I expect for myself, and I know I can do it because I’ve seen other people do it.” So, trying to kind of raise that ceiling through the stories about myself and my own narrative rather than judging others. Joseph: I’m going to shift gears here a little bit. I want to talk about your transition. I know this is just one of the many that we’re going to cover today. So, you’re working in this firm in Qatar, and you’re working in HR. What triggered you to move to London after that? Can you remember what your motivation was in making that move? Maura: [17:10] I can. I’m married to him now. Joseph: That is often the reason why people make international moves. Maura: [17:18] That was very professional and sort of personal driven by me. I ended up, as I said, I didn’t know anyone when I got there. I ended up meeting this great group of people. One of whom I started dating. He got into a Master’s Program in London and said, “Do you want to come with me?” I said, “Sure. I’ll go. I speak English,” which was a big mistake because the English language in the U.K. is very different from American English. I managed to get a Visa for myself, a work Visa, while I was still in Dubai. And then, I moved from there to the U.K. with my work Visa, but with no job. Joseph: I see. This was 2010. Is that right? Maura: [17:54] Yes. Joseph: But I guess the Visa restrictions were not quite as well restrictive at the time. Maura: [17:59] When you’re applying for a job in another country — and I think this is true in most countries. You either need your own Visa, which has a work status, or you need to be sponsored by an organization. Being able to get that U.K. work Visa in Dubai meant that I was applying for jobs in London with the Visa. So, I didn’t need the company sponsorship, which just helped to be honest. Joseph: Can you remember how it felt when you landed in London back in a predominantly English-speaking country? That is, I guess, at least for all intents and purposes, as different as it can get from a place like Dubai, or Qatar, or Doha. Maura: [18:40] I still say this: it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I thought moving to London would be easy for all the reasons that you would assume. It’s incredibly bureaucratic. I wasn’t at the time a British national. We luckily had a family connection, and so we’re able to kind of get an address. Even just getting a cell phone, which you need to apply for jobs because they need to be able to call you, was really actually very challenging. Joseph: Yeah. It is tricky. Maura: [19:12] As much as there wasn’t a language barrier, it was much more bureaucratic, which I found challenging. Joseph: So, you do land in London, you do finally manage to get a mobile phone, and a bank account and those kinds of things you need to get your life started there. Maura: [19:24] Exactly. Joseph: You move to ERM, environmental resources management, and are still working in HR. Could you explain what your trajectory was there? And then, ultimately, what triggered you to then decide to pursue your MBA? Maura: [19:40] So, the challenge in working in HR, and then moving to a different country, is that there’s an expectation when you’re working with personnel that you understand employment law, which I didn’t and still really don’t in the U.K. However, ERM had this great position open which was in the international HR team. So, in their global HR team. Where I was able to work on more strategy-related projects, and I fell into learning and development, which I loved. Always on a global scale, supporting the staff around the world. That worked out really well that I was still applying my HR skill set, and the work that I’d done previously, but on a global scale. I was able to sort of overcome the lack of local employment law issue in that way. As I kind of really got into that work more, I identified that my area of interest was, is/was, the overlap between business and culture. Obviously, I had a degree in culture anthropology. I’ve lived and worked in, at the time it was five, now, it’s almost 10 countries. I had done the HR work, kind of working with people across different cultures. On the business side, I’d worked for these international organizations. But I felt that I wanted to really bolster my business acumen to more to really round out that side of things. That’s where the MBA came in. To give me kind of a stronger business skill set, that business knowledge, if you will. Joseph: This was an MBA at the Cambridge Judge Business School, which is where you and I first crossed paths. Maura: [21:11] Yes. Joseph: It must have been early 2015, or something like that. Maura: [21:16] Yeah, that’s right. Joseph: I guess eight years ago. During that time, you made another shift, and this is oftentimes, the motivation in pursuing an MBA is to make a bit of a pivot. Now, in this case, you made a pivot into the management consulting world, which is not an easy pivot to make. It’s a very esteemed sector. Can you explain how you managed to go from working in HR and learning and development, and then landing a pretty high-profile management consulting role at Deutsche Bank in financial services? Maura: [21:50] I really wanted to round out my professional experience and expertise. I did use the MBA as a pivot opportunity, exactly as you said, and was able to find through one of the recruitment events that business schools often host. A management consulting group that was actually internal to the organization — so Deutsche Bank has an internal management consulting arm, which is a very German model. There are a number of companies that do this. They have a slightly different mindset and approach to the more externally facing management consultancies. I ended up connecting with this group that was really open to people of diverse backgrounds and experiences and saw the value in getting people’s kind of perspectives that weren’t strictly from financial services. I think that’s key to any transition, is kind of being able to find people that are attracted to diversity and attracted to maybe a different skill set and see the benefit of that in the work that they’re doing. And so, GMC group management consulting did that. I found a home there and a team that was really wonderful, and I had an incredible experience there. Joseph: How would you describe the major differences between working and consulting, versus your prior roles? Maura: [23:06] Working in consulting was a painfully steep learning curve, I have to say. I moved from talking with people around the world and developing training that I delivered over webinars to staff across different countries, to sitting in an office for 10 hours a day with no windows in front of a laptop, crunching client data. Using Excel skills that were way beyond my capabilities at the time, and was completely thrown in the deep end. Very high pressure, very high profile, hyperintense, and just completely different with a life that revolved around Excel and PowerPoint. More than kind of the people connection, which I was so used to in the past. Part of my job in the Gulf was driving around the different construction sites, or even flying out to different offices and different countries, and meeting with people and hearing about their issues. My first 10 months at Deutsche Bank, I was sitting as I said in a windowless room in front of Excel with four other consultants. That’s kind of where we were, which is when you think of consulting, that’s often what you think of. Not all of my projects were like that, but it was a complete 180. Joseph: I’m going to read between the lines here a little bit, and correct me if I’m wrong with it. It sounds like you were perhaps more in your natural element in the HR world perhaps because it was your first set of roles, and perhaps because you’d always had an interest in the human side of things. And then, you go into this role, which is very different. As you mentioned, focused around PowerPoint and Excel. How do you reconcile this situation? Where sometimes, you’re in a role where you’re learning a lot, but maybe you don’t feel like it is quite you. How did you think about how long to continue doing that? Because sometimes, what happens is people go into these roles and they do it because they want to learn something, or they want to “do their time.” Especially in consulting. How did you think about how long to stay in that world? Or was that even part of your thought process at the time? Maura: [25:22] It absolutely was. Part of my frustration with HR was people see it as really soft. Or sort of out of touch with the operations or the business side of things, which is why I wanted to kind of connect in that business and culture, those two pieces together, and therefore, I needed more of that business side. I sort of jumped in the deep end in that sense and kind of went to a place that was much, much more focused on the business than the people at least in so many ways, and I anticipated that. And so, I went into a thinking, “This is not forever.” On those really long, really painful days, I thought, “This isn’t forever, right?” I sort of thought that three years seems to be this kind of magic number that I hold in my head when I make transitions. “If I could do this for three years, that’s fine.” Sometimes, it’s two, and sometimes, it’s five. But I sort of hold three years as some type of number for me, which feels manageable and comfortable because it’s a commitment, but it’s not a life sentence. Whatever that number is for others, even if again it doesn’t work out that way. But just to kind of go into something thinking, “Okay. Well, what am I comfortable with? What can I commit to? So, that I’m fully present to what I’m doing and able to really kind of make the most of this time, but I’m not also overwhelmed by, ‘Oh my gosh! I’m stuck here.'” That’s how I looked at it. I ended up staying at Deutsche Bank for almost five years. It did work out quite well for me. Joseph: You would eventually move back to the U.S., which is where you’re now based. How did you come to that decision to move back to the U.S. after going on this incredible journey through the Gulf region, and then to Europe? What triggered you to make that move? Maura: [27:16] While I was at Deutsche Bank, we had two children, our two boys, and had outgrown our flat in London and needed to make a decision of, “Okay. We need to move out. Do we move out to a bigger place in the U.K., or do we move to the U.S.?” For family reasons, for personal reasons, we decided to move to the U.S. I struggled sometimes to say, “Is it back to the U.S. or just to the U.S.?” Because our professional lives, I made my entire professional life, at that point, had been overseas. So, we made the decision to come back here, as I said, just outside of Washington, D.C., which is a very international place which gives me a lot of solace and joy. We have neighbors and friends from all over the world, and also who have a lot of global experience which kind of eased that transition a bit. Joseph: I’ve always wondered about what it’s like to go — I know you said you’d never worked in the U.S. So it was moving to the U.S. At the same time, you’d spent your whole childhood and college years in the United States. What’s it been like for you? Because this was in 2020, right? So you’re coming up to, I guess, three years back in the U.S. Is that correct? Maura: [28:31] Yeah. We moved in late 2019. It was actually six months before COVID lockdown, which is a weird time to transition to a new place. Joseph: I’ll bet. Maura: [28:40] I found that people assumed that we were from here. I mean, we are from here. I’m from New Jersey. But people ask you, “Where are you from?” And you say, “New Jersey,” and they say, “Okay.” Then, they’ve kind of fill in the blanks and assume that that’s been your life, and they don’t understand. They don’t know that I identify as from New Jersey, and so much more than that. It was confusing coming back here and talking with my sister about Roth IRAs, and things like that that my younger sister had more experience with this than I did. Getting frustrated with utilities, and things in my neighbor saying, “What do you mean you don’t understand how it works here?” There are sort of assumptions that because I sound like I do and I look like I do, is that I understood how things work here and I have that lived experience. But, actually, I didn’t necessarily have that lived experience of working professionally in the United States. That’s been a very odd transition, and it’s very easy for us to compare life here to life elsewhere. Primarily, in the U.K. The D.C. area is a great place to be, and we’re enjoying that as well. It’s wonderful to be closer to family. That’s been wonderful. Joseph: So, you go back to the United States, and then you shift into what I’m going to describe — I’m going to put a label on this, but into more of the “mission-driven world.” Oftentimes, when I speak with people who have spent time working in the for-profit corporate world, as you had up until this point, I know that people can sometimes be drawn to more mission-driven organizations. I’m curious what your motivation was in shifting into a more mission-driven world? Then, we can talk a little bit about the realities of that world. Maura: [30:30] While I was at Deutsche Bank, there were a number of corruptions and scandals that were uncovered in the press. As I said, the management consulting group that I was part of was wonderful. The organization, as a whole, was not a place that I was always proud to say I worked when people ask. And so, that’s when I was then leaving, I wanted to find a place and land somewhere where I was really proud to say that I worked there. The D.C. area has a lot of international organizations, international [not-for]-profits. I had the benefit of looking around and saying, “Okay. Well, what are the organizations that I would be proud to work for?” And so, as you say that mission-driven component was very much important to me and a key part of what I was looking for in that next step. Joseph: What were your perceptions of working in the more mission-driven world, and then what was the reality that you experienced? Maura: [31:23] I thought it would be everyone sort of gung-ho supporting a cause that we all believed in. I ended up at the International Baccalaureate. The global component of my work up to that point was still part of the work that I was doing as the head of global employee experience. I loved the work. It very much was gung-ho. We’re all supporting this cause: creating education to make a more peaceful world. I mean, what a mission! The people that truly are passionate about it. That was a wonderful place to be. There’s the flip side to it. People that are so passionate and so mission-driven expect a lot of themselves. One thing that I learned is that there’s a lot of burnouts that happen in mission-driven organizations. Not that there isn’t elsewhere, but certainly more than I expected. I thought, “Well, I’ll be leaving behind these crazy hours at Deutsche Bank,” and that wasn’t the case. I found in the mission-driven, not-for-profit world, people are very much working their tails off and some people are really burning out. In part, because they are so passionate. I was not expecting that. Joseph: The last thing I was hoping to discuss with you before we wrap up by talking about your recent shift into the corporate world are some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way of your interesting career journey. Something you said in your LinkedIn post was that, “Our greatest learning often happens outside our comfort zone where we’re forced to grapple with the uncomfortable, the challenging, and the uncertain.” What’s something that you learned by working in those environments where you were a complete outlier? Maura: [33:10] I would say the key thing is being really aware of yourself, who you are, what you need, and being able to advocate for yourself is critical. That’s where I think became grounded in who I was out of necessity. That’s made a huge difference then in being able to kind of make other pivots because I know where I’m centered from. I know where I’m sort of moving from at my core. Joseph: Speaking of which, what is something that you wished you had known about making major career changes and making major geographical moves that you now know? Maura: [34:09] I wish I had known that I would be able to tell a convincing story that people would actually be attracted to that. So often, I was told that there should be some kind of worry or concern, a fear of making a change, or reasons, focus on the reasons to not do it. What I found was I was always able to find opportunities where that was an advantage. I wish that I had known that that was going to be the case. To not kind of move from a place of worry, but actually to move from a place of opportunity. Joseph: I want to wrap up with what you’re doing now. I know that you’ve recently made the move into the coaching world. Can you explain what that has been like for you to move from working as a full-time employee to starting your own coaching practice? Maura: [35:05] For myself, to be able to explain that, and for other people to kind of follow, those shifts is to have sort of a common thread throughout that. For me, the connection throughout all the changes I’ve made is that I am motivated by the ability to empower others in their work. That’s what gets me out of bed. What I’ve done most recently is I’ve moved from empowering others in their work from a kind of organizational level, working in employee experience at a global organization, to empowering others in their work on a one-to-one level as an executive leadership coach. What I’m finding is that the frustrations that I’ve had with organizations in the past, that change is too slow. It takes too much time for organizations to really make meaningful transitions, et cetera. That is all wiped away when you’re working one-to-one with individuals. There’s change happening you know within 45 minutes, within a single call. Let alone over six months or so. It’s been incredibly exciting, energizing, gratifying, and humbling to be witness to that change and to be part of people’s journeys as they’re figuring out where they want to show up, and how they want to show up and to support them as they grow and transform. Joseph: What have you found challenging about this specific transition? Maura: [36:31] It can be a bit lonely. I’m a very collaborative person. I love working with teams. Being a one-to-one exec leadership coach is a bit lonely. I’m starting to expand that and work with teams and do more consulting work, which is great. That’s been kind of the biggest challenge so far. Joseph: When we were prepping for this call, I remember you mentioning something about this concept of a metamorphosis related to a caterpillar going to a butterfly. You mentioned this concept of “bug soup.” Could you just remind me, what’s that all about, and how has that related to your journey, into coaching? Maura: [37:09] I started this transition back in August, September last year, which is around the same time in the northeast of the United States when Monarch butterfly caterpillars go into their chrysalis. We happened to have a caterpillar and we’re doing this with my kids as an activity. We’re doing a lot of research into what’s happening, so we can explain to them. I learned at that time that actually when a chrysalis is formed, if you were to open it up prematurely, in the middle of the metamorphosis, it’s actually a green goo that you’d find inside. What happens is the caterpillar breaks down all of its — okay, I’m not a scientist, that’s my disclaimer. It breaks down kind of all of its softer parts, into this bug soup, and then, it reconstructs into the butterfly. And then, when it’s ready, it opens and we know what happens after that. And so, I was really struck as I was going through this process of establishing my own coaching practice by also learning about this concept of bug soup. I thought, “Well, that’s what’s happening to me.” I’m in the middle of this bug soup, where I sort of feel like I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m stepping out on my own, and I’m moving from the comfort and security of a pay check in an organization and a team to being completely on my own and building a business. I’m bug soup. I think the lesson there for me is that kind of acknowledging that it was — as I had an MBA professor said, the messy middle, that that’s okay. That’s part of the process. And, sort of trusting that I’ll come out on the other side in some form or another. Hopefully, a good one that can fly. But that was comforting for me at the time to kind of know that even animals go through, our bugs, go through this and I wasn’t so different in that sense. Joseph: Speaking of this metamorphosis, the final question for you, Maura. What’s something you’ve learned about yourself as you’ve made this shift from the corporate world into starting your independent executive coaching practice? Maura: [39:15] A key lesson for me has been, and continues to be, that I can and do every day author my own story. It’s something that I talk with my coaching clients about in terms of what’s your story and the power of stories. So often, we tell ourselves certain things, we tell ourselves stories. There’s a narrative in our heads, and that is so powerful in terms of shaping who we are and how we show up. We’re talking about career transitions. Everyone has the power to author their own story. I talked to my coaching clients about this. The power of stories that we tell ourselves, the narratives in our heads, we all have it. The stories that we create, that we narrate, both looking back in terms of what we want to glean from where we’ve come from and also looking forward, in terms of where we want to go and how we’re going to get there are instrumental in shaping us as personal, as individuals and as professionals. I think there are kind of three key things in terms of making those transitions successful. The self-awareness and reflection to actually consider what are your skills, what are the gaps, what do you desire, and what’s the rationale for that. There’s a need to understand what others need. Whether it’s an individual or a system. How can you fit into their needs? How can you kind of bring, as I sort of mentioned as an example, the human side to the consulting work? How is that going to benefit that organization, as an example? And then, the third is to be able to tell a convincing and authentic story. If you can do those three things, that’s it. That’s the magic. Everyone can do that. I truly believe it. Everyone has the ability to do this. Joseph: Well, if people are interested in learning more about what you do, or if they need some help with figuring out the human side of their own career story and crafting their own narrative, where can people go to learn more about you or the coaching work that you do? Maura: [41:21] LinkedIn. I’m Maura Connell Lightfoot. My organization is MCL Coaching and Consulting. Anyone can find me on LinkedIn, or at mclcoaching.org. Joseph: Thank you so much, Maura, for reconnecting. It’s nice to speak with you again after all these years, and telling us more about your life and the Gulf, your various InterContinental moves, how you’ve overcome the challenges along the way, and also some of your own reflections as you have continued to evolve your own career. So, best of luck with your executive coaching endeavors, authoring this chapter of your own career story and also empowering others to do the same in their professional lives. Thanks for coming on to the show. Maura: [42:02] Thank you so much, Joseph. It’s been my pleasure. I appreciate it.

Pursuing hobbies and interests outside of our daily work can be incredibly beneficial for our personal and professional growth. Hobbies can help us relax and reduce stress, increase creativity and productivity, and even open up new opportunities and networks. However, it can be difficult to make time for hobbies when we are busy with work, family, and other responsibilities. Jenny Goh, a former conference event planner turned IT firm manager discusses the unique role transitional jobs play in your career and how side activities outside of work can be so useful to pursue. In episode 92 of the Career Relaunch® podcast, I’ll also share my thoughts about how hobbies have influenced my own life and career during the Mental Fuel® segment. Key Career Takeaways Admitting your own limitations and weaknesses can help you to re-evaluate your priorities and goals, and open up new opportunities for you to pursue something you might be more passionate about or better suited for. Having a hobby or passion project that you look forward to outside of work can help recharge your batteries and give you the energy and perspective you need to tackle the challenges at work. There will be a day when you aren’t working in your current job anymore. Learning from the successes and failures of others, as well as listening to the advice and guidance of mentors and peers, can help us navigate the professional world and make informed decisions about our own careers. If you feel you’ve learned and given all you can in your current role, you should consider seeking new opportunities to continue your personal and professional growth. Listener Challenge During this episode’s Mental Fuel® segment, I invited you to pursue a new hobby this year. Perhaps an interest of yours that you’ve always thought about investing more energy into but just haven’t made the time for. Allow yourself the freedom to do something you think would be fun. This means regularly dedicating time to hobbies. Could you spare an hour on the weekends? Or even just 30 minutes one evening a week? Schedule this time into your calendar like you would with any other important task. Episode Chapters 00:00:00 – Overview 00:01:07 – Introduction 00:03:03 – Chat with Jenny Goh 00:40:00 – Mental Fuel 00:48:00 – Listener Challenge 00:49:33 – Wrap Up About Jenny Goh, Product & Scrum Master Jenny Goh initially thought she would become a scientist, so she spent her university days studying biology and heading down a research path. But when she was working toward her graduate degree, she realized that a career in research wasn’t what she really wanted and maybe wasn’t her natural forte. So, she started soul searching and exploring things like event planning, and eventually landed roles working in IT for companies like IBM. Now, as a Project Manager and Scrum Master at Accenture, she’s hoping to use the skills and knowledge she’s gathered over the years to hopefully help and inspire others in their careers. Her hobby of learning ballet on the side at the Singapore Ballet has had a direct impact on her perspectives when she’s at work. So I wanted to get Jenny onto the show to not only explain her career transition but also to share her thoughts on the importance of feeding your interests outside of work. Did You Enjoy This Episode? Please Let Us Know! Review: I’d also love for you to leave a positive review and rating for the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Follow: Be sure to follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android to automatically get each new episode on your device. Full instructions. Stay in touch: Follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow host Joseph Liu on most major social media platforms. Connect with Joseph Comments, Suggestions, or Questions? If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners! Leave Joseph a Voicemail You can also leave a comment below. Thanks! Thanks to Harmoni for Supporting the Career Relaunch® podcast Thanks to Harmoni Design for supporting this episode of the Career Relaunch® podcast. The Harmoni Standing Desk offers a smarter, healthier way to work with its simple design that fits into any workspace. It’s the standing desk I’ve used myself since 2020, and Career Relaunch® podcast listeners can get 15% off any Harmoni order by visiting CareerRelaunch.net/Harmoni and using discount code RELAUNCH when you check out. Interview Segment Music Credits Podington Bear – Fluorescence Podington Bear – Pulsars Uniq – Art of Silence Rand Aldo – Offline Ever so Blue – Dvala Podington Bear – Gears Spinning Episode Interview Transcript Joseph: Okay. Hello, Jenny. Welcome to the Career Relaunch Podcast. It is great to have you on the show. Jenny: [03:09] Hi, Joseph. Thank you for having me here. Joseph: I am really happy that we are finally able to do this. You and I first cross paths on Medium actually, and I know we’ve been trying to record this for quite some time. What are you up to right now in your career in your life? What’s been keeping you busy? Jenny: [03:25] I’m currently working on a government project here as a scrum master. I’m a deputy project manager helping to manage the day-to-day progress of the project. Basically, running the project for the client. Making sure it meets their timeline and expectations. I’m busy with work, and I’m also busy with moving to a new place. These two activities have taken up the main bulk of my time. Joseph: Now, you’re based in Singapore. Can you tell me a little bit about where you live there and what your neighborhood’s like? Just so we get a sense of where you are there in Singapore. Jenny: [04:03] I think most of our listeners probably know that Singapore is small. I live in what we call a township that’s called Serangoon. It’s a rather mature and old estate, but very developed. You can just stay here you don’t need to go out of this little township and you can get everything here. If you’ve been to Singapore, it’s not like an orchard or any downtown place. But it’s just a very neighborhood place that has everything. I like it here. It’s very crowded, but I like it because it’s very convenient. I live just five minutes away from the train station. I’ve been staying here for three years now, and I’m going to move next month. Joseph: Where are you originally from, Jenny? I know you haven’t always lived in Singapore. Jenny: [04:57] I was born in Malaysia. I was raised there. And then, I moved to Singapore when I was 19. I have since then spent 20 years here. Joseph: Final thing before we go back in time and talk about your first role as a computer engineer. I know one of the reasons why we haven’t been able to record this for some time is that you’ve been struggling a little bit with COVID. I was wondering if you could just tell me about what impact COVID has had on your life, both health-wise and also just personally. Jenny: [05:30] I just caught COVID about a month ago. Actually, around five weeks. I was one of those people who had really serious symptoms, right? Not just asymptomatic, you can just chill out at home, right? I had high fever for three days. I’m nursing a persistent cough. It’s been five weeks. People would say that’s almost a long COVID. I think that has had a significant impact in my life because I’ve been starting to think like, “Should I maybe consider seriously this work-life balance thing?” Not that I’ve never thought about it before, but that makes me even more conscious about my life because I’m struggling to get back to my physical activities because I’m quite active. But I have to cut my exercises by half. Joseph: Thank you so much for doing this. I know you’re not fully recovered. I appreciate you squeezing this in as you’re trying to recover. I just hope you end up getting better soon. We’re going to come back to some of the importance of physical activity to you and your life toward the end when we talk about ballet. I was wondering if we could, first of all, just go back in time. I know you haven’t always been in your current project manager role. Could you take me back in time and tell me about what you think you wanted to become when you grew up and what you ended up doing as your first role when you finished up in university? Jenny: [06:56] When I was young, I went to maybe grade 7 or 8. At the time, you know when we started having internet, I thought it was cool. I thought I wanted to be a software engineer or computer engineer, right? But in my last year in high school, I discovered genetics. I thought, “Hey! That’s actually way more interesting.” At that time, there was a boom in the biomedical industry. I was getting a lot of influence. When I was choosing what to do in university, I received two offers. One is engineering, the other one is life sciences. After a whole realm of struggle, I decided to choose life sciences. I devoted the first about eight years of my life to it. Although, I’m doing something vastly different now. I would say that genetics, to a larger extent, biology is still my favorite. Joseph: How did you know whether you wanted to stick with biology versus going and trying something different? Jenny: [08:06] My career is slightly different. I mean, even if you study biology, you could pursue many career paths, right? You could be a high school teacher. You could be a lecturer in the college. You could also be a researcher. You could be a salesperson, what have you, right? I originally chose the academic path. I thought I would become a researcher, and maybe someday teach at a university. But the path as a researcher is not for the faint-hearted. After some years down the road, I realized that I am not super good at it. I love it, but I’m not going to excel in it. It was actually when I was halfway pursuing my doctorate and I was having this self-reflection, “Should I continue or not?” Joseph: How did you know that you weren’t good at it, just out of curiosity? It takes a lot to admit that we’re not good at something that we’ve already invested a lot of time into. Jenny: [09:08] As a student, as a researcher, you do need to submit some papers. You need to publish your paper. In comparison to my peers, I was struggling with it. I couldn’t meet my own expectations, or the benchmark that I have, this is where my peers are at, I’m supposed to be here around the same time, right? But I know that I can’t. At that point, I knew that I wasn’t going to do very well in it. I spent a lot of time in the lab. A lot of it is animal studies, right? You’re exploring the project by yourself, and by nature, I’m a sociable person. After some time, I feel like, “Maybe I actually prefer a job that has more interactions with people. And you’re right, it takes a lot to admit that you’re not good in something but once you are able to do that, you open up more opportunities for yourself. Joseph: I can’t remember if I told you this, Jenny, but I was also one of those students in university who studied the pre-medical sciences. One of the courses I had to take was biology, a full-year biology course. I ended up doing a fellowship at a medical school focused on pharmacology research. And so, I was spending all my days, and nights sometimes, in the lab literally pipetting different substances and materials. I spent most of my time counting cells versus actually interacting with people. Jenny: [10:48] There we go. Joseph: Yeah. I mean, like you, I just felt like, “This is just not me.” I remember not being very good at it. I remember when we had to present our results to the faculty, I was the only person whose results didn’t turn out the way that I had hoped they would have turned out. So, how did you then go from working in that field into what you ended up doing next? Which I understand was event planning, as a bit of a transition into the next chapter in your career. Jenny: [11:20] I mustered up all the courage and I told my supervisor, “Look, I’m sorry but I just wanted to graduate with master’s degree.” And then, I was thinking then, “Now what?” I have a lot of options, but I may not have the necessary qualifications to do those jobs, to pursue those opportunities. I started thinking about what I wanted to do, what I where are my interests. I thought that technology is the second thing that I like. But at that time, IT was taking off. I didn’t have the necessary qualifications. I don’t know how to get in there. Then, I thought, maybe then I should just continue looking for jobs in life sciences but it was tough. Either you graduated with just a bachelor’s and you take up some jobs, or you have to have a doctorate degree. And then, you can go to work for pharmaceutical companies, and then you have a decent job and good opportunities. But just having a master’s degree is hanging there. I struggled to look for jobs. At that time, this event company, they were looking for someone with life sciences background to plan the program and events for life sciences. They offered me the job and I took it up because I was looking for jobs for a few months already. Joseph: Did you feel like this is where you wanted to end up in event planning, or did you kind of feel this was a transitional role? I’m just curious because sometimes what comes up with people who are trying to make a career change is they wait for the perfect role, or I guess in your case maybe you wait for the right pharmaceutical job to come up, or the right IT job to come up. How did you come to the decision to take this event planning job, which sounds very different from what you had originally thought to do? Jenny: [13:17] It really was a transition because I live here by myself. Ever since I graduated from university, I stopped asking for help from my parents, right? I really struggle for a few months and I couldn’t get a job. I had some friends who helped me, and I have plenty of friends willing to refer me to jobs but it would be working in the laboratory again. I already knew I don’t want to go down that path. I’m not a super ambitious person, but I do wish to achieve something in my life. I know that continuing to work as a research assistant or associate in a lab is not what I want. So, I turned out their offers. There were people who helped me. Those are not jobs that I want. As I was struggling, well you need to pay the bills, right? So, I got this job, and I thought, “Why not I just take the job?” and I slowly figure out where to go from here. Joseph: How was that being in that event planning job for you? Knowing that it wasn’t maybe ultimately what you wanted to do the rest of your life, but that it was giving you a steady pay check and something to keep yourself busy as you tried to figure out what to do next. Jenny: [14:39] That is a very different industry, I must admit. When I first started, I got a culture shock. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there were a few people who had the same background as I do. Like, they were life sciences graduates but everybody else did not have a life science graduate. That was my first job outside of the academic world. So, it was a big culture shock. I have not really been selling things before. But as an event planner, you kind of have to sell your event and I didn’t know how that worked. And then, the people there, they come from very diverse backgrounds. I actually felt that I was quite lucky because I met some really good colleagues there, and we still remain as friends today. This was about around 10 years ago. Everything felt like, “Oh, my God. This is how things work,” you know. It was a small company, very intimate. I had two events planning jobs. And then, the second one was also a medium-sized company. I learned a lot about the events planning industry. That made me realize that, yes, it truly is just a transition job because it really is not what I want to do. Joseph: What steps then did you take to figure out what it was that you did want to do while you had this holdover events planning job? Jenny: [16:08] I did continue to apply for pharmacology jobs. Although I know that the chances may be slim, a lot of job openings that was put up, it’s either a clinical trial, kind of associate coordinator, or it’s a lab assistant, or you need to have a Ph.D. I wasn’t really interested in those. But I also thought that, “Okay. I can’t just get stuck.” I thought that I need to look for an opening to technology companies. So, I started looking through jobs trying to see where I can go. How do I get an opening and join? After some searching, I found a job. So, my ex-boss offered me a position at IBM. That’s how I ended up there. Joseph: Just to switch gears here. Now, you have entered into the IT sector or the tech sector, and this is now I’m assuming very different from what you were doing before. Working in a lab, using your biology knowledge, eventually moving into the event space, but still, it being related to your background in the sciences. It sounds like this was a complete departure from what you were doing before. How was that transition for you moving into IBM? Jenny: [17:31] That was my first MNC job, and I was also culture shock and blown away by many things. Because I never worked in a huge company like that. And, you’re right, a technology as big as that, they tend to move really fast. I don’t know anything at all beyond what I read from the newspaper. But I really wanted to start something. I must admit that other than feeling scared, I also felt insecure. I wasn’t sure if I can keep my job. There was also the constant fear that I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t learning fast enough. And then, given that I got a job in an IT company now, how do I move from here? I have already changed my job once. Like from life sciences to events planning, and from events planning, now to IT. I was determined to make it work. Joseph: Can you describe what it was like on a day-to-day basis for you to be in this tech job versus what you’re doing before in biology? I’m most interested in just hearing about how you knew that this was not just a repeat situation of being in a lab, where you were completely misplaced but that this was just challenging, and that it was something that you’re going to work on and continue to progress in. Jenny: [10:07] In biology — and you definitely understand it because we came from a similar background, right? A lot of things are evidence-based. But, outside of science, you don’t need to be evidence-based. If you end up in a sales job, you can say anything you want. I admit that it was tough for me because I have the tendency to ask, “Why are people doing this?” To me, the world was either black or white because science is either you can back it by facts or if the fact says it’s wrong, it’s wrong. I struggle a lot with that. The difference is that in science, it was difficult. You were always searching for an answer but you have to use some kind of evidence to prove it. You have failures every day because your results just don’t turn out the way you want, right? And then, you just keep repeating that. But on the other hand, the job that I first started, I was hired as a proposal writer in IBM. Most people are bad at writing. They wanted someone who could understand what the solution is and put it in a very layman’s manner, coming up with certain creative materials to present to the clients to help them understand better. So I was doing a lot more creative thinking work versus the science work, where you need to be very factual. Joseph: The other question I have for you about your time at IBM, before we move into your most recent transition into Accenture, is just what life was like for you in the tech industry as a whole? Working in a very fast-moving industry, work-life balance, the intensity of the job. Can you give a glimpse into what that was like for you? Jenny: [20:57] Joining IBM provided me with a very good starting ground. Because the job there, it’s busy but it’s not as hectic as my current job. It provided me with a good starting point you know slowly learning the ropes. I was lucky. I do have to say I was always very lucky to have very great and supportive colleagues and mentors. That played an important part in my growth. After that, I transitioned into different roles at IBM, and it just got more and more hectic from there. About a year ago, I joined Accenture. This is by far, my most hectic job. We’re talking about “hectic” as in you go down, you start working, and you have time for lunch. But you don’t really have time to browse Facebook, google for Black Friday sales. Joseph: You’re working. Jenny: [21:58] You don’t have time for that, yeah. Joseph: Yeah, you’re focused. You are 100% on, and you do that five days a week, sometimes more. How have you coped with that pace of life at work? The intensity, the non-stop nature of it. Jenny: [22:17] I joined at a time when most of us still have to work from home. It was hectic right from the get-go. The first day I joined, I haven’t gone to my orientation, and there were people already asking me to join project meetings. I was like, “What? It’s just my first day! I don’t even know what’s happening. I don’t even know anyone.” But because I was working from home, I was still able to steal some time away to do exercise because I’m physically active. That helped a lot with the balance. And because when we work from home, we don’t need to take any public transport. That cut down on the transit time. So, I managed to sleep a little bit more. That kind of helped in the transition to my current project because now, I need to travel to the customer’s office every single day. Joseph: I didn’t ask you this before, Jenny, but how did you go from IBM to Accenture? Is that a move that you had thought to make from tech into consulting, or how did that come about for you? Jenny: [23:20] I was already in my sixth year at IBM. Well, my last job there right I had an incredible career. I really, really liked it. IBM, at that time, made a huge move, they acquired another company. And then, their whole strategy changed a little bit. To be honest, I don’t see where I fit in in that change, I felt like I needed more aggressive growth because I felt I kind of stagnant a little bit. I was actually promoted about half a year before I joined Accenture. I was very grateful to my ex-boss, he trusted me and that was very important to me. But I envisioned that I could stay in this role for a few years. And the growth may not be what I really want. Because I started in IT a lot later than my peers, right? A lot of my peers, they are already directors. They’re doing so much better. Well, of course, that’s the saying that you don’t compare yourself with others, you compare with yourself but I still want to do well. I wanted to do something for myself. So, I didn’t want to stay in a job where I felt that I may not have the kind of growth that I wanted. I started looking out, and I had a few offers and decided to choose Accenture because I believe that it’s the next best place for me to grow. Joseph: I do want to talk with you about this work-life balance topic and some of the activities that you’ve engaged with outside of work. But before we go to that, I did have one more question about this transition from IBM to Accenture. You mentioned that you had a few different job offers on the table. One of the topics that have been coming up recently in the context of whatever you want to call it, quiet quitting or cushioning, is to while you’re working full time, go ahead and proactively look for roles or network with recruiters, what was your philosophy on that? Jenny: [25:26] If you felt like you were not being treated correctly, and going through HR is not the route that you want to take, then I would suggest that you do need to take that either quiet quitting part, or for some people, they just quit. They don’t even quiet quit, they will quit without a job. But suppose, if it’s just a very hectic job or maybe you’re just currently stuck in a project that you don’t like, things like that. Or, maybe right now, you don’t like some of the people that you’re working with, but there are the other half of the people that you like, then don’t make the decision of quitting so easily. I was very fortunate because I had at one point, wanted to quit what I was doing. But I had a very, very good mentor. He gave me this very good advice that I gave to others right now, too. If you felt that you have learned everything you need from your current role or current company, then it’s time to go. But if you felt like you still have so much more to learn, it’s okay, just bite the bullet. As long as people are abusive to you. Just bite the bullet even if it’s difficult because you’re not going to regret it. Joseph: One other thing I wanted to chat with you about, which I know you mentioned to me the first time we connected, was some of the activities outside of work that has helped play a role in your career change journey. Can we talk about ballet for a second here, and just explain how that has come up in your life and what role it’s played for you? Not only in your current job but also as you think about career transitions in general. Jenny: [27:16] It was my close friend who introduced ballet to me. I went for a trial class. I thought, “That was good.” And then, after that, I continued. I have since learned ballet for some three years. Sometimes, you’re so busy that I felt I cannot breathe. It was at ballet that I felt time just stopped. I could focus on myself. But more importantly, also my classmates, they come from different backgrounds. You know, women and men of all shapes and sizes. But everybody was just there to pursue one thing that they love. There was no judgment. Like, even if you can’t make a good pirouette, a good turn, no one’s going to laugh at you. Everyone is very encouraging. Having that safe space knowing that I could make mistakes and still feel happy about it, it’s encouraging. It has helped me cope with the stress at work a lot. Joseph: When we spoke before also, Jenny, you told me about a moment when something happened at work that it came from somebody ridiculing something that you had done, and that hit you pretty hard. How did ballet then help you deal with it? Or was it ballet kind of that sanctuary for you? Jenny: [28:44] I was ridiculed pretty badly at work one day. I felt like, “Oh, my! I probably should quit this job.” I can’t work with people who are so abusive in the languages that they use. It was a Friday, I remember. I always have classes after Friday, after work. So, I went to my class. I must be honest that I was actually at the brink of crying. I thought, that was really terrible. I felt humiliated. But when I went dancing, I was just letting it all go. I was very focused on my dancing. I was reassured by my teacher that it’s okay to make mistakes. I felt that that kind of assurance, plus seeing how people put in so much effort. Even if they can’t do it, it is never discouraged. And, of course, dancing to classical music, it lifted my spirit a lot. Subsequently, when I returned home, I felt that my heart was a lot lighter. Joseph: The last thing I want to talk about before we wrap up, talking a little bit more about the performing arts is to first of all talk about some of the lessons that you’ve learned along the way of your career journey. As I’m listening to you describe this story, Jenny, going from the tech industry into what sounds is an even more intense industry at times in consulting an Accenture, it’s stressful to make a career switch. It is very stressful to have an intensive job. Sometimes, what we can do is we can — or at least, I find myself doing this. I kind of debate whether or not I should invest my time that is already quite limited into a side activity that’s different from my day job, and maybe doesn’t have a direct impact on my ability to excel at my day job. What have you learned from engaging in something like ballet that is very unrelated to work? I’m just curious about what you’ve learned from that. Jenny: [31:00] Of course, there’s no direct relation because I’m doing IT. People would think that, “Why don’t you put your time into good use like learning how to write in another programming language or earn another certificate?” I’m doing that, too. But I felt like, you know, one day, we’re not going to be doing this job anymore. There will be a day when we get old, we want to retire and we want to have something when we grow old. It’s important to develop a hobby, something outside of your life because you’re not just defined by your job. You may be spending 90% of your time at work but that’s not just who you are. that’s just one part of you. I have observed so many people older than me, and I’m extremely lucky that I get to learn from them. I have some classmates of more than 60 years old in my class that’s so amazing. I felt that, even though it’s not directly related, it has been teaching me to so many other life lessons. You don’t have to always do things that can help you excel in your career in terms of technical skills. I’m a manager myself. When I talk to my younger colleagues, they want to help, they wanted some reassurance. I could always apply some of these philosophies that I learned from ballet, share these lessons, or share these things with my colleagues. I felt that that helps you rethink how you want to live your life. It’s important to have a work-life balance. You can’t just work all the time. Even developing hard skill sets. I would consider that, I mean to me, it’s part of life. Of course, there are people who see that as a hobby. But I just wanted to do something different. Joseph: When you look back on your career change, Jenny, what’s something that you wished you had known that you now know? Jenny: [33:14] I honestly wish that there was someone there to kind of share some tips and advice with me. I did enjoy my short time at events planning but I felt also that it was kind of like I took a detour. It’s that maybe if there was someone that I could consult, maybe I would have reached here a little bit earlier. Maybe I could avoid some pitfalls. I’m still grateful of the hard lessons that I learned, but I may not necessarily want others to repeat my mistakes. Joseph: Final question for you before we wrap up. Having been through this career change, what’s one thing that you’ve learned about yourself along the way? Jenny: [34:05] Growing up, I always thought that I was somewhat overconfident, somewhat arrogant. But, when I decided to do the career switch, I realized that I do have the humility to accept that I just cannot do well in something. I found a lot of peace in accepting that I’m just not good at some things, and that’s perfectly fine because I’m good at other things. That discovery has helped me to cope with a lot of things, because some of my superiors, supervisors, managers, they are actually younger than me. I don’t feel bad at all about taking instructions from them or learning from people younger than me. I realized that I’ve developed that humility that even people a lot younger than us always have things to teach us. That’s very important to me. Joseph: That’s good. That demonstrates how self-assured you are right now. Because a lot of times one of the reasons why we don’t accept advice from others or don’t want to have advice from people perhaps, especially those people who are younger than us, is because we’re not feeling super confident ourselves or we’re a little insecure ourselves about something. So, I think that demonstrates a real maturity on your part as you’ve gone through your journey here. What message would you want to share about performing arts in general, especially there in Singapore? Jenny: [35:41] I know you have listeners, a lot of listeners from Singapore as well, and maybe in the larger part of Asia, right? I do hope that you know whoever is listening to this would be more supportive towards performing arts. I mean being of Asian descent, our Asian parents, or even Asian parents, in general, are not that supportive of their children pursuing performing arts. Therefore, artists, they’re not paid very well and they don’t get a lot of funding. What I hope, and it’s something that I hope I can do in the near future, once I get used to all this hectic life sort of stabilize because I think I’m still trying to stabilize things, I do hope to put in more time to volunteer and help to grow the awareness in performing arts. I hope that more people would come to support the performances. Be it buying a ticket, watching a performance, or even coming to volunteer, donating. There’s a lot of help that is needed for performing arts, especially in a country like Singapore, where people value other white-collar jobs. I hope people would start understanding that you can have a very successful life and career in performing arts. Joseph: Is there any particular performing arts entity there in Singapore you want to give a shout-out to? Jenny: [37:16] Yes, definitely. I’m attending adult ballet classes at Singapore Ballet. I’m extremely grateful to my teachers there. I hope that whoever’s listening to this can buy a ticket, support their performances. I know my teachers, they are always very encouraging. I know that they could use a bit more support. I want to thank Singapore Ballet for being part of this important journey of my growth and self-discovery. Joseph: Alright. Well, thank you so much, Jenny, for telling me more about your transitions from biology, to IT, to then project management, and also just the importance of your non-work activities and how those things have played such a big part in your own philosophies and perspectives. It was very interesting hearing about how the performing arts had been a big part of your journey. I just wanted to wish you the best of luck with your role at Accenture and also your ongoing ballet classes. I also hope you make a full recovery from COVID soon. Thanks for being on the show. Jenny: [38:19] Thank you for inviting me, Joseph. I do hope that by sharing my journey, I can help a lot of people who have doubts about changing careers or who are feeling unsure of where they are at the moment. I hope to be able to provide that little confidence and maybe just a little bit of positivity in their life. What you’re doing is meaningful. I would continue to support your podcast, and also wishing you all the best. Joseph: Thank you so much, Jenny. I appreciate it.

When does it make sense to let go of stability to boldly pursue the unknown? In this episode of the Career Relaunch® podcast, Samantha Tovera-Agustin, an HR professional turned founder explains why she chose to move her career, family, and life from the Bay Area to the Philippines. We’ll discuss the challenging balance between work and parenthood, signs that suggest you may need a change in your career, and ways you can prevent career regret. I also share some thoughts on the importance of reconnecting with old friends during the Mental Fuel® segment. Key Career Takeaways When you work hard to get to where you are in your career, letting go of all this investment is incredibly hard. People often regret the inactions they took in their careers to do something bold and brave that honors their values. Surrendering to the unknown and allowing yourself to potentially fail enables you to open the door to new, exciting opportunities in your life and career. To be there for others, you have to make sure you’re taking care of your own health and well-being first. Societal expectations can lead us to feel like we need to be working and hustling all the time. But slowing down is not only okay but also necessary sometimes to see more clearly and reconnect with yourself. Resources Mentioned We discussed the topic of regret. The book I mentioned is The Power of Regret by Daniel Pink, which I would highly recommend! Listener Challenge I’d challenge you to reconnect with a long-lost friend from your past. f you’re like me, I find it a bit awkward to suddenly drop a note to someone you haven’t spoken to in years. I’d still challenge you to do it—just to see what happens. Even if you don’t rekindle the relationship, at the very least, you can let that person know that you’re still thinking about them. And that alone can be valuable. You never know what kind of an impact that could have on them. About Samantha Tovera-Agustin Samantha Tovera-Agustin is a seasoned HR professional specializing in talent acquisition, leadership development, and employee engagement. When the pandemic hit in 2019, she launched her own business, Masarap Box (Facebook, Instagram) that delivers a monthly box of Filipino snacks right to your door. The past three years made her realize what mattered to her. In 2021, she and her husband made a big decision to move with their two young daughters (aged five and two at the time) from California to the Philippines, where she’s originally from, to truly honor what they valued most- which was to spend more quality time with family. Now back in the Philippines, her husband has also recently launched C-Suite Jiu-Jitsu (Facebook, Instagram), a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Training Center, and Samantha’s been able to work as an HR Consultant for Canadian and US firms, helping small to mid-size businesses with HR solutions- which also honors her professional values of serving others. With more flexibility in her schedule now, she’s been able to reconnect with her family, her friends, and most importantly, herself. Samantha and I first connected in 2018, when she dropped me a note after watching my TEDx Talk, and we’ve remained in touch since. Watching her career evolve over the past few years has been really fascinating, and it’s not every day that I cross paths with people who make the decision to let go of a well-paid, stable job to make such a big international move. I was really excited to get her onto the Career Relaunch® podcast so you can hear how she came to her decision. Did You Enjoy This Episode? Please Let Us Know! Review: I’d also love for you to leave a positive review and rating for the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Follow: Be sure to follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android to automatically get each new episode on your device. Full instructions. Stay in touch: Follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow host Joseph on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook Comments, Suggestions, or Questions? If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners! Leave Joseph a Voicemail You can also leave a comment below. Thanks! Thanks to Audible for Supporting Career Relaunch Thanks to Audible for supporting this episode of the Career Relaunch® podcast. Audible is the premier provider of digital audiobooks, offering over 180,000 audiobook titles for listening anytime and anywhere on your favorite device. Career Relaunch® listeners can download a free audiobook download and get 30-day trial at audibletrial.com/careerrelaunch. Interview Segment Music Credits Ebby & Flod – Giza Hazy – Letting Go Cora Zea – Faith in Aurora Scott Buckley – Jul Podington Bear – Infant Podington Bear – Satellite Bloom Podington Bear – Beautocracy Episode Interview Transcript Teaser [first ~15s]: That made me think, “What if I had whether a business or a career that gave me the flexibility to own my own time and be more intentional being able to spend more time with my kids, with my husband, reconnect with myself.” Joseph: Now, you and I haven’t spoken in a really long time until we hopped on this call a few seconds ago. I’ve got so many questions I want to ask you about your life in the Philippines and your career trajectory since we last connected, and how you came to the decision to move back to the Philippines. I’d love to just start by getting a sense of what you’re focused on right now in your career and your life. Can you also just tell me where exactly you are situated there in the Philippines? Samantha: [03:34] Yes. We could start with where we are in the Philippines. We live in a small city called Baguio City. This is actually where I pretty much grew up until we moved to California when I was in high school. But there’s a lot of things that I’m focused on right now, personally, in my life and my career. Personally, our family is about to hit our one year living in Baguio. We moved from California last year. And then, my husband and I have two small children, 5 and 2. They are definitely keeping us busy right now. Our eldest started kindergarten this year. She is doing ballet and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Joseph: What a combination. Samantha: [04:18] I know, right? It’s pretty awesome. It’s pretty awesome! It’s a pretty good balance, right? My husband and I, now that we have a lot more time, we try to be more intentional to reconnect with each other. We have time to breathe and go on dates once a week, even if it’s just a coffee date for an -hour, and unplug. We have this rule to not talk about our to-do list for about an hour and just talk about something else, shows or whatnot. For me, personally, I also got to reconnect with my childhood best friend. I’ve known her literally since birth. Our dads have been college friends and we grew up together, and now we’re doing yoga every week. Aerial Yoga, which is very like something that I probably would not know in a million years that I would do as a hobby. But it’s pretty exciting, something to look forward to every week. That’s a little bit of my personal life. Career-wise, right now, I’m helping my husband build his jiu-jitsu business, which recently opened August of this year. He’s the instructor, but I’m managing the front and back-end operations of the business, which is exciting. And then, I am working to relaunch my Filipino snack subscription box business called “Masarap Box,” one that I started in the peak of the pandemic. I temporarily had to pause that and we could probably talk about that later. Just during our move, I had to pause it for a little bit, but expecting to relaunch it next year. And then, lastly, I’m still working as an HR consultant with actually two different firms, one based in Canada and one based in the U.S. Both jobs allow me to have this flexible schedule that I have right now. It’s pretty exciting right now here! Joseph: Super exciting! You and I actually haven’t spoken in months. Samantha: [06:03] Yes. Joseph: I just got an e-mail from you a couple weeks ago just as we were preparing for this. One of the things you mentioned there and I’d like to talk about this. Before we go back in time and talk about your career evolution, you mentioned you have reconnected with one of your childhood friends. I remember getting your e-mail, and that got me thinking a lot about friendship and adult friends versus childhood friends. Any major revelations for you as you’ve reconnected with her after all these years? Samantha: [06:29] Yes, hanging out with your childhood friends and people that you grew up with in grade school and high school brings out your immature self. I’m not saying one is better than the other. You have those more profound conversations with your adult friends. Although, I still have them with my childhood friends. But I truly get to be my immature self without fear of judgment, being with the people that I grew up with because they saw everything. They saw the good, the bad, the ugly, first heartbreaks, first boyfriends. It’s a different dynamic. Am so glad that I got to reconnect with most of them living here. Joseph: I know that you haven’t always been an HR consultant. You certainly haven’t been someone who has moved from the U.S. to the Philippines until now. This is your first big move back home. Can we just go back in time? Can you just tell us a little bit about your time as a child growing up in the Philippines, and what was life like for you there? Samantha: [07:29] I actually was born in Manila, which is more south of where Baguio City is. But then, we moved to Baguio City at 2 years old. So, I grew up here. I went to school here. I developed all of my childhood friends. All of my friendships are here, with all of my childhood friends. My childhood was pretty amazing. My dad is a doctor. He is a general surgeon but is also focused on cancer surgery. He’s still semi-retired, still doing that just to keep his routine going. My mom, at that time, was working in human settlements for the government. When we moved here to Baguio, she helped manage this corporation, this clinic. My dad and other doctors ran this clinic that is focused on occupational therapy. She was pretty much managing that business for a while when I was growing up. Then in my childhood, I have an older sister and a younger brother. My parents were intentional with creating those core memories per se, creating those memories for us as kids. We would travel all over the Philippines at least three times a year together with my childhood best friend, which I do yoga with now. Our families would truly go on trips together, and that’s always the highlight every year. Like, “Where are we going to travel to next?” Our family naturally just loves traveling. I was here until high school. A little background about my dad’s family and how we came to the states is my dad’s family was already set to go to the states in the 70s. He has four siblings, my grandparents, and they were all set to go. But then, my dad was still studying medicine when he was here, and he wanted to finish up and he was going to follow. Then, of course, he fell in love with my mom. They got married and he did not want to separate from us as a family. He wanted to petition us as a family. It was a long process. I didn’t know at that time that we were petitioned as early as the early ’90s and didn’t get approved until early 2000s. Joseph: To get a Visa to move to the United States. That’s what you’re talking about. Samantha: [09:39] To get our permanent residency to the U.S. It was tough for me because as you get older, you develop your friends and you’re settled here. At that time, I was in high school, and it was a hard move for me because I was questioning like, “Why? Why do I have to go? I could just go to school here.” Of course, at that time, I felt like I was forced. In hindsight, I understand now the intention behind it and I’m happy that my parents did that. Because they wanted to give me that opportunity, right? An opportunity that probably not a lot of people had, but I had. One thing that my dad told me is that he didn’t want me or my sister or my brother to resent them for not giving us the opportunity to try to live this life outside of the Philippines, and try to kind of go for the opportunities that we have there. Again, I’m glad now. I didn’t understand at the time as a high school, 16-year-old kid, right? But, yeah, that’s how we came to America! Joseph: Where did you guys first land and where did you grow up in the United States? What do you remember about that time? Samantha: [10:45] We officially moved there in 2004, but we got to go on vacation there prior. I would say a year beforehand just to do all the touristy things. I vividly remember, I was sad at that time. I didn’t get to go to my high school graduation, our flight was booked before. At that time, it was a big deal. We landed in San Francisco. We lived with my dad’s family at Sunnyvale. We lived there for a while. I had to jump right into it right away. My family really wanted me to kind of get acclimated right away. They had me like, “Hey, go to Community College. Go to De Anza.” I kind of signed up for whatever. I was already in the middle of the semester or that quarter. Whatever was available, I kind of signed up for it just so I have classes. I remember a culture shock in some ways for me because over here in the Philippines, everything is very accessible. At least in Baguio, you could walk everywhere. You could hail a cab wherever you’re at. In California, you got to have a car. Joseph: You got to drive everywhere. Samantha: [11:50] Yeah. It will take you hours before you get to your final destination because of all the bus stops. That was one of the big adjustments for me. I definitely like having friends. I developed friendships over there as well, and people gave me rides. But it was nerve-wracking having to get my driver’s license and all of that because I never thought I needed to drive to get anywhere. It was rough moving from the Philippines to over there. At that time, my dad was also still working in the Philippines. So our family were kind of separated a little bit. It was also, with my immaturity at that time, that I was just so focused on “I don’t see my friends, I don’t have any friends here.” Eventually, I’m a naturally outgoing person and I started working. You know, working part-time and going to school and kind of just got acclimated, I would say within two years. Yeah, that’s a little bit about our move. Joseph: This is a career show, and I want to switch gears here a little bit. Can you describe how you decided to go down the path of retail management as your first chapter in your career? Samantha: [12:53] That was my first career. A lot of my experience before I became HR was in retail management. I honestly just kind of fell into it and vividly even remember getting my first seasonal part-time job at Victoria’s Secret. That was seasonal part-time. I didn’t even have interview clothes at that time. I just found out they had a group interview. I bought my interview clothes that same day and went to the interview and got it. I, again, didn’t think I was going to be in retail for a long time. I just thought it was just going to be a college job. But then, I was fortunate enough to have amazing leaders who invested in my development. I was at Victoria’s Secret waiting for them to either lay me off and tell me, “Hey, your seasonal job is over.” But then, I got a promotion within I would say less than a year to be a team leader. That’s kind of what jump-started everything and it just kind of grew with Victoria’s Secret until I became in operations, or what they call “category manager” at that time. I was in there for probably about three years. After college, again, I feel like I only knew retail. I felt the confidence to apply at Target, or actually, I got recruited at Target. But then, I went forward to apply to first be an HR manager. It was more of an HR generalist role at Target after college. But then, they put me in multiple roles for my own personal development as well. I was holding multiple management roles in operations in HR while I was at Target. As you may already know, working retail makes you work crazy hours. For so many years, I pretty much missed all the holidays. At that time, it didn’t matter to me because I didn’t have kids yet. Joseph: Let’s talk about this for a second. The life of someone working in retail. I don’t know if I told you this, Sam, but I had a brief stint in retail myself when I was living in Honolulu, Hawaii at the Ala Moana Shopping Center, which is this big outdoor mall there on the island. I was working on the women’s floor in the shoe department helping women find a pair of shoes. I was in my early 20s at the time, and I loved that job because I got to meet a lot of people and cross paths with folks when they were generally pretty relaxed and in a good mood. But at times, I felt customers could be a bit condescending at times to people like me working on a store floor, folding sweaters. You know what I’m talking about? Samantha: [15:20] Yes. Joseph: Where people think, “Oh, this is just a part-time temporary job for you,” or “You’re serving them.” Samantha: [15:26] Yes. Joseph: I guess this happens in service-based industries, too. I’m just wondering what was your experience like working in retail? Samantha: [15:35] Honestly, I probably felt that one time during Black Friday. I’m sure everyone knows how crazy Black Friday could be. I feel like that’s a really big misconception. To this day, I feel like as an HR manager and as a recruiter, when I’m doing recruiting projects, I have a little bit of a bias for retail workers because I know that they are the hard-working people that I know because they manage multiple projects during a crazy store, meeting all types of metrics while keeping the store afloat, and managing their team. I feel there’s so much more to that, and I’ve learned a lot of great leadership skills working in retail. There is still that stigma at that time, or I don’t know if it still does now, but I think that that’s a big misconception because I feel like you could get great leaders, recruiting from retail, from someone who has worked in retail management. I’m happy to advocate for them. Joseph: Definitely. A lot of times when you are working in retail, on the floor at least, you are directly interfacing with customers in a way that people back in the corporate head office may not be. You’re literally representing the brand. Samantha: [16:53] Absolutely. Joseph: A couple questions for you here. One is just trying to get a sense of how you were feeling about your career in retail, and also at what point did you feel like that schedule was no longer going to be sustainable for you in your life? Samantha: [17:09] When I didn’t have kids, I was just in that mode of I just needed to do my best and work my way up as much as possible. I was driven. I was driven to succeed. I wanted to get to the highest management level as possible at that time. Those were my priorities. I felt like it was an investment. It was an investment of like, “I’m working all of these hours right now. It will all pay off once I get the money and get the fancy position.” It took a toll on me when I had my daughter in 2017, my eldest daughter. Because with holidays like Christmas Eve, I didn’t leave the store until 4:00 in the morning, and my daughter missed Christmas Eve! I knew that long-term that I did not want my daughter or any future kids that I had to miss those holidays because that’s building that core memory for my kids. I’m not going to be able to take that back if I continued working retail. Development-wise, the company developed me as a leader, as a person. But my priorities have shifted when I had my firstborn. Joseph: It’s kind of funny because our daughters were born at the same time. My daughter was also born in 2017. Once you had your firstborn, at what point did you decide you needed to make a change? Samantha: [18:32] I started having anxiety when I have my closing shifts. I felt like I was very short-tempered, lack of sleep. At the same time, you have a toddler who doesn’t sleep through the night. I feel like I’m doing my daughter a disservice of not being the best and available mom for the very little time frame that we have together. I knew I needed to make that change, and I knew that if we were going to have more kids that it cannot move forward with that schedule. In 2018, that’s how I came across your TED talk, which inspired me to make that career change. I saw that as a sign because I didn’t know where to start. You said earlier, there’s this stigma that when you’re in retail, you kind of just settle for that and it’s hard to get out of it. I felt that way. I felt like, “What do I do next? Retail is all I know.” But then, I saw your TED talk, and that’s really what jumpstarted. Me being that motivated to start actively looking. I even messaged you and thanked you, “Hey, this is the push I needed!” Joseph: Right. That was how we first connected. Samantha: [19:37] That was when we first connected. A few months after that, I got an offer. That was when I kind of gave up. I started applying. Before I gave up, I just updated my LinkedIn profile. This company was the one who reached out to me. I got an offer from this construction and development company to be their HR business partner overseeing the Northern California Division. It’s exciting for me because like, “Oh, it’s my first 9-to-5 job, and I’ve never worked a 9-to-5 job before.” It was all exciting and new to me at that time. It was in that role for about 3 and 1/2 years until again, we made this move here in Baguio. Joseph: Okay. I want to get to that move in a moment. But before we do, you mentioned something there about applying to jobs and not getting the positive response that you had hoped to get, at least initially. This is a pretty common dynamic that comes up with people where they are in a role and they are starting to think about making a change. They start applying for other roles that they think are more promising, but they don’t end up getting the traction they want, at least initially. How did you know that you were on the right track in spite of the fact that you weren’t getting the traction that you were hoping to get at the very start? Samantha: [20:56] At that time my goal was just get out of retail. Whatever translates to getting out of retail that gives me a better schedule, I was so focused on that. As I continue to apply, I wanted to think long and hard, “Okay, what do I value?” Kind of seeing that connection of, “What am I good at?” But then, “What also aligns with the next step of my career in my professional life?” Being in retail management, I had that passion for being in the service of others. For me, the biggest reward is being able to see someone grow in their career. I know at Target at the time, whenever people ask me what my biggest accomplishments are, is being able to be a part of someone’s growth. I was able to promote team leaders into the next role, which is at the time being an assistant manager, prepped them for interviews, really being that strategic partner for team members. At the same time, also being that partner to managers. Being in retail management, you have to be that kind of that the balance of advocating for employees, but kind of advocating for the business as well. That kind of got that lightbulb moment for me. Like, “Oh, I would love to be an HR business partner and be that strategic partner for a company that also truly values their team.” That’s kind of what narrowed down my search at that time. Joseph: You identify this path. You end up moving into an HR business partner role. I’m assuming things are working pretty well for you professionally. How did things end up ultimately transpiring for you during this specific chapter in your career? Samantha: [22:40] It was definitely a great role. I learned a lot. But really what kind of made us transition again is COVID. We hear a lot about the great resignation. A lot of things happened in 2020, for us and our family on top of COVID. In 2020, we had our second child. At that time, we kept getting asked, “When are you going to buy a house now that you have two kids? Your family is getting bigger.” The interest rates at the time was at its lowest, right? It’s time to jump in. What was going on just at that time that was happening, my husband and I started becoming more stressed out at work. My husband was working for the county at that time as a — they called them “eligibility services technicians.” Basically, they are the ones reviewing and approving government assistance and aid, which got stressful in 2020 when many businesses shut down. A lot of people are following up on their aid. Backlog of calls are happening because everyone wants to get their aid as soon as possible. It was a stressful time for him. It was a stressful time for me working as an HR business partner with COVID is in its infancy at that time. There were so many unknowns. As HR, you have to keep up with all the ever-changing safety guidelines. It was honestly a recipe for burnout. I hope if you have other HR professionals listening right now, I hope I get an “Amen” from them and hope they can relate. At the time, I kept hearing HR’s getting burned out. There’s no HR for HR. Joseph: Absolutely right. Yeah, who’s helping you guys help the other people who are coming to you because they’re stressed out and trying to deal with all their different challenges? Samantha: [24:21] Yeah, that was one of the elements as well that kind of made us think hard. Again, going back to our priority with our little kids. We’re stressed out at work. Our kids are in day-care, 12 hours a day. You know, again, we felt guilty. We felt like we were being unfair to our kids at that time. Because A, they already spent time in day-care for more than 12 hours, probably, a day. By the time that we get home, we have a solid three hours to spend time with them until we have to do it all over again. And B, we would feel very wiped out after work. We felt like we were just not being the best version of ourselves. We’re not being intentional parents, being just wiped out at work by the time that we get home with the kids. We just kept feeling like we were running on autopilot. From getting your sleepy kids at six in the morning and doing all over again. By the time weekends hit, we’re either tired or we have to force ourselves to make these memories for our kids. Take them to the park, take them to whatever. But we only have those two days, right? It just felt like it wasn’t sustainable, for our family, at least. Joseph: You mentioned picking up your kids at the end of the day, where I’m guessing you didn’t have a ton of energy left after having a full workday. Samantha: [26:39] Yes. Joseph: When you think back to those days, what kind of parent did you catch yourself being during those events? Did you notice anything? Samantha: [25:21] I was probably like — I wouldn’t say an angry parent, but I would snap pretty fast and I felt bad. We were definitely screen-time parents. If we didn’t have time to deal with it, “Here’s your iPad. Here’s your phone.” I just need a minute to myself being like a headspace where I’m not thinking about work and not stressed out about what’s the next meal we would order in. We probably had food delivery almost every day because I didn’t have the energy to cook. I go for convenience. If it gets delivered. If I don’t have to go out of my way. I would put in the order before I drive home. By the time I get home, it’s delivered. Groceries are also delivered. I was that type of parent. Whatever’s convenient, I will invest in that. Good thing we were in a good financial place at that time. To me, that time is that investment. It saves me time. We invested in laundry. Not having to do our own laundry because we wanted that time back for our kids. Joseph: You’re trying to stay afloat. You’re trying to give yourself some time. Sometimes, delegating is really the only way you can do it. Around this time, you also decide that you are going to launch your own business. What motivated you to venture into the world of entrepreneurship and being a small business owner? Samantha: [27:08] I was starting to miss home. Because my husband and I usually would visit the Philippines at least every two years. And because of COVID and the restrictions, we didn’t have that capacity to do that. It was also during the time that I was still pregnant with my second and I was craving Filipino food. Even living in California, I feel like Filipino food is easily accessible. Of course, the stuff that I was craving, growing up in the Philippines, are the ones that are hard to find. That kind of made me think, “Oh, I wonder how many people else out there, even living outside of California, Filipinos out there, working professionals there, are probably feeling the same way that I’m feeling. Kind of just missing those nostalgic Filipino snacks from our childhood in the ’90s, or early 2000s. I started researching, and at that time, there were some other businesses that were doing kind of like gift box, Filipino gift boxes, as well. But it was still very new. I didn’t see a lot of businesses and I’m like, “Well, a lot of those businesses, they’re featuring their own products.” Versus for me, it’s sourcing those products from the Philippines, which ended up evolving, connecting with different business owners. I ended up also featuring some of their Filipino food products in my boxes, which was a great opportunity to connect with the Filipino-American community across the United States. That’s really how it started. It’s just my own personal kind of cravings. I was like, “Oh, what if I do this?” I kind of wanted to test it out. And by December, before our move, my husband and I were packing 60 boxes before we had to leave. Joseph: You’re doing it yourself? Samantha: [28:53] Yeah, we were doing it ourselves. It was really, truly a test run. It was just, honestly, also a distraction for me. I felt like I was losing myself in a sense that, “Hey, I don’t have any hobbies.” I pretty much just go to work, go home, be a mom. I wanted something for myself. And that’s kind of what also jumpstarted me to start this business. Joseph: Okay, so you have started Masarap Box, which is what this is called, where you’ve got Filipino snacks that you are selecting and delivering to people. What triggered you to then start to consider making another move at this point in your career? Samantha: [29:31] I just felt like, “Oh, there’s opportunity for me to be able to either run my own business or own my own time.” I didn’t know that I could be — I don’t say successful, but semi-successful or at it, to get the response that I did at that time when I launched Masarap Box. That made me think, “Oh, what if I had whether a business or a career that gave me the flexibility to own my own time and be more intentional with, again, my time. Being able to spend more time with my kids, with my husband, reconnect with myself, right?” I felt like I was myself again, and I had this “baby” that I owned, that I truly owned. That is really what jumpstarted me and my husband thinking. We kept entertaining the idea of moving to the Philippines. We’ll have easy access to food, and I feel like where I grew up is a good city in Baguio. It’s a good city to raise my kids in. Overall, that’s kind of what made us think a lot until we took action, but that’s kind of what jumpstarted that thought. Joseph: Now, on the one hand, this sounds great. You get to reconnect with family, long lost childhood friends. You get to reconnect with the culture you were once a part of. What most concerned you about making this sort of a move at this point in your life and your career? Samantha: [30:53] The biggest fear or concern that I had was letting go of all the investment that I put in myself in my career. I went for my master’s. I went to school. I felt like I worked hard, worked long nights, worked so many hours to get to where I am now with my position and my pay, right? What if I made the wrong decision, and I come here and I don’t find a job? There’s just so many unknowns at that time. I was just thinking of all the “what ifs.” Like, “What if I fail? What if this is the wrong move?” It was also letting go of my past career because I felt I’ve created this career for myself. Letting that go and starting over was definitely a big concern for me. But then, thankfully, my husband kind of led me back to the bigger picture. Then, how’s your mental health, right? Is it worth it? Is it worth it that you’re staying in this job? Yes, you’re making this great pay, but does it align with how we want to raise our family and how we want our kids — what childhood do we want them to grow up in? What do we want them to experience when they look back at their childhood, what would we want them to say? We want to be those present parents. That was really the defining moment for me. “Okay, this is definitely should be the right decision because this is for our kids as well.” Joseph: It sounds like, Sam, you’re thinking about your kids. You’re thinking about the impact your job was having on your kids. Was there a particular moment that, ultimately, tipped the scales for you guys where you said, “Okay, we’ve got to make this move back to the Philippines. This is the right moment for this sort of a transition in our lives and in our careers.”? Samantha: [32:42] We were saying, “Okay, we are going to go to jobs that we are stressed out about, paying for a home that is probably something that we couldn’t afford, or maybe we could afford, but we’re barely getting by. Or, can we use that money for this move and have a better quality of life?” That was truly when we could say, “Okay, we could do this because I’m.” I have a little bit of type A in me. Whereas, I need to see it and what we need to do and how much will that cost. It’s still good for me to kind of see something measurable, and how are we going to get there, and what the sub path looked like. So we really put that pen to paper. Once we saw the numbers and we saw everything, “Okay, we could do this.” Joseph: Well, there is a book called the “Power of Regret” that I’m reading right now by Daniel Pink. Samantha: [33:27] Oh, I love Daniel Pink! Joseph: Yeah. One of the four major regrets that people have at the end of their life or even midlife is a boldness regret where they don’t do something bold. Samantha: [33:40] That’s part of it, too. It’s like, “Okay, if I’m not going to make it now, am I going to regret it later?” Retail really helped me find of made me learn, “Yeah, fail fast.” Because in retail, you fail fast on a lot of things. I kind of apply that in my real life. I’m like, “Well, what’s going to happen if I fail? I’m not going to know until I know and I jump into it.” Joseph: Before we get to your time back in the Philippines, can you take me back to the moment when you and your husband, and your two young daughters hopped on the plane? On your way to the Philippines, as you guys took off from San Francisco, what was running through your head? Samantha: [34:18] There was a lot of anxiety and excitement. Getting dropped off at San Francisco with two restless children, while dragging our luggage and two big car seats was definitely the first hurdle. Joseph: Yes. Any trip with young children . . . Samantha: [34:36] That was definitely the first hurdle. Yes. That was the biggest hurdle for us. Did we pack enough snacks? And then, the next hurdle is when we checked in to get our tickets. Joseph: This is December 2021, right? Samantha: [34:48] Yes. Joseph: Okay, so this is about two years into the pandemic. Still lots of travel restrictions and entry requirements. Samantha: [34:55] Yes! We’ve heard stories and we witnessed it while we were checking in that there were some people that were not able to get on the plane because they didn’t take an RTPCR test 24 hours before. Because there was an easy miss if you look at that checklist on the website. Joseph: Very confusing, yeah. Samantha: [35:12] It was very confusing. At the time, there were still quarantine requirements. We had the quarantine with two small children in the hotel room before we got picked up after quarantine and we finally made it to Baguio. That was when we were able to have that big sigh of relief. Like, “Okay, we did it. We made it with two small children. Now, it’s where do we start and where do we go next?” Joseph: Was there a point where you felt like this had gone from being something unknown to the right decision for you and your family? Samantha: [35:47] Is when I hear my eldest saying, “Oh, today was a good day. I really like the Philippines. I don’t want to go back to California.” When we asked her, “Why don’t you want to go back to California?” It’s like, “Well, because Mommy and Daddy gets to spend more time with me.” That like, “Oh, my gosh!” I was bawling my eyes out! That was the defining moment for us where we knew that even as a 5-year-old, she could tell the difference of having stressed-out parents to having more present and intentional parents. That happened within less than a year, right? Kids will always tell the truth. They would never put a filter on anything, and I think that was the defining moment for me for sure. Joseph: Did you notice anything about yourself? The Sam back in the Philippines versus the Sam in the Bay Area. Just on a day-to-day basis, how you felt, anything you noticed about yourself during that first year back there? Samantha: [36:46] It was weird. I felt weird at first. Because Bay Area Sam is always on the go. Like, I would feel weird if I slow down. “What’s next?” Or we have downtime, we could check this off our list while we have time. Versus over here, I get to slow down. I get to reconnect with myself and it’s refreshing to have some time for myself as well because you need that. As a mom, as a wife, and just as a person, to reconnect with yourself and being able to kind of have something that you call your own. For me, that’s being able to spend time with friends, having yoga, or anything that I only do for myself. Not because selfishly, but it’s just helped me feel a human being again. Yes. I feel like I’m the more laid-back Sam in the Philippines versus California Sam. Joseph: I can’t help but think about myself as a parent as you’re describing these stories to me. Because I do sometimes feel guilty if I’m just taking a moment for myself to just do something for me. I don’t know why. Why do you think that is? As a parent that that’s so hard to give yourself permission to do that. Samantha: [37:57] It’s so funny because that’s what me and my husband were just talking about a few days ago. It’s hard because you missed your kids. That’s why you feel guilty. But, at the same time, I feel like for you to be able to be at your best for your kids, you have to be your best self first in however way you need to — I wouldn’t say disconnect, but channel that or cope with that. You have to have some type of way to cope with life because you are still a human being, and you need that reminder that you still need that. You have your own needs as well. However way you do that, whether it’s yoga, whether it’s working out, whether it’s taking a walk, that makes a difference and put you in a better headspace, and be available and ready for your kids. There’s always going to be that guilt. It’s because you miss your kids, right? You need time away from them, but the moment that you get time away from them, you miss them right away. It’s just going to be an ongoing challenge as a parent. Joseph: I do want to talk about some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way during your move back to the Philippines. I am curious to hear what has been the most surprising thing about returning there. Samantha: [39:13] Living in Baguio City, even though traffic is probably worse from years ago, I feel like you could still get to where you need to go within 20 minutes. I feel like that takes back a lot of your time. You could be intentional with your time depending where you’re located. It plays a big deal. If you’re doing this two-hour commute at work, there’s so much you can do living in a smaller city, within two hours that you probably won’t have living in California. The time, how much I could do in a day. Because again, it’s such a small city and everything is still accessible. That’s what surprised me is how much time you could take back. Joseph: As you leave a city like San Francisco, which sort of I guess on the outside and even on the inside when you’re living there, feels like this city of opportunity and growth, and a lot of the tech companies are there. Well, I’ve got clients sometimes, or cross paths with people who are about to make a move away from a big city, which feels like the place to be, with a lot of opportunity to then move to a smaller city or away from the “professional scene.” Did that run through your head? And if so, what advice would you give to the Samantha who was pondering whether to move away from a city like San Francisco? Samantha: [40:34] Manage your expectations and do your research. Another thing too is, you know, how it was when I was a kid is probably not the same. There are probably some similarities, except that there are some things that you’re probably going to have to address to. Managing those expectations is very important. Really knowing what you value the most. Yes, there’s all of these things, but does that align with your values? Or how big will that impact your personal or professional values if you were to move there? As long as you know what you value the most, which in my case is being able to spend time with my kids, everything else is secondary. Joseph: Well, that’s a great segue, Sam, into the last thing I want to talk with you about before we wrap up, which is just a couple questions about the lessons you’ve learned along the way. And then, we can talk a little bit about what you’re up to right now. What’s something that you’ve learned about yourself moving away from the Philippines to work in the U.S. for many years, and now returning to the Philippines? Samantha: [41:33] One thing that I’ve learned about myself is that I needed to slow down. I just felt I was not being productive or I always felt restless. If I wasn’t doing anything, if I wasn’t keeping myself busy, slowing down helped me see things more clearly and speed up the process. One thing that I learned about myself, that I was going too fast and that’s slowing down is not a bad thing. Joseph: What is something that you now know about career transitions that you wished you had known in the past? Samantha: [42:11] The advice I would give myself is to be bold. This is probably cliché to hear, but life is short. But it truly is. The exciting part begins when you surrender to the unknown, even if it means that you might fail in some areas along the way. If you’re just kind of settling because you’re too afraid to fail, it’s better to just fail fast so you could learn faster and move forward. Joseph: I want to wrap up with what you’re doing now. You mentioned this at the beginning of our conversation that your husband started some jiu-jitsu lessons. It sounds like your daughter is benefiting from this right now also alongside her ballet. Can you tell me a little bit more about C-Suite Jiu-Jitsu? What is that? Samantha: [42:50] Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. C-Suite Jiu Jitsu is Brazilian jiu-jitsu lessons that we offer for kids as young as 5 through 16 years old, to adults as well. We also have women’s self-defense classes. Virtually, anyone in any size, as long as you know the right techniques, you’re able to escape from someone attacking you, whether they’re 100 pounds bigger than you. There are some ways to combat that. I feel like it’s a good life skill to have. My husband, Benjamin Agustin, is the one running it. He’s the one teaching all the classes. I am running the operations. We just started this year but been having a lot of great feedback from people and there have been a lot of great signups, which is very exciting. Joseph: In college, I very briefly took jiu-jitsu myself. Samantha: [43:41] Oh, nice! Joseph: I didn’t make it past white belt because I just didn’t have as much time in college. I was so caught up with my pre-med studies at the time. I feel like if there were one martial art I’d want our daughter to learn, it would be jiu-jitsu. Just because it’s so practical to everyday life and self-defense. Whatever happened to Masarap Box? What’s the current status of that business for you? Samantha: [44:04] There were a lot of unexpected things that I didn’t anticipate with our suppliers. And just the cost, we are trying to reassess what would be a better value for everyone. I’m sorting that through right now. I just thought it was best for us to pause shipments this year, but something’s brewing, and I am working on rebranding it for next year. So, stay tuned. Hopefully, I get to update you as soon as we get that live again. Joseph: If people want to learn more about C-Suite Jiu Jitsu, or if they want to keep up with what’s happening with Masarap Box, where can people go? Samantha: [44:41] At least for C-Suite Jiu Jitsu, we are most active on Facebook and Instagram. If you just look up our handle, @csuitejiujitsu. For Masarap Box, @shopmasarapbox, mainly on Instagram. Yes, if anyone wants to learn more about just me personally and wants to shoot me a message or have any questions about my story or about career transitions, they could also easily look up my name on LinkedIn as well. That would be Samantha Tovera Agustin. Joseph: Well, thank you so much, Sam, for telling us about your life as an HR consultant and business owner. How you managed your transition from the Philippines to the U.S., then back. Also, the importance of just getting clear on your priorities and values along the way of your career journey. Best of luck with C-Suite Jui Jitsu, Masarap Box, your HR consulting work, and also your life there in the Philippines. I hope it all continues to go well for you. Samantha: [45:37] Thank you so much, Joseph. Thank you again for having me today.

What happens when the initial excitement of your new job starts to wear off? Or the work you’re doing becomes misaligned with the person you want to be? In episode 88 of the Career Relaunch® podcast, Melody Mack, an neurodiagnostics business owner turned project manager shares her thoughts on managing your relationship with work, letting go of a business you created, and taking an honest look at who you are. During the Mental Fuel® segment, I’ll also share a glimpse into a few of the issues I seem to have dragged around with me from job to job. Key Career Takeaways Divorcing yourself from your professional identity is extremely difficult, which is one reason why saying farewell to your job can be so difficult. When the challenges and frustrations you’re feeling in your professional life seem to follow you from job to job, the issue may have more to do with you than your employer or work itself. While professional transitions and gaps in your CV can feel uncertain and stressful, those periods of transition are a part of the journey. Slowing down and taking the time to figure things out is not only okay but also necessary to make the right career choices moving forward. If you focus too much on what other people are saying, thinking, or doing, you can lose track of yourself. It’s important to stay true to yourself in order to feel at peace in your career. Tweetables When you blame and criticize others, you are avoiding some truth about yourself. Deepak Chopra Tweet This Resources Mentioned I talked briefly about Attribution Theory, which you can read more about here. Listener Challenge During this episode’s Mental Fuel segment, my challenge to you was to take an honest look at one of the persistent issues you’ve been struggling with in your career for quite some time. How much of your work struggles are a result of the specific environment you’re in at this moment? How much of them actually have to do with you—your expectations, your beliefs, your blueprint of how things should be. Take 1 action over something you can control to help you manage those things you can’t control at this moment in your career. About Our Guest Melody Mack Melody Mack left a successful career in healthcare as a provider and business owner so she could focus on project management in a different industry. One thing she’s learned is that working hard in a job that doesn’t give you joy is simply not sustainable. I caught Melody in the middle of her transition, and in spite of facing some tough challenges along the way, she’s still hopeful for the future. I first crossed paths with Melody when she sent me a note on LinkedIn after being a long-time listener of this podcast. She mentioned feeling burned out by her last job, the challenges of walking away from a lucrative role, and the complications of transitioning into something else–all universal challenges many career changers face. I was really excited to get her onto the show so she could share in her own words what I think is a very relatable career transition journey. Did You Enjoy This Episode? Please Let Us Know! Tweet: If you enjoyed this episode and have a few seconds to spare, Tweet to let me and Melody know! Tweet a thank you! Review: I’d also love for you to leave a positive review and rating for the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Follow: Be sure to follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android to automatically get each new episode on your device. Full instructions. Stay in touch: Follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow host Joseph on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Comments, Suggestions, or Questions? If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners! Leave Joseph a Voicemail You can also leave a comment below. Thanks! Thanks to A2 Hosting for Supporting the Career Relaunch® podcast A2 Hosting is the web host provider I use and trust for my own websites, and they even offer 100% carbon neutral green hosting. For an easy, fast, and affordable way to get your personal website online today, visit careerrelaunch.net/a2 to get 50% off your web hosting plan. Interview Segment Music Credits Dog And Pony Show – Podington Bear Planet – Infraction Signal To Noise – Scott Buckley Temporary Stop – Jay Varton Ethereal – Punch Deck New Ambitions – Trevor Kowalski Rand Aldo – Open Atmos TV Show 2021 – Infraction Episode Interview Transcript Teaser: I had to recognize that I brought some of my bad habits that led to burnout and resentment in my last career into my new career that is also possibly why I’m not happy yet where I’ve landed. Joseph: Let’s get started by talking a little bit about what you’re up to at this moment. Can you just give me a glimpse into what’s been keeping you busy in your personal life and also your professional life? Melody: [02:29] Actually, this is the first time in 14 years that I haven’t been on-call in some capacity. So, my greatest joy is being able to not have my phone on me. I’m spending time reading and taking long walks, and I’ve even started taking cooking classes. In my career, I am a senior project management consultant for a small group out of Denver Colorado. My current contract is with a school district. I’m having a lot of fun working with some incredible people and learning every single day. That keeps me very much on my toes. Joseph: You mentioned that you were on-call a lot in your past life. We are going to get into more detail about your history in a moment. But what sort of things would you be on-call for? Melody: [03:26] I was working in two leadership roles. One as a provider in healthcare and one as a business owner. At any point in time, either there was a fire to put out for the business, or I was actually on-call to provide services for a hospital. Joseph: The other thing I wanted to ask you about is just like personally, you said you’ve got a little bit of space for hobbies right now and to kind of have a little bit of breathing room. What are you enjoying doing in your free time right now? Melody: [03:54] Naps are great. Joseph: It never hurts, yeah. Melody: [03:59] Reading. I’ve been looking for new opportunities to learn something that I haven’t done before. A lot of it is interjected with just fun. For example, there’s an event in a couple of weeks where there’s an outdoor movie being shown, but they’ll also have goats running around. Things like that that are a little outside of the norm, but something that will just be fun. I had lost a little bit of joy in my career. And now, I’m just seeking new opportunities and having fun. Joseph: Very good to hear. Okay. Well, let’s talk about your past and let’s talk about your previous career chapters. You have not always been a senior project manager. Could you tell me a little bit about your time back in the day when you were working in neurodiagnostics? And then, we can move forward from there. Melody: [04:52] Well, I got a great opportunity 14 years ago to apply to be an interoperative neuromonitoring technologist, which is a healthcare technology position where you work in the operating room monitoring brain and spine. I got that opportunity without having a graduate degree, which was a dream for me to be in healthcare. It required a lot of calls, a lot of travel, and a lot of agility. But along the way, I got a chance to co-found a company with one of my bosses. And, that’s where that second role came in where I was working as a provider, but I also co-founded a neurodiagnostics company. It was exciting. It was something I never thought I’d get a chance to do, but it was good old-fashioned hard work. Joseph: You mentioned that you were really excited to work in healthcare when you think back to when you were a kid. Was this something you wanted to do when you grew up? Melody: [05:58] It was. I was that little girl who said, “When I grew up, I’m going to be a doctor.” I got the chance to apply for medical school, and I was most interested in alternative medicine. I applied for a program to get a Doctorate in Alternative Health. The estimated cost of the education would have been $500,000. And, that was the biggest barrier to entry for me. In hindsight, it was the right decision to not take on the debt. But it did leave me thinking I could not be in health care unless I got some sort of higher degree. Joseph: You moved into this area of neurodiagnostics, and you also co-founded a company. Can you tell me how things started off for you? What did you enjoy about that role? Melody: [06:53] Well, first and foremost, I love science. Getting the chance to integrate technology, and caring for patients was exciting. Being in the operating room behind those doors that a lot of people don’t get to see, it was a dream come true. But again, it was very demanding and a lot of hard work. I compare it a lot to what it’s like to travel on a plane. If you’re not on the first flight of the day and you get delayed, you never know when you’re going to leave or arrive. That’s how a lot of the operating room time schedules work. So, there were a lot of times when I had no idea when I would start or end my day. But everything becomes routine after a while, and a lot of the work I did was elective. I wasn’t saving lives. I wasn’t the one doing the operation. I was ancillary to the team, which was good, but it also stripped some of the meaning of being a healthcare provider for me. The business side was where I got my project management experience because there’s no way to set up a business if you don’t look at it like a project. I got the chance to try something that on paper, I probably wasn’t qualified to build or do because I didn’t have my MBA. But you could pick up on the theme that I was always worried about lacking that degree, that higher degree, to prove that I could do something. I was given a chance to do it without and it was fun, it was exciting, and it was hard. Joseph: What was the most challenging aspect of that period of your career? Melody: [08:40] Wearing multiple hats. Being in the operating room, but knowing that I needed to attend to a business matter. Also, staying focused on what was right in front of me. I had a really hard time being present and caring for the patient in front of me while I was also thinking about my business meeting that was happening shortly thereafter. The more I learned about healthcare for profit, the more out of love I fell with the industry as a whole. Joseph: We talked about this when we first spoke about this idea. I know you mentioned you were in the operating room, you get a chance to see a lot of things that the average person doesn’t get a chance to see. I think the way you put it to me at the time was the more you were able to see behind the curtain, the less passionate you were about healthcare. Can you just explain a little bit about what was happening? Melody: [09:34] I had lost my belief in what I was doing it for. Don’t get me wrong. My business was very small and we were profitable. It helped me get out of student loan debt from my undergrad, and I’m forever grateful for that. But once I saw what it would take to expand and grow the business, I realized that some of the nuances in health care and insurance building here in America were just not aligned with my values. I’m not criticizing anyone in the industry, but for me personally, it was a point where I couldn’t sell the services because I didn’t believe in the way billing worked anymore. Joseph: How long did you have that feeling before you started to think about moving to something else? Melody: [10:31] In all honesty, it was death by a thousand cuts. There were so many little things over time that were difficult: knowing the behind-the-scenes of healthcare billing, having a 24/7 job, working with other people who are 24/7 in a high-stress, high-intensity environment, and just the sheer exhaustion that comes from that. But there was a single moment in time I was thinking about it, the last 24 hours preparing for this. I was on call for trauma neurosurgery, and I lost track and I had taken a long walk. And, I was about a mile from my house when I got the call that they needed a tech immediately. So, I literally had to sprint home, jump in my car, drive across town, and set up for work, and that ended up being a 17-hour workday. Once I arrived, I found myself thinking more about when I would get to take a break, when I would get to eat, or how many hours I would get to sleep when it was over, versus what was happening right in front of me. I was having to work harder and harder to be present for my patients and my team. At the end of that 17 hours, I went to give the surgeon a summary of the case and he said, “Who are you again?” I was devastated because I thought my role in the room was important. I powered through a big long day, and it turned out that it wasn’t what I thought. I was looking for validation from the team around me and that’s something that I have been working on in my new career. But it was pretty grounding and humbling. That was the moment when I knew it was time to go. Joseph: That must be tough to hear because you’re investing your blood, sweat, and tears into something. And then, for someone to not even who you are in the room. That’d be really tough for me to stomach. Did you then think about making a change at that moment? What was running through your head after that night of pulling all those hours and well not even knowing who you are? Melody: [12:56] How am I going to get out? Joseph: What were you most afraid of when you were thinking about it? Melody: [13:03] I was most afraid of leaving the salary, which was a good salary but it required a great deal of self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice had become my mode of operation. Most of all, I would be, on paper, walking away from a dream being in healthcare, founding a business. Let me be clear, that they were tied by my business partner was also my boss. I was very embedded in this neurodiagnostics world with my partner. The idea of untangling that was terrifying. Joseph: Did you guys have conversations about what was running through your head? This potential whisper that you were hearing about maybe doing something else, what was that like? Melody: [13:53] Joseph, I’ll be honest. I realized that for the six months prior to me finally saying it was time for me to go, I had become grumpier and grumpier at every meeting. I realized that my business partner was dreading having meetings with me because I would always bring in all this emotion and baggage because I was so burned out and so resentful at that point. When I did tell him, it was like breaking up. So, there was a great degree of guilt and awkwardness. His response to me was, “Oh, I know. You’ve been burned out for five years.” We had been working together for 11. Joseph: So, he recognized this, you recognized this. Well, you can share as many details as you want here. But what did he tell you when he found out that you were thinking about no longer carrying on as someone who was really burned out in this particular industry? Melody: [14:56] He was the same as he’s always been. He believed in me when he met me 11 years prior. But he also wanted me to stay holding up the two companies. He was considerably gracious. There was no arguing or begging me to stay. But I think it took them a few months to realize that I really was moving on. We kept in touch until — actually, very recently. I haven’t heard from him for maybe a month. We kept in touch because we had become friends over the years. Ultimately, I think that as much work as I carried for the companies, I think he also understood that maybe it was time for us just to go our separate ways. Joseph: I know you mentioned the moment that you experienced in the hospital when you realize you had to make a change. Was there a moment when you realized that as much as you wanted to continue to work, I guess with this co-founder of yours and to continue to work on this project you’d invested years into, was there a moment when you realized that that wasn’t working for you? The building of this business that you had built from scratch. Melody: [16:08] Yes. There’s a lot to it, but I’ll summarize it this way. I knew that I didn’t have the capabilities to grow the company in the way that it would take to be successful. I also had fallen out of love with that service line. The hardest part of leaving that were the people that my team there were such incredible and hardworking, and they sacrificed a lot to make it what it was. Ultimately, leaving both companies gave other people an opportunity to lead. Joseph: I have always been curious, Melody, about what it’s like because I’ve never been in this particular situation where you create the business, or the product, or the service, and you are building this thing. You are raising this like you would a baby. In some ways, it is your sort of metaphorical baby. I know this must be tough but can you put into words what it’s like to say farewell to that and to just hand it over to some other person who probably feels like some random individual who hasn’t been involved from the very start? Melody: [17:26] It was really hard. I was flying down to another city to tell my right-hand person, my right-hand team member in person, that I was leaving. I was in the airport googling how to leave a company that you co-founded, literally. I was grasping at straws. I felt better about it by creating new leadership positions for individuals who had been dedicating a lot and pouring into that, but nothing was adequate enough for me to feel good about leaving that. It still isn’t. I’ll be honest, I think about my team, I keep in touch with some, and I do still feel guilty for leaving them but they’re doing fine. Joseph: Just to paint a timeline here. We’re recording this in mid-2022. My understanding is that it was in 2021 when you started the process of trying to extricate yourself from this business. I’d love to shift gears here a little bit and talk about that exact transition. Like that period when you decided, “Hey, I’m leaving. I need to find a way out of this.” What happened between the time when you decided that and when you left? Can you walk me through those few months in your life and what was happening for you, what was running through your head, and what you were wrestling with? Melody: [19:10] Quick plug here. I found your podcast last February. That was after that moment of the 17 hours of surgery that I needed to look for that external support. So, thank you. You’ve been with me this whole time. From there, I had already built a foundation in project management. In 2017, I’d taken a Certification Course in Project Management so that I could apply it better to the business that I was already building and running. Continued with that and took a project management approach to everything in both of my businesses. To me, that was the obvious direction. But leaving a leadership position I held, two of them for 11 years, is very difficult and takes a lot of planning. I think from when I said, “I was leaving” to my last day, it was probably April to July. And then, I did some freebie consulting for the team afterward with some questions, I think until January, just little odds and ends and questions. Along the way, I drink a lot of wine. I probably talked about it to everyone that I knew. I exhausted my support system by talking about it because it was the only thing I could think about. You know what? Ultimately, when I did tell people I was moving on, it was just a collective sigh of relief. People were like, “Oh, thank goodness! Melody’s finally going to move.” Joseph: When you say “people,” like friends and family. Melody: [20:54] Yeah, my support system had been listening to my gripes, my grumpiness, and my woes for so many years. I hadn’t taken action until last year. I’m so relieved that I did. But it wasn’t the end, it was just the beginning. Joseph: During these few months when you’re trying to extract yourself, you’d also achieved your Project Management Certification, is that right? This was in late 2021. Melody: [21:28] I sat for my Project Management Professional Exam this February. So, just a few months ago. But I had been building my project hours over the years. Then, I put off taking the test because the application process in itself is pretty time-consuming. The application, I completed last year. Then, when they approve you, you have one year to take this exam. Like I said, the application alone is very daunting. Joseph: When you’re thinking, “Okay. I’ll get this certification and then I’ll be set to apply to other roles,” was that the plan? Melody: [22:10] I’ll back it up to when I finished my last day, my jobs. I started a small consulting company just to help give small businesses business operations and project management. But what I found right away is that I didn’t want to be a one-man shop and that I needed more resources, and probably more experience to be successful. So, I even got a job at a cafe because I wanted to make cappuccinos and do something that was not full of pressure. Joseph: No pun intended. Melody: [22:45] I know. It was this fantasy to go back to my first job, which was a barista. And, I got this cafe to give me a chance even though they looked at my resume and thought, “You’re insane.” But they gave me a chance and it was a full-fledged line-out-the-door café, and it was not a relaxing job. Although, the perks were delicious food and being on the other side of the register, which was important. Joseph: I mean I was just talking with somebody who was telling me that they had a friend who was saying, “Hey, at some point, I just want to slow down. I just want to have a job in a café. I just want to serve coffee and do something that doesn’t require a tremendous amount of effort outside of the work hours.” What was that like for you? I know you mentioned it was busy. But what was the experience like going from this high caliber job, but also role as a co-founder, working in hospitals, life-and-death situations to — not to diminish it but, serving coffee to people? Melody: [23:47] That’s what I wanted to do. Part of that was complex. I was immediately humbled because I hadn’t been in the restaurant industry for many years, and I had a lot to relearn. It was fun and exciting for about five minutes. And then, I realized that being customer-facing is hard. That people are either incredible or terrible. My co-workers were diverse and interesting, and hardworking. I only got to make a few cappuccinos. I mean that was what I was in it for, and it was harder than I thought. I scratched that itch. I made friends with the master baker who gave me a 30-year sourdough starter. I only lasted about a month before, honestly, my back went out. Joseph: Oh, no, okay. This was quite the change of scenery for you. Before we talk about some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way, I do want to talk also about what’s been happening for you over the past few months. Again, we’re recording this in mid-2022. You got your certification just three, or four months ago. What has this process been like for you as you have now tried to create this new chapter in your career focused on project management? How’s that gone for you? Just completely recreating your life and your professional life. Melody: I made it harder for myself by selecting to not look for roles within healthcare. I had some early opportunities from recruiters to do project management within healthcare, and it’s not what I wanted. In an attempt to reinvent my career in my life, I had said very early, “I want out of healthcare entirely.” I didn’t do myself any favors there. I’d like to say that I’m a generalist and I’ve been trying to continue important general skills like public speaking in my Toastmasters’ Club, and leadership, also in my Toastmasters’ Club, in hopes that someone would give me a chance to interview and say, “You know what? Melody can do anything. Let’s plug her into this industry.” Essentially, that’s what happened but it didn’t happen quickly. And now, that I’m in that, I’m still a little surprised and grateful that someone gave me a chance outside of my specialty area. Joseph: What did you ultimately end up doing, and what are you ultimately focused on right now? Melody: [26:28] I had a recruiter find me on LinkedIn for a project management consulting position. The job description does not match what I do and it wasn’t even close to what I interviewed for. I got placed in a contract with a public school district doing all kinds of things. But mostly, I’ve gotten the opportunity to be paired with strategic projects, which they’re not life and death like what I had been in before, but the scope of the people that they could affect is very large. I don’t know a lot about public education, and I’m learning every day. It’s nuanced, and it’s complex, and it’s political. But what I’m focusing on is taking my general skills in project management. And, just having been in such a high-stress environment and applying it to these projects, which are high stakes in a different way. To be honest, some days I leave work with more questions than answers. But that’s what I asked for when I left my other industry. Joseph: When you say questions, Melody, are you talking about questions related to the job itself, or questions related to your choice to do this job, or both? Melody: [27:57] That’s an interesting way to frame it. Maybe all of the above. I would say if you asked me a year ago if I would have thought it’d be in public education as a project manager, I would have said, “Hell, no!” But I also realized what was attracted to projects is that there’s a start and an end. I’m already finding myself wanting more, and that’s a scary place to be because I just gave up more. I gave up two massive roles to simplify my life. And so, what I really need to do is just sit still and be present, and do what I’m doing. Joseph: This is a really common I guess scenario that people either face or may be concerned about when they’re making a career change. From the people I talk to, one of the biggest hang-ups or hesitations people have about making a career change is maybe making a mistake, or maybe things not going as you hoped they would go, or maybe things not moving as quickly as you thought they’re going to move, or the work not being as interesting as you had presumed it would be. I’m not saying that any of those are necessarily what you’re talking about. But how do you wrestle with this situation where at least, initially, the blueprint you had in your head of how things could be, hasn’t exactly matched up with your experience? Melody: [29:27] I think I’m responsible for a lot of the discomfort in where I was before and where I am now. I brought some bad work habits with me into my new career, which include equating work ethic with self-sacrifice, with having difficulty setting boundaries around work. Not just because work is not demanding of me, I’m not shutting down the work thought at five. I know it’s not possible always to just turn it off. But more than once, my husband has said, “You’re not getting paid to talk about work right now. Why are you talking about work?” I had to recognize that I brought some of my bad habits that led to burnout and resentment in my last career into my new career. I have to take accountability that that is also possibly why I’m not happy yet where I’ve landed. I am really in a mode where I need to do some deeper work and not put all of my hope for joy, and peace, and love, and happiness in my career because I sacrificed the side of myself to be successful, to pay my student loans, and to build something. I believe that it’s time to build myself and my career is going to be on side of that, but not necessarily the central focus anymore. Does that make sense? Joseph: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I think when we spoke before starting this recording the first time we connected, I think one of the things you told me was that a lot of your self-esteem comes from work. We’re not talking about you specifically, but just in general. People’s self-esteem a lot of that really emerges from your professional life and your professional identity, the company you work for, the title that you have, how big your office is in some cases, and how much you’ve climbed the corporate ladder. And so, I think it is very difficult to completely divorce yourself from your professional identity. It’s just really tough to do. It is interesting also to hear a little bit about your husband and his perceptions of you now versus before. I mean, have there been any other observations that he’s picked up or that he shared with you that you care to share with me that have just been interesting and maybe eye-opening for you to hear? Melody: [32:06] He gets alarmed when I don’t answer my phone, and I actually ignore it now because I was so tied to it. I was one of those people who if we were having coffee, I would be looking at it constantly, responding to texts while we were talking, and not being focused on who was with. Now, I’ll have the ringer on maybe 20% of the time. It will be buzzing and he’ll run into the room and say, “Your phone’s ringing!” Like, I don’t care. It took me a while to not jump every time I got a text or a call because that was how the hospitals and my team would communicate in the past. I did block about five hospitals that were still calling me as of two months ago for services. Don’t worry. I informed them first who to call. So, nobody’s not getting served. I blocked their numbers so that they wouldn’t call me anymore. The big one is just my behaviors with my phone are different, and I’ll sit through a whole meal without pulling up my phone, which I think we should probably all be doing. I didn’t recognize until recently what a bad habit I had developed with my phone, but it was a necessity of my job. Besides that, I think what people have known me this whole time have noticed is that I’ve become less serious, which is something I would also tell my younger self is “Don’t be so serious about everything.” I’ve created this insurmountable expectation for me and other people in my life over the years. It was tied to my career, but it seeped into my personal life. I believe people have noticed that I’ve calmed down and relaxed a little bit. I still have a way to go, I’ll be honest. Joseph: We all do. I was just having this conversation with my wife before we had this recording. I was telling her about my days back in Hawaii. For a long-time, listeners, and you may know this also, Melody, I spent about a year in Hawaii before medical school. I was out there just trying to do different things. I was just telling you, I didn’t give myself permission to relax as much as I wished I would have. I was really way too cautious that I needed to be at the age of 22. This does happen sometimes. I think this is a really good segue to talk about one of the last things that I was hoping to cover with you, which is just some of the lessons that you’ve learned along the way of this career change journey, which you’re still just like right in the middle of it right now. If it’s kind of at the start, actually. And, this is the perfect time that I think I would like to ask you about some things related to what you just mentioned about advice to your younger self. Anything else come to mind is you’re in the thick of this right now? Melody: [35:12] With all things, I would tell young Melody, “This too shall pass.” I did not spend enough time before I took this contract enjoying the in-between. To me, it was purgatory. I was suffering. I was stressed about what was next, what would my next salary be, and whether would I be able to prove myself. I didn’t enjoy that ride in between which was I just left a career, I sold the company. This is an okay moment to enjoy the ride and take each day as a day. Some days are great, some days are just a day. I was so focused on getting to this side of it where I had a contract in my hand and guaranteed pay. If I could go back in time, I would tell young Melody, “You know just, this too shall pass, enjoy the ride, and calm down.” Joseph: I can so relate to a lot of things that you’re telling me right now, Mel. I think you and I are very similar in this way. Maybe a lot of people listen to this where you just kind of want to get through that transition and just get to the other side, and you like to put so much pressure on yourself to figure it out right away. And, until you figure it out right away, you feel guilty about going and treating yourself to a cup of coffee or a cookie until you have your “life back in order.” You’re right. I think those transitions are rare moments when you’re in between these jobs, and you can kick back a little bit and slow down. It’s just very hard to do when you feel pressured to find that next thing. When you look back on your career change, what’s something that you wished that you had known that you now know? I realize you’re still in it right now. Melody: [37:25] I wish I would have known that my internal critic was not helping me. That it was holding me back, and that the people around me who were supportive and said, “It will be okay. You’ll get through. You have a good work ethic. You have a lot of skills. Just hang on.” I wish I would have known that they were right. It is something that is a central focus of my self-work now is calibrating that internal critic when it’s helpful, which is not that often for me and when it’s wrong. I want to believe the positive I want to know that it will be okay and it is okay. It sounds so simple but I read myself through the gauntlet all these years. I am still at the beginning of the shift, but I can breathe again. And, I can see that there is potential that this isn’t forever, this contractor, this specific position. I’m coming to peace with that unknown because I’m starting to finally believe in myself. Joseph: Having been through this career change, the last question for you, what’s one thing that you’ve learned about yourself along the way? Again, keeping in mind that you’re still at the start of this pivot. Melody: [39:01] What I recognize in myself is that if I spend too much time focusing on what other people are doing, I lose track of myself. What I’m learning is as long as I show up with integrity and authenticity, wherever I am, either work or non-work, people will respond in a positive way and I will also attract the right kind of people and the right kind of work as a result of that. Joseph: If people want to learn more about you, or if they want to get in touch with you, or just hear more about the kind of work that you’re doing right now as a project manager, what is the best way that they can get in touch with you? Melody: I’m on LinkedIn. That is the only form of social media that I use. And, I’m always looking to network and collaborate. I’m looking for inspiration and partnerships in a very broad sense. I just want to be connected and around people that are positive, and inspirational, and that we can learn from each other. Joseph: Anything else you want to say before we wrap up? Melody: [40:16] Well, I’ll give another shout-out to you, Joseph. For your podcasts and your work. I am so inspired by the people you attract to your podcast and the interviews that I’ve heard have helped me along the way. I’ve passed them on to others who are in transition. If there weren’t for people like you, people like me maybe wouldn’t feel as confident making that big leap. So, just wanted to thank you and all your interviewees for their great work. Joseph: Thank you very much for those kind words, Melody. I am really happy to hear that the show has helped you and it does make my day when I hear stories like yours where people have felt inspired to make a change. Even if it isn’t necessarily the perfect move right away, but that you’re taking strides in the right direction, that’s great to hear. Thank you so much, Melody, for telling us more about your recent shift into the world of education, some of the challenges you’ve had to overcome along the way. Most importantly, some of the things that you’re still wrestling with right now, which is what many people wrestle with when they’re trying to figure things out. So, best of luck with your new role for that school district. I hope you can continue to take steps toward what will hopefully provide you with that balance that you’re seeking. Melody: [41:39] Thank you, Joseph. It’s an honor and a privilege to be here. I’m going to consider this for me like closing of that old chapter because I’ve been holding on to a lot of things. I think I’m going to take this day and close that chapter, learn the lessons but definitely move on. Thank you. Take care. [End 41:58]