Podcasts

Pete Mockaitis
Ethan, welcome.

Ethan Bernstein
Thank you, Pete. It’s great to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to hear some of your wisdom. And I’d love to know, you are teaching and researching organizational behavior, and that was a field of study that I did and I love it so much. Can you share with us a particularly surprising or fascinating discovery you’ve made about us humans and organizations that has really struck you and stuck with you?

Ethan Bernstein
So, I spend my days and sometimes nights studying workplaces, particularly trends in workplaces, like increased transparency, increased connectivity in workplaces today, the way that affects employee behaviors, and the way those behaviors affect performance. And one of the things that’s captured my attention, I suppose you call it a surprise, is that we’ve been two-plus decades in the field of organizational behavior telling people to chart their own path, find their own way, create their own journey, and people still don’t really know how to do it, and it shouldn’t be a surprise because we really haven’t told them how.

And so, that’s what led to this interesting bit of research that we’ve been doing around how people hire jobs for the job they want to do in their career as opposed to just being hired by organizations.

Pete Mockaitis
How people hire jobs. That’s a fun turn of a phrase right there.

Ethan Bernstein
Well, Clay Christensen, who was one of my dissertation advisors, created a theory called Jobs to be Done Theory, which Clay used to solve one of the key frustrations he had. He saw great organizations, great people, creating new products that didn’t sell, and for him, that was frustrating because it just seemed like a waste. All these great people, all the material and time and everything else that went into it and then ultimately didn’t work.

And the Jobs to Be Done Theory suggested that the reason for that was that people don’t just buy a product, they hire a product for a job to be done in their life. And so, if you sell a product based on attributes, like an apartment has granite countertops and an open kitchen, that’s not actually why people buy it. People buy it because they can imagine themselves cooking in that kitchen, talking to people.

That the experiences, not the features, are what matter, and that if you really understood the experiences people were looking for, the struggling moment that led them to hire that product for a job to be done, then you could create other products to solve that job to be done better. And if you think about why people move jobs, that’s oftentimes why they move jobs. They realize that they’re struggling, they want to make a certain kind of progress, that progress isn’t being delivered by the organization or the role they’re in, and so they seek a different role that could do that.

And that was the surprising moment, I suppose, for me in 2009 when I saw Bob Moesta, who worked with Clay on the protocols behind Jobs to Be Done, do one of his investigative journalistic interviews of a consumer who bought a product to understand the causation behind why that person had bought that product, what job they’d hired that product to do.

And I sat there thinking, “I gave some advice to somebody on their career this morning. I should have done this because then I would have been able to provide better advice.” And 15 years later, that’s what we’ve done over and over again, over a thousand times to collect the data for this book.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. That’s cool. And when you say, with regard to the data in the book, any really striking themes, patterns, insights that just pop off the page for you?

Ethan Bernstein
So, as an academic, I expect there’d be huge variation in the causation. People, it seems, choose different jobs for a whole variety of reasons. When we actually took all these interviews, these 60-plus-minute interviews, coded them, all the rigorous research that keeps me fully employed, we actually found that the things that push people away from a particular role and pull them towards a particular role, that there’s actually a lot of commonalities.

We clustered it all down to 30 pushes and pulls, which is a remarkably small number if you think about it. Now, I will say, to me that’s a small number. To the outside world, 30 was too many. So as publishers said, “Wait, wait, 30, that’s too many for us to remember,” we then went back and looked at patterns across and found even more so that if you look at the patterns across those pushes and pulls, people are largely just on one of four quests.

And what stage of your career you’re in, what stage of your life you’re in, can have impact, but people will filter through each of those four quests over the course of probably their career. But understanding what quest you’re on then provides a person with the ability to make them more awesome at their job because that’s when the advice matters. You can give great advice to a person on a different quest and it can be bad advice because they’re on the wrong quest for that advice.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s really resonating, and I’m chewing on this. Could you perhaps bring this to life for us with a particular person and a transformation that they saw as they were thinking through this stuff and coming up with fresh insights by thinking about it this way?

Ethan Bernstein
So, let me explain the four quests a little bit, and then I’ll do what Michael Horn, my co-author, made me do in the book, which is I put myself in the book, and I’ll write myself into the framework as well in a prior role, not in my current one, just in case the dean of Harvard Business School is listening to this podcast.

So, the four quests. One is, get out. These are people who genuinely find their energy drained by the role they’re in and find that the capabilities they want the organization to be drawing on aren’t the capabilities that is actually being asked for. So, they are both not happy with how their work is going and the what of their work. And for them, they’re just looking to reset both those dimensions, they’re trying to get out.

Think of the opposite dimension. If you’re trying to build on both things, you’re actually quite happy with the work environment and you’re happy with the capabilities you’re asked to deliver, you just want to take the next step. So, for some reason you’re ready for that next step and you want to take it, and the organizations of the world and the world in general is pretty much designed for the take-the-next steppers. That’s so-called progression in most organizations.

The off dimensions are more interesting. So, if I love what I’m asked to do, the what, and some of us are out there right now thinking, “I love being what I am, like, what I’m asked to do. I’m respected for the work I do, and so forth, but I hate the how. I don’t want to commute anymore because it wastes my time. I’m working too hard because I have a new family. I’m not working hard enough because I’m an empty nester.”

“The manager that’s now managing me because that person switched doesn’t respect me for the way I’m doing my work, and so they’re asking me to do work differently for their purposes, whatever the case might be. The work drains my energy more than drives it. And so, I want to reset the how, I want to regain control.”

The people who, on the other hand, love the work environment they’re in, everything about it, or most things about it, but they’re being asked to do things, that the reputation they’ve got, the work they’re actually being asked to deliver, is not drawing on the capabilities they either thought that they have or want to have, those people are trying to regain alignment. And so, once upon a time, Pete, I was a consultant.

Pete Mockaitis
Me too.

Ethan Bernstein
I thought we might have that in common. And I had been asked, at a firm I loved, I really actually, I loved the job, and I had been asked to step in for somebody who’d left a project midstream, and it was a restructuring project. And I stepped in, we delivered the product to the client, we delivered the project, all was good, and then another such project came along, and because they needed someone with that expertise in the local office, they asked me if I would do it, and I said, “Okay.” I mean, I was still at the stage of my career where I was like, “Sure, of course, I’m happy to help where I can.”

So, now I had two projects in restructuring under my belt, and we all know that restructuring projects oftentimes involve certain amounts of layoffs, and so that was something I was, apparently, getting good at. So, when the third time around, right, a client came to ask for this and wanted the same team that had done the previous projects, I got called and brought into the conversation with the client even before the project began, and was introduced as the expert on that.

And that was the moment I knew I needed to regain alignment because that had never been my intention. And this happens to a lot of people on project-based work and other work. You just develop a reputation and expertise that wasn’t what you wanted to do, and you love the how, but the what? And that’s how I ended up at the Harvard Business School doing a doctoral program.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Well, I can’t help but chuckle, here we are, former consultants, and we find ourselves discussing yet another 2×2 matrix. We can’t help ourselves.

Ethan Bernstein
If it weren’t an actual 2×2, it would have to be a 2×2 in the sky that we would be seeing in our own imaginations. But yes, and I will be clear though, this is not categorical as a 2×2 typically is.

So, get out, take the next step, regain control, regain alignment. These are like poles on a map – north, south, east, and west. There’s a lot of space between the North Pole and the South Pole. There’s a lot of space between regain alignment and regain control, and people are in that space. So, these are just likelihoods.

In fact, we offer an assessment based on the pushes and pulls so people can try to figure out where they might be on the quests using an assessment at JobMoves.com. It’s available for free. But the assessment will just give you likelihoods and then you ultimately have to pick based on those likelihoods.

This is not about telling you what you are. This is about helping you be more aware of where the pushes and pulls are so you can understand if those forces are aligning enough that they overcome the habits of the present and the anxieties, the new solution that might keep us in our role feeling stuck, maybe silently quitting, I don’t know quiet quitting, I don’t know, but it’s understanding the alignment that might be drawing us to something new.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that’s handy. So, we can think about things in terms of “Do we have a fit on the what side and on the how side?” You’ve got a juicy teaser, I can’t resist, there’s a mindset shift that helps us love instead of regret a new job. Is this it or is there another one you want to unpack for us?

Ethan Bernstein
So, that’s the broad one. So, if Clay’s frustration was around new products that didn’t get sold, my frustration is around people who disrupt their lives, sometimes their family, certainly their career trajectories, in order to take a new role only to find, six to twelve months later, they’re unhappy with it, which, if you just asked a room, “What’s the fastest you’ve ever gone from taking a new job to knowing it wasn’t right for you,” over three-quarters typically say between a month and a year.

That’s my frustration. And that’s not leading anybody into a good place. It is causing us a huge amount of disruption and it’s an indication, I think, of a process that’s broken. And so, my goal here is to try and help people do that better.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Well, I’m curious then, on the outside looking in, it could be a little bit tricky to know, “What’s my experience going to feel like in that month to year in which I go, ‘Uh-oh, oopsies.’” Do you have any pro tips in terms of, like, top research methodologies or questions to ask or steps to take to prevent this regret?

Ethan Bernstein
So, let me offer you a few a few thoughts from the book and from our research and from my course “Developing Yourself as a Leader,”

So first, I think having the pushes and pulls is helpful. That list, you ask somebody, “How do you do it? How are you feeling about this job?” they have no idea how to answer. You give people a list of 30 items and ask which ones are operational for them, it’s much easier. It does prime them, but given the data, suggests that most of those are going to be covering what people are feeling, it’s just an easier place to start with a menu as opposed to start with a blank slate.

Then, once you’ve got a sense of your quest, you know which dimension you’re on and where that likely is, then you start asking yourself the question, “Okay, so what drives my energy and what drains it?” And this is, again, not about attributes. It’s not about the granite countertop and the open kitchen. These are experiences. In the job world, those are titles.

Titles have a huge return to ego, and you’ve got to get a better one. Those return, that return does not last long. What you really want, actually, is to think about what you’re going to do, not what you’re going to be. That has a much longer life cycle in terms of its return to you.

On the capability side, similarly, we talk about strengths and weaknesses. I’m sure, Pete, when I talk about strengths and weaknesses to you, you have a sense actually, those are sort of ingrained in you, what we’d say their trait instead of state. Instead, think of something like a balance sheet that describes you in the current moment in time. Just like a company, you have assets, things that are acquired by you at material cost, that you are hoping will deliver future value in your career, acquired, by the way, and funded by liabilities, usually the expenditure of time, effort, and potentially money.

Those assets depreciate over time. If they depreciate without you replenishing them, thinking about the next role, you’re not staying relevant. So, you can think about a much more deliberate approach to building and keeping, maintaining, your capabilities, given the change of the world around you, than strengths and weaknesses really gives you permission for.

And all of that begins to then shape up what it is you’re hoping to achieve. Once you’ve done that, I have another set of five steps after that. So, we’ve gone through steps one through four, five steps of advice for how you actually get what you’re looking for.

Pete Mockaitis
Could you give us a few examples of assets to help shake off static strengths, weaknesses kind of a framing we might be operating with?

Ethan Bernstein
When I do this with my students, a couple typically show up routinely. There are skills out there, hard skills, technical skills. If you’re a software engineer, then your degree of knowledge about a particular platform of engineering, that’s an asset. These platforms, these languages change. That’s something you need to reinvest in if you want to stay relevant. And there are many other kinds of technical. For market analysts, your knowledge of the market, any one of these pieces of technical knowledge, that’s certainly an asset.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m thinking about marketing too. It’s sort of, like, things are constantly changing in terms of, like, just the rules for Google ads or Facebook ads. And then it’s like, “Oh, yeah. Well, that strategy worked three years ago, but, oh, you’re doing that now? Oh, wow, that’s really out of date.” And it’s funny, these, it seems like some skills have a short shelf life and some almost seem eternal.

Ethan Bernstein
There are some evergreen skills, but there aren’t very many. We want there to be more than there actually are, I think. And so, most technical skills today depreciate much faster than they used to. So Boris Groysberg, who once upon a time, he’s a faculty member here on the Business School’s faculty. Boris explained to me this exercise, and his favorite example is mechanics, an auto mechanic.

An auto mechanic of the 1960s, you learned a car, you leverage that for 20 years. You learn a car in 2020, 2024, how long does that really last? Things are changing much faster, especially the degree to which it’s about coding and not about the actual mechanical skills. It’s different. It’s changing. And part of the reason people are so so desperate for progress, on a daily or weekly or monthly basis, is because they’re just trying to remain relevant. So that’s one, technical skills.

Another one that comes up frequently? Relationships. Networks. Network might seem evergreen. My friends will always be my friends. My contacts will always be my contacts. Weak ties will remain weak ties. That’s, oftentimes, the way we find information. Not by the strong ties, not the people that we’re closest to, but the friends of friends, if you will.

And yet, really think about it. If you don’t invest in those relationships, how long do they actually last? Maybe a couple years? Maybe you can go back to someone five years, ten years down the line and say, “Hey, remember those great times we had? By the way, I’m looking for a job. Do you know any interesting openings?” But a network depreciates, too. Most things depreciate.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s heavy, and you’re right. We wish more stuff lasted longer, because just the way we wish our roof lasted longer. We didn’t have to spend the money to replace it as often. So, I would like your thought then, what does really, really last?

Ethan Bernstein
Well, my own view is actually what lasts is the constant effort we put into refreshing our assets. So, remaining relevant is a deliberate act, and the more deliberate you are, the better off you are on that capabilities dimension. Now, if you’re in a build, not a reset mode, you’re just trying to refresh what’s on there.

The good news for most of us, though, who are oftentimes finding ourselves on the reset capabilities front, where we’re trying to, for example, regain alignment, if all assets do depreciate over some amount of time, there’s actually quite a bit of flexibility as long as you anticipate it. And so, our advice, our core advice, is not to go for the evergreen product, but instead to think about where you want to be in five years’ time.

Worry a little bit less about your income statement, if you will, today, and a little bit more about your balance sheet tomorrow, because that’s what’s likely to be able to influence what you’re going to be considered for on the next job.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a general approach by which we attempt to deduce, “Okay, what assets do I need in the future? And how shall I prioritize the cultivation of them?”

Ethan Bernstein
So, we find that most people enter a move, either because of pushes or because of pulls, either they’re being pushed away from something, or they’re being pulled towards something. It’s an opportunity that looks too good not to consider, or, “I’m frustrated with my current situation.” Whichever one you enter in, the next step is to think about the other side of it. What are you leaving behind? What might draw you in?

We have not written a book about finding your dream job because we don’t believe in dream jobs, we believe in good tradeoffs. So, we encourage people to not answer the question, “What do you want to do next?” We, instead, ask people to answer the question, “What are three to five prototypes of what you might want to do next, given the quest you’re on?” It’s a much easier question for people to answer. And the more contrast you create across those prototypes, the more contrast creates meaning for you and you understand the relative nature of these things.

And that conversation then, combined with your energy drivers and drains of past jobs and the capabilities you have and the balance sheet you might have or might not have and want to build, help you begin to think about how to prioritize certain tradeoffs over others for your next move. So, it is about choosing, not about designing from scratch.

This is not just a two-by-two or pie in the sky, but it is about choosing wisely based on your particular progress, the kind of progress you want to make. Because what we saw in The Great Resignation, when people want to make a certain kind of progress and the world offers them progression that doesn’t match, what do they do? They leave.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, when you say three to five prototypes, could you articulate, like, “Here’s what I mean by a prototype, like how someone might articulate that sketch?”

Ethan Bernstein
It’s three to five versions of a job you might want to have. Just like if you’re a new product developer, it’s three to five versions of the product you think that people might want to buy. I’m not going to ask you, Pete, what you’re looking to do next, but…

Pete Mockaitis
I might do this until I die. We’ll see.

Ethan Bernstein
But maybe there’s a version of this. Maybe there’s another podcast around the corner. What does that look like? How is it that you would change this or change that? Would it be within an organization? Would it be outside an organization? A side gig? Is it a set of side gigs? Is it a part of my portfolio? What dimensions could I change? Could I change geography? Could I change role like a functional role? Could I change any one of a number of aspects of this?

If I took the core central quest that I’m on, let’s say it is regain alignment, and wanted to change some of the capabilities I’m being asked to do, okay, what are the three to five versions of that role I could imagine that would allow me to do that, that would still take into account the fact that I like the way my energy is driven currently by the job?

Those pushes and pulls don’t exist for me. And also took into account the capabilities I might want to keep, I might want to build on, so that I’m just focused on changing the dimensions that would allow me to achieve what I’m trying to achieve in the next round.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, I think I hear the conceptual idea of what you mean by a prototype. Could you now say, for yourself or someone, students that you’ve encountered recently, how they would articulate all of that in a conversation?

Ethan Bernstein
So, here’s an example. One story in the book is of somebody who believed the next job she wanted to have involved working with scientists and travel. So, a travel coordinator at a top scientific magazine sounded great, until she discovered that actually a travel coordinator neither works with a scientist nor travels. But the job description sounded fantastic. The party material was great, but what she was going to do wasn’t what she ultimately wanted to do.

But that’s where the prototypes come in, so that would be one potential prototype. And you can go out there and find these roles, if you need to, but most of us have the ability, especially if we have one or two or three jobs in the world, to get a sense for, “Okay, so based on what I’ve done, which are the pieces I keep, which are the pieces I don’t?” But that’s an example of it.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I like that. I like that a lot. And I think, so often folks get the wrong idea about a job from the outside. And I’m thinking about sort of early career or picking majors, and our folks will say, “I’m going to go to law school because I like arguing, and in the courtroom, I could do that.” And so, hopefully, they’ll learn pretty early in the research process that, “Well, hey, most of the work of a lawyer is not that most of the time, and you’re mostly researching stuff and writing stuff and talking about why this paragraph or clause needs to go or be adjusted in such a fashion. So, you want to know that earlier rather than later.”

Ethan Bernstein
And once you’ve specified five prototypes, you would do what any new product developer would do. You’d go ask people about them. So, you can actually learn before switching if you have the material to go have those conversations, and we’re not talking about just people talk about informational interviews. That is part of this.

But you’re not actually looking for a person’s job, or a job like theirs. You’re actually looking to truly understand that lawyer, “What does she do on a daily basis? Does it match this prototype or not?” Because if it doesn’t, then you’ve been sold a bill of goods by the world that doesn’t actually exist, and it’s good to know now before you switch than after you switch and discover that you’re one of those people who, one month to 12 months in, took a role that you didn’t want to take.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Thank you. Okay. Well, you say we got nine steps, and you say we’ve covered some steps and there’s more to be covered. Just so we get it on the record, could you enumerate, “Step one is this. Step two is that”?

Ethan Bernstein
So, nine steps, and you’ll notice in the book, it looks like a little bit of a Chutes and Ladders view. But step one, we’ve talked about, understanding the pushes and pulls. Once you’ve understood the pushes and pulls, we’re going to try to start putting those on the dimensions. So, step two is understanding the energy drain and drivers of prior jobs, and then the capabilities, doing a balance sheet exercise, a career balance sheet exercise, step three.

Step four, then, identify your quest. It doesn’t have to be exactly right, but at least getting an initial sense of what your quest might be. You can always go back and revisit these later. Step five, then you develop those prototypes, those three to five prototypes, because it’s a much easier answer than what do you want to do, to say what are the three to five things you might consider doing.

Step six, to pick the prototype. Here’s where we look at those priorities that you’ve made, the decisions you’ve made in the past, what you prioritize in your energy drivers and drains, what capabilities you might want to focus on and see if that can inform us to go towards at least one prototype, maybe two. Then check those prototypes against real jobs out there to ensure that these prototypes are not just dream jobs, they’re trade-offs, they’re ways of deciding on things that actually exist and matching them to those real opportunities.

So, now you’ve been through seven steps. At some point, someone is going to ask you to describe those seven steps so that they can have a compelling reason to hire you, and that’s step eight, to create your story spine. We’re not talking about an elevator pitch. Part of what we’re trying to do is encourage people not to sell themselves into a job that’s trying to sell them something about the organization, but instead go for match, go for fit.

So, instead of an elevator pitch, which is typically a sales pitch, we’re asking people to use the Pixar Story Spine to come up with the progression, the narrative, of how you ended up deciding that this is what you needed to do next and be able to do that quickly in short order. And only then, step nine, is to apply for jobs.

You only actually apply for those jobs once you have all those pieces because, especially in a talent environment like today, if you’re one of a hundred, you might have trouble finding the job. If you’re one of three, and you’re really compelling about the reasons why you’re one of three, and it’s a great fit, you’re much more likely to be successful in making that move.

And if we are, indeed, in a world, which we seem to be in, in which people will move jobs, that could be internal or external, once every four years on average, more frequently for certain generations, people make progress by moving. And if you’re going to do that, you want to make as much progress as you can within a single move.

Pete Mockaitis
And can you   a picture for what a one in a hundred candidate sounds like versus a one in three candidate?

Ethan Bernstein
So, I am the person around here who spends a lot of time thinking about HR. So, here you get to hear my pet peeve first.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Ethan Bernstein
Job descriptions. Job descriptions these days have everything packed into them, and there’s a good reason for that. You mentioned lawyers earlier, Pete. Lawyers want us to be able to hire anyone so they put everything they can into the job description. And what it ends up sounding like, you’ve seen some of these, right, “Entry-level job. Five years of working experience required.” It’s just, no one can fit into a job description these days because it looks like they’re asking for unicorns.

So, what do we do as individuals in the workplace who want that job? We take our resume, we put it all in there, we pack everything we can into it so that we can be the superheroes who will fill that role. So, we’ve got a matching process between superheroes and job descriptions. It’s not doing anyone any good to find fit. It’s just two people trying to sell each other on a fit. Sales is not fit.

So, that’s what the one in a hundred looks like. You’re trying to convince somebody that you’re better than the other 99 on the dimensions you’ve read about in the job description using the lines of your resume. The one in the three? That’s the person who doesn’t just have the resume with all the stuff in the words, but actually can explain the spaces in between the roles, can talk about the trajectory.

It doesn’t have to be a line. It can be a zigzag. Most of us zigzag all the time. That’s how we make progress. If it looked like a straight line, then it’s just progression, which is fine, but most of us don’t look like that, and we haven’t written a book for people who are on a progression because they know where they’re going next. That’s the one in three, though.

The one in three is the person who actually has an explanation, a story spine that makes sense for the zig and the zag, that makes the person who you’re talking to convinced that actually this is the right role for you because you will grow in the role and the role will grow with you, and the organization and the individual will both benefit.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. So, we’ve got the story, the context, the whole picture, it fits together, and there seems to be a real deep congruence or rightness about it. That’s cool. I want to follow up on what you said about the lawyers. The lawyers want the job descriptions to sound like anyone could do them. Could you expand on that? What’s this behind the scenes for us that we should be aware of?

Ethan Bernstein
Oh, so for years, organizations have structured job descriptions to allow the hiring manager as much flexibility as she or he wants to hire the person they ultimately find for the role.

Pete Mockaitis
In order to protect them in the event of a liability situation, lawsuit.

Ethan Bernstein
Right. Exactly. Well, I don’t know if it’s just to protect them, to ensure that they can say “This person fits within the job description that we ultimately found.” I’m not an employment lawyer so I’m not going as far as pretending to be one. My law degree did not take me that far. But there is a degree to which it permits them flexibility as a hiring manager, because there’s just enough in there that anyone could fit the job description.

That’s kind of the problem, isn’t it? Anyone can fit the job description. We actually suggest shadow job descriptions that the manager can share so that people understand what the role actually does require as opposed to what could potentially be the shape and form of the job.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Well, it’s funny, this actually never occurred to me that the job descriptions are formulated with an intention other than clearly describing the job and who might flourish within it. Call me naive, Ethan.

Ethan Bernstein
Well, I’ll tell you, I, oftentimes, when I’m talking with people about this, will ask a poll question about how much jobs descriptions describe the work that people are ultimately doing in their roles. Some people come out in the 80 to 100 percent, but it’s a small number. Most of the time, most of what we’re actually doing, we don’t remember being in our job description, or we don’t think our job description really prepared us for.

And that’s because, if you track the history of job descriptions, where they came from and how they’ve developed, they really weren’t necessarily designed to do that over time. They’re designed to do something else. They’re designed to provide the hiring manager with the flexibility she needs in order to hire the people that she wants to hire.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, inside scoop, behind the scenes. Thank you. Well, let’s say that we’ve gone through a lot of these steps and it’s like, “Okay, wow. This is really clear. I need to make a change, and this is sort of what it looks like, and, boy, we’ve got an opportunity that looks appealing, and maybe we’re going to apply,” but there’s some just emotional stuff in terms of there’s some fears, some anxieties, there’s the devil you know. How do you advise folks when their head says, “Yeah, we got to get out of here and go in a direction like this,” but internally they’re feeling fear, anxiety, and really not sure about taking the steps, making the leap?

Ethan Bernstein
Development is a social process, we know that. So, therefore, is moving. If you’re not actively talking to people about your development goals, ideally people at work, then you’re going to end up in a situation just like you described, “I’ve gotten eight steps in and now I’m feeling very anxious because what I have in my mind and what the world around me thinks of me, we’re on two different wavelengths at this point.”

So, every step, of that nine steps, for us, is social. The pushes and pulls, we actually have a chapter in the book for mentors to be able to train up on how to do that job, that interview. What Bob Moesta, our co-author, developed with Clay in terms of the protocols for conducting an interview on Jobs to be Done, and then they do it together.

Each step, actually, involves other people. That should have a huge impact on reducing the fear and anxiety you’re talking about before it becomes overwhelming, before it becomes such a block that people simply don’t move forward. It is counterintuitive because most of the time, we don’t want to, don’t feel comfortable talking about this at work, but maybe that’s because we haven’t had a common language, we haven’t had a common framework, we haven’t had, Pete, the two-by-two.

But, more importantly, we haven’t had a process that we could bring to the table, that individuals could bring to the table, to make use of the assets, the people around them, because my field has been saying for decades. “Lead your self-development, this is great. It gives you all the flexibility in the world.” We were talking about this, to create your own journey, and we just haven’t given people the advice and the means for doing it. If we do, maybe they’d be more comfortable making this a social process.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, Ethan, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention, top do’s and/or don’ts, before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Ethan Bernstein
Don’t talk about what you’re going to be. Talk about what you’re going to do. Don’t focus on strengths and weaknesses. Think about your assets and liabilities instead. Don’t do this alone. Be social in the process. I know it sounds very counterintuitive, doesn’t it, based on how people typically do this.

But I guess I would conclude with don’t keep expecting more from each other. So, this is a conversation, ultimately, in most organizations between the individual, the manager, and HR. Each of those parties has had a bit of a history for pointing the finger somewhere else. HR says, “Managers don’t have time.” Managers say, “I don’t know what the employee wants.” Employee says, “No one wants to listen to me.” This has to be a joint endeavor.

And so, top do? Don’t keep this a secret. People are very open, typically, to understanding what you’re trying to achieve. And the less you say as an individual, the more people think that what you’re needing in terms of progress is big rather than small. Whereas most people, when you really dive down, are just looking for little bits of progress over periods of time.

As a manager, don’t ignore the fact that we’ve given you 30 pushes and pulls. We’ve given you the reasons why employees quit. Many employees quit. So why not use those to have a conversation about which might be operating or not operating with the people that you’re working with, and see if you can’t start a conversation which people leaders are aware of how their individuals are feeling on those dimensions that matter for making them potentially move?

And then HR? Track it all. Because quests do change over time, but they don’t change over days. So, if you have a sense for what people are trying to achieve, you’re much more likely to both make them productive, as opposed to quiet quitters, and you’re much more likely to retain them than using the tools that we’ve been using forever, which include things like, frankly, money. Money’s great. Everybody would like more money. Everybody would like a better work life.

Everyone would like all these things, except when you give it to people, we, it affects us for a little while, and not so much after that, because in the end, we each have our own definition of progress. And if you’re not aware of what that is, either as the individual, the manager, or the HR person, you’re not actually customizing the employee experience to the person who you’re trying to keep.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Ethan Bernstein
I’m going to go to a Mark Twain quote, given where I am in the world. “The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.” And every time I hear that quote, I’d love to ask him a question, “What on earth am I supposed to do in between?” The answer is, make progress. And, hopefully, some of this advice helps everyone out there not just be awesome at their job but make progress in it as well.

Pete Mockaitis
A favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Ethan Bernstein
Chalk. Believe it or not, at the Harvard Business School, we still have chalkboards. You know why?

Pete Mockaitis
Tell me.

Ethan Bernstein
As opposed to whiteboards, this is at least my understanding of it, at least as opposed to whiteboards, when you write with chalk on the board, people hear it. You’re actually working with the students to make progress together in the classroom. And that’s why I love chalk because the sound, and the work together, putting their comments on the board, because I’m not writing my own thoughts, I’m writing theirs, goes from blank slate at minute zero to full board at minute 80, structured in a way that we actually understand how we’ve all contributed actively to the conversation and the progress we’ve made together.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. That’s poetic. Yeah. And a favorite habit?

Ethan Bernstein
I have a six-year-old and a 12-year-old. My favorite habit is reading to them every night.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote back to you often?

Ethan Bernstein
Maybe I can answer that question and anticipate your question about my favorite book at the same time. I, oftentimes, will end my course with a children’s book that I then rewrite for the lessons of the course. It does turn out, though, you don’t need to rewrite that much. Yes, pull out the red pen, cross out some lines here and there, make it more focus to the course, but you can learn a lot from a book like Pooh’s Instruction Book.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Ethan Bernstein
I’m at e@hbs.edu, just the letter E.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s really cool. That’s one of the shortest email addresses I’ve ever encountered. Beautiful.

Ethan Bernstein

Seven characters without the period and the @ sign, yep.

Pete Mockaitis

And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Ethan Bernstein

Think about the next one now.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Ethan, this is fun. I wish you much lovely progress.

Ethan Bernstein

Thank you, Pete. This has been fun. I really appreciate the questions.

Pete Mockaitis
Megan, welcome!

Megan Hellerer
Pete, it’s so good to be here today. Thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to have you and discuss some of the insights from your book, Directional Living. And I would like to hear a story about a transformed client, but it sounds like, in many ways, your own story is like the picture-perfect textbook case for what we’re talking about here. Could you tell it to us?

Megan Hellerer

Absolutely, yeah. I consider myself my own first guinea pig. All of this grew out of my own need for solutions, for answers. And so, my story is I was what I now have come to call an under-fulfilled overachiever, which is someone who has checked all the boxes, done all the right things, did everything they were supposed to do, and really built this great on-paper life that did not feel so great inside.

And, for me, that looked like, you know, getting straight A’s in high school, captain and president of all the things, going on to Stanford, graduating at the top of my class, starting at Google almost immediately after I graduated, and dutifully climbing the ladder for eight years there, and getting a bunch of different promotions, and getting to work on cool stuff, and be exposed to a lot of interesting ideas.

And, in the meantime, I was having near-daily panic attacks, I was deeply depressed, and was struggling really even to get to work every day. I was just miserable. And I should say this wasn’t always how I was. My mental health started suffering in my time at Google, and yet I couldn’t quite connect it to the fact that I was unhappy at my work, and maybe it wasn’t the best fit for me. I felt so ashamed of the fact that I had this dream job that everybody would want, and what was so wrong with me that I couldn’t be happy or feel like a job was just a job or find fulfillment in this.

And, eventually, I ended up quitting my job with no plan, simply because I really could not do it anymore. And through that process of simply trying to help myself, I sought out many resources and teachers and mentors and programs, and nothing was quite helping me find a new approach or new way of thinking about my work and my career.

And through that process, I ended up taking a coaching training course, simply in an effort to help myself, but also thinking that it might help me when I was back in corporate land, mentoring and managing teams again, and I just loved the way that coaching worked, the frameworks around it. I did not intend for it to be a career. I was extremely skeptical and dubious of coaching as a career. I very much had a lot of ego involved where I was, like, “Who goes to Stanford and becomes a coach? That’s not a thing,” and didn’t really think I could also have an income from that.

But I kept sort of going through the process, and, in order to get certified, which I did just because I figured “Why not? I’m already here,” I had to coach, get a certain number of paid hours of coaching and reached out to some friends of friends. And what happened is that their lives started to change. My life started to change through helping them change their lives. They started referring people to me and before I knew it, before I even had the intention of having a coaching practice, I had a full roster of clients.

And sort of still dragging my feet, I decided it was something that I needed to, I couldn’t not try. And fast forward 10 years later, I’ve now been working with helping under-fulfilled overachievers find fulfillment and developed a methodology and a framework for thinking about this and looking at this, that I realized also applies beyond under-fulfilled overachievers, and now have had the great fortune and joy of getting to write a book about it as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s so cool. Well, I want to dig into so many little tidbits here. First, my own curiosity, which coaching certification body?

Megan Hellerer
Coaching Training Institute, CTI. I think they might have changed to Coactive Training Institute.

Pete Mockaitis
jI was going to say, I don’t know a ton about the coaching landscape but I did do the fundamentals course with the Coactive folks. And it seems like the people in the know often say “This is what’s up.”

Megan Hellerer
Yeah, that was the first course that I took was the fundamentals, and then, for the sake of brevity, I left this out of it. But I took that and then I didn’t go back, you know, there’s many other series. I didn’t go back for, like, three months because I was, like, “This is too much fun. This can’t be serious work because work has to be hard and serious, and, therefore, this is a waste of my time because it’s not going to lead me to where I want to go in my career,” which was a whole other mistake or misguided belief. And, eventually, I couldn’t stop thinking about it and went back and completed it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so then let’s back it up a little bit. The panic attacks and the deeply depressed and the miserable situation at Google, were these in your life prior to Google, like, as you were crushing it at Stanford, etc.?

Megan Hellerer
No. So, I think that’s a key part of the story is that I did not struggle with mental health previously. I should say, I had high-functioning anxiety, to some extent, but it wasn’t debilitating. It wasn’t getting in the way of the way I was living my life. I had pretty decent coping mechanisms. And so, it really escalated majorly at Google.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, now you’ve done a lot of work and a lot of reflection, and can you identify, is it your assertion that it was the primary driver of some of these mental health challenges, was the mismatch of you and that role there?

Megan Hellerer
Yes, actually. So, I often refer to it as the fulfillment ache, which is like the distance between who you are actually and how you’re showing up in the world. And when that chasm gets too big for too long, this sort of existential depression, anxiety, struggles develop in that gap. So, again, it really does become physically, viscerally painful to live that way.

And so, I think it was a misalignment of my life, in general, Google being a very big piece of it, given how much time I was spending there and how maybe unbalanced my life was. But I don’t think my relationship was a good match for me at the time. I don’t think the city I was living in was a good match for me. And so, there was, holistically, it was the misalignment of my life but that was a major piece of it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, since we’re talking about being awesome at jobs here, at How to be Awesome at Your Job, I’m curious, can you identify the particular pieces of mismatch within Google? Because I would imagine, and you correct me if I’m wrong, that there may well be some roles inside the vast breadth that is this company, in which you might be delighted. Do you think that’s the case, or, no, no, there were a few fundamental things that just weren’t working for you?

Megan Hellerer
That one might be delighted in, or that I personally might be delighted in?

Pete Mockaitis
Ah, sorry, you, Megan, would be delighted in.

Megan Hellerer
Yes, because I was going to say, this is not an anti-Google thing, right? Like, there are many people for whom working at Google in whatever role they’re in, and I’ve coached people into Google or supported people’s decisions to be, to stay at, or join Google or other tech companies and all of that, so this isn’t anti-Google or anti-corporate. For me, personally, I do not think there is a role at Google. Never say never, but as far as I can tell, I do not think there’s a role at Google that would be aligned for me.

So, there are a few broader things, like environment, like I just don’t think I’m meant to be in, like, an open floor layout plan. Like, I’m very pretty introverted, and I like to do deep focus work separately from people. So, there are things like that, that I think were never a good match for me and really drained my energy.

Well, I love working from home, which I think is another thing, like, I am most creative and most effective from, like, five to nine in the morning, and that’s when I do my best writing, my best deep thought work. And so, it’s hard to do that when you are keeping corporate hours.

I mean, you can still do that, but then you’re spending four extra hours with your butt in the seat to demonstrate that you’re there in the office. You don’t have a lot of control. Like, I only take meetings at certain days and certain times in order because that’s like the best flow and efficiency for me. All of these things, not Google specifically, but are difficult in corporate land.

I also really like working for myself, as in being my own boss, and kind of, I don’t know, directing the flow of things and deciding what the priorities are, and I really like to be able to be nimble and make quick decisions, like hiring, firing, joining, a lot of testing and learning.

And I found that it was very, draining to have to support decisions and strategies that I really didn’t agree with because that’s the nature of the game. You can voice your opinion, leadership makes the decision, and then it’s your job to enact those things. I also was working on, like, sales and partnership side of things. But living and dying by the spreadsheets of revenue, and that are kind of arbitrary things were really difficult for me, and kind of just, like, the death by PowerPoint, I just like couldn’t. There was all the meetings about meetings and meetings, and I really, clearly, I need to go to more therapy for this.

I really had a hard time with things that felt inefficient or ineffective. And that stuff really grated at me. I also think that’s part of why I was good at my job there, is because I have an eye for scale and operations, and I was able to offer ways that we could improve things, but that isn’t always taken into consideration.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, well, Megan, I’m relating to this so much, and I love how you’ve teased out some of the very specifics. Like, based on who you are, how you roll, the means by which you operate and exist in this world, were not fitting there with regard to the bureaucracy, you wanted to do more testing and learning, the open floor plan was tricky, supporting things that you weren’t the boss of, making the decisions on, living and dying by spreadsheet revenue, things that felt inefficient.

And it’s funny, I can really relate to so much of this because I thought I had a dream job at Bain & Company and I learned a lot of stuff, and the people were phenomenal, and there was not a jerk or an idiot anywhere to be found there, in my experience, and some cases were really cool for me, and some really weren’t.

And that was really intriguing how we see, “Oh, well, some magazines say this is the best place to work,” Bain or Google, “And yet it’s not the best place for me to work. Huh.” And that’s natural for you to think, “Oh, well, what’s wrong with me? If the world says these are the best places to work, and I’m not happy there, maybe my happiness functioning is just broke.”

Megan Hellerer
Yep, exactly. And I think that gets to the point of there is no objectively great jobs or objectively perfect. It’s only good or right for you. And I will say that in terms of “Would there be a job at Google that would be a good fit for me?” I made many tweaks and shifts in the eight years there to try to make it work. This wasn’t like I did one thing the whole time and then I was like, “Hm, I’m done.”

Like, I changed teams, I changed roles, I changed locations, I changed organizations, I changed products, I changed, like, every managers, seating arrangements, like pretty much every tweak you could make, I made. And when I finally, in sort of the last role, was the thing that I was like, “This is my last hypothesis of what would make this work.” And my idea was, if I was working on consumer-facing products instead of ad-oriented or enterprise or some sort of products, like maybe then if I was working directly with the end consumer that I would care more about the impact I was having.

And even then, and we were working on Google Wallet at the time, like tap and pay, which was brand new and, like, such a revelation and was, like, novel and interesting, and as a consumer I was excited about it, and I still was not excited about doing the work involved in that and the day to day of what that actually felt like and the experience of it, really made it clear for me. And then I think working, I’d been working my butt off for this promotion. I really was like working so hard for so long and, whatever, doing all the things.

And then I got it, I got the promotion, and I felt nothing. In fact, I felt emptier, I was like, “What am I working for now?” And also, nothing actually changes. It’s the same job, which is like maybe more responsibility, maybe a slight pay increase, higher expectations, and now I just work for another promotion? And there was no one ahead of me that I could see, that I was like, “Oh, I actually really want that.”

And it just dawned on me, like, “Who am I doing this for?” And I think those were some of the moments where I couldn’t see somewhere that I truly wanted to get to, or where anything was going to feel different after having made all of those adjustments that I could think of.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, thank you. And I like the word “hypothesis” there. You were testing each of these things, and it sounds like that’s kind of like a fundamental means by which you cracked the code on this, in terms of “What’s going to do it? Well, let’s see. Maybe it’s this. Let’s try it. Oh, I guess that wasn’t it.” And then, “Oh, this coaching thing is really awesome. Huh, how surprising. Well, maybe let’s do a little more of that, see how that goes.” So, that seems to be one thread there.

Could you share what are kind of the fundamental principles you recommend people keep in mind? If folks are resonating, like, “Oh, this is haunting. Megan is like telling my story,” how would you recommend people start thinking about this thing all the wiser?

Megan Hellerer
I love that you brought up hypothesis because I often talk about it as sort of the scientific method for life, where our job is not to know the answer or to figure out the answer. We’re meant to sit there and be like, “Okay, what am I meant to do with my life? Let me think really hard about this.” We need to live into those things. We need to experiment.

So, have a hypothesis. That’s great. And think, “Okay, I think I want to go into this field,” or, “Coaching seems more interesting, or something to do with counseling and advising and consulting. That seems like a better direction for me.” And then the key thing, is that when you’re doing an experiment in scientific method, the goal is not to prove yourself right. The goal is not to prove the hypothesis right. It’s to find the truth.

And so, what often happens is we pick, in my language, a destination, and say, instead of a hypothesis, “I wonder if this is the right thing for me,” we say, “This is the thing I’m going to achieve. I’m going to become CEO by the time I retire,” and we get so attached to that goal as our failure or success, as opposed to testing and learning, that we don’t even realize somewhere along the way that that actually is not the truth, that’s not the results of the experiment, that’s not actually what we want. And so, when we get there, it doesn’t feel like what we thought it would. And that’s kind of where one of the biggest problems are.

So, to go to these core principles of what I call directional living, which is the first principle, which is focus on the direction, not the destination. And what I’ve found is that most of us who get stuck in our careers, and frankly in our lives, it’s because we focus on the destination. We are being outcome-oriented. We think we need to know exactly where we’re going before we start moving.

So, we think, “Okay, I want to be CEO in, however, many years. I’m going to reverse engineer my path in order to figure out exactly how I’m going to get there. And then I’m going to put on my blinders and I’m going to brute force, just make it happen because that’s what determination is,” and we miss out on so many opportunities and so much information about ourselves as we’re evolving and learning, and also the world as it’s evolving and learning.

And so, what we want to do instead is focus on the direction. And this is sort of the biggest place that we’ve been misled, I think, with traditional career guidance that says, like, have the five-year plan or the 10-year plan, and know exactly where you’re going. So, if you’re focusing on the direction, you’re focusing only on the single next directionally right step. That doesn’t mean, again, we don’t have an idea, a hypothesis of where we’re going.

So, if you imagine it’s a road trip, you might think, “Okay, I’m headed towards the West Coast,” which is different than, “I’m going to L.A. no matter what. No matter how many roadblocks there are, no matter how many detours, I am going to L.A.” to find out, when you get to L.A., that you actually don’t want to be in L.A., or that isn’t the best suited role or job or place for you.

So, instead we’re heading towards the West Coast and we’re allowing ourselves to launch and iterate, to use tech language, as we go. And that, I found, allows for so much more adjustment, flexibility, responsiveness, again, to our own selves and to the world around us, as all of these things are changing at a faster pace than they ever have before, and it allows us to evolve. So, that’s the first principle, focus on the direction, not the destination.

Pete Mockaitis
I love that. Thank you. And it’s intriguing, I loved when you said the word blinders, that resonated as the distinction in terms of directional versus destination. With the destination, we got the blinders, like, “Okay, just buckle down, grind, hustle, get her done.” But blinders, by their very definition, literally, I’m imagining a horse with the blinders on, it says, “You’re not looking around, you’re not observing, you’re not gathering the information.”

And yet, earlier in your story, you said, “I looked around and saw those in the elevated positions, those were also not what I wanted. Nobody was doing the thing that I wanted.” And I think that’s so huge, it’s like, “Are the blinders on or are the blinders off?” Because if they’re off and you’re observing, new stuff comes to light.

I’ve got a buddy who’s just on the cusp of the executive leagues at a major retailer. I want to keep it a little vague. And he’ll say the same thing, he’s like, “You know what? I thought I wanted to be a CEO and yet, when I observe CEOs and other executives, I don’t think that’s what I want. They actually seem to be working more than I’m working, and have more stress and responsibility and less time at home, and I’m already feeling like I’d like to spend more time at home with my two little ones and wife. So, I guess I don’t want to be a CEO?” And it was like quite a revelation for him.

Megan Hellerer
Yeah. So, I would say a couple things about that. So, in terms of your friend specifically, I love that he’s thinking about it that way. I would also caution that or I would question, if I were him, I would wonder if there is space to redesign what CEO looks like.

So, I wouldn’t just throw, like, “I don’t see any CEOs that look like the way I want to be a CEO, so I must not want to be a CEO.” Like, there may be room for him to design it in a way that works for him, especially because he’s going to be in a leadership position, or, again, he may say, “I don’t think I do want to be a CEO. What is directionally right for me? What’s like a one-degree turn? Is it something else in the C-suite?” Is it staying where he is for the next however many years? And then maybe he wants to be a CEO when he feels like it better suits his lifestyle at some later time.

There are many ways to look at this, but I love that he’s asking that question. And that is the opposite of blind ambition, in the sense that you aren’t looking around and you aren’t asking yourself the question. The moment you highlighted that I was recapping when I looked around and saw, “Oh, I actually don’t want this life that I have been working towards,” that was the moment my blinders came off. I wasn’t clear about that until those later moments. I was completely in the blinders, and this is where blind ambition comes from.

And a lot of people who come to me who are miserable, but have all the achievements and none of the fulfillment, all the success on paper, feel terrible, they’re like, “Maybe I’m just too ambitious. Is that the problem? Is ambition the problem?” And I feel like this question is coming up more and more. And the thing to me is that ambition is just the desire for impact, the desire for contribution, almost the desire for more life. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think that’s a beautiful, wonderful thing, and it’s the type of ambition, the way and the how of the ambition.

So, the blind ambition is the destinational thinking, the pick the destination and decide no matter what you’re getting there. It’s sort of like the end justifies the means approach of navigating your career and your life. Aligned ambition is “Is this warmer? Is this colder?” launch and iterate, directionally right approach where you have an idea of where you’re heading, you’re not aimlessly wandering.

And maybe CEO has been a beacon for him, and that’s been incredibly effective as a direction, but it’s different than holding on so tightly in the blind ambition sense that it becomes a destination, and the only way that he can achieve success in his life.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. Okay. So, that’s a core principle right there. We are going directionally as opposed to strictly to a precise destination. We are not having blinders. Rather, eyes wide open, observing what are we seeing, what are we thinking, what is this information sharing about our emerging evolving hypothesis. Is there another key principle you reckon to keep in mind?

Megan Hellerer

Yes, and we’ve touched on it a little bit, so perhaps we don’t need to go into as much depth about it, but it’s launch and iterate. So, take an experimental approach to your career and your life, and this is especially important for overachievers, or perfectionists, where it’s like either you failed or you succeeded.

But when you take an experimental approach, it can really help to sort of loosen up your ability to try things because if you learn, if you get any more information from whatever you’re doing, it’s been a success. So, if we’re redefining success as learning, as where the only mistake or the only failure is not taking action, this gives us so much more freedom and so much more permission to figure out what works for us. And that is actually what tends to build the most effective, fulfilling, impactful, meaningful careers and lives, is a willingness to launch and iterate, and test and learn.

Pete Mockaitis
And when we’re launching, iterating, testing, and learning, do you have any favorite approaches by which we could do this that might be lower risk than, “Quit your job, move across the country, and do the thing?”

Megan Hellerer
Well, that’s the whole beauty of it. With a launch and iterate approach, with a directional approach, you never have to take gigantic leaps because every single step is just taking the next directionally right action. And so, I actually discourage people from making any gigantic sweeping decisions. This should be a lot of small tweaks, and then when the big decisions get there, they feel like just the next decision as opposed to some gigantic leap of faith.

So, your job is only to move the plot forward. If you made progress that day, you’re good to go. So, again, it’s not about quitting your job, or getting divorced, or moving across the country, or selling all your things, or switching industries, or any of that. And often that is impulsive and running away from something as opposed to running towards something.

Obviously, I had to do that but not everyone has to blow up their life, and my hope is that, had I had these frameworks and tools, I might not have had to do that. I may have been launching and iterating and testing and learning a lot earlier.

So, yes, small decisions are important. And whenever you’re feeling stuck, I encourage people just to, “Where’s my curiosity leading me? What’s one thing I can do that feels, that makes this feel warmer as opposed to colder, that’s moving me in the right direction as opposed to the wrong direction?” And following just that sort of simple calibration, if you make enough right turns, you’re going to end up in the right place.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And could you give us some examples of tiny, hotter, colder decisions?

Megan Hellerer
So I recently moved Upstate New York. I guess it’s been about a year or two now, so not that recent. But I grew up in New York City, I, obviously, did a stint in California, but I was like, “I’m New York for life,” and really thought I was never going to leave, but I haven’t really given it much thought. I was never like, “Where am I going to spend my life?” It just was like, “This is where I am.”

And in the process of writing my book, I realized I really needed to give myself a DIY writing retreat. And so, I rented a cabin in Upstate New York and went there just to focus and write this book. And I ended up in this one place and I was blown away by how much I loved it and how different it was than what it was in my head, and also how differently I experienced it at this point in my life versus other points in my life.

So, I went home, went back to our normal life but I kept thinking about it. So, the next summer, we decided to rent a house for the summer up in the similar area and try out for the summer what it was like there. And, again, I was like, “Wow, I really love it here.” And then I started thinking, “What if I don’t leave? What if we actually live here?” And that felt like a complete revelation. But instead of getting rid of our apartment and buying a house Upstate, and just like making it happen immediately, I was like, “I just need to take one more directionally right step.”

So, I asked the person who we were renting the house from, you know, what her plans were, and she was actually like, “Well, I happen to not be coming back, so I would consider renting this to you long term,” which is actually a big deal because we didn’t want to buy because we wanted to test.

So, we ended up staying in this house and renting for a while longer, and just testing and learning, because there were many variables that we needed to figure out. My husband has a job in the city, so he’s a professor, and so he does need to be there a few days a week. What was that going to look like? And so, we did that for six months, see how it feels, and we loved it.

And so, then when it turned out that she was going to sell the house, we ended up finding another place, looking around and deciding, “Okay, what are we going to do?” And we found the most perfect home, and it happened to be right around the same time that we found out we were pregnant and we were going to have room for the baby, and so it all sort of, like, worked out. There was a lot of synchronicities involved.

So, that’s an example of how some people might be like, “I need to figure out where I want my permanent home to be,” versus, “Wow, I’m just noticing I really like being here. What if we tried this out for a few more months?” or whatever it is that you have the possibility of doing. So, that’s not a job example. That’s another life example, but that is kind of the framework you can think about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, no, I actually love that right there. And what’s fun is it’s just starting with that directional, as opposed to destinational, and blinders off approach. When you went on that writing retreat, if you had a different mindset, you might not have noticed at all that you liked being there, it’s like, “Got to get the pages. Got to get the pages. What’s the word count goal for the day? Oh, not there yet. Got to hustle. Got to crank. Got to get more words on my writing retreat.” And it could just blow right past you, that, “Hey, this is actually kind of an awesome spot. I’m enjoying being here.”

Megan Hellerer
That’s exactly the point. And I love that you picked up on that, because one of the things I’ve found with people who are used to this blind ambition approach is that we have been taught, or we believe on some level, that our curiosity, our interests, or our joy are a distraction from the goal at hand. So, it’s sort of like, we actively ignore it.

So, for example, I mean, I could think of picking a major in college. I was like, “Oh, I love this creative writing thing.” Well, that is just a distraction from the very practical major that I need to decide on that I’m going to use, as opposed to seeing that as, “That’s really valuable information about what I care about, what I love doing, what excites me, what makes me, gets my creative juices flowing, all of that kind of thing.”

And so, most people, when you ask them, “What do you actually want?” don’t know because they’ve been ignoring it for so long. So, exactly that, had I had a different mindset, if somebody had said to me, “Do you like living here? Have you liked spending your three months here for the writing retreat?” I think I would have said, “I don’t know, that’s not the point of me being here. That’s completely irrelevant information,” versus allowing that information in.

So, one of the practices I tend to do with people a lot is learning how to allow that information, recognize that information, and just even register it. You don’t even necessarily have to do anything about it. But one of the first steps is what I say screenshotting your mind. So, when you’re having ideas or thoughts cross your mind, to get into the practice of noticing them, and you’re sort of sending a message to your brain, to your psyche, to your creative, whatever you want, of “I’m paying attention. I’m ready to capture these ideas.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, and I love that so much in terms of like the joy, we could perceive it as a distraction from the real work, or I think we could be quick to write it off. And what comes to mind is a few times my wife has said while I’m just being silly with the kids, “Dada needs an improv class.” Because I’m being kind of kooky and silly and ridiculous, and I sort of immediately dismissed that in terms of, “Well, you know, hey, there’s a lot of going down with work, and the young kids, and this is not practical.”

But I think a better approach, steeped in these principles, would be to say, “Hmm, there is something to that. Like, there is a part of my silly, kooky nature that is meaningful and joyous, that isn’t getting a chance to be expressed as fully in my current set of roles and duties that’s worth reflecting on” as opposed to immediately dismissing, “Oh, improv class. Ah, I’m not going to drive all the way into the city for that. Ah, forget it.”

Megan Hellerer
Yeah, exactly. And that’s exactly the type of thing, because here’s the other surprising thing or at least surprising to me, curiosity, so an interest like that, like, “Huh, improv,” is the best proxy that we have for purpose. So, we spend so much time, “What is my purpose? What am I meant to do here?” We’re not going to be able to necessarily figure out the answer to that. I don’t think we have to have some broad mission statement.

The best thing we can do is figure out what our curiosity is telling us and know that that is going to lead us somewhere. So, if there’s something, when someone said, “Oh, improv class,” first of all, if it wasn’t interesting to you, if there wasn’t something in there that you were interested in, you wouldn’t even bother rejecting it, right? You would just be like, “Mm, yeah, no, that that’s not interesting to me.”

The fact that you, one, have noticed it, but two, actively are like, “No, I’m not doing that,” tells me that there’s something interesting in that to you. And then doing that, I would love to encourage you to explore, even just looking up improv classes, or maybe it’s a one-day workshop, or maybe it’s just going to more improv shows.

The lowest stakes thing that you can think of as a way to take another step, to explore this curiosity, because we don’t need to know where it’s going, and it doesn’t mean most people will jump to the destination, “Well, I’m not going to be a professional improv person,” or, “How am I going to use that in my life?” But instead, realizing it may not be that you do improv in some way, but maybe it sparks you, like just makes you so much more creative, in general, that suddenly you’re having all of these other ideas for a podcast or for whatever other things that you’re working on.

Or, maybe there is something there that you’re, again, it doesn’t have to be improv specifically, but maybe it moves to some other kind of performance, or you make some sort of connection that ends up being something that becomes really meaningful for you. These are the breadcrumbs; these are the clues that are telling us, “This is where the meaning is. This is where the fulfillment is,” and we’re so used to ignoring it.

Another analogy I like to use here is that it’s like cravings for food. So, the cravings are meant to tell you where the nourishment is, right? If you are lacking vitamin C, you might start craving an orange. For us, the craving, the curiosity craving for improv, for silliness, for goofiness, for whatever that self-expression is for you, is your body’s, your psyche’s, your spirit’s way of telling you that there’s some sort of nourishment fulfillment purpose there for you, and that you need to follow that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. Well, Megan, tell me, any other top do’s and don’ts you want to make sure to put out there for the under-fulfilled overachievers?

Megan Hellerer
The first thing that I want to highlight is that many people say that this, they feel like doing this work, this reflection on like, “Where’s my curiosity leading me? What am I interested in? What do I care about? What is fulfilling for me?” is selfish or self-centered.

And what I want to say is that I really believe and have found that everybody benefits when we are doing the work that is most aligned for us, when we’re living the life that is most aligned for us, because we’re not only happier and more fulfilled, but we are giving other people permission for them to do what’s most aligned for them, and we’re also doing our best and most impactful work.

You’re actually not being helpful to your team for you to be in a job that is not aligned for you. Donate that job to someone else who actually is really aligned for that work, who can actually show up and want to be doing that work. A lot of people feel like, “Oh, but I’d be abandoning my team.” You’re actually abandoning your team by doing work that isn’t really where you want to be doing and where you could be having such a more impact.

The way that you contribute most to the world, the way that you can benefit most to your community, to the people around you, to your family, is by doing the work to figure out what is most aligned for you because that’s where you’ll be the most impactful. And this ties into the second point, which is another pushback I get, which is, “But what if I can’t afford to quit my job?” or, “What if I can’t afford to do this kind of work?”

And this is completely valid, in the sense that coaching is not available to everyone, and most people can’t afford to quit their job, and the good news is you don’t have to. But we are making decisions every single day in the life that we’re already living. And my suggestion would be to start asking yourself in all of those decisions, “Is this directionally right or is this directionally wrong? Is this warmer or is this colder? And how can I make it more directionally right?”

This could be in what you’re eating for dinner, “Am I doing this because it’s something I think I should do or because I actually want to?” in what books you’re reading, what podcasts you’re listening to. If you can start to make all of your decisions, steering them more in the directionally right, most-aligned-for-you way, this is going to have huge ripple effects on the rest of your life and costs nothing.

Exploring your curiosity doesn’t mean spending a couple thousand dollars on a program. It could mean taking a book out from the library. It could mean listening to a free podcast. It could mean doing a Google search. It could mean sending an email to someone to have a conversation about them. Take an action, any action, towards your curiosity and advance the plot and you’re doing your job.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. All right. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Megan Hellerer
One of my favorite quotes that is actually the best analogy I know for directional living came from E.L. Doctorow, which is, “It’s like driving in a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights in front of you, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Megan Hellerer
I think these are depressing studies, but I think they’re important, which is engagement at work is at an 11-year low, where only 30% of people feel engaged with their work. That’s a Gallup poll. And only 17% find it to be a source of meaning, which is half of the rate from four years ago, and that’s a Pew study. And both of those are post-pandemic. This isn’t like the middle of the pandemic when there are many other issues going on.

We have a huge issue with engagement and meaning and fulfillment at work. The way we are working is not working and it’s only getting worse. This problem isn’t going away. And I found that those numbers to be shocking and really important for that reason.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Megan Hellerer
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Megan Hellerer
I would say this inner navigation system, calibration and barometer of simply asking, “Is this warmer or is this colder?” when I’m making decisions to make sure that they’re aligned for me. And I use it for everything, including coming on this podcast. I get an invitation for a podcast, and I ask, “Is this warmer? Is this colder? Does this feel directionally right or not?”

And I do say no to podcast invitation events that don’t feel aligned for me. So, I think that is sort of the cheat code to keep it really simple if you’re confused, “Is this warmer or is this colder?” I think that’s the easiest, simplest, most basic, and most effective tool for decision making there is.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with your clients; they bring back up to you often?

Megan Hellerer
I think simply the terminology of under-fulfilled overachiever and people having a word that resonates with them to articulate what they’ve been struggling with, and then also the vocabulary of the old way of doing things that we’ve been taught, destinational thinking, and the new way of doing things, directional thinking. I think having words to capture this tends to be one of the most revelatory things for people.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in, where would you point them?

Megan Hellerer

My website is my name, so MeganHellerer.com, and I’m also on Instagram, @meganhellerer. And my website also has connections to all my socials and books and more information on my philosophy and all of that good stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Megan Hellerer
I would suggest asking yourself “Is this aligned for me?” and trying to be radically honest with yourself, tell yourself the truth about your life. And if the answer is no, or any part of that is yes or no, figure out what are the parts that are aligned and what are the parts that aren’t, and see what you can do to tweak the parts that aren’t. It doesn’t involve blowing up your life. Small tweaks can make a huge difference.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, Megan, this has been so much fun. I wish you many happy directions.

Megan Hellerer
Thank you so much, Pete. Have a great day.