In this episode, I was interviewed by the Global NLP Conference about how to make big life decisions you won’t regret. Angela Wells, co-founder of the conference, asks some great questions which allows me to share:

• What key tools I personally use to make decisions to live a life true to myself and actually do it not just think it
• How you can shift from analysis paralysis and being stuck in life
• One killer NLP strategy to transform your motivation to take action 
• How to take back control when your career or life problems seem impossible to solve
• How to not sweat the small stuff and spend your time more wisely
• The commonalities between my guests on the Burn From Within podcast on how they made hugely successful life and career changing decisions
• How Covid has changed everything in people’s minds and why The Great Resignation is happening right now

Resources:

• Use my special discount code MATT10 when you register for the Global NLP Conference (and check out all the amazing speakers and sessions) here
• For those that want a free guide to making big decisions with no regrets, including audio clips sharing real strategies from people I interview as well as clips from Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos who use this framework, go to www.burnfromwithin.com/noregrets and I'll send you my audio guide free today!
• Connect directly with me directly on LinkedIn here - leave me a voice note to really get my attention (thanks Valerie Mekki for that tip!)
• Check out Tony Robbins' explanation of the NLP Dickens process here on YouTube - I've adapted this for career and life decisions. The foundational structure is truly powerful for motivation to take action!

To book a free 20-min confidential call with Matt to discuss any career or life change challenges you are having, go to www.burnfromwithin.com/call 

On this week’s episode, we have Valerie Mekki who used to be a retail buyer and product developer for major fashion brands for over 18 years and now she is a content writer and loves it! 

In this interview, Valerie fascinatingly shares her career pivots including becoming an entrepreneur, returning to a 9-5 and a lot more! We discuss:

• The false security of job security
• How accreditations and side projects can really help in your career transitions
• The mindset to handle your ego being crushed when working more junior roles in a new career
• How to deal with tough times during your career transition
• Practical ways to make money from your years or decades of previous career experience
• A golden mindset trick to becoming prolific in sharing what you do on social media
• How to restore balance during your transition so you don't burn out

Resources:

• Check out Valerie’s amazing blog about a career change for mid-life professionals at Oh Hello Work Life
• Connect directly with Valerie on LinkedIn here - listen to the end of the episode to learn how to send a LinkedIn message that gets her attention!
• To find out more about prototyping your next career, listen to this episode of the show here
• Book a free 20-min confidential call with Matt to discuss any career or life change challenges you are having here
• Check out more inspiring interviews with full transcripts to scan quickly for career and life change nuggets on the Burn From Within website here

On this week’s episode, we have Claudio Antonini who is a career change coach for finance and investment banking professionals. 

We cover a lot in this interview, from:

• What prompts finance and investment banking professionals to want to leave their career and what are the challenges in transitioning out of it?
• Typical routes out and common transferable skills they can use
• How to prevent your next career being a bad decision
• Finding more suitable roles within your existing bank
• How to recognise you are burnt out and what to do about it
• The impact of Covid-19 on career change in finance and banking
• When is the ideal time to leave your banking job or career?

The full show notes and videos of other interviews are available at Burnfromwithin.com/interviews, so listen all the way through, and enjoy!

Resources:

• Connect with Claudio Antonini here via his LinkedIn profile and his website is here
• To find out more about prototyping your next career, listen to this episode of the show here
• To hear about long-term career decisions and hear from Jeff Bezon about his regret minimisation framework and how other guests of the show have applied this, listen to my special episode, The Guide to Making Big Decisions, No Regrets here

To book coaching with me, Matt Garrow-Fisher, check out the Burn From Within website here

On this week’s episode, I have Nishith Shah, founder of Thought Labs, co-founder of the Global NLP Conference India and someone I’ve worked with in training people how to become aware of their own mind’s source code and the structure of our human experience, taking people beyond their comfort zones at retreats in the Swiss Alps and the Indian Himalayas. This conversation is all about dealing with unexpected events in life, like the very present latest Covid strain in June 2021 and lockdowns in India where Nishith is based. And also his own career journey which didn’t go as he expected it would. There is a lot of principles around ways of thinking in this conversation about career change and life change and I hope you gain as much wisdom around how to think as I did from this.

Resources:

• Connect with Nishith Shah here via his LinkedIn profile
• Check out Nishith’s training company Thought Labs here for more information about his amazing retreats in Goa, Switzerland, the Himalayas and more here
• Global NLP Online Summit India - purchase recordings of this year’s insightful presentations, including from previous Burn From Within guests Jamie Smart and Vimala Seshadri and as well as register for next year’s event
• Join Matt and Nishith on Clubhouse with my upcoming discussion around how to make decisions without regrets here

Books:

• Building the Bridge As You Walk On It: A Guide for Leading Change by Robert E. Quinn – an amazing book on building a business or career by stepping into the unknown. In the process of stepping out of your comfort zone and following what lights you up in life, you bring out more of your true potential and become more congruent with your life as a result.
• To find out more about designing multiple 5-year life plans (called Odyssey Plans), check out the Designing Your Life book by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans from Stanford University here and their on-demand video workshop course is here.

In this episode I speak with Camilla Sacre-Dallerup, a former Strictly Come Dancing champion who completed reinvented herself to a new career and lifestyle, moving from the UK to LA with her husband Kevin in the process to completely reinvent themselves. This is a fascinating conversation about recognising your ego in your career and life and having the discipline to keep it in check to really be who you truly are, not what is expected of you. We talk about the sacrifices needed during her career transition, accepting that you don’t need anything and the huge implications this had on taking risks to pursue what she really wanted in life. 

Resources:

• Camilla’s website with all her meditations, courses, resources and ways to connect direct with her is right here.
• Camilla challenged me to do her 21 Day Meditation Experience and I’m currently doing it and absolutely loving it - here it is free for you too.

Books:

• I read Camilla’s book Reinvent Me, all about not just career change but identity reinvention. So practical and useful exercises inside - thoroughly recommend this. 
• Camilla has two other books, It’s Not You, It’s Me - about self love to transform relationships and Dream Believe Succeed, filled with actions to actually achieve what you dream about.
• Her books are available on Amazon or Camilla’s website

This episode is about becoming an entrepreneur and actually the process and life in entrepreneurship.  I speak with James Saward-Anderson,  a co-founder of Social Tree Global with his business partner, Max Hannah. They started their business as a project in a bedroom back in 2016. And it's now grown to become one of the largest dedicated business-to-business, social media agencies, working with leading brands like UBS, IBM and Meltwater. 

James and Max have also helped educate over 10,000 marketing and communication experts about the latest social media intelligence insights in finance and healthcare.  Both of them ran to Rome together, and after that experience decided to start a business. They now have a team of 11 staff and  a seven-figure turnover.

I ask questions around:

• What made him decide to go into entrepreneurship? 
• What made him choose the business that he was in and pivot to it?
• What makes a good business partner and the benefits of having one
• Values that have helped his business grow and having a mission 
• The struggles actually with balance when you're running a full-time business,  i ask a lot of the questions that you might ask if you are looking to become an entrepreneur and make a career change yourself
• What's the one thing that made James burn from within?

Resources:

• Social Tree Global - James' 7-figure social media agency he runs with his business partner Max and team of 11 staff in London
• James Saward-Anderson's LinkedIn profile - connect with him here directly to ask questions about becoming an entrepreneur, social media and to work with or in his agency!

On episode 37 of the show, I have Sarah Gregg, a psychologist, coach and author of two highly-practical books - Find Your Flow and her upcoming book Choose Happy which is being released next month. We talk about the science behind gratitude, what rules and routines can create flow in your work day and how you can actually make decisions to be happier.

Resources:

• Connect directly with Sarah Gregg on Instagram and follow her useful daily tips here @thepowertoreinvent
• Sarah's website detailing all her work, coaching and workshops on flow and happiness here
• Find Your Flow book - an awesome highly-practical book to burn from within more each day by entering your flow state.
• Choose Happy - Sarah's upcoming book here.

On this week’s episode, I have Alice Nettleingham, who has gone through a number of career changes and each time has really enjoyed every career she has been in. 

Like me, she loves variety and adventure and we met each other in Bansko, Bulgaria. 

After graduating in psychology, Alice worked as a psychological well-being practitioner for the NHS. Fast forward a few years and she had spent 5 years as an English teacher in Asia and forward some more and Alice is running a hugely popular female solo travel blogging business and now has become a certified hypnotherapist helping other content creators get rid of unconscious patterns of self doubt and procrastination that stops them being successful in their business.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Alice made the decision to change her career each time
• Her approach to transition - jumping in with both feet and how this can really be effective for some people
• How stories from others can change our beliefs and give us instant inspiration to change careers
• How we can reprogram our minds by changing our self-narratives through hypnosis
• How does hypnosis work exactly and how can it improve your clarity and productivity
• What’s the one thing that’s made Alice burn from within?

Resources:

Teacake Travels - Alice's awesome and highly popular solo female travel blog!
Connect with Alice on IG here - feel free to ask her any questions in DM - @speaktoalice
Book a taster hypnosis session here - trust me, you have to experience this!

On this week’s episode, I have AJ Mizes, who left his job at Facebook in San Francisco as a Global People & HR Leader to start his company The Human Reach in the middle of the pandemic (talk about taking risks). 

AJ is a Career & Leadership Coach & HR Consultant and reached out to me as he loved some of the episodes on the Burn From Within show and he shared so many practical tips from real experience in his own career (the good stuff he gives to his own clients), I had to share them with you all. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• How to land jobs that on paper you are not fully qualified or have the experience for
• 3 solid tips to prepare for your interview to get hired
• Top ideas to consider for a career change
• How to improve fulfillment in your current job before having to quit
• Improving your chances of promotion dramatically by deciding on one of three buckets for your career growth
• How can people at smaller organisations get their managers to take their career progression more seriously rather than just keeping their head down and getting tasks done?
• How can you work more effectively when remote working and make it actually work?
• How can you communicate with your employer to create more balance when you feel you need more time for your family or other things in your life?
• What’s the one thing that’s made AJ Mizes burn from within?

Resources:

1. Register for AJ Mizes' awesome free weekly web class here
2. Connect with AJ via his company at The Human Reach here and his LinkedIn profile here
3. Check out the Burn From Within episode I discussed at the end called The Guide To Making Big Decision With No Regrets if you want to learn about taking regrets with no regrets here

On this episode, I interview Fiona Reith, the UK's first Designing Your Life certified coach and a phenomenal career change coach I know from training together.

After noticing how practical her approach was to life and coaching her career change clients, I asked what her secret was and what Designing Your Life meant. She recommended I read a book for career and life change called Designing Your Life by Dave Evans and Bill Burnett who are both professors at Stanford University that teach Design Thinking. This was and is an absolute game-changer for me and I’m now training with the authors Bill and Dave directly in becoming a certified Designing Your Life coach in April this year. 

This conversation gives you a glimpse of why design thinking is so useful, practical and why we both love it so much!

• The importance of prototyping your next career 
• Using design thinking methodology for life and career design
• How to prototype through conversations and experiences
• My experience in prototyping interviews for becoming an employed podcast producer
• Scales of prototyping and your spectrum of possibilities
• Knowing when you have done enough prototyping to make a career decision
• Reframing problems with design thinking
• Networking to access the hidden job market
• What’s the one thing that’s made Fiona Reith burn from within?

• Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnnett & Dave Evans - this book in my opinion is a total game changer when it comes to career and life design and change. Get it now. I’m serious!
• Designing Your Work Life: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness at Work  by Bill Burnnett & Dave Evans - this book is about making improvements in your existing career to become incrementally more fulfilled and happier, without necessarily doing anything drastic like a career change. Full of practical exercises.

• Designing Your Life video workshop online - this is a live class you can follow on-demand taught alongside other students with the authors of the book to help you really understand and go through the exercises of the book in groups. Definitely worth it.

• Fiona Reith’s coaching website and Linked profile - Fiona is a phenomenal career coach so go have a conversation with her to discuss if she is right for you (if you enjoyed her awesome insights in this episode, she might be a good fit to help you in your career or out of it into a new fulfilling path
• A directory of certified Designing Your Life coaches from around the world - Fiona is the first DYL coach from the UK and Matt will also be on this list in April!
• Bill Burnett’s 5 steps to designing the life you want Tedx Talk and Dave Evan’s separate Designing Your Life Ted Talk