Tag

Career Management Archives - Page 3 of 32 - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Oct 31
0

1007: The Overachiever’s Guide to Finding More Fulfillment at Work with Megan Hellerer

By | Podcasts | No Comments

Megan Hellerer reveals the simple shifts that make your career and life feel more meaningful.

You’ll Learn

  1. Why many overachievers feel underfulfilled 
  2. The mindset that leads to fit and fulfillment 
  3. The key questions to ask before any decision 

About Megan 

Megan Hellerer is a career coach and the author of DIRECTIONAL LIVING: A Transformational Guide to Fulfillment in Work and Life. She has led hundreds of women, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to transform their lives by transforming their careers. After checking all the traditional boxes of success—graduating at the top of her class from Stanford University and spending eight years as a Google executive—and still deeply unhappy, she quit her great-on-paper job with no plan. Now her mission is to provide others with the support and guidance that she needed when she herself was struggling.

Resources Mentioned

 Thank you, Sponsors!

Megan Hellerer Interview Transcript

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.

Sep 23
0

996: Tackling Work Stressors and Transitions with Dr. Tessa West

By | Podcasts | One Comment

 

Tessa West shares her method for making the necessary changes that lead to greater job satisfaction.

You’ll Learn

  1. How your body tells you when it’s time to change jobs
  2. How to not be overwhelmed by the stresses at work 
  3. The hidden curriculum that helps you succeed at work 

About Tessa

Tessa West is a Professor of Psychology at New York University and a leading expert in the science of interpersonal communication. Her work focuses on questions such as, why is it so hard to give honest, critical feedback? and how do class, race, and cultural differences make communication in the workplace so difficult, and what can we do to improve it?

Tessa’s work has been covered by Scientific American, the New York Times, ABC World News, TIME, Harper’s Bazaar, the Financial Times, Forbes, CNBC, CNN, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Bloomberg, Strategy and Business, and the US Supreme Court. She has appeared on the Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, CNN, and Good Morning America, and is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal. She is the author of the book Jerks at Work: Toxic Coworkers and What To Do About Them and the upcoming Job Therapy: Finding Work That Works For You. 

Resources Mentioned

Tessa West Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Tessa, welcome back.

Tessa West
Thank you so much for having me back. I’m super excited.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I am excited to talk about your book, Job Therapy, and I just think we’ve got to hear of a job story you had at a Hollywood Video. Lay it on us.

Tessa West
All right. When I was in high school, I worked at Hollywood Video, which for you, young people, is a place where you would actually physically go to rent a movie in VHS format, which I don’t think even exists anymore. And I had this amazing manager who was dealing coke from the back room.

Pete Mockaitis
Cocaine. Illegal drug.

Tessa West
Yeah, cocaine. Cocaine from the back room, and, also, was probably stealing from the cash register. And we all got fired one day, corporate came in and axed us all. And this was a little bit of a problem for me because when I went to college at UC Santa Barbara, I was just blacklisted from all Hollywood Videos, and that was kind of the only video rental store in the neighborhood where I lived. And so, I could never rent from them again. I not only lost my job because of the cocaine-dealing boss, but I also could never open an account in a Hollywood Video ever again, and that just totally cramped my style for, like, the four years I was in college.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now I’m imagining you like hanging out outside the Hollywood Video, it’s like, “Hey, hey, Mister, can you rent me a movie?”

Tessa West
Totally. I’m like, “I’ll pay you an extra dollar. You give me, like, the latest new release wall,” whatever came out. I think it was “The Negotiator” came out, and I was pretty bummed. Yeah, it was not great.

Pete Mockaitis
So, they thought you were involved in these illegal activities, but you were just around him.

Tessa West
I was 16. I mean, I knew some shady stuff was going on in the back room. There were times I wasn’t allowed back there. But it’s a minimum-wage teenager job, and it was just much easier for corporate to just come in, clean house, fire all of us, instead of sort of interrogating who was involved and who wasn’t.

And I think a lot of people kind of end up getting caught in these situations at work where there’s a baddie and they get sucked into all that drama, and it’s just much easier to fire all 20 employees and just start fresh than to figure out who’s guilty of dealing the cocaine, or aiding and abetting in the cocaine dealing, or whatever.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. You know, it’s amazing that last time we talked about bad bosses and toxic coworkers, and this didn’t even come up.

Tessa West
I know. This isn’t even my worst boss. This is like my 10th worst boss. The weird part was I didn’t even really care until I couldn’t rent there anymore. That’s when I got pissed.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, we’re talking now about your book Job Therapy: Finding Work That Works for You. So, I guess that’s one tip, avoid Hollywood Video and cocaine-dealing bosses as a first piece on the checklist. But you have much more wisdom, I know, than that to share with us. Could you kick us off with anything that’s particularly surprising that you’ve discovered here?

Tessa West
Yes, I think a lot of us have really mixed feelings about our jobs. I was surprised when I interviewed people for this book at how ambivalent people feel. It was a lot kind of in the air with people being really miserable at work, tons of Gallup polls, all that business of everyone wants to quit, no one’s happy. But when I actually sat down with people, they would talk out of both sides of their mouth, “I love this job.” “I hate this job.”

“I’m totally committed to this job. It’s what defines me. It’s my identity. But I fantasize about doing this other thing that’s completely different from that. But just to remind you, Tessa, during this interview, I really do love this job. I promise.” And so, you see kind of those mixed emotions you see when people are thinking about any kind of relationship they have, even if that’s with a parent that they have a fraught relationship with, or a romantic relationship.

It’s kind of this love, hate, back and forth, hot, cold business that I think a lot of us are actually struggling with, which is much more realistic than just people loving or hating something or wanting to quit. I think there’s just a lot of kind of ambivalence out there.

Pete Mockaitis
Ooh, that really resonates and hits home with regard to, it is a mixed bag, every job, every relationship. I’m reminded of a comedian who talked about the city of Chicago, which is like, “The long, cold, miserable winters,” and say, “What are you doing here? You should just leave. You should just leave,” like a bad relationship. He’s like, “No, you should see how Chicago treats me in the summer.”

Tessa West
Yeah, New Yorkers are the same, we’re like, “I hate this place but I really couldn’t live anywhere else because every other place I would hate even more, but I really do hate it here.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, what a complicated relationship we have then with our jobs. How do we even begin to unpack then whether we are in our New York of a job or we really do need to get out of here?

Tessa West
I really think the only way to really unpack this is to measure your feelings for a while. I’m a scientist, so I’m a huge fan of collecting data on yourself, and really doing it, not just trying to recall how you feel, or how you felt over the past month, because I think a lot of us fall victim to some of the basic biases that we fall victim to when we’re falling out of love with a person.

So, we’re super sensitive to things like intermittent reinforcement. When we’re questioning our careers, if your boss is really nice to you, or maybe you just get an added bonus you didn’t expect. That actually makes you feel a hundred times better about your job than it probably should because you’re in this fragile place, and so you don’t actually realize that you’re falling victim to these kinds of things, that you’re overly-sensitive to reinforcement when you’re questioning your career, that you’re misremembering how you were treated or how you felt.

The only way to really get a handle on that is to look for consistency in how you feel and to measure yourself for a couple of weeks, or even up to a month, and really look for those patterns. And so, in this book, I just put a ton of questionnaires that have been vetted and created by psychologists, and really try to help people play scientists to their own experience so that they can understand it from almost like a third-party perspective, from an objective observer’s perspective, to kind of remove some of those biases that we’re all going to fall victim to when we start questioning something, when we start falling out of love with something.

Pete Mockaitis
Very intriguing. So then, as we measure things, well, I’m tempted to go into all kinds of detail about how we do that, and let’s do some of that. I’m thinking about dating again, in terms of, there are folks, it’s like, yes, they would love to date the super-rich, super brilliant, super gorgeous, super hilarious, super kind, whatever mythical human that doesn’t actually exist. And if that person did, they’d probably wouldn’t want to be with you. No offense. No offense, Tessa. You’re delightful.

But I mean, when I hear people, sometimes I’ve heard those who are single and not yet settled down, it’s like, “Well, you know, I just haven’t met the person.” “Well, what are you looking for?” It’s like, “Oh, well, I don’t think that person is real or exists.” I think, likewise, we can do that with our jobs, it’s like, “Oh, I guess I just haven’t really found the perfect job yet or the one of a job yet.”

So can you just maybe give us some very rough guidelines in terms of, “If you’re in this kind of zone, probably wrong job, get out of there. If you’re in this kind of zone, you got it pretty good, you know. And if you’re in if you’re looking for this kind of zone, I’m sorry that’s not real”? Can you just kindly orient us to reality for a bit?

Tessa West
Yes, I’m happy to do that. I studied dating and relationships, too, so you will hear all those metaphors come out of my mouth today. So, I think the first thing is, you need to really think seriously about what stresses you out at work, and how much you can anticipate those stressors. The number one reason why people are actually miserable at work is because they, (a), can’t anticipate stressors, or they’re doing a bad job at it. Most of the time, we actually can, if we write it down, see it coming.

And, (b), they’re very bad at bouncing back from how those stressful situations impact their productivity, their sleep, and their other relationships. And so, if you are in a job where, if you say in the morning, think about what’s going to stress you out, in the evening, write down what actually stressed you out, and you can’t predict that.

And those unanticipated stressors screw up your communication with your spouse, make you task-switch too much, make you self-interrupt, interfere with your ability to communicate, all these kinds of distal outcomes, you’re in a bad place. I don’t care how great the job is on paper, unanticipated stressors, and your inability to kind of put stopgaps in place and prevent the bleed from that stressful event to your productivity and to your other aspects of your life that you care about, you’re in trouble.

And that’s different for everyone. For some people, that’s being interrupted all the time. They can’t control the flow of work. For other people, it’s just being late. They can’t stand it when they can’t control how long it’s going to take them to drive to work and where they’re going to park. So, you have to figure out what those triggers are. And I think most of us don’t actually put enough weight on low-level daily stressors and how much they impact us, but they really can screw you up because they can affect your sleep, how often you get colds, your diet, and all of this other stuff that has nothing to do with work, that then feeds back into work.

So, I’d say measure those things. That’s kind of, you know, it really comes down to control over those things. I’d say the other dimension that really matters is how identified you want to be with your career, how much you want it to define you, and how much that career is loving you back. And if there’s a huge mismatch, if you are, like, in love with this career, it’s everything to you, when it’s going well, you feel good, when it’s going poorly, you feel terrible, and it’s just not giving you those signs that it’s loving you as much as you want to love it, it’s an unrequited love situation. That’s a bad place to be.

I think, and, again, all of us can be, we can find that match in different places. Anchoring just on income and things like that, I think is a mistake, as you talked about, you know, finding the model who’s funny and rich, there’s going to be a mismatch there because you’re going to fall in love with that person and they’re not going to love you back.

So, I’d say that identity match and control over your stressors, those are the main things. I think if you have those things in check, you can kind of play around with those other dimensions and find happiness at work. But those are really those things that are kind of deal breakers, I think, for most people.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s really intriguing to zero in on these elements. Because it sounds like, is it fair to say, in your research, these trump the other things in terms of, I say, “Hey, you know what? I find my job meaningful. I find it challenging. I enjoy my co-workers. I feel like I’m learning and growing and attaining mastery. Like, I’ve got a lot of good things that make this job good”? But, if the stressor situation and the identity situation isn’t working for me, is that enough to just outweigh it and say, “I should probably get out of here”?

Tessa West
Definitely the stressors are. I think the things you just mentioned feed into the identity. So, if your colleagues love you, if you’re finding purpose in the work, the job is probably loving you back as much as you’re loving it. And so, I’d see those as sort of like an outcome of that identity match, “You know, I feel highly identified with this job and it’s bringing me satisfaction.” Both pieces of identity are important. You need to feel satisfied with that identity and also feel like you’re getting something from it.

And then when you have those pieces, you love your coworkers, you’re willing to kind of step in at 10:00 p.m. and do the extra thing because you feel like the job is loving you back, so those are outcomes of those things. Stressors are like throwing wrenches into all of those things, “I have great communication at work, but I never know how long it’s going to take me to get there. And some days I get there an hour early, and it’s great. Other times, I get there an hour late and I’m sweating and stressed the rest of the day.” Those things absolutely throw a wrench in the relationship with your career.

So, I think you just really have to pay attention to those things, and don’t let yourself be talked out of them because the income is good, because the comp package is good, and people do this with relationships, “I’m dating a rich guy. Who cares if he treats me like crap.” It does, it matters. You’re not going to care about the money when he’s yelling at you or calling you ugly. You’re just not. And the same is true at work.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, could you give us a rundown of some of these unanticipated stressors that pack a big punch and show up all the time for folks?

Tessa West
I think the main ones are things like your boss shows up and puts a meeting on your calendar that you didn’t plan for. Commute is another huge one that people can’t stand. Senior leadership showing up. Absorbing the roles of other people. So, I did a study for this book based on an NPR kind of short called “Nobody Told Me That,” where I asked people what are the biggest surprises they encountered at work.

And it’s almost always, “I was hired to do X and now I’m doing Y. I was hired to showcase art in a gallery but really all I do is lift 120-pound boxes of art, but no one told me that like lifting heavy objects was part of the job.” And those kinds of, like, tack-on tasks are super common at work. I think 80% of us are doing them, but they take away from your job. They often have nothing to do with what gets you promoted, and they’re super stressful because you don’t know how to fit them into your job.

And so, you have to do a lot of digging to kind of figure out if those are going to crop up. But those unanticipated extra roles or jobs of the person who called in sick, or they fire the person who’s in charge of that, those are huge, and they tend to be small asks, 10-, 20-minute asks, not heavy lifts, but they really eat into people’s wellbeing. And you can feel your blood pressure going up when you’re in the middle of something and someone comes and asks you to do one of these things, like lifting a heavy box for them that you did not sign up for.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, these are the kinds of stressors. And then, I’m curious, just how much is too much? I mean, it sounds like every job is going to have a little bit of ebb and flow and unpredictability. How do we make that determination?

Tessa West
The best way to do this isn’t to ask yourself, “Have I hit my wall?” It’s to actually map out what the outcomes of those stressors are. And so, our instinct is to think about the things that stress us out and then try to kind of reframe them in a positive way, “Yes, I had to lift that heavy box, but this is part of what it takes to climb up at work.”

I urge you not to try to do that kind of reframing exercise. Instead, measure how often you’re lifting those heavy boxes, and measure your sleep every night. If what you find is, if you have three days in a row of, say, an unexpected stressor, a late commute, a calendar invite with no notice, a heavy box, and then you can see that, say, for the next five days your sleep is screwed up, this is what happens to me, my unanticipated stressors are cumulative.

One, I’m fine; two or more, I don’t sleep for a week, that’s when you know you’re in trouble, and so you really have to see those associations. Don’t assume you know what they are because they’re often a little bit distal. The way stressors work is they tend to not impact us immediately. They tend to be cumulative and distal.

So, if you’re stressed out right now, you’re going to get a cold in two weeks. That’s how long it takes for your immune system to take the hit, for it to get down, for you to get infected with something, for you to be symptomatic. So, we often don’t see the connection between the stressor and the outcome. The only way to know is to measure it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, let’s talk about these measurings. So, one is sleep, and I’m sporting an Oura ring right now, and that’s cool. Or you could have a Fitbit or Apple Watch or something or just notice, “Hey, that sleep was short. I woke up at 5:00 a.m. against my will. What’s that about?” Or, “I went to bed at 11:00, and somehow didn’t end up actually falling asleep until much later.”

So, you just sort of, you notice. Sleep is worse, outside my control. It’s not like I was having the time of my life partying somewhere and I got to bed late. But rather, my body just did not comply with my sleep request. So, there’s one indicator. What are some of the other things we should be observing and tracking?

Tessa West
Weird diet, skipping meals, eating junk food, eating your feelings, drinking, those types of things. Low-level conflict is another one that we often see. So, if you have, say, two or three days of low-level stressors at work, you’re going to end up fighting more with your kids, with your spouse. You’re going to yell at your kid for watching too much iPad, those kinds of things, which in the moment, you have a reason, “My kid was really grinding me. He refused to put down the iPad, so I yelled at him.”

The real reason is, “You know, I had a fight with my boss this morning, and I never came down from that kind of cortisol boost, and now I’m exhausted. I have no ability to sort of cognitively override that,” so low-level conflict at home. And then the other kind of unanticipated one is self-interruptions at work. So, I have a chapter in my book called “The Torn Between Places,” where I figured out that most of the time when we are interrupted at work, we do it to ourselves.

We self-distract. We check our phones. We minimize windows to open other windows. We shop on Zoom calls. And we often do this when we are cognitively depleted, meaning like we’re out of mental resources to not do it. And when you’re stressed, you tend to kind of eat away at those resources, and so you find yourself texting, checking your phone constantly at work. That’s another outcome of feeling kind of chronic low-level stress.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s really intriguing and good to flag because if we’re stressed, tired, out of cognitive resources, sometimes you might assume, “Well, the thing you’re going to do is immediately go to sleep.” And yet, it’s funny, it’s like the suppression power of being depleted means that, “No, what we do is just what we really want to do and have been suppressing.”

I remember back in the pandemic days, there was a time my wife was sick and it was all me. Full, 100% childcare, it’s Pete, the dad’s time to shine, and it’s like, “Okay.” And so, I thought it’s always kind of intense and kind of exhausting, and I always also try to keep a few things in the air, a little bit with work in terms of, like, respond to a few things and whatnot. Just not totally dropping the ball there.

And it was so funny, you would think that after those days, I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, I’m just going to just collapse immediately into bed.” And what I found myself doing, it was so weird, it was like, I went and played video games, and I don’t do much of that in general, but it’s just like, “This just really is what needs to happen right now.”

And so, you’re highlighting an interesting phenomenon in the human experience. I don’t think I’ve heard someone articulate quite this way before, is when that’s happening, that’s a sign that we are mentally depleted and/or stressed.

Tessa West
I think if you find yourself seeking out alone time at weird hours to do weird things that you never used to do, and you’re sort of justifying that as alone time, “I went through this as a new parent,” “I went through this in the pandemic,” and not because you really don’t get any alone time but because you’re too depleted to do any work, and your cortisol hasn’t dropped enough so you can’t fall asleep. So, there’s kind of this, like, bottom-up top-down problem of like physiologically your body can’t actually relax enough to sleep.

You know, things like cortisol, they peak in the morning, they peak in the afternoon, and then they’re supposed to go down, so that by the time you’re ready to go to sleep, you don’t have all this, like, adrenaline and all this cort in your body. But when you’ve been stressed, you break out of that cycle and so your brain can’t do anything, but it wants to play video games, it wants to watch Netflix, it wants to do something distracting that isn’t sleep but doesn’t involve social interaction, which is kind of depleting.

So, if you find yourself wanting to play video games at 2:00 o’clock in the morning or watching TV instead of sleep, that’s usually a sign that your body is too physiologically strained to sleep, but your mind is too exhausted to do anything real, and I think that’s just a red flag a lot of us aren’t really trained to look out for.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, thanks for flagging that one. Flag of the flag. Anything else we should be observing?

Tessa West
In terms of stress, I think anything with disrupted patterns. If you usually exercise and then, all of a sudden, you’re not motivated to. If you want to disengage socially, that’s a huge kind of red flag that you’re probably pretty stressed out. Social interactions tend to be depleting for most people in some way, even if they’re good, even if they’re engaging. Those are the kinds of things we tend to be a little bit withdrawing from.

And then I think the other thing you should be really attuned to is stress contagion. So, I do a lot of research on how the stress we feel spreads to other people, and how, when we’re really stressed, we’re actually hyper-attuned to the stress cues of others. So, if I’m stressed and then I interact with a co-worker whose voice is a little bit hyper, who’s really fidgety, who is avoiding eye contact, I’m going to be like super sensitive to those cues and even more susceptible to catching that person’s stress.

So, if you find yourself getting ramped up when you’re around a hyper or stressed-out colleague, you can feel your heart rate going up, you can feel your palms sweating, you’re probably already kind of at a disadvantage. You’re a little bit stressed out, and you’re going to be super susceptible to catching the stress of other people around you, and so you kind of have to regulate that and take yourself out of those social contexts.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And you’re also talking about some assessments and questions that you can ask yourself and record answers to regularly. What are some of the potentially insightful items on those assessments?

Tessa West
I think if you want to go at this really simply, the easiest thing you can do is, in the morning, ask yourself what you’re the most worried about going into the day, and how your sleep was that night. And in the evening, ask yourself was that thing that you were worried about actually that stressful and what unanticipated stressors you faced?

What I find in my book is that about 50% of the time, the things we’re the most worried about in the morning tend to not actually be that bad, mostly because we can put steps in place to make ourselves feel better, to prepare for them mentally so that we are challenged, we’re not threatened. But when we looked at people’s so-called unanticipated stressors, they were things that they actually encounter really regularly.

So, the irony is they’re not actually that unanticipated when they thought about it. They just didn’t anticipate them in the moment. And those are those things I talked about, like a commute running late, or that calendar invite, that in the moment you didn’t anticipate, but if I asked you, “How often has this happened?” most people say, “Oh, it actually happens pretty frequently.”

So, they’re not actually processing these things as frequent stressors. They’re processing them as unanticipated until I tell them to write them down, and they’re like, “Oh, yeah, actually, I actually deal with this like once a week.” So, I think that’s the simplest thing you can do is kind of measure those patterns.

And then I think the key reason why you should do this, not only just to learn about your own body, your own experiences, but if you are to look for a new job, if you’re to start networking with people, you know exactly sort of what to ask for, what red flags are going to spike your blood pressure. So, you can ask questions like, “How often does the boss put unanticipated meetings on the calendar?”

If you’ve identified that as something that really stresses you out, you want to avoid that in your next job. But you really have to be like very kind of systematic and learning your own triggers so that you know exactly what to ask and when during those networking conversations during those job interviews.

Pete Mockaitis
So, it sounds like merely identifying the patterns and anticipating the stressors prior to them occurring is useful and powerful for your own resilience in and of itself. So that’s cool. Great.

Tessa West
Yeah, absolutely. We got to learn what makes us not sleep, and, surprisingly, people don’t actually know. Scientists know. We can run statistics on you and tell you, but if I was to ask you, “Why didn’t you sleep last night?” You’re going to make up all kinds of things, from the room was too hot, to this or that, and it probably has very little to do with those things. You just don’t know because it’s something that happened three days ago that’s impacting your sleep.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, then I’m curious, one thing that’s in our control is to say, “Oh, this job has a ton of the things that trigger me. It’s time for another job.” So that’s one thing we could do, is make the switch. I’m curious about what are some of the things we might be able to do to, since you’re highlighting here, that stress can be a sneaky little bugger who has negative impacts days and weeks later than the actual inciting incident occurred? So that seems to suggest that it would be in our interest to proactively do some things about how we are handling stress so as to flourish all the better. So, lay it on us, what should we do there?

Tessa West
Yeah, I think here’s the good news. You have a lot more control over the impact of stress and how frequently you encounter these things than you realize. I think the good news is most of the stressors that are actually anticipated are things you can control to some degree. So, if you figure out, for instance, that your boss tends to put those unanticipated meetings on your calendar, once you sort of track the data, you realize it’s occurring every other Thursday or something like that, or you can figure out what that pattern is with your boss, then you can kind of put those blocks in your day.

I think one of the main things that stress people out is not getting their list of things done in the day, but if they actually figure out why, it’s through self-interruptions. There are things you can do to kind of prevent self-interruptions. If you’re being interrupted by other people, I talk in this book about how you can look around the environment and figure out sort of who’s interrupting you and when. Is it because their office is close? Is it because their office is not close, and they don’t know how to systematically interrupt you?

So, tracking these things, learning your own environment, and then putting stopgaps in place is huge. I think once I figured out what stressed me out, which was disappointing people, not getting them something done in time, and then I was thinking, “Okay, why am I disappointing them? Am I taking on too much? Sure, maybe I’m taking on too much,” but that wasn’t actually the reason. The real reason was, during my smart time every day, which was from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m., I was interrupting myself up to 15 times to check my LinkedIn to see who liked a post.

This is embarrassing, but I will admit that this happened. And once I started tracking my own behaviors, I realized I have this weird tick where I want to see how popular I am on LinkedIn, and it’s usually in the morning and that’s conflicting with my smart time, and when I don’t get my smart time, and I don’t get the thing done, that then leads me to disappoint people. So, if I’m 100% honest with myself, I have complete control over that daisy chain of events that’s leading to the stressor.

It took me a really long time to figure out what it was. But once I did, all I did was put away LinkedIn for those two hours, and it totally solved the problem. And that’s kind of a simple example, but I think, once you are honest with yourself about what you’re actually doing, what situations you’re putting yourself in to potentially exacerbate these triggers or allow them to happen, if you have a commute, you just have to plan for the max. You know, if it’s between 30 and 60 minutes, just always assume 60 minutes.

Things like that, I think we have a lot more control over, but you do have to play detective of your own behaviors, of your own triggers, of your own weaknesses, and admit that you have them, and then instead of band-aiding problems, my sleep deprivation, I bought all those cold sheets that they tell you, “Okay, well, it’s probably too warm in your room.” So, I bought those.

That wasn’t really the issue. It was conflict with someone at work that had happened like up to two days before that. Once I figured that out, I didn’t need the cold sheets and my sleep was fine. But you do have to do the homework and do the digging, but most people can actually figure it out.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And that’s really cool how sometimes, when you do the detective work, you’re on the case and you see, “Aha, it’s because of this, and I can make this shift. And then as a result, things will things be hunky-dory.” So that’s super. I’m curious, if you discover some stuff that is less in your control, sort of like no matter what you do, this colleague is going to critique your work.

And not that they’re being a total jerk about it, but they’re just going to be like, “Oh, you know, you should do this. Oh, why didn’t you do that? You know, and that’s just, okay.” That’s just kind of the way they are. Maybe you’ve even asked them, “Hey, you know, I’d really appreciate it. You know, I work best under these kinds of collaborative conditions.” Okay, whatever. You’ve done all you could do and still, stuff happens, and it’s being served at you. How do we best deal with those pieces?

Tessa West
Yeah, I think, you know, my first book is called Jerks at Work, and it’s like, try all those strategies, and if it doesn’t work, then you need to go into Job Therapy and learn how to network to find a new job. I do think, I don’t want to be Pollyannish and think you can solve all your problems. I do think controllability is a huge piece.

Once you figure out what needs to be controlled, what the problem is, if you can’t control that in much the same way that you can’t fix a marriage by yourself, if your partner is like, “Screw this, I’m not interested in therapy. I’m not interested in doing any reparative work,” that’s when you have to start exploring new things.

What I don’t want people to do is think that that means quit and then start applying. I think you need to start having those kind of 15-minute conversations with strangers while you’re still employed, because a lot of us have a grass-is-greener idea, and we don’t actually know whether we’re going to face the same thing in another job that we’re facing now.

And I think the easiest thing you can do is reach out to people who are in your organization or outside of it, or in your industry, and I know people don’t like networking, but I think of networking conversations more about information-seeking and asking them about their jobs and less about talking about yourself, just to get a feel for what the day-in-the-life is of other jobs, and that should be your only goal, “What is the day in the life like of this job, at this company, at this role?”

Really simple mundane questions about, “What do you do every day? What does it look like? How loud is it? Who are your colleagues? How much control do you have over how you see them?” Those kinds of low-level things. You want to reach out to as many people as you can to have those conversations to see what it’s like on the other side, instead of assuming that it’s going to be better because often it’s actually not so great on the other side, and you kind of have to bide your time a little bit before you start reaching out or you start applying for new things.

But I think that that very first step is just talking to people in those companies, and just saying, “Hey, can you tell me, like, what your day-to-day is? What do you do like from 9:00 to 5:00, from 9:00 to 10:00, 10:00 to 11:00? What’s that look like?”

Pete Mockaitis
I like that specificity there. And I’m curious, while we’re biding our time, we’re doing our research, we’re talking to some people, are there any sort of like first-aid strategies you recommend for, we’re getting blasted by work stressors all the time? How do we just kind of deal and cope better? You suggested not reframing, “Well, this is just part of what you have to do to get ahead.” So, if that’s something that we don’t want to do, what’s something we do want to do?

Tessa West
I think the easiest thing you can do to kind of regulate, and this, actually, this is going to sound like a weird connection, but it comes out of the “Intimate Partner Violence” literature. So, how do you get from ten to one on, like, that anger scale? Is just taking yourself out of the situation, going for a walk, or shutting yourself in your office for ten minutes alone? Don’t interact with anyone. Don’t go complain immediately to a colleague if you’re stressed.

Our instinct is to want to sort of, like, explode our negative emotions onto others in an effort to get them to regulate it for us, to get them to make us feel better, to complain. And I think that instinct is fine for maybe later on, but at first just take a couple minutes, I think, and go for a walk, or have a cup of coffee. I think the best emotion regulation strategy in the “Intimate Partner Violence” literature is count to 100 alone in a room. That’s the best predictor of getting people to, like, not want to punch someone because it actually helps downregulate emotions at the basic physiologic level.

So, your blood pressure goes down, your heart rate goes down. You need to do the things to get your body to change before your mind can. And I think for some people, they’re good at meditating, I’m not. But I can take 10 minutes to, like, listen to music or something like that. Just do that a couple of times, I think, is the easiest and the best strategy people can do.

And I think building your physical space in a way that’s comfortable is also really important. And temperature matters, sound matters, so as much control over your little environmental, you know, whatever kind of makes you happy in your environment, those creature comforts is really important.

Pete Mockaitis
You talk about “Intimate Partner Violence” literature, I guess I’m just thinking about, like, children and their emotional regulation pieces. It seems like many of these really do still apply to us.

Tessa West
Yeah, timeout, self-induced time out. It’s the same. When it comes to emotion regulation, there’s only so many ways to skin a cat, and you don’t actually need to be that complicated about it. It really just comes down to taking deep breaths and getting your heart rate down. Once your body is calm, then your mind will follow.

But I think we often want to do something immediately that feels good, that feels like a release, and that usually means word vomiting to our colleague. And that’s the thing I would avoid because that leads to stress contagion and all that kind of yucky business.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, we’ve immediately managed our stresses, we’re doing some research. What are some of the other key steps you recommend that we undergo when we’ve determined, “Yep, it’s time to make a switch”?

Tessa West
I think that kind of the number one thing is talking to strangers. I think 15-minute conversations are key. In the book, I talk about how you can reach, how you can write a cold email to someone and get them to actually write you back. I had to do this for the book. I was shocked at how much people were willing to talk about themselves. What they weren’t willing to do is have a conversation where I sold myself to them for no reason, you know, like, “I’m on the job market, I’m looking for something, and I’m going to tell you how great I am.”

No one would reply to emails like that. Not that I was doing that, but people often reach out in an effort to impress. And I think, instead, you want to reach out and say, “I have these three questions about before you started this job, nobody told me that. How would you answer that?” I think little things like that. I think the job interview process is a place where we often have terrible communication. We don’t have honest interviews, like we don’t have first dates.

I think it’s really important to remind yourself that, during that early kind of sourcing stage where you’re learning about a job, you’re talking to a hiring manager, you need a little bit of tension in those conversations where you’re asking tough questions. People avoid that because they think it makes them look bad or ungrateful, but you can onlDy kind of build intimacy with some tension in close relationships, and I think that’s true with job interviews.

You want to ask those tough questions. People like it. It turns out it looks like you’re looking for long-term fit. So, I think asking some difficult questions to assess fit, to find red flags. My favorite question is, “What does it look like to fail at this job?” People always can answer that one because they’ve seen it a million times. It’s better than asking, “What does it look like to succeed?” because that tends to be vague. Failure tends to be specific. So, questions like that. I think you just have to be willing to have like super honest conversations and listen to people and not sell yourself. At least, that’s not your initial goal.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Any other tips as we’re all walking this journey?

Tessa West
Don’t feel afraid to get rejected when you’re reaching out to people you don’t know. People are very nervous these days about looking awkward. I study social awkwardness, and it largely lives in our heads more than how it manifests behaviorally. And we’re a little out of practice with talking to people we don’t know, and I think that’s why people aren’t dating as much. It’s why they are afraid to have coffee or a Zoom call with a stranger. But everyone’s in the same boat, so it’s okay.

Do not think that you can learn about a job by sitting on your couch and reading websites and Glassdoor stuff, or even and getting those LinkedIn certifications, or whatever. You really can only learn about it through interpersonal communication and talking to people. I’m convinced that websites and passive learning, video watching, can only get you so far. You need to get in there and learn about the hidden curriculum and all that juicy stuff that people don’t advertise about jobs.

Pete Mockaitis
When you say the hidden curriculum, what do you mean by this?

Tessa West
This is all the stuff that leads you to succeed at work that nobody talks about. Sometimes that means that company policies go against what it takes to actually succeed. The dark side is like taking maternity leave is a bad idea because someone else will take your job. That’s a piece of hidden curriculum. Sometimes it’s weird norms.

So I asked people, I did a study where I asked them about all the weird norms they encountered at work, and sometimes it’s like where you’re allowed to sit, who you can email to ask questions, whose orange juice you can drink from the office fridge, little things like that, but also things like knowledge transfer, which is a complex concept of, like, “If I know something from my old job, do people give a crap in my new job? Are they interested in learning about that? Or do they have their own set of rules here that contradict that?”

And I think a lot of us have a hard time getting over a newcomer hump at work because we assume the knowledge from our old job will carry over to a new one, when in reality there’s like a whole new set of norms and rules and even jargon. That’s another thing that we don’t like at work, but it’s super common. Everyone has their own terms, their own acronyms they use at work. They tend to be pretty idiosyncratic to companies. So, the ones you know now at your job now are going to be different than the ones that the new company uses.

So, just like, “How much of that do I have to learn? How steep is that hill to climb?” And what I think will I need to succeed, is that really what the people who’ve succeeded have? I’ll say one more thing which is job ads often have a list of requirements that are not the real requirements needed. And the reason why is because it’s for the sourcing for hiring managers. They want to cast a wide net so they tend to sort of underwrite ads, but what they’re really looking for is often not written in that ad.

And so, you have to do some digging to figure out, “Okay, they actually left out this really important thing that everyone who’s ever gotten this job had but it’s not in the ad because if they put it there, they’d only get three applicants,” or something like that. There’s lots of kind of mundane reasons but even at the level of the job ad, there’s a hidden curriculum of like what’s missing from that that you really do need to land the job and to succeed at it.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. That’s really nice, and it’s pretty substantial just how much is hidden, and just how skewed and inaccurate a picture we could get if we only rely on what’s published.

Tessa West
Yeah, think about it like a dating app. Imagine that you meet someone based on their app profile. Would you think that that app is 100% accurate and representative of the person? Most of us would laugh and say, “Of course not. That photo is 15 years old. They overestimated their height and their income and all this other stuff.” We know that, right? We intuitively know that our dating profile is not representative of us, so why do we think a job ad is representative of a job?

It’s the same kind of logic that I think you should apply. And when you meet someone on a first date, you want to do a little bit of digging to see how accurate that profile was. A lot of us are feeling catfished. We show up and we’re like, “That’s not you.” And I think that can happen with jobs, but we’re feeling much more vulnerable than when we’re dating, where we’re afraid to kind of dig for the truth because we want to get to the next stage.

So, we don’t ask those questions like, “Who wrote the ad?” and “Has my future boss even seen this ad?” Most of the time the answer is no. Some hiring manager wrote it, scraping from Indeed. And so, we have to treat it with that same level of kind of circumspect perspective that we would a dating app.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, Tessa, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about your favorite things?

Tessa West
I’m a professor so I give you a lot of homework. It’s going to feel like a lot, but once you get the hang of kind of measuring yourself and learning about yourself by collecting these data, you’re going to be, hopefully, pleasantly surprised at the new things you’re going to uncover. And I think don’t be afraid to reach out to people and have those conversations. That’d be the one piece of advice I give people.

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

Tessa West
Probably “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” is one of my favorite quotes. I think that it just kind of encompasses this idea that workplace vibes, culture, zeitgeist can really override anything that we do to plan. I think that is something that I kind of like live by. Don’t ask me who said it. I can’t remember.

Pete Mockaitis
I think Drucker.

Tessa West
Drucker, that’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite study.

Tessa West
Probably be something on morality and norms. I’m doing a lot of research these days on how we interact with people who make us incredibly uncomfortable. So, one of my favorite studies in this space is by Wendy Mendez on the brittle smiles effect.

So the more uncomfortable we are interacting with someone who’s different from us, the more likely we are to smile, be nice, engage in friendly overtures, let them win negotiations, but at the same time our physiology suggests we’re incredibly stressed out. And so, I love that because it’s this juxtaposition between what our bodies are saying, which is stress, and what our minds are trying to override, which is overt friendliness in an effort to compensate for that. And I think that can explain why we often suck at giving feedback because it’s uncomfortable.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Tessa West
I only read fantasy novels these days, “Shadow Daddies,” that kind of thing, Sarah J. Maas.

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

Tessa West
Noise-canceling headphones.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I love noise-canceling headphones. Which one are you working with?

Tessa West
These are not it but I use Bose headphones because my office is all glass walls, and I can hear everything around me all the time, and I’m one of those noise-sensitive people, so I can’t concentrate if I can hear a conversation going on. So, I live by the noise. Sometimes I layer them on with wireless headphones. I’m going to sound totally crazy. Wireless headphones underneath with a noise machine going on on my iPhone, like a fan, and then the noise-canceling headphones over those so I really can’t hear anything.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, you know, I love it. I would put earplugs in and then headphones over the earplugs.

Tessa West
I do that too, but it’s not enough. You got to get the fan sound on the earbuds, and then the noise cancelling over that.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Tessa West
Getting a latte four times a day.

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

Tessa West
Keep it real. Just say the thing. At the end of the day, you’re going to get it out. It’s going to take you a while, so just say the thing.

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

Tessa West
You can check out TessaWestAuthor.com, which has all the quizzes for my book. There’s also going to be just a whole bunch of downloadable materials, little guides on how to do the stress test, how to measure yourself, how to network, all that fun business. If you’re interested in my research, you can check me out at TessaWestLab.com.

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

Tessa West
Yeah, reach out to five strangers this weekend and set up chats. Just cold reach out, follow the guide I give you, and just frame up three questions that you want to ask them, where you want to learn about their job. They can be completely outside of your industry. You’re just looking to learn new things.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Tessa, thank you. This is awesome.

Tessa West
Thank you so much.

Aug 29
0

991: Mastering the Five Tiers of Career Development with Andrew LaCivita

By | Podcasts | No Comments

 

Andrew LaCivita discusses the most important career investment you can make: your skill development.

You’ll Learn

  1. The biggest assumption that’s hurting your career 
  2. How to pinpoint what skills you need to develop 
  3. Three easy ways to build your confidence 

About Andrew

Andrew LaCivita, a globally-renowned career and leadership coach, is the founder of the milewalk Academy®. During his career, he has impacted over 350 companies, more than 100,000 individuals, and spanned nearly 200 countries, helping them unlock their full potential. He is the best-selling author of four books including Interview Intervention, The Hiring Prophecies, and The Zebra Code. You can join him on Thursdays for live, complimentary career coaching at his Live Office Hours on YouTube.

Resources Mentioned

Thank You, Sponsors!

Andrew LaCivita Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Andy, welcome.

Andrew LaCivita
Thanks for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Andy, I would love to hear, you’re a renowned career coach, you’ve seen a lot of clients, learned a lot of things in your day, could you kick us off by sharing a particularly surprising or counterintuitive discovery you’ve made about us professionals and what we got to do to really stand out and advance?

Andrew LaCivita
One of the things that I’ve noticed as a consultant, as a recruiter, and now as a career coach, I would tell people, and most people don’t…I don’t know that we’ve ever wired to think this way. “We’re wired to go to our jobs, do a great job, learn how to do your trade do, it well, and you will have a good career if you can do your job well. But if you want to have a great career, like you really want to stand out, you want to be the best of the best, or the happiest of the happiest, it’s working more on yourself.”

And in order to work more on yourself, you have to, it’s just like building your bank account. When you get paid, the first thing that, what we hope you do if you want to save money or invest it, is to actually take money out of your check and then put it into your savings account so that it builds over time. It’s the same thing with your career, is that working on yourself, it needs to be planned first or at least a non-negotiable.

What I do every week, which I think is an odd habit that people would think is counterintuitive, is when I plan my week, I actually plan my skill-building time first. So, I pay myself first, I work on myself first, and then everything else gets planned in, but it gets planned in after that. So, I would say that’s kind of a counterintuitive habit that I have, and I just I think it’s really a key to being successful and enjoying your career. And I think that way you will always feel like you’re growing as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, that’s very resonant. We’ve had a couple guests hit that point in terms of someone asking the question, “Well, how much time are you spending working on you?” And for some, it’s like, “Uh, I guess none. Oops.” Or folks will say, “You know, the time you spend in this strategic, skill-building stuff is the most rewarding ROI time there is if you want to be the best of the best in terms of advancement and financially, income, salary stuff,” or I love the way you said it, “or the happiest of the happy, that it takes some development just to feel great in the midst of challenges and stuff going on.”

Andrew LaCivita
So my company, milewalk, during the period between 2004 and 2019, so 15 years or so, we would run surveys every year and we probably totaled up maybe about 20,000 people over the course of the 15 years, had contributed data, and we would always ask them, “Why did you leave your current job? Why are you unhappy in your current position?” things of that nature. There were a variety of questions, but one of the top three reasons was, “I’m not learning anything.”

And I think a big part of that is people expect their organizations to teach them. And while the best organizations will teach them, you can outsource a lot of things but your own career is not one of them. So, if you truly want to develop, you have to take accountability, which means creating space in your life to do that. And I coach a lot of people on a high-performance basis.

And those individuals who want to become the best at their craft, when they enlist my help for how to go about, “What skills do I need to build? How do I build them?” we work together on this stuff, one of the first things I ask them is, “Can you show me your calendar?”

And, inevitably, a lot of them say, “Why, do you want to schedule our future sessions?” I say, “No, I want to see on your calendar where you’ve actually planned time in order to build those skills to achieve those goals that you just told me about.” And inevitably, they don’t have any. They just assume that they’re going to get it on the 9:00 to 5:00 job. And I said, “Well, everybody’s got the playbook. Everybody can learn how to build their widget or provide their service. It’s all those other skills you need to become better,” and like you said, live the more rewarding career.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Andy, we are speaking the same language. It’s pretty essential to take ownership of your career and your skills, otherwise, you’re just rolling the dice, you’re gambling. You may or may not have fantastic coaches and mentors present in your workplace who say, “Hey, Andy, tell me, what are you working on? Where do you want to go? What are your strengths? How can we make sure we can build your development plan into what you’re up to, and the assignments that you’re getting, and reflecting, and mentoring, and turning everything into wisdom-generating stuff?”

Some people have that, and it’s a dream come true and it’s precious if you do. Heads up, that’s very special and you may want to stick around. But a lot of people sure don’t. Could you maybe guesstimate, for us in terms of the state of the world of work in the United States in the 2020s, what proportion of us have a phenomenal work, learning culture system, versus what proportion of us really better get proactive in a hurry if we want to get where we’re going?

Andrew LaCivita
I’ll give you kind of what I think the stats are. Interestingly, we all go to work thinking our companies are going to have these career development plans for us, “We’re going to work for a boss who’s going to teach us. We’re going to work for a boss who’s going to care for us, let us know what we need to do so we can get promoted and get paid more and be happier and so on.” I would bet, and by the way, I don’t like at my fingertips have this stat, but I’m going to give you my feel based on, now I want to tell you where I’m drawing the data from.

I was an information technology and management consultant from 1988 to 2004, so a long time, and at that time I’d coached and consulted to 150 companies. Between 2004 and 2019 with milewalk, that’s another 200 companies, so 350 companies. I’ve seen tens of thousands of people working individually with them. Looking at the organizations that I consulted to or recruited for, looking at the individuals I coach in all the companies they work for, knowing statistically that most people in the United States work for a small- to medium-sized company, so not a lot of people work for Coca-Cola, IBM, and these largest of companies. Most people work for small- to mid-sized companies, just statistically more than half.

So, when you think about how many organizations actually have a structured, well-thought-out career development model, I would probably say 90% do not. Meaning, one in ten are probably fortunate enough to actually have some type of structured career development model in place that says, “You’re this level. These are the skillsets we expect you to have, the level of proficiency we expect you to have them. If you want to go to the next level here’s what you need to work on. We have succession planning processes, career development processes, coaching and mentoring processes.” I would 1 in 10 would be my swag, so that is not a statistic I can claim to know.

But I would say that’s the state, and I would guess it’s worldwide.

Pete Mockaitis
Andy, that’s powerful. And you’re bringing me back some memories on a couple of the these. One, you said management consulting, and I worked at Bain for a while.

Andrew LaCivita
Love it.

Pete Mockaitis
And then when you talk about the structured situation, boy, you’re right, I haven’t seen it anywhere else in my own career and talking to many other people in terms of like, “Okay, are you an associate consultant six months into your career? Well, at this point, we now expect for you to conduct zero-defect analysis.

It’s like, “Okay, so six months in, we expect for you to stop making visible mistakes in the data,” which is pretty intimidating, frankly. The nightmare of many an associate consultant, having dreams of waking up in a spreadsheet, has happened to me before. But that’s very clear. So, we have a table there, I thought it was very impressive. It’s like, “These are all the skills as rows, and then the degree to which we expect them developed as columns over the course of time.” And then we can very clearly say, “Hey, how is your zero-defect analysis? Is that up to snuff or is it not?”

And most of us, because our jobs are so fluid, and we don’t have thousands of associate consultants who are kind of doing the same thing, but for different clients and business challenges, it’s really hard to know. It’s like, “Hey, are you great at digital marketing?” I mean, I can’t tell you, “Yeah, in nine months, I expect for you to be able to run a Facebook ads campaign with zero supervision and create a return on investment of a cash-on-cash basis for 70% of new clients.” Like, we don’t have that level of clarity and specificity. And so, you kind of got to go invent that for yourself.

Andrew LaCivita
It’s true. Interesting you talk about Bain. I started my career at Anderson Consulting. So, I was looking at career development models and grids and things like that. It was very clearly spelled out. Now, it probably was over-engineered, but at least we had the guideposts. But most people don’t have that these days.

And the other thing, you asked kind of about the state of things, but we live in a much more mobile time right now, meaning it’s rare that somebody would spend that much time in an organization and have the time to evolve. So, people, they’re more mobile, which is creating even more confusion because you’re going to different companies, different companies have different internal vocabulary and what they call things. It’s different now, which means you need to be more organized.

Pete Mockaitis
It is, yes. Well, fortunately, our pal, Andy, here, yes, you, organized some handy pieces in your book The Zebra Code. So, first, tell us why is it called The Zebra Code? That reminds me of the TV show “Ghost Rider” from the 1990s, but I don’t imagine that’s what you had in mind.

Andrew LaCivita
No, it isn’t. So, I have a weekly live show on YouTube, so I teach every Thursday, people come to the show, I teach them, and then they ask me questions.

In the question-and-asking period of the show, one of the gentlemen asked me, about standing out in a job interview, and I told this story about how, when I go out for a run out of my house, I run down the street. And on one side I got the goats, on the other side I got the horses, on another side I got the horses, and since I got all these farms around me, and I said, “Whenever I whenever I hear hoof beats, while I do not technically rule out the possibility that it can be a zebra, I’m thinking horses.” Employers are the same way.

When you’re in a job interview, you’re talking and talking and talking they’re thinking, “Oh, man, this sounds like everyone else that has ever interviewed for this job or anybody else that’s come from Bain or Accenture or whatever.” And people, the interviewers, they need to draw conclusions very quickly, they need to stereotype. And I don’t mean that in a bad way, meaning they have to draw on their own experiences with the limited amount of time that they have in order to figure out and extrapolate whether you’re going to do a good job in their company. It’s a function of the interviewing system, not the individual, him or herself.

So, when I said, “You need to be able to stand out.” Now that was five years ago. I told this little story and I never really thought about it. But when I was thinking about this career development book that I wanted to write, I said, “There’s a big problem in the world that, in this post-academic era, we don’t have that career syllabus.” You and I went to college. The professor hands you the career syllabus, you knew a few things. You knew what you were going to be studying on what given day, what the homework assignments were, when you were going to take the tests, what the tests were going to entail. You had some faith that the individual who was teaching you, at least was well credentialed, should have known his or her stuff. You had some faith in this.

But in our professional world now, the minute you throw your hat and tassel in the air, you don’t have that. That’s gone. And then the journey you take is it’s very difficult, as we go back to that kind of those jokes we were talking about the career development models, people don’t have that. And so, I wanted to solve that problem by saying, “Okay, if I had to rewind my clock 36 years, and I was walking out of school, how does somebody go through their evolution? And what skills would I learn? And what would I learn first so that the higher-level skills that I wanted to learn, I would learn them faster and more easily?”

And so, I put this structure together, this methodology that’s based on expertise in tiers as we go through our professional lives. So, there’s five tiers in the way that I see somebody evolving. They’re a producer, so, basically, you’re managing your own self. Then you become a communicator, which is from an interactional standpoint, “I need to develop communication skills that allow me to support others, be a team player, and so on.” But then as you evolve, you become more of an influencer where you’re using those communication skills to actually draw positive outcomes from people, motivate them, influence them, get results through them or on their behalf.

And then the developers, the fourth tier, which is really the individuals who can actually coach, manage people, but in units, but also build the systems upon which everybody operates. And then, ultimately, the fifth tier, you’re a visionary, where you are creating the new ideas, generating of the new products, the new solutions. And so, as I teach my leadership groups, I teach them these career skills, I don’t call them soft skills. I call them career skills because I actually think these are essential and harder to build than our trade skills, whatever your profession is, that is.

And so, as I looked at what I was teaching and how I was working with them and the issues they were facing, it became clear to me that there were 46 or so vital skills, that if you were able to build them, you would evolve through these tiers as I’ve laid out. So, The Zebra Code book is really this leadership coaching program in a book where I teach you how to put your skill-building plan together and operate it so that you’re not overwhelmed. You know what you should be working on based on your profession, your goals and aspirations, as well as incorporating in your regular old work assignments, “Are there things that you do on a day in and day out, or week in and week out basis where you want to get better?” And so that’s the problem the book addresses, that it’s like a maze.

Professional development is a maze, and people waste a lot of time because they don’t know what skills to work on, or they’re working on the wrong skills, or they’re working on skills but they’re not working on them the right way, or they’re not working on them in the most efficient manner. So, I tried to address all those skills in the book.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Andy, I think that five tiers is very excellently done, as you think about, if you really zoom out, like, “Okay, no, really, where am I in the course of this career?” It’s, like, “Okay, fresh out of school, a first job, all right we’re squarely in the producer zone.” And then I can see, “Okay, yeah,” and then I’m doing the communicator, then the influencer, then the developer, then the visionary.

And if I may, sometimes these lines can get a little blurry in terms of we have someone without direct reports but has been around for a while and is quite highly paid, and senior executives are truly counting on some visionary levels of insight and expertise that they’re bringing to the table. So, not to jack up your model, Andy, but how do you think about those kinds of situations?

Andrew LaCivita
Well, one of the things I didn’t mention, and it’s something good for anybody who is interested to know. Inside the book, there’s also a leadership and skill-building assessment. So, the example you gave was great, because you say, “Hey, I could be a junior person generating great ideas, or I could be a very senior person who has lots of ideas, but I’m not really great at developing people.”

So, when you look at all the skill sets that really, I feel, go into each of these layers, I have an assessment for you to take, literally, a quantitative assessment that’s based on subjective questions that I’ve highlighted for you to see where you have opportunities to improve.

And so, what the model does is, it’s agnostic regarding who you are, your age, your profession. This is what I would say, in general, is the methodology shows you how to pick and choose skills at different levels that you need more help with and figuring out when the right time is to work on those. So, as an example, some of the some of the skillsets, to give you an idea, in the producer level are about self-awareness. We’re talking about your ability to focus. We’re talking about habit-building. We’re talking about planning and running your day, or confidence.

I know a lot of 40- and 50-year-olds that aren’t confident. I know a lot of 60-year-olds that don’t know how to run their day. I know a lot of executives who are creative thinkers who are ineffective at running their day. So, even the most senior people could benefit from building the producer-level skill sets. So, it isn’t a cookie cutter, “Hey, everybody at this level or at this stage start here and only work these.”

It’s taking you from that blank sheet of paper, to giving you some organization, to letting you pick and choose based on your current state. So, what you might find is if you’re a, let’s say you’re in your early 40s, give or take, you got a team of six people you’re trying to manage. Well, I can teach you things about how to better run your day. That’s producer-level stuff. And I could teach you also all of the components that go into motivating, coaching, developing, understanding somebody’s feedback language. How do you determine how to get the best results out of somebody?

So, the skills, it’s really there’s a compounding effect, and the earlier you start the more effective you’ll be at building habits, running your day, and so on because learning how to motivate somebody is a more complicated skill to build. Does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, beautiful. It sure does. So, this assessment, can you take it online for free somewhere?

Andrew LaCivita

I have a 47-page booklet that introduces all The Zebra Code methodology, these tiers we’ve been talking about, this assessment you can take, and also all the instruction to build your career plan, that’s free. So, if you just head to the milewalk Academy website, you can check out the leadership card. It’ll take you to a page where there’s a button there and you can download it for free. So, thank you for asking me that.

Pete Mockaitis

Cool. Well, yeah, so we’ll definitely link that. But let’s just go ahead and say, you mentioned focus and confidence, and those are things that a lot of my listeners a lot of times have said, “Yeah, we’d love that.” So, let’s just say we did that, we looked through all the skills, we said, “Boy, you know what, focus and confidence are the things. Now what?”

Andrew LaCivita

Okay. So, I don’t have any children but I don’t know if you have kids, but I know a lot of people have kids. But have you ever told your kid, “Hey, listen to me. Concentrate, focus on this, give me your attention.”?

Pete Mockaitis

“Get your shoes.”

Andrew LaCivita

“Get your shoes,” whatever. That’s not focus. The kid’s never been taught how to focus. They’ve been told how to focus. And we, as adults, have never been taught “How do we get complete command of our mind at any moment in time so that I can, at this moment in time, have the capacity and the ability to concentrate on only one thing?”

So, you ask me a question, right now I need to use muscles to be able to focus on that one thing. So that’s what I mean when I say focus. And what I tell people is, “You cannot possibly have the muscles to do that if you are not continually building those muscles. And in order to build those muscles, you need to be practicing building those muscles throughout the day, all day, every day.”

And what a lot of people do is they, I don’t want to say they practice distraction, but they are so distracted. The phone beeps. What do you do? You look at it. You are now distracted, which means you’re not concentrating on whatever it was that you were doing. Maybe you were having dinner with a friend. Maybe you were working on writing an email to your boss. The phone beeps. Boom. You don’t have the muscle to not look at it.

So, what I do is I concentrate on creating a kind of a lifestyle system that enables me at any moment in time to focus. So, what I do is, there’s basically six or seven things that I go through. Every night, the night before, the next day, I plan my next day, and you might say, “Well, how’s planning your next day helping you with focus?”

Well, number one, I’m getting ready for the day. I know what the day entails. I know that on this day, you and I are recording this on a Tuesday at 10:45 in the morning Central, we started. I knew yesterday that we were going to be meeting. I had everything set up. I knew where I needed to go, what information I needed for you, and so on.

So, I unloaded all of that, which freed up my mind for the evening, for my sleep. I woke up the next day, the next thing I did when I got out of bed and I went through my morning routine is I literally practiced focusing for 10 minutes on one thing, which is moving energy through my body. It’s just a way for me to practice concentration in an ideal environment where I know I will not have any interruptions. So, think of this focusing exercise as, “I’m going to do a warm-up for the day in the most ideal conditions.”

Because now we’re going to go into a day that has a lot of things associated with it, I did seven or eight things before our 10:45 appointment this morning. Well, I thought about everything that I was going to do for the day. I call it considering my day.

So, after I do my focus practice, before I get into my work day, I actually look at my whole day and I think about “What would an ideal day look like? What are the other outputs I’m going to have? What might I do if something goes wrong? What happens if I get interrupted?” And I’m thinking through all this. And what this is doing is it’s enabling me to let go of things that I need to, making sure that I can foresee what I wanted to happen, and then in the event any surprises happen or anything like that, I’m more equipped at any moment in time to be able to concentrate on it. And then I actually practice building my willpower muscles throughout the day.

And this is a great tip I got from Dandapani. So, I don’t want to take credit for this when it comes to willpower. But part of building your focus muscle is building your willpower. Your willpower is your ability to exert control to complete something. So, one of the things that I do as I go through, whether it’s a work deliverable or any household chores, or anything that I do, he’s got this three-step process. He says, “Finish what you start. Do it a little better than you thought you would. And then do a little more.”

And what that does is, if you go start to finish without taking your mind off it, you’re practicing staying in order. And what this is doing is it’s building willpower, and willpower is really your mind being able to concentrate at any moment of time, so that helps. And then as I work throughout my day, when I go from one thing to the next, again, everything I’m doing is aimed at creating free space in my mind so it’s not cluttered, so I can concentrate. 

So whenever I transition, so right before I started with you, I packed up what I was doing at 10:30, I made some notes, I let the dogs out, I thought about you, I thought about what a fun podcast will look like, and I was going through wrapping up what I was doing, thinking forward to what I’m about to do so that I don’t have anything hanging over my head from the prior hour.

Even if I spent an hour writing a great chapter in a book, and even though it was fun for me, I still accumulated stress in my forearms, in my fingers, even just thinking, maybe in my neck. So, I want to let go of that. And so, imagine not letting go of any of that throughout the day. People go from Zoom meeting to a phone call, to doing something, and they just keep accumulating that stress, which again makes it harder for them to concentrate on anything at any moment in time.

And so, these things along with kind of the last point is really the reflection and being able to think back about what happened, wrapping up your day, I do this as part of my nightly practice, but all of these things that I do are aimed at keeping a free mind so that at any moment in time I can focus and I can concentrate. And it takes all of these things and other things but it’s just like a diet.

I always say, “Look, if you eat a healthy breakfast and you think eating pizza and burgers for the rest of the day for lunch and dinner where you’re going to lose weight, it isn’t going to happen.” Well, it’s the same kind of thing. If you meditate for 10 minutes in the morning and then run harried all day, you’re still not going to be able to focus. There’s a lot of things I think it takes to be able to concentrate. So that’s focusing.

Pete Mockaitis

And that’s helpful in terms of, so those are some things associated with focus. So, maybe I’m just going to zoom out a smidge in terms of the first step is we’ve identified, “This is a necessary skill that I need to build.” And then we’ve also determined, “It ain’t just going to happen. I have to actually schedule some time in my calendar to work on me in order to make it happen.”

And then there are a number of practices, protocols, interventions, the stuff you do to build those skills. And you’ve selected a few, I guess based upon your research and your experience and what has worked for your clients, and then you go do them. And so, it seems like there’s just naturally a bit of commitment, discipline, consistency, habit-building that’s associated with making it happen.

Andrew LaCivita

That’s right. Wait, you nailed it. So, number one, that was a fantastic recap because the things that you’re saying about, look, what I just said, while it might sound long-winded, think about everything that you need to do to condition yourself and how, what you said, consistent you need to be in that you need to make the time to do it.

Now, people think, “Well, I don’t have 10 minutes in the morning.” If you don’t have 10 minutes in the morning to work on you, I think you need to rethink your life. You got to figure out if this is important to you, and it isn’t just about work. I mean, don’t you want to have better conversations with your spouses, your partners, your friends, your children? I mean, there are various reasons people don’t achieve their goals, but one of the biggest reasons that I would say most people don’t achieve them is they’re not willing to sacrifice what they need to sacrifice to create the free space in their life to work on whatever it is they want to work on.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, so applying these same kinds of fundamental principles, let’s say, now we’re zeroing in on competence, and that’s the skill we want to develop, how might we go about doing that?

Andrew LaCivita

I love that one because I think this is one of the most misunderstood skills ever because people think, “Okay, I need to see myself do it, and then once I’m successful I’ll have confidence,” but confidence, your ability to be confident has a lot more to do with your relationship with failure than it is success. What I say to people is, “Generally, recognize there are multiple reasons why you’re not confident.” It’s you have an activity that you’re reluctant to do, so there’s a task or something that, “I don’t know how to do, so I’m not confident that I can do it.” There’s a big project and you don’t know all the steps that you need to take, therefore, you’re not confident because you don’t know how.

Or the third thing, which is really a misnomer, where people are not confident because it’s something like, “Hey, I don’t want to speak. I feel like I have stage fright, and I’m not confident getting in front of a bunch of people,” when it really has more to do with the fact that you are worried about how you look rather than the performance that you’re actually going to help them with or how to serve them. And so, there are a variety of things that you need to think about.

When I help people with building confidence, the first thing that I say to them is, “Recognize that, as you do these things, you’re always trying to increase your level of performance. And in order to do that, you’re going to fail initially. Build failure into the process so that you become more comfortable with taking attempts at things.”

So, if it’s an activity that you’re reluctant to do, let’s say I’m reluctant to send a cold email to ask somebody for a job, or I’m reluctant to do that cold sales call, or whatever it might be, in these cases, I want you to add repetitions. If you’ve got to make 10 calls, make 20. The more you do, the more comfortable you’ll become, and even if you’re not getting the results you want, what are you getting? Have better metrics for evaluating your performance. Did you make the call? Boom, that’s good. That’s in your control. Did you practice your sales script? Great, that was in your control. Did you learn how the customer might object. Okay, now you’re going to be better armed the next time.

And so, what you’re doing is you’re constantly repping something because the conditioning itself will make it less scary.

And I say when you’ve got these big projects that you want to take on where you’re a little reluctant, it’s like my wife is in marathon training right now. She’s going to run her first marathon. You don’t think about running 26.2 miles. You think about “What does your plan say today?” It says, “Go run six miles.” You could do that. Go do it. So, you’re always thinking a few moves ahead, but not trying to eat the entire elephant in one bite.

And then when it comes to kind of that third aspect where people find themselves usually losing confidence, like the stage fright example I gave, is oftentimes it’s your success in life is going to have a lot more to do with is where you place your attention than your ability. And never is that more true than if you get stage fright or something of that nature. The reason that you don’t have confidence to go give a speech in public or talk at the round table or give the status update or whatever it is, is because you’re thinking about how you’re looking instead of the service you’re providing to whomever it is you’re providing.

If you’re giving a status report to your management team, you’re helping them understand what it is they need to know in order to decide something that they need to decide for the direction of the company. If you’re giving a speech, and that you obviously have something to offer, otherwise you wouldn’t be standing up there on the stage giving it, think about how you’re helping the people. And what this does is it has a way of diffusing that, I don’t want to call it imposter syndrome, maybe it’s imposter syndrome, maybe it’s your reluctance or hesitation or whatever it might be.

So, there are a number of things and tactics that you can do, but confidence, like I said, has a lot more to do with getting comfortable with failure than it does with successes, because that’s easier to be confident when things are going well.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Understood. Well, Andy, tell me anything else you really want to make sure to put out there before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Andrew LaCivita

One of the things I would tell people that is near and dear to my heart, because this is something I had to live through, and it’s something really hard for people to wrestle with, but I always say, “Don’t let what you can do prevent you from doing what you were meant to do.”

And the reason that I want to share that, I guess if you gave me an open invitation to share something, would be because a lot of us, and I’m sure you went through this too. You talked about working for Bain. At some point, you’re making a nice paycheck, you got to save for the kid’s college tuition, you got to pay for the cars, the houses, the whatever, and people, they know they can do it, they know they can be the engineer, they know they can be the accountant, but they really have an aspiration of doing something else.

I knew I could be an IT consultant, but I had aspirations of helping people. How do I do that? I felt like that was what I was meant to do, is really helping people in their careers. And one of the things that that takes is you need to, number one, you need to want it more than you’re afraid of it, and you need to have faith that there is a way to make a living doing what you want to do.

And there are a lot of people out there, and I’m speaking to anybody who’s listening who wants to make that change, there are people that are out there that need you to do what you’re aching to do. Don’t disappoint them by feeling like, “There’s no way to make a living” or, “It’s too late for me.”

I changed careers at 50, at 38 and 50. You can do it. So, I’d say The Zebra Code is all about that because it’s about building the skills that are enabling you to go after what you want. So, I would end with that, at least before you go on to your next sentence.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I was going to ask about a favorite quote, but we already got it. So now, give us a favorite study or experiment or bit of research.

Andrew LaCivita

One of the things that I do, and I don’t say it’s like a piece of research as much as it is ongoing research. We get fed through the media things like unemployment numbers, let’s talk jobs here, or industries that are doing well, or industries that are hiring, or those that are tanking, or thriving, or whatever, or what consumers are buying.

I am always interested in looking at the details behind what’s being shared, and what I do every month is look for signals as to what’s happening. And then I spend time trying to draw conclusions from the data.

So, as an example, all last year, and even this year, there are markets that are thriving. Well, the three top that were hiring are healthcare, construction, and the government. So, if the government is hiring a lot of people, from a jobs’ perspective that’s good, but from a gross domestic product perspective, that doesn’t contribute anything to retail sales or any contribution for economic growth. So that has to be evaluated when you start looking at, “Well, is hiring good? Is hiring bad? Which way is the employment market going?”

So, I would say in general, anytime you’re looking at data, just make sure you’re interpreting it and then draw conclusions based on what you think will happen, based on what’s under the covers rather than the headline that we tend to glance at.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. How about a favorite book?

Andrew LaCivita

I’m a huge fan of Wayne Dyer. So, rather than just say all his books, one of my absolute favorite books is You’ll See It When You Believe It.

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

Andrew LaCivita

I’ll plug the names here for these companies because I love their platform so much.

We use Kajabi for our online training program. So, I’m able to distribute all of our programs, our video-based online programs, I use Kajabi to do that. We have a community that we run. So, we don’t run the milewalk Academy community on public sites like Facebook. We run it on a private platform called Circle. That’s fantastic. So, think your own private Facebook. So, not Facebook, but Circle does that.

But my newest shiny toy is Andy AI, which is literally an Andy clone of all of my teaching, all of my videos. This podcast will probably get loaded in there, and everything that I’ve taught, all the books that I’ve written, all my YouTube videos, all the podcasts, everything that I’ve created, there’s something like, at the time we’re talking 12 million words of my teaching in the tool that trained it to answer you, like, so it’s AndyGPT, so to speak. So, like ChatGPT, but it’s all my teaching, and that is a product that’s on the Delphi platform, and it’s rather new. It’s very new.

And so, my job-seeking clients and my leadership development clients can access, well, most of them anyway, can access Andy AI and ask it questions and get my instruction. It’s the coolest thing, and obviously you can see how that scales my time. And so, there’s thousands of people around the world that can ask me questions whenever they want and get answers immediately. Pete, that’s got to be that’s the new shiny new tool.

Pete Mockaitis

Cool.

Andrew LaCivita

Yeah, those are great.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Andrew LaCivita

So, I’d say go to the milewalk Academy, just like it sounds, milewalkacademy.com. And from there you can find my blog, you can find my YouTube channel, my tips for working, my podcast, there’s a lot of free downloads, you can get that leadership assessment, there’s premium programs if you’re interested. I’m everywhere on the social channels as well. If you just Google Andrew LaCivita, it’ll pop up. But the milewalk Academy is the home base.

Pete Mockaitis

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

Andrew LaCivita

Figure out what skills are going to pay the most dividends in the short and long term, and then put a plan together that’s going to help you develop those skills. And the other thing that you’re absolutely going to need to do is create space in your calendar to do that. And as a bonus, if you can pay yourself first in time with skill development, you won’t just have a good career, you’ll have an epic career.

Pete Mockaitis

Andy, this has been beautiful. Thank you. I wish you many Zebra moments.

Andrew LaCivita

Pete, I appreciate it, man. Thanks to you. Thank Marco, too, for doing all this for us and bringing us together. It’s been a thrill. I’ve enjoyed your podcast as a listener. It’s been, you know, it just tickles me pink, that you invited me to be a guest.

Aug 15
0

987: How to Ace Your Next Job Interview with Sam Owens

By | Podcasts | One Comment

Sam Owens breaks down his detailed process for confidently nailing job interviews–in 10 hours flat.

You’ll Learn

  1. The biggest mistake people make in job interviews 
  2. How to craft your “power” answers for every question 
  3. The top do’s and don’ts of salary negotiation 

About Sam

Sam Owens is the author of I HATE JOB INTERVIEWS and founder of Sam’s Career Talk where he provides career coaching services and helps people land their dream jobs and thrive in them. He is also a chief marketing officer who has worked for three multi-billion dollar companies in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. He is currently Chief Marketing Officer at Freezing Point, the makers of Frazil slushies. He and his wife, Gina, have four children and live in Erie, Colorado.

Resources Mentioned

Thank You, Sponsors!

Sam Owens Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Sam, welcome.

Sam Owens
Thanks for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell us, in your career experience, what is perhaps the most pervasive misconception or mistake you see as people are doing job hunting, interviewing things?

Sam Owens
For job interviews, specifically, the most pervasive thing I see is that people somehow don’t see the need to practice their job interviews. They think, “Well, I either have it or I don’t,” or, “I’m either I’m a good conversationalist, so I’ll be fine,” or, “I’m not good at this stuff or whatever.” For whatever reason, they don’t think they need to practice, even though they’ll practice their golf swing two hours a day, or something like that, and that’s for just a hobby. They won’t practice job interviews, which is their livelihood for the next several years. So, that’s by far, the most pervasive thing I see is a failure to practice.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so let’s talk about that mindset in terms of, like, “I got it or I don’t.” I suppose folks might think, “Well, hey, my experiences are my experiences. I could tell you about a time I failed, or I worked on a team, or I achieved a cool thing, blah, blah, blah. I know that. I know those experiences. I feel ready to tell you about them.” So, what are they failing to practice, and how does that show up when the interviewer is observing it?

Sam Owens
Okay, so I have to tell you about a movie I love, and maybe you’ve seen it, “Hitch,” with Will Smith and Kevin James. Okay, so there’s that scene, right, where Will Smith says, “Hey, all right, now about your dancing.” And Kevin James says, “Don’t worry about that, I got this one. It’s fine.” And Will Smith is like, “No, I’m sorry, I have to be thorough here. I need to see you dance.” And then, of course, he turns on music, and Kevin James, turns out, is just doing the funniest, most horrible dancing ever and Will Smith winds up slapping him saying, “Don’t ever do that again.”

So, I think in job interviews, things sound a lot differently in our minds than when we actually spit them out. It’s one thing to understand, “Yeah, I have relevant experience,” it’s another thing to clearly articulate when someone asks you, “Tell me about a time when you had to manage a difficult co-worker.” To tell a compelling, cohesive, concise story that really hits the mark requires practice.

It’s not that you don’t have the experiences, it’s not that you can’t recall the experiences, it’s just that the ability to convey that in two to four minutes in a really compelling way requires practice. Why wouldn’t it? You know, it’s not an easy thing to do.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. So, we are the Kevin Jameses in that we assume, “I know dancing.” It’s like, “I know my experiences, so we’re fine.” And it’s like, “No, no, not quite.”

Sam Owens
Either we’re the Kevin Jameses who think, “I got this,” or, here’s another problem, is we are the people that think, “Well, I don’t know, I’m not even sure if I want this job. It might not be worth all the preparation. We’ll see,” and so we kind of self-sabotage in some ways too. And what happens there is you wind up actually wanting the job, and then you don’t get the job because you came off as wishy-washy in the interview.

So, I tell my clients, “Be wishy-washy after you have a job offer in writing in your hands. That’s a great time to be wishy-washy and to be flippant and whatever. Until you have that job offer, be all in, be prepared, be ready to go.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that’s good. Well, maybe let’s zoom out a little bit. In your book, I Hate Job Interviews: Stop Stressing. Start Performing. Get the Job You Want, you lay out a whole process and some steps. Could you maybe zoom out for us and give us an overview of what are those steps?

Sam Owens
Yes, the whole book is based around a checklist that I use when I work with my clients to help them get jobs, and it starts with the preparation phase. And I recommend, and sometimes this gives people heartburn, I recommend 10 hours of preparation per interview. The first three hours is spent researching the company, talking to people familiar with the company, crafting what I call your power stories.

Then the next phase is formulating your answers, formulating, anticipating how you’re going to answer them. And then the final phase, I’d say about four hours, is practicing out loud, partially with yourself and then with someone else to be successful. So, the book really walks through what that preparation looks like, how to prepare more efficiently. And then it goes through a series of question types, not specific questions, but question types, like the introductory question or a behavioral question or a case question.

It talks about how you can take your power stories and craft them so that you can answer all of these question types so that, by the time you get to the interview, you’re really ready for anything someone can throw at you. Nothing will throw you off and you feel fully prepared. So, that’s kind of the basis of the book.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, and so then I’m curious, I mean, the name of the book is “I hate interviews,” I Hate Job Interviews, so we’re going to talk mostly about job interviews. But before we do, I got to ask, any top tips for getting the interview in the first place?

Sam Owens
Sure. One of the pieces of advice in this book, a chapter I focus on is called “Getting Inside Information.” It’s a little bit different from what you’d expect, but as part of a job interview preparation, I actually start out by telling the story of a Wall Street inside trader who was in prison. His name is Ivan Boesky. He’s one of the first big insider trader scandals. I tell the readers to be a little bit more like him, which is a little strange.

Pete Mockaitis
A role model for us all.

Sam Owens
That’s right. He’s a good role model. And I say that because inside information, getting inside information is illegal and bad in the financial world. But, actually, it’s legal, ethical, and oftentimes encouraged, if you do it right, in the job interview world. So, as part of someone’s preparation, the first thing that someone’s going to want to do is a lot of times open their laptop and read about the company or get on their phone and read about it.

That’s okay to do a little bit, but what they really should do is put away the phone, put down the laptop, and start talking to people, anyone who is familiar with the company, someone that works with the company, and just asking for a 15-minute informational interview, “Hey, I’m applying to this company. Just want to pick your brain a little bit and have an informational interview.”

And the beauty of an informational interview is it will give you the opportunity, number one, to get inside information. I’ve gotten amazing information by calling people and saying, “Hey, I’m interviewing with your company, and just wondering if you could tell me a little bit about the company.” And then just sitting back and listening. Oh, wow, I didn’t hear just about the company. I heard about here’s who you’re interviewing with. I didn’t ask, but here are some things I would think about. And it was invaluable to me in preparing for those interviews.

So, the same principle applies when you’re trying to get an interview. If you’re interested in, let’s say, Microsoft, the first thing I would do is get on LinkedIn and try to find anyone who knows anybody that has anything to do with that company, and start calling people, picking their brains, asking them, “Hey, who else should I talk to?”

Assuming those interviews go well, you can say, “Hey, I’ve already applied to this job. What do you think? Would you be willing to pass along my resume? If you would, it would be such a huge benefit to me and I’d really appreciate it.” And so, by talking to people and by running in those circles, you’re going to get a much higher interview hit rate than if you are just trying to hit keyword, buzzwords, whatever on Monster.com or on the company website. You really need to talk to people familiar with the company.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. Okay. Well, so what I like in your book, your first step associated with doing well in these interviews is to start by convincing our harshest critic, which is often ourselves. So, how do we do that?

Sam Owens
That’s right. People say, “How do I become confident in an interview?” And it comes down to convincing ourselves that we really are. We really have to know deep in our bones that we are a great candidate for this job. And this kind of starts with dispelling some of the myths we’ve talked about already, like, “Oh, I don’t know if I…” some bad, I call it mental trash. Take out your mental trash.

Some of these things that we think, “Oh, if I don’t get the job, it’s because I wasn’t qualified.” Well, that’s not true. You got the interview already. You are qualified. You just didn’t interview as well as someone else did. So, that’s one thing to dispel. “Oh, job interviewing is only for extroverts. I’m an introvert, so I’m just not going to do well.” Well, that’s not true. Job interviewing is for those who prepare.

So, there’s all these kinds of negative thoughts that are not helpful that can kind of surface as we’re preparing, got to get rid of those first. And the next piece is, that 10 hours of preparation. If you are prepared, confidence will come through preparation.

Some people are naturally confident without preparation, and that winds up coming off as arrogance in an interview. That’s kind of a disaster, you know, being confident without being prepared. And so, preparation is the key, whether you’re overconfident, whether you’re not confident enough, to make sure you have the right level of confidence when you walk into the interview.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, let’s really get into it then. Okay, I got the call, “Hooray! I have an interview coming up.” I got 10 hours on my schedule to do what Sam’s telling me to do. First step, what am I doing at hour one?

Sam Owens
Hour one is you’re going to be doing informational interviews and/or researching the company. So, this is basic research, understanding, reading the job description. The job description is your instruction manual, and many people don’t go deep into it. So, for example, in the job description you can easily detect, okay, what skills they are looking for. It could be strategic thinking. It could be analytical ability.

So, you’re spending that hour, I should say the first hour, you’re really spending it studying the job description, studying the company and writing down what skills they are looking for because, later in the preparation process, you’re going to be translating those skills into responses. You’re going to be anticipating question types in writing stories that demonstrate how you have mastered those skills. So that’s hour one, a little bit of reading.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And what’s in hour two?

Sam Owens
After you’ve done this, now it’s time to have some informational interviews, which means you get on LinkedIn, or you talk to your brother-in-law, or you do whatever you need to do to speak with people who are familiar with the company. You give them a call, you ask for 15 minutes, you’re very grateful, you’re very gracious, but you ask them questions about the company, and mostly you sit back and you listen.

That is another input for you that you’re writing down to help you craft and hone and frame the stories to make sure the stories you tell are on point with the skills that they’re looking for. So, that’s kind of your first, I’d say, three hours. That reading points, probably about an hour and then these informational interviews, you’re probably going to want to spend about two hours doing that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Sam Owens
Feeling good so far?

Pete Mockaitis
Yup. I might ask, any pro-tips when you make the request, things to say, things not to say when you’re asking for these gracious 15-minute favors of time?

Sam Owens
You want to establish any sort of personal connection. So, it’s one thing to go on LinkedIn and to say, “Hey, Steve, Sarah said it’d be okay that we talked. Wondering if we could set something up.” It’s another thing to say, “Steve, you and I have two things in common. First, we’re huge Texas fans. I lived there from 1999 to 2005, and I see you work there today. How’s Dallas? It’s awesome. Second, we share a common friend, Sarah, she’s amazing. She mentioned you might be willing to talk to me, I’d be so grateful to do it.”

So, anything you can do to establish a personal connection with the person who you’re reaching out to is going to increase your hit rate and response rate dramatically.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, we’ve had these conversations, we’ve got some inside information. I’m wondering, are there any super awesome questions that give us a lot of valuable insights that you recommend are among the top things you want to ask during our 15-minute windows?

Sam Owens
I think the more information you can give them about your situation, the more they’ll know how to help you. So, “Hey, I’m applying for a job in marketing. I’ve already applied. I have an interview coming up. I’m just wondering, as I prepare, what the great marketing candidates look like. What are they like? Do you have any advice for me in the job interview process? Can you tell me a little bit about the culture at your company?”

And what I found is you don’t have to ask too many questions because once they know that you’re a candidate, that you’re interested, they’re going to say, “Okay, I got it. Let me help you just understand what you’re looking at here. Here’s my perspective.” So, I found that many times in a 15-minute conversation, number one, it usually turns into 30 minutes.

And, number two, I’d probably do 20% of the talking, and the person telling me and helping me is doing the rest of the talking, and that’s exactly how you want it to be. It’s a beautiful thing when that happens. So, I think some starter questions like that work really well, but I think just being able to listen attentively, maybe ask a couple follow-up questions, be engaged in the conversation is going to help a lot.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, we’ve had these conversations, we’ve gotten the good inside info, now what?

Sam Owens
Now it’s time to craft your power stories. And the reason I say you craft your stories is that you could be asked thousands of different interview job questions, and there’s no way that you can anticipate all of these questions. There’s just no way. You don’t have the time or the ability to anticipate how many questions that you’ll be asked.

However, there are only a handful of question types that you’ll be asked, and only a handful of skills that they are trying to assess. So, you want to craft power stories. If you see that they want to assess a skill in analytical ability, for example, you’ll think back in your experiences, and you’ll say, “Oh, I remember that time I had to build that inventory model for work. What was that like? What was I asked to do? And why did I do such an amazing job?”

And so, those are the types of things you want to say, “All right, I got five skills that I know they’re going to assess. So, I’m going to have two stories associated with each of those skills, and those are going to be my foundation.” Once I have that foundation, now I can start to look at all the different question types I’ll be asked, scenario questions, introductory, behavioral questions, questions about me, and I’ll be able to kind of use that as a foundation to start crafting those answers.

So that’s the next step. You want to get, you want to start to craft those power stories, and then start to anticipate, “Okay, here’s how I’d answer a behavioral question with this story. Here’s how I’d answer a you,” I call a you question, but a question about you with this story, when someone says, “What’s your leadership style?” or whatever.

And once you have that foundation, you’re going to be a lot more confident as you’re answering questions because then you can think like a politician, and anytime someone asks you a question type, you can kind of say, “All right, I got a story for that and I’m going to tell them kind of what I want to tell them a little bit,” and position my power story just a little bit to fit that question type.

Pete Mockaitis
Sam, I love this that I’ve done this, and it’s so funny, it almost feels like cheating. But I’ll tell you though, in practice, because the range of interview questions is somewhat narrow, it doesn’t look nearly as off-putting as when politicians do it. It’s like, “We weren’t talking about climate change or the border or the economy. Where is this coming from, right? Here it is.”

If we are worried that the interviewer will say, “No, no, no. That’s not what I asked. How dare you try to hijack my interview with your stuff?” Tell me, does that ever happen? And should we fear this? And why or why not?

Sam Owens
No, thinking like a politician is a provocative thought, but, really, you’re right, it’s a narrow scope. What I mean is, if someone asks you, “Can you tell me about a time when you demonstrated leadership?” Or if someone asks you, “Tell me about how you get along with others,” there’s a good chance you can use the same story for both of those questions, right?

And so, what we’re saying is you want your best stuff. You want to prepare your hits, right? If you’re going to go see a concert, you’re going to go see U2 play a concert, you don’t want the new album. You want the hits. So, it’s like your power stories are your best stuff. And then, when they ask you, “Tell me how smart are you?” or “Tell me about times you manage a complicated project?” or “How do you think you are as a leader?” there’s a good chance, actually, you could take your best story and position it appropriately to fit the question that you’re asked.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And just to make sure we’re on the same page, my greatest hits, I assume that means a smashing victory in which I exceeded expectations, created a big result, delighted my boss or clients or colleagues. This is what makes a hit a hit. Is that fair to say?

Sam Owens
That’s what a hit is. It’s like a Disney movie or any sort of movie. There’s a hero who is put into a kind of a difficult situation, spends most of the movie doing amazing things to solve the problem, and then in the end, everything works out amazingly well. That’s kind of the narrative that you weave in pretty much all of these stories.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. I like you make it really simple. So, there we have identified the intersection then with what is within our real, genuine, legitimate experience, “Hey, I really did do that, and it really was awesome,” aligned with the skills they’re after, aligned with the kinds of question types they’re going to likely put our way. So, that’s when I’ve got things, the stars are aligning. Could you maybe give us some particulars as to what the story sounds like, how long should it be, maybe a demo?

Sam Owens
Sure. Let’s take a behavioral-based question, which is the bulk of many interviews, and this is the type of question where they ask you “Tell me about a time when…” They’re looking for a specific time, not generality. So, if they say, “Tell me about a time when you demonstrated leadership,” a weak answer would be, “Well, I think leadership is really important, and I’ve gotten really good feedback that I’m a good leader, and I have an open-door policy.” That’s not what they’re asking. They’re asking for a specific time.

And the reason they do that is because they believe that if you demonstrate, specifically, that you’ve done a skill in the past, you’re highly likely to demonstrate that same skill in the future. And so, the way you think about this is, you may have heard this model, the SPAR model, STAR model. I call it the SPAR model, Situation, Problem, Action, Result.

You give probably 10% of the answer to just describe the situation. So, let’s see, “Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult co-worker.” Okay. You know, the situation setup might sound something like, “Two years ago, I was working for a food manufacturing firm, and I was assigned as a new person on a critical marketing project. This project was going to be the biggest campaign we had, and there was a team of 10 of us that were really going to try to grow sales for this new cereal that we were launching.”

Okay, great. So that’s your setup. Doesn’t have to be very long. It’s kind of like I say with this answer set up. It’s kind of like think about hot dogs. No one wants the back story of how it’s made. Everyone just wants to get to the meat, so think about it like a hot dog, quick setup. Now you have a problem. So, you introduce a problem, and you don’t want to make this boring. You want to make this kind of like a movie, like I said, a little tense, maybe a little drama, so that they actually want to listen to you.

So, now you say, “And the most senior person on the team didn’t like that I was put on the team because he felt like I was too junior, and so he started excluding me from meetings, and he started making comments, somewhat inappropriate comments in meetings, and this became a real challenge. And I realized if I was going to be successful, I needed to build a successful relationship with this coworker.” So, there’s your problem. So, I just did a quick situation-problem. That’s like 20%, 30% of your answer. Now the bulk of your answer.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, if I may, I’m loving this so much because I’ve heard STAR. I’ve heard SPAR fewer times, but you’re right. To talk about the problem sets up a conflict like a movie that’s engaging a story I need to hear resolved, I’m engaged. As opposed to a task is less juicy, enriching to our human nature and desire to have story.

Sam Owens
That’s right. Exactly. Your goal is to not have the interviewer tune out when you’re telling the story. So, creating a little drama always helps. So now you get to the actions where you spend the bulk, 70% of your answer. I like to do this sequentially because I think it helps keep things organized. So, talking, I say the rule of threes, one, two, three, “Okay, so here’s what I first did to manage and to kind of build this relationship. I took him to lunch, first thing, and got to know him personally so that we could establish a personal connection.”

“And in doing that, I learned a lot about him, about his family, about his background, his experience. I almost kind of looked at it and approached it like he could be my mentor. And he liked that. I think that was helpful to build our relationship because he did. I found he did have a lot of valuable experience that I can learn from.”

“The second thing I did was made a commitment to him, to talk to him and report every week on the progress that I had made on the project, because he was kind of the self-described leader of the project, and so I was more than happy to report on all the work I had done and let him give input, to kind of have this be more like a mentoring relationship. And in doing that, he really wound up engaging with me and gave me pointers. The first couple weeks were a little challenging because he was somewhat critical of my work but, eventually, he really started to come around.”

“And then the third thing I did was, after my final presentation of the work I did, I showed him and asked for his feedback on this, which really created this collaborative environment.” So, that’s the action, and you can insert other things in there, but that’s the idea. You are kind of sequentially walking through specific things that you did to solve the problem.

And then, finally, you get to the result, where I say, “And as a result of that, he actually became my biggest advocate. And when we presented this project to the executive team, he called me out specifically for the work that I had done uniquely on this project. And so, that was an example to me of really striving to build a personal relationship, leveraging someone as a mentor, and being more transparent with my work to foster that kind of collaborative relationship.”

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful.

Sam Owens
Thank you. That’s how I’d think about answering those types of questions with a story like that, a behavioral question.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, we’ve identified some great power stories, we structured them with a SPAR approach, and now we just rehearse saying them out loud?

Sam Owens
That’s right. Now it’s time to practice. Now, there’s other questions that you can practice. So, you have these power stories, but there’s also other ways that these questions can be asked that you need to modify. So, for example, there’s a category of questions I call “you questions” where someone says “What kind of leader are you?” That’s a little bit of a different type of question, and it would be strange if you immediately launched into a SPAR story if someone asked that.

But one of models I use there is SEE, statement, explanation, example. So, when someone says, “What kind of leader are you?” you can say, “I think I could describe my leadership style as results-oriented and high accountability.” So, that’s your brief statement. Then you explain a little bit what you mean, “What I mean by that is I’ve been known to really collaborate and make sure I get input from all my team members, and make sure that I have that relationship to where I can hold them accountable.”

Now you go to the example, you could say, “For example,” and then that example could be a real truncated version of the story I just told, or another story that says, “For example, in my last role, I really had to take a leadership position with this coworker, and here’s what I did,” and it’s a shorter version, but you’re still weaving that in. And so, I think being able to, yes, the answer is yes, you got to practice, but you got to be ready with the different models that I lay out depending on the question type you’re asked.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And then when we practice, any pro tips, do it with friends, do it with a video camera on your phone? Or how do we think about practicing optimally?

Sam Owens
My last job interview that I had, I practiced for a couple hours on my commute back and forth with the job I had at the time. I just practiced out loud.

Pete Mockaitis
Alone in the car is great.

Sam Owens
Which can be very valuable. Yeah, I like doing that. And then practice either with a coach. Coach is ideal, but if you don’t want to pay the money or if you don’t know any coaches, then just practice with a friend or someone who you think would be the best that will at least give you genuine and honest feedback. And when you practice, my pro tip is to simulate the actual experience.

Don’t stop in the middle, ask to start over, don’t say, “Oh, how is that?” Time it, do a 45-minute interview, and then afterwards, ask for all the feedback, because that gives you a sense of, “Okay, here’s how much endurance I’m going to have to have.” It’s going to force you to try to get yourself out of sticky situations that you might put yourself into.

Simulating the real deal is going to give you an opportunity, if I can just be totally blunt, to say, make some really dumb mistakes and say stupid things, and then realize, “Ooh, that was painful.” Like, only then do you realize, “That was painful. I don’t want to experience that pain again, so I’m going to fix that problem.” So, that’s what the practice does for you, is it allows you to say stupid things, or say things in the wrong way and then fix them for the real thing.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And then on the day of, we’ve done our 10 hours, any pro tips for the day of? Breakfast, caffeine, showing up early, dress, anything we should think about on this day?

Sam Owens
Yeah, nothing crazy. Look, well, dress is a funny one because “How should I dress for an interview?” I have a rule of thumb, which is “Dress not to impress.” What I mean by that is don’t make dress the subject. You don’t want any interviewer to make a yes or no decision based on the way you were dressed.

So, what that means is, if you show up in a tux to a really casual place, it’s going to be like, “Hmm, that was weird. Yeah, I mean, he did a good interview. She did a nice interview, but it was just…let me tell you what this person wore.” At the same time, you don’t want to show up with sweat shorts at the place.

So, the best way to dress is to call the HR person, ask what the daily dress code is, and then just dress a little nicer than that, “Hey, we’re business casual” “Okay, good. I’ll wear slacks and a button-up. Or maybe I’ll wear a tie, I don’t know.” But a little bit nicer just so that it’s not even an issue, it’s not a focus. If I’m going to get rejected from a job, it better be because I’m not qualified, not because I dress the wrong way. That’s an easy one to get right.

The day of, yeah, caffeine, whatever you need to do, I would just say do not be late to the interview, and respect the person’s time at the end. When they ask you, “What questions do you have for me?” and you got two minutes, just do a time check for them. Maybe they have more time, but if they don’t, just respect that time. So, those are probably some basic nuts and bolts on the day of.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, there we got it. Now, Sam, let’s say we do get the offer. Woo-hoo! Any top tips for negotiation or how we work that?

Sam Owens
The best time to negotiate your compensation is when you have an offer in writing. So, if they ask you what your salary requirements are in the interview, just know that you are not in the leveraged position when they ask you that. You’re in the leveraged position after you know that they want to give you an offer.

So, that poses an interesting question, “Well, what do I say?” Well, you have different options. You can punt and say, “Hey, I’ve just been really focused on whether or not this is a fit. I’m sure we’ll be able to work out the salary piece later.” Or, you could say, “Well, based on my research, I believe the salary range is between this and this.” But you really don’t have the opportunity to really play hardball until you have an offer in writing. So, that’s rule number one.

Rule number two. Any agreements, promises, or statements not in writing should not be taken seriously. So, I remember I had a job where I wanted, I was asking about, “What does my future promotion look like?” And the recruiting manager made me all sorts of promises, which immediately, after I took the job, were forgotten and didn’t matter. I don’t blame that person. I blame myself. I mean, really, if there’s no commitments in writing, they shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Okay, number three. It’s best to be paid what you are worth, not a lot more or a lot less. If you’re paid a lot more than your worth, eventually that catches up to you. If you’re paid a lot less, you’re not happy with that, and that eventually catches up to the employer. Number four. Compensation is about salary and so much more than salary. So, sometimes they won’t budge on salary but there’s all sorts of other stuff that you could talk about: bonus, benefits, vacation, all that stuff. So, think holistically when you think about the negotiation process.

Number five. Companies are much more willing to negotiate if they believe you will accept the offer. So, you don’t do yourself any favors when you say, “I don’t know. What are you willing to do for me?” It’s much better to go in good faith and say, “Hey, I actually want this. I’m excited about it. Here are some things that will help me make this work.” six. Don’t underestimate the power of likability. Interviewing firm but kindly is to your advantage.

Number seven. You likely won’t burn bridges by negotiating hard. Sometimes they want you to think, or you think, “Oh, man, if I negotiate too hard, then maybe when I start, they’re going to be mad at me or something.” Never the case. Once, it’s all done, it’s water under the bridge and you can start with a clean slate.

Number eight. Knowledge is power. Do your research, talk to people, try to understand what the salary ranges are. Number ten. Your current salary can be helpful in negotiating or it can be a liability. It’s up to you. Now, in my career, I’m happy with my salary. Someone calls me, “What are you looking to make?” I say, “Well, here’s what I’m making today. If you want me to move, I need to make at least 10% more than that.”

If you’re starting out and you’re not thrilled about your salary, and this job has a lot more, then you don’t need to bring it up, and you use the other negotiation tactics. So, that was a lot I just threw at you but that’s my 10 laws of negotiating tactics.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s handy. I like the part about negotiating hard in terms of just to remember to negotiate, period. I think in the United States, we’re not as accustomed to like, “Oh, this is the price. Okay.” It’s like, “Oh, this is the offer. Okay.” I had a guest who said that they are just able to automatically give up to 10% more anytime anybody bothers to ask, just straight up as policy. It’s like, “Wow, that’s easy. Remember to ask.”

Sam Owens
Yeah, I think so. It’s pretty rare that an employer is like, “Nope, don’t even ask. This is it.” Everything is kind of negotiable, right? And even if you don’t get what you want, at least you know that you didn’t leave anything on the table that you could have had. There’s a peace of mind that comes with that as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I have seen environments where it’s like, “Okay, look, this is standardized across hundreds of people making the same. As an associate consultant position in North America at this firm at this year, this is the package for everybody, and it just is.” It’s like, “Okay, that’s a pretty good answer. I’m glad I asked, and now I know.”

Sam Owens
Yeah, that is a good answer. Yeah, now you know, and it’s helpful when you know, because you think, “Okay, good. Now I feel…” because sometimes it’s about the money and sometimes it’s just about the perception of fairness. And so, at least you know, that when I’m sitting at lunch with the people that were hired with me, we all got the same deal. There were no exceptions, and so I’m okay with that. I can live with that.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Well, Sam, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about your favorite things?

Sam Owens
All right, the only thing I really want to tell people out there, because I’ve been working with people who are job seeking for a long time, is if you’re struggling right now, I just want you to know, you will find a job. It may not be on the timeline you’re looking for, and it may not be the exact job you thought you’d get, but it is going to work out. You are going to be employed again.

And I just think that’s an important thing to tell people out there, because of the people that I’ve seen, observed, who haven’t had jobs, 100% of them land on their feet, and it’s going to be like that for you too, whoever’s listening or needs to hear that. I really do believe that, I know that, and I’d just say keep your head up, keep your chin up, and keep moving forward. It’s going to work out for you.

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

Sam Owens
Winston Churchill at the brink of World War II, “Never, never, never give in.” 

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

Sam Owens
I like the Marshmallow experiment. I think that’s an interesting one.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Sam Owens
Well, I’ll tell you a book that I really enjoyed reading lately, Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Sam Owens
So, my favorite habit, my recommended habit for longevity in your career and in life is daily exercise.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a Sam-original nugget of wisdom that people quote back to you often?

Sam Owens
Something that they probably quote most, they quote back to me is me saying back to them, “Why don’t you be indecisive after you have an offer? Until now, be all in.” So, I think that’s probably the nugget of wisdom when it comes to job interviewing is be all in.

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

Sam Owens
Connect on LinkedIn. So, I’m on LinkedIn, been there for a long time. Or you go to my website, SamsCareerTalk.com. There’s actually free materials on there. If you sign up for my email, you get some free job interview guides and stuff like that, and even maybe, I’d have to check with my email guy, but you might even get some free e-Course still, e-Course videos and stuff like that if you go on it. So, my LinkedIn profile or SamsCareerTalk.com.

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

Sam Owens
Practice, people. This is a learned skill. This hour, this next hour, and this will be my foray into being Tony Robbins or a motivational person or something like that.

The next hour that you do a job interview may be the most important hour of your career, not because it’s where you’re going to do your best work, but it’s because that may be the hour that makes all other hours possible in your career. So, don’t take it for granted. Don’t take it lightly. Put in the work. It’s worth it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Sam, thank you. This has been fun. I wish you much luck with interviews on both sides of that desk.

Sam Owens
Thanks, Pete. Appreciate it.

Aug 12
0

986: The New Rules for Achieving in the Modern World with Asheesh Advani

By | Podcasts | No Comments

Asheesh Advani discusses why the old rules of leadership no longer apply—and what to do differently today.

You’ll Learn

  1. Why our idea of achievement needs a rework 
  2. Why to befriend both older and younger people 
  3. An under-utilized tactic for dramatically accelerating your career learning 

About Asheesh

Asheesh Advani is the CEO of JA (Junior Achievement) Worldwide, one of the largest NGOs in the world dedicated to preparing youth for employment and entrepreneurship. During his leadership tenure, JA Worldwide has been selected annually as one of the top 10 social good organizations in the world and been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Advani is also an accomplished entrepreneur, having led two venture-backed businesses from start-up to acquisition. He is an in-demand speaker and regular contributor at major conferences, having served as a panelist or moderator at the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, the Young Presidents Organization, and Fortune 500 corporate gatherings.

Resources Mentioned

Thank You, Sponsors!

  • Jenni Kayne. Use the code AWESOME15 to get 15% off your order!

Asheesh Advani Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Asheesh, welcome.

Asheesh Advani
It’s great to be on the show.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to hear about your wisdom. Can you kick us off by sharing a particularly surprising or fascinating or counterintuitive bit you discovered while putting together your book, Modern Achievement?

Asheesh Advani
So, I’ve been at this, trying to make this a high-quality, very readable book for several months now, and I really thought I was writing it for a younger audience, aspiring leaders, people in their 20s and early 30s who are at the beginning of their career.

What I’ve learned, now that people have started to read the book, is when you write a book for a certain audience and another audience reads it, they actually find it less threatening or direct. So, like lessons that you read written for somebody else, you’re actually more likely to take them in. That was very counterintuitive. People who are like 50 and 60, and people who are even high school kids are coming up to me and said, “Oh, my God, I love this lesson” even though it was written for somebody who’s from a different age group, and that’s very counterintuitive.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that is fascinating. And you know what, I’ve lived that with my, I’ve got young kids, six, five, and one, and when we’re watching a show like, I don’t know, “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” or “Bluey” or something, it’s like, “This lesson isn’t for me, it’s for the kids, and yet that’s really pretty good.” It happens over and over again.

Asheesh Advani
And I’ll tell you, I’ve got twin boys who just graduated high school and just started university, and one of my motivations for writing this book, which is all about life lessons for aspiring leaders, is they don’t listen to me at all. My kids do not listen to me. So, I figured this is a way for me to convey all the things I want them to know, and they can read it at a time that makes sense for them, not make sense for me. And you are a parent too so I think you know what I’m talking about.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so tell us, what’s sort of the big idea or core of thesis in your book, Modern Achievement?

Asheesh Advani
Well, most achievement books, historically, have been just written for a different age and different time. A young person graduating from high school or university today is, on average, going to have 20 different jobs at least, and potentially as many as seven different careers over the course of their working lives. That amount of change means the idea of achievement is also different.

So, most achievement books are written where you set a long-term goal, you write it down, you visualize it, and the universe helps it happen because you’ve been clear about it. But if you’re going to have that many jobs and that many different careers, the idea of achievement has to be not just about long-term goal attainment, but also about the process and the journey to achievement.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, could you give us an example of someone who’s perhaps made the switch or picked up this philosophy that’s more modern to their enrichment?

Asheesh Advani
Well, I think most young people are already starting to think this way. You know, one of the lessons in the book, for example, one of my favorites, actually, is make friends who are five to ten years older than you, and most young people tend to hang out with their peers who are their same age. So, you’ve got to be somewhat intentional.

If many of your career transitions are going to involve sort of networking, you have to be much more intentional about building these networks of people who will be one step ahead of you in your career, who can either promote you or help you, advise you, be mentors and role models, and that’s just an example of something which, at least, I’ve seen, there are young people already doing, and we share some of the stories because Junior Achievement, I don’t know if you know too much about JA but…

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I volunteered back in the day at Bain, and I just gave someone like the World of Work, or World at Work chart to help them think through career stuff, so I’m a fan. I’m on board.

Asheesh Advani
Oh, my God. You’re a fan. I love it. I love it. I didn’t know that when we agreed to do this. That’s awesome. So, yeah, so Junior Achievement has been around for over 100 years now, it’s an amazing organization. I’ve been in my role as CEO of JA Worldwide now for about nine years, and I’ve seen us become more global, really spread this way of thinking, being optimistic and being intentional about your career development to parts of the world where young people are hungry for this, really hungry for this knowledge.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, understood. And that point about high-achieving folks hanging out with folks who are older than them is really resonating. I was just chatting yesterday with my buddy, Justin, who’s fantastic, and he is in our men’s group, and he is the youngest and all of us are five to ten, maybe a little more, years older than him. And yet, it is totally working for him because, sure enough, he is finding himself in career situations where he is widely recognized as a high performer. He’s doing great.

And part of that is he is just internalizing the wisdom and pro tips of people working in their jobs who have been working there longer, and they just share all the little tidbits they’ve learned and how they think about things, and he’s just getting those quicker and faster than others who are only hanging out with people their age.

Asheesh Advani
Well, when I wrote that lesson in the book, and I should mention the book is co-authored with Marshall Goldsmith, so we really collaborated on this, and Marshall is a celebrated leadership thinker and knows much more than me. He came back and said, “Asheesh, it’s not just about young people having these role models and friends that they can learn from, but it’s also people older looking sort of back and saying, ‘Other people five to ten years younger than me, who can help me with my next phase,’” because people are just living longer and having longer working lives. So, we adapted the life lesson to actually be both five to ten years older and five to ten years younger. And I’m not sure if you felt that you’ve learned from your friend, Justin, you said his name is?

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely, I sure have.

Asheesh Advani
So, I think it really works. It works both ways. It really does.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s good. Well, so then, I’m curious, you had a little tidbit in your book copy, “Classic books on achievement, like those by Napoleon Hill, Brian Tracy, and Stephen Covey, were written for a much different world. Today’s young leaders need a fresh approach for achieving success in their lives and careers.”

And so, I hear you in terms of we’ve got a different environment associated with, hey, more job switches, etc. I’m curious, if you think anything, let’s just pick on Stephen Covey, shall we? I’m curious if there’s any particular messages from Stephen Covey, like maybe there’s one of them seven habits that needs to be revamped or thought about differently in our environment today?

Asheesh Advani

Well, to be honest, I don’t remember all of the seven habits from Stephen Covey and which one I would adapt or change. I will say that in Napoleon Hill, particularly, at that moment in time, there was clearly the beginning of this idea of a job for life, right? The idea of the college you get into and the first job that you have will determine your path.

And, certainly, when I went to university, now well over 20 years ago, it really did feel that way. Like, everybody wanted that job in investment banking or consulting, which would give them a career path, which would then lead to the next good thing, which led to the next good thing, and getting into that one college got you the job in investment banking or consulting or law or medicine or whatever you were going to do.

And the reality is, today, that is just no longer the case. So, I don’t know, to answer your question, if Stephen Covey had anything that was directly as linear as what I saw in Napoleon Hill’s books. But the job market of today, and I really say this for all the parents, obsessing over what college your kid gets into and obsessing over the first job that they have is just no longer as needed as maybe 20 years ago when that’s where everyone’s head was.

Pete Mockaitis

You know, it’s funny, Asheesh, you mentioned your first job out of college having huge impact. I remember that was the exact thought process I went through when I thought, “Okay, what job do I want out of college? I want to have some skills and some network to do any number of things.” So, strategy consulting is what I want, and it worked out. I was at Bain for some time right out of college, and I thought that it has served me well.

And so, I guess back in the day, that was 2006 that I graduated from college and did that, and it seems like that was swell for me. Are you thinking now it makes less of an impact if we get that start at a top consulting firm or bank or Google or wherever is hot, fresh out of college now? And can you share the underlying evidence for that?

Asheesh Advani

Well, I will say that it’s always important to surround yourself with people who push you. It’s always important to surround yourself with opportunities that are sort of focused on giving you expansive knowledge, not just narrow and deep knowledge, particularly early in your career. So, I think consulting jobs are great. I started my career in strategy consulting as well so I know exactly what the motivation was for that job and exactly what some of the things, at least, I got out of it.

I will say today the linear path of, “Okay, I’m going to go to a top consulting firm, then go get a top MBA, then go into either an industry or a related field,” that path is fundamentally different today. Just to give you one data point, which I think drives this home. If you believe the World Economic Forum Future of Jobs data analysis, over 40% of our skills every five years will need to be re-learned or re-skilled, partly because of AI.

So, 40%, and even if you believe that number is too high, because the way they got that data was through surveys, so it’s possible that when you ask people, particularly during the hype of AI, they may over-exaggerate that number. So, let’s assume it’s half that number. Let’s assume that one-fifth of our skills, 20% of our skills, have to be re-learned or re-skilled in a different way every five years. That is a shockingly high number.

That means that you’re going to have to effectively reinvent yourself many times over the course of your career. So, the job to really have is one which encourages you to always be curious and be willing to learn new things.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, so then, here and now, let’s say we’ve got listeners, they’re in the middle of their careers, maybe the early side, maybe right in the middle, what are some of the top strategies and tactics that are implied by this new environment and your perspective on modern achievement?

Asheesh Advani

Well, so we’ve structured the book to have 30 lessons, and the lessons are organized into three sections: fixed, flexible, and freestyle. Some fixed lessons, like, for example, writing down your intentions and goals, have been around ever since the Stephen Covey and Napoleon Hill days, and we put that in the classic fixed section. So, these are things that don’t change based on time and place.

Flexible are things that do change based on time and place. So, for example, when you’re in your 30s or whether you work in a different type of organization versus small versus large, one of those might be how to manage your burn rate. So, one of the points I make in the book is to keep your burn rate low because it gives you lots of optionality. In a world of this much change, there may be times that you actually want to, for example, pursue an entrepreneurial path.

I’ll tell you one story. I’m a tech entrepreneur by background before I joined Junior Achievement, and I remember interviewing a senior executive for a role at one of the tech companies that I ran, and he really wanted to work with us, he really wanted to work with us, but he built up a cost structure that required him to not be able to take a job for less than $350,000 base salary.

Because he had, like, kids in private school, he was paying for his country club memberships, and other things that were really hard for him to let go of, and that dramatically limited his options for what he could do next. So, it made it impossible for him to accept, or actually we didn’t make him the offer because we said it’s just unsustainable over the long run.

So, I tell you that story because I think a lot of mid-career professionals are just surrounding themselves with peers that increase their burn rate through peer pressure, and that limits your options in an age where you’re going to have 20 jobs and seven careers.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And so, just to be clear, we’re talking about burn rate. This is the rate at which we burn through our own personal cash to live our life in terms of the food we eat, and the house we live in, and our recurring expenses.

Asheesh Advani

It’s entrepreneur speak for recurring expenses. I tell the story in the book as well of when I was in college, we did a magazine article asking recent graduates about their expenses and their salary and their bonus. It was, I think, one of the most popular articles we ever wrote…

Pete Mockaitis

Sounds good, people’s money.

Asheesh Advani

…because nobody knew anything about this. Everybody was aspiring for these jobs because of vague reputational goals, and they had no idea what it actually meant with regards to salary, bonus, and expenses. And the top, top graduates we interviewed had these amazing jobs at all the best banks and consulting firms, but they were not saving any money because they basically built up an expense side to keep up with the Joneses and were spending a lot on apartments and entertainment and travel.

So, it’s important to think about that in terms of the choices you make and the environments you surround yourself with.

Pete Mockaitis

You know, Asheesh, it’s funny, you’re bringing me, we’re talking about the back in the day, I’m thinking about my consulting time. I remember one time I was taking a bus to a party and my colleagues at Bain were kind of teasing me, they said, “You know we make a lot of money, right?” And I said, “Yes, thank you. I’m aware that for a 23-year-old, this salary is great. But I also have some plans associated with perhaps starting my own business in a couple of years, so I would like to have that flexibility, those options.”

And it’s so funny how that happens little by little, things get locked in, and then you do, you have fewer options. And it’s funny, when you said he couldn’t take that job, I guess I think about maybe words rather literally, it’s like, “Well, he could,” but he has to say, “Hey, honey, we’re pulling the kids out of private school and going to public school. We’re selling this house and getting a much smaller, not as nice house.”

And so, it might be impractical, but it’s sort of like, “Well, how badly do you want it?” And in practice, we’re rarely able to turn on a dime. Like, “Let’s change all the circumstances of our life quite quickly because of a cool opportunity. And the children and the family as a whole has gotten rather accustomed to how things have been, and they will probably not appreciate it being yanked away from them.”

Asheesh Advani

It feels like you’re going backwards at times, when, in reality, you’re just creating more options for yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s a great tip right there. Very practical, “Watch your burn rate. What are your recurring expenses?” And, hopefully, you’ve got a nice healthy buffer with some savings and some growing savings so you’ve got more options to do cool things, as you’re making career choices. Any other top strategies, tactics that are super handy for modern leaders?

Asheesh Advani

Well, one thing, is this idea of going meta. Going meta means stepping back and looking at yourself as if somebody else were looking at you. And in education theory now, teachers tell students to actually reflect on what they’ve learned, to write down, literally write down at the end of a lecture, what they learned.

We didn’t do that when we were in school. We didn’t take a step back and actually have to reflect on what we’d learned, and applying that to your life, I think, is very powerful. Things like mindfulness, in many ways, allow you to have a step back, and a lot of people don’t do it.

A lot of people do it at milestones like birthdays, anniversaries, and maybe when you write your annual resolutions. But regularly, being reflective, it’s actually very empowering to say, “Hey, I just went through this, this project was just done, or this initiative was just started and finished,” and taking a step back for a second and saying, “Okay, what did I actually learn from this?” and writing it down.

Pete Mockaitis

I love that. And so, now I’m thinking about our episode with B.J. Fogg with habits and sort of triggers or prompts. It sounds like, in this context, the trigger or the prompt is whenever you finish a thing, “Let’s reflect about that thing and be finished.”

Asheesh Advani

Well, I love Marshall’s book, Triggers. I know that’s a little bit of a different concept, but you’re absolutely right, this idea of pausing, reflecting at the end of a project. What Marshall tends to put in his books, particularly the Triggers book, is the way you ask a question is so important. So, he, for example, had me participate in a group which he calls LPR, Life Plan Review Group, where the way we asked ourselves questions had such an impact on our mindset.

So, for example, we asked ourselves questions every week over the course of a summer, “Have I done my best to …?” dot, dot, dot. And it changes the accountability from, “Geez, I’m trying to do this project,” “I want to be better at tennis,” “I want to be a better father,” “I want to be better at work,” from, “Oh, did this go right?” “Did I win the game in tennis?” “Did I do well at work on the project?” to, “Have I done my best to become good at tennis this week?” “Have I done my best to be a good father this week?” So powerful to just change the framing, it makes it all about your own personal efforts, not what the results are.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, that’s good. That’s good. Well, so I’m also curious, are there some things that you recommend we stop doing? Is there stuff that’s outdated that we should just forget about and stop doing because it’s no good anymore?

Asheesh Advani

Well, I’d say you are certainly well aware of the debate right now about technology and social media. One thing I recommend in the book is to connect beyond the screen. We spend so much of our time on Zoom calls. In fact, there’s all this great research now about how white-collar workers end up spending more time in meetings than ever in history, partly because Zoom calls have made that so easy.

And I recommend, in one of the chapters and one of the lessons, to connect with people beyond the screen and really be intentional about that. Another thing which I think is a big change is, I mentioned fixed and flexible. The third section of the book is freestyle. So, the framework is fixed, flexible, freestyle. I mentioned fixed are classic lessons, flexible change based on time and place. Freestyle are lessons and your reaction to rules are created by you based on your own unique strengths.

And at JA, we’ve introduced this framework to the organization, where there are fixed things that are global, flexible things that vary based on time and place, such as in Europe versus Africa, and freestyle things, which are truly determined by the organizations and staff on the ground in every geography that we operate in because we’re in 118 countries. And I do think there’s something very empowering and powerful about creating your own rules and having much more agency in some of the choices that you make.

And when we asked the young people to tell us about some of these rules, some people, like some young people talked about the importance of embracing your inexperience and cluelessness, or the importance of really experiencing a different path relative to what your friends are doing. So, we got some really good insights from young people who shared their own story with us.

Pete Mockaitis

And I think that’s a pretty handy framework in general as you think about your policies, your rules, “Is this fixed? Is it flexible? Is it freestyle? Is this always everywhere for everyone? Is it under these sorts of circumstances? Or is it totally individualized?” That’s useful in and of itself in terms of, as you think about a rule, a guideline, a policy, how ironclad and locked in is it. It’s just a useful way to think about stuff?

To follow up on your point with regard to social media, and meetings, and Zoom, is your suggestion that we do less of it and how?

Asheesh Advani

So, the how gets complicated because it depends on which organization you are part of and what role you have. If you’re a leader and you’ve got some degree of control over these or if you’re not yet a leader and you really have to participate because of where you are in your career. One recommendation I would have is to create protected time for yourself.

And I think that no matter what role you have, whether you have a leadership role or whether you don’t have full control over your calendar, I think you have the ability to protect time, and you can use that time for in-person meetings, you can use that time to actually get writing done if you’ve got the kind of role that it involves writing or producing.

But a lot of, I think, particularly young leaders are scared to block off time on their calendar for things that matter to them, and I do think in the world of 20 jobs and seven careers, where you’ve got to really invest in your own personal development, that’s important.

Pete Mockaitis

Now when you say scared to block off time, what are some of the underlying concerns there?

Asheesh Advani

Well, I think there’s this general feeling when you’re early in your career that you want to be in the meeting, that being in the meeting allows you to get knowledge, allows you to build relationships, keeps you connected. And they’re definitely, I would say, particularly for aspiring leader personalities, a desire to be in the action.

But that comes with some trade-offs, and you have to realize that it’s sometimes okay to not be in every meeting, and it’s okay to really own the project that you own, and make sure it goes well and spend that other time you’d otherwise be in these meetings where you get to hear and learn, really investing in your personal development and investing in other things that are important to you.

Pete Mockaitis

And when we do that investing in personal development, what do you find to be some of the most high-yield possible activities that we can do?

Asheesh Advani

Well, I mean, there’s such a wide range. Right now, I would say there’s both skillset things where you learn new skills, everything from obviously all the AI things that are coming out, through to mindset-oriented activities. And the mindset-oriented activities, I think, are very powerful. I’ll give you one example.

So, I asked somebody on one of our boards if I could job-shadow him for a day, and everyone can do this because almost everybody says yes if asked. It’s such a compliment to be asked to have somebody, basically, follow you around for a day and learn from you.

Pete Mockaitis

I’m imagining saying, “If you want, it’s going to be super boring, dude.”

Asheesh Advani

Well, because we’re all on Zoom calls that’s why it feels super boring. But I will say, certainly, and I did this before the pandemic, so, yes, the world has changed on this dimension. But, in fact, this particular person still goes in the office every day, so I guess it hasn’t changed for him. And I learned so much from spending the day with him.

I learned how he interacts with people, I learned new frameworks, he’s a CEO of a large organization, so I learned how he communicates and I really got to see the nuance of how he manages different types of people. I still talk about it because it’s happened, what, seven years ago now but it’s so powerful that I did that. We actually have a program at JA where we do job shadows where young people are allowed to shadow executives for a day and encouraged to do it as a career development exercise.

And we even have this amazing program called “Leaders for a Day” where some of the top students get to actually follow, like, world leaders for a day. And we get them in front of either politicians or CEOs or people who are very, very prominent who agree to do it, and it’s transformational because it allows, it opens up your mind to things you just didn’t know existed that you could achieve.

For a person who’s looking for a way to invest in their personal development beyond just reading great books and listening to great podcasts, I do think doing something experiential, like a job shadow, is transformational.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, and it’s so intriguing, this job shadow is one version is a job that you think you might want to do, or someone who’s more senior than you to get a sense for “What does that look like? Or what do those skills look like?” I’m also thinking it might be interesting even to pick a job of something that it would just be good for you to learn even though it might not be super senior.

For example, I’m thinking if you feel uncomfortable with conflict, it might be interesting to shadow a police officer as he’s doing a day of evictions, or a collections agency, like something, like, “What would be one of the most contentious, unpleasant, conflict-driven things, jobs? Let’s go shadow that.” And that may well be a harrowing experience that could also give you some real growth.

Asheesh Advani

I love that idea. I mean, we think of job shadow very much about mindset shift, exposing people to things they didn’t know existed, but you could absolutely apply it to skillsets as well, conflict resolution skillsets. We’ve got amazing lawyers, for example, who, all day, spend their time negotiating, and negotiation skills are sorely lacking for a lot of young people who haven’t had to do it. So, I love your idea of applying job shadows to skillsets. I might steal that wonderful idea.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, steal away. Tell me if it’s any good. This is just theoretical off the top of my head. That’s great. And so, when you say, when you ask, most people say yes. I would say, first, I guess I’m a little surprised by that. I think some people might say that that feels kind of intrusive, or “I kind of need my quiet, alone, introvert time, please.” How do you recommend framing this request?

Asheesh Advani

I mean, obviously, if you ask for a full day of somebody’s time, they may immediately go to one or two meetings which are personal in nature or confidential in nature, and they may decline based on knowing those are in their calendar. So, you need to phrase it based on, “And of course, if there’s any part of the day you don’t want me to shadow you, I’m happy to step away and do my own work.” So, really, it’s picking the two or three meetings that they feel very comfortable including you in.

But I think the power of it, honestly, is people feeling like you’re learning from them. And, of course, this is what happens. Actually, this is something I should definitely share. When we do these job shadows, we do it at scale, we do it in over 80 countries around the world, of course, the young people who shadow the executives get so much out of it, but the executives almost universally say they learned two things.

One, they learn from looking at their own job through somebody else’s eyes, so they love that. And the second is they actually learn almost like in a reverse mentoring way from the perspective of somebody who’s just has a different set of life experiences. So, when you’re asking the person who you want to shadow, I would encourage you to use a language which just makes them feel it truly is mutual, not just completely one way.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I guess I’m thinking some of the most powerful job-shadowing action, as I imagine the day, would be right after the meeting in terms of like, “Hey, I noticed you said this in that moment. What were you thinking about there?”

Asheesh Advani

Oh, I love that.

Pete Mockaitis

And they say, “Oh, yeah, well, I noticed that person felt seemed really concerned so I wanted to proactively make sure that we address their concerns by blah blah blah blah blah,” you know, whatever. So, that’s my intuition about how that would be most amazing.

Asheesh Advani

No, your intuition is spot on. In fact, we actually have this exercise called “I noticed.” We do it occasionally at work. We do it really often in a learning group I’m part of through the Young Presidents Organization, YPO. And in our YPO forum, we do an “I noticed” round after somebody has presented, and we all go around and literally just talk about what we noticed. It’s very powerful.

I’ve used it at work now and then. You can’t use it after every meeting. That takes up too long. But for certain types of meetings, people who are the presenters love getting the kind of input, and it doesn’t have to be, “Geez, I noticed you messed up the slide.” It’s usually, actually, “I noticed a connection to something you said three weeks ago,” or, “I noticed something I’m working on, that ties into something that you’re working on.” And it’s very powerful to make time for the “I noticed” for the right setting.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s great. Well, Asheesh, tell me anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Asheesh Advani

Well, there’s another lesson which I’m very proud of, which is learn to balance simplicity and complexity. I think for aspiring leaders, it’s a nuance, but it’s so important, which is if you become really great at taking complex things and making them simple, it is such a powerful skill. And I know this from at least my job because I ran two technology companies, and to be able to take things that are otherwise actually pretty hard to do and not brag about the fact that they were hard to do, but talk about how simple they are in terms of the benefit they create for whoever the user is, that’s where the power comes. So, we made it a life lesson and put it in this book as well.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, that’s super. And I think, often people don’t care, it sounds harsh, but they don’t, about sort of the underlying complexity and all that you had to go through, unless it’s really a caring mentor type figure who’s invested in your career and your development and your process. But for the most part, I’m thinking about customers or senior executives just sort of want to know, “So what’s the benefit? And how is this new and different and better now? Okay, understood. Thank you.”

Asheesh Advani

Well, we’re so busy showing the world how smart we are, we sometimes forget that that’s really not what it’s about. It’s about genuinely creating value for other people. And so, how do we become better, particularly, certainly when you’re communicating with boards and customers and stakeholders, where they, as you said, they don’t really care about the how, they just care about the true benefit, how do we put our ego aside a little bit and leave it for somebody else to learn, frankly, about all the hard work that was behind what we created? And that’s really hard for a lot of people.

Pete Mockaitis

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

Asheesh Advani

So, one of my favorite quotes, I’ve reframed in the book, is, “Success is moving from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

Pete Mockaitis

I like it. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Asheesh Advani

So, we put in the book, “Life is moving from mess to mess with no loss of confidence.”

Asheesh Advani

So, the Minnesota Twin Study is one of the classic studies. I’ve got identical twins, so I’ve got a particular interest in nature versus nurture. And I think we, particularly in America, feel so strongly that so much of what is possible, comes down to our own efforts. It’s kind of humbling to actually read the Twin Study and see so much of what happens is actually nature and not nurture, which I think you can interpret as disempowering, but I don’t view it that way at all. I view it as something which is the reality of what science tells us, and we’ve got to work with what science tells us.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And a favorite book?

Asheesh Advani

It’s called The Magic of Thinking Big, and David Schwartz. And one of the nice things about this book is it tells you that the amount of effort it takes to add a zero or two on any goal is so little compared to the amount of effort you’re going to do without the zeroes. So, you may as well have the zeroes because you can just make a bigger impact.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate; you hear folks quote back to you often?

Asheesh Advani

Well, the sad truth of it is I’ve now use the word “double-click” so often people tease me about it.

Pete Mockaitis

I think there was just an article about that in, was it the New York Times or Wall Street Journal?

Asheesh Advani

Yes, I know, it’s awful. Let’s be appropriately self-deprecating here and take the blame. I’ve fallen into the abyss of using double-click and I can’t get out of the habit.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, while we’re here, when you say double-click, do you specifically mean to go deeper upon and expand on a topic or matter?

Asheesh Advani

Yes. Yes.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, I actually kind of like that in terms of I’m imagining the window is expanding, and so in some ways, my visual brain responds nicely to that, it’s like, “Okay, I’m actually imagining a program expanding with the whole animation.” So, I’m there.

Asheesh Advani

Well, we both started our career in consulting, so I think we’ve fallen into the trap of agreeing with each other about phrases, but for the rest of the world, apparently double-click, for whatever reason, brings up negative metaphors.

Pete Mockaitis

As long as the synergies are highly impactful, Asheesh, I think it’s okay.

Asheesh Advani

As long as you have a good two-by-two matrix to show how to get to the top quadrant, you’re good.

Pete Mockaitis

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

Asheesh Advani

So, JAWorldwide.org is our organizational website, and ModernAchievement.com is the book’s website.

Pete Mockaitis

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

Asheesh Advani

Well, I will say one of the ways that you can make a huge impact in the world and feel really positive is to find a young person and say something positive to them to encourage them to pursue either a career or a dream that they want to. It’s so powerful for young people to hear from people in their mid-career or late career that they can be successful. So, you’ve got that power, and use it.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Asheesh, thank you. I wish you much modern achievement.

Asheesh Advani

Thank you. This was awesome.