Career Stewardship with Michael Melcher

You have a brain and, guess what, it has an impact on how you function. What can you do to make sure it functions well? In this week's episode, we speak with executive coach Deb Elbaum about what we can learn from modern brain science. Deb trained as a physician before going into coaching, so she's a great source for distinguishing evidence-based realness vs. wishful thinking. Among other things, we learn about the continued plasticity of the brain, why breathing and movement are so important to optimal brain functioning, and how you can use language to start creating new neural pathways. Listen in and learn how to help your own brain do its best work!

Michael Roberts is the Executive Director of Comprehensive Youth Development (CYD) in NYC. CYD partners with three public high schools to give support to students from disadvantaged backgrounds so that they can complete high school and start adult life successfully. (Michael M has been on the Board of Directors of this org for more than a decade.). Michael R is best known for his leadership and experience in the philanthropic and not-for-profit worlds, but he actually started out as a Broadway performer. He shares with us why courage is so important, what his parents taught him about planning for careers. and how to figure out where to make your mark in the not-for-profit world.

In this week's episode, we have a special guest, NPR host Ailsa Chang, who shares her own career story. Ailsa grew up as a high achiever, which led to a career in corporate law that she discovered she had no interest in. In her 30s, she enrolled in a Master's program in journalism and decided to pursue the much rockier road of radio journalism. And look at her now! Ailsa shares how likely success seemed when she started (spoiler alert: not very), why the radio is a more visual medium than television, and what it's been like being an Asian-American reporter during a year of attacks against Asian-Americans. She also shares the interesting fact that legions of people constantly tell her how she should speak, act and be, which is why any good career starts with embracing yourself. Not to be missed!

In our Pride Month special, Michael interviews bestselling author and general cool person, Dorie Clark, author of Reinventing You, Stand Out, Entrepreneurial You and, forthcoming in September, The Long Game. Dorie explores how to reorient ourselves to see the big picture so we can tap into the power of small changes that, made today, will have an enormous and disproportionate impact on our future success. We also talk about how careers have changed in the past 30-50 years, and how to approach shaping your career when many of the past paradigms have gone way. And we also share how we ended up with excellent mental health notwithstanding growing up in the dark, homophobic past and what learnings there might be from that.

Sometimes career stewardship involves writing a whole entire book! This is not a task for the meek but it is doable – and maybe it's doable with less pain than is normally associated with the process. In this week's episode, we speak with author, publisher and book coach extraordinaire Jennie Nash, who is the CEO of Author Accelerator and happens to be Michael Melcher's very own and highly valued book coach. Michael and Jennie talk about what would-be authors do wrong, why writing a book will probably not change your entire life but still possibly be worthwhile, and the role that book coaches can play in helping you get where you want to go. A lively, entertaining episode!

Networking is a necessary part of career stewardship. It can be hard to find the time, know what to say, and overcome discomfort. But it's even harder if you don't have preexisting relationships, grew up speaking a different language, and are trying to make a career change. Yet, it's still possible to triumph. In this episode, Michael takes a deep dive with a former client of his, "Emily." Emily was born and raised in another country, grew up speaking a non-European language, came to the U.S. as an adult, and attempted a major career change during a massive recession. She was successful – after a LOT of hard work. In this deeply personal conversation, Emily talks about what she learned, how she has dealt with doubt and imposter syndrome, and the ways her views on careers have changed. Not to be missed!

No matter how you slice it, work involves getting things done. "Getting Things Done" is the name of a bestselling book published nearly 20 years ago by David Allen, and it's spawned a community of ardent practitioners. In this week's episode, Michael Melcher is joined by Michael Dolan, a coaching colleague who also has deep knowledge of how this program works. We learn why the worst thing for our brain is an open loop, why most to-do lists are of limited utility, and how even though this work is about productivity, it can also make us into better human beings. Check it out, and then go check off those boxes!

Just because you've spent years of effort and hundreds of thousands of dollars on your education doesn't mean you are prepared for your big career. Crazy, but true. The world of work is different in many ways from school; just because you've been successful in one doesn't mean you'll hit the ground running in the other. So, what can you do? Today we're joined by Niki Khoshzamir, the CEO of PracticePro, a social enterprise that helps new grads set themselves up for success in their new careers. We talk about the unwritten rules of career success, why your most important relationship is your relationship with yourself, the challenges and rewards of being first generation, how to talk up potential mentors, and why looking for sponsors might be a distraction. Born and raised in Iran, educated in Vienna and the U.S., and a successful lawyer-turned-entrepreneur, Niki is fascinating person in her own right and has some great tips for cultivating resilience. Check it out!

Career stewardship includes knowing how to navigate problems like bias, prejudice, and bullying, as well as doing our part to create workplaces that don't have those problems. Currently, there is a lot of talk about these kinds of problems, but what can you actually do? In today's episode, we speak with Kim Scott and Trier Bryant and get some specific, practical tools for dealing with unfairness in the workplace. Kim Scott is the author of the best-seller, "Radical Candor," and recently wrote a wonderful book, "Just Work: Get Sh*t Done, Fast and Fair." Trier Bryant is a former Air Force Captain and veteran of Twitter and now the CEO of Just Work, the company. We talk about the specific different roles we can play in problematic situations, the different strategies we can use based on the nature of the problem, and in general how to move from being bystanders to "upstanders." A super-refreshing perspective on dealing with some thorny issues.

Politics is one of those careers that is featured frequently in television and movies, but how much do we really know about it? In this week's episode, we examine ways you can get into politics and what it's like when you're there. Our guest is Maria Robles Meier, a political staffer and inclusion expert who grew up in a working-class family in Nebraska and built a career working on Capitol Hill, ultimately running the Senate Diversity Initiative under former Senator Harry Reid. Maria and Michael talk about what it's like being the only person who looks like you, the difference between being fully engaged and only one foot in, and how she ended up having 1,500 individual networking meetings (that is not a typo!).