The Career Changers

Our guest today is Nicoleta Porojanu, Psychologist, Therapist, Educator, and Founder of The Significant You, a mental health charity that provides mental health education and campaigns to raise awareness and promote individual and collective knowledge of mental health in England and Wales.

In Nicoleta's words:

“I struggled in life a lot, probably like you did, and my studies and training did not help much. I remember starting my career feeling completely helpless in my role as a clinical psychologist in a palliative care hospital, working with the dying and their many regrets, unfulfilled dreams, and ruptured relationships left behind.

Time passed and despite my clinical work, personal therapy, and ongoing training in psychotherapy and counselling, I kept busy and I was still trapped in my programmed mind when I was diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer in my mid-40s. What saved me was a profound spiritual awakening I had from the bed of an A&E department in a London hospital when I nearly died from a chest infection two months into my chemotherapy treatment”.

Today Nicoleta is going to talk about her career, spiritual awakening, and the importance of taking responsibility for our mental health during our journey to self-realisation. 

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What is a green job? 
Will we all transition to a green job?
Why 50% of jobs will be impacted in some measure by climate change? 
What are the reasons that make green jobs great opportunities for the new generations? 
What are some tips and tricks to successfully transition to a green job? 


Joseph Gelfer, career changer and Founder of Ecotopian Careers - a company helping people during their career transition to green jobs - is the latest guest of The Career Changers. 

“Like many others, I spent years trying to figure out what I can do to be part of the solution to climate change. I made changes to my lifestyle such as being vegetarian, recycling and living very modestly. But what I really wanted to do was to make climate change the focus of my working week.
 
However, I realized that it’s hard to make significant professional changes in mid-career. There are many obstacles that make such changes difficult: some of these are to do with individual circumstances, and others with social expectations and prejudices”.

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"For some people, rock bottom is a trampoline. It springs them up from the depths, back into the light, fueled by a decision never to experience that low again. Or to help make sure other people don't end up there either." I knew I had to share with others who were also struggling so I’m here to help you do the same - and this line from the book, Do Over, by Jon Acuff sums it up nicely.

Our guest today is Lindsay Gordon, career coach for analytically minded people, Forbes Next 1000 Honoree, and Author of the upcoming book "Right For YOU”.

Lindsay said “I hit career dissatisfaction rock bottom in 2014.

I was feeling disengaged and undervalued and couldn't shake my negative attitude. Turns out, my manager and colleagues calling me out was the kick in the butt I needed.

The problem is, I was hyper-focused on all the negative parts of my job. What I needed to do was understand why my current role wasn't a good fit for me and discover what would be a good fit.

By learning about myself and what I wanted, I could understand (and communicate) what would be a good fit.

I started doing any exercise I could find that would help me reflect on what was important to me and what I needed out of a job. I started finding the common threads between all the pieces of my background that felt all over the place (engineer, technical support, career, etc). I put together a framework and I emerged with direction, confidence, energy and a plan.

“My purpose in life is to structure people's thinking so they can make decisions and move forward to explore, experience, and live life. I see waffling about career decisions (sometimes for 10+ years!) as an unacceptable barrier to people doing what they want to do and feeling fully alive. It's absolutely exhausting to ask yourself the same questions over and over again and there's immense freedom when you are finally DECIDED in a way that feels good to you". 

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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

Our guest today is Kathleen Ralls, educator, writer, coach, and athlete. She said “After spending 15 years as a secondary history teacher in the U.S. and Norway, I defended my dissertation just as the pandemic hit. Since then, I left my full-time teaching career, And today I share my knowledge with other females in business, education, service and sports, empowering them to both find their voices and become the leaders they were always meant to be”. 

A former standout athlete at Chelmsford High who went on to serve as a Lowell Sun sports intern, Kathleen Ralls hopes her first book “Take Her Word for It: Sports Cultivate World-Class Leaders” helps women become better leaders in the competitive sports world.

“I am now starting a women’s empowerment consulting and public speaking business inspired by my research and experiences,” the 44-year-old said. “The book is a central piece to getting my message out that women’s leadership is vital, that it often spawns from having an athletic background, and that leadership can look many different ways.”

Kathleen graduated in 1996 and was the school’s Female Athlete of the Year, as well as the Sun’s Field Hockey Player of the Year. She went on to earn a BA in Journalism at UMass and a Master of Arts in Secondary Education from American University and topped it off by earning a PhD in Leadership and Education.

She worked a number of jobs, first starting out as a Sun Sports intern for three years from 1999-2002, before working at both UML and American University in their Sports Information Departments. From 2005-08 she was a high school social studies teacher in Washington, D.C., before moving back to Massachusetts to spend two years at UMass Lowell as an Adjunct Professor/Teaching Assistant. For the past two years, she has been a reading tutor, while she has also been a multi-sport coach since 1999, ranging from youth to the high school levels.

Kathleen found time in 2019 to travel to Ethiopia for three months, which kick-started the idea for the book.

“The book is an off shoot of my dissertation where I traveled to Ethiopia to work with members of the Girls Gotta Run Foundation,” she explained. “The girls completed surveys and I got to do a lot of observational research at their schools, at training, and in their communities about whether they perceive greater voice empowerment because of their participation in sport and they do. This question is based on my own experiences and my observations as a high school teacher and coach.

“While my dissertation focused on teenage girls, my book focuses on eleven women based in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East. They reflected on how their experiences in sports have helped them navigate their professional lives. Basically, I wanted to see if I was the only one out there and thankfully, I’m not.”
"My book looks to inspire other athletic women to use their unique voices to be leaders. The women spoke of direct lines between success in sport and success in their professional lives.”

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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

Our guest today is Andrew Barnes, Founder of 4 Day Week Global.

“A hundred years ago, we moved from working six-day weeks to five, and we’re overdue for an update. The 4-day work week is a reduction in the work week from a standard 40 hours to 32 hours for the same pay and benefits. This reduction has been proven to work for employees and employers. COVID-19 made it clear we can find a better balance between work and life. Let’s make the move together.”

Innovator, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Andrew Barnes has made a career of market-changing innovation and industry digitisation. Most recently, in New Zealand, Andrew triggered a revolution of the entire fiduciary and legal services industries, and the transformation he has led as the founder of Perpetual Guardian has positive implications both locally and globally.

The result has seen him establish 4 Day Week Global and the 4 Day Week Global Foundation with his partner, Charlotte Lockhart. Their vision for this is to provide a community environment for companies, researchers/academics, and interested parties to be able to connect and advance this idea as part of the future of work. Through this work, he is on the advisory boards of both the US and Ireland 4 Day Week campaigns and the board of the newly created Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford University.

"The conversation about the 4 Day work week is all over the world. We encourage businesses, employees, researchers, and government to all play their part in creating a new way of working that will improve business productivity, worker health outcomes, stronger families and communities, challenge the gender equality issue, and work towards a more sustainable work environment ".

In 2019 he wrote The 4 Day Week book, as a how-to guide for companies trying to reduce work hours and increase productivity. Through this work, he is on the advisory board of the Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford University.

Today Andrew is going to talk about his career and how the 4 days working week can make the world a better place. 

Support the show

Are you looking for more inspiration? Why not take our ten minutes career test?
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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

Ciao e benvenuti a The Career Changers, il podcast che ha lo scopo di ispirare le persone durante il loro percorso di realizzazione personale e lavorativo. 

Questo é il primo episodio in italiano. 

Il nostro ospite é Marco Sepertino, Founder e CEO di Vitture SRL, recentemente balzato alle cronache per aver rivelato di assumere il personale nella sua compagnia senza guardare ai curriculum vitae ma prestando attenzione alla motivazione e alla capacitá di raggiungere gli obiettivi dei candidati. 

Oggi siamo qua per discutere questo nuovo orientamento nel processo di selezione del personale, I pro, I contro e le polemiche che ha generato. Ci chiederemo se questo é un primo passo rivoluzionario verso un nuovo movimento e se il mondo é pronto per un cambio di mentalitá. 

Support the show

Are you looking for more inspiration? Why not take our ten minutes career test?
Just click here to start the test.

If you want to receive your regular dose of inspiration follow us on
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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

The questions we are going to answer in this episode:
1. What are the stories you tell yourself?
2. How can you realise that you are not heading in the right direction? 
3. How do you understand what is wrong in your career/life and why are you in the wrong place in first instance? 
4. How can you discover who you are and what you care about? 
5. How to build how a life aligned to your values
6. The importance to look for job opportunities aligned with your values
7. Why you have an inner guide that can be your best coach.

Our guest today is Benjamin Ritter, leadership and career coach, passionate about guiding others in finding, creating, and sustaining a career they love. With over 10 years of experience coaching and working with clients from companies such as Amazon, Google, Pinterest, and Yelp, Ben understands how to navigate any career path you decide you want to travel.

Ben received his Doctorate in Organizational Leadership with a focus on value congruence and job satisfaction and earned an MBA in entrepreneurial management and an MPH in health policy administration.

Prior to that …...

"My first job was in a small deli/fast food joint. I cleaned tables, mopped the floor, and then was promoted to the cash register and eventually was allowed to flip burgers;

Worked with my father in his handyman business from sewage pumping, and replacing sinks to roofing work;

 Started a local dog walk business along with randomly shoveling snow and raking leaves;

Server at Red Lobster and Bryn Mawr Country Club;

Retail at Abercrombie & Fitch;

Sports Counselor at Lincolnwood Park district;

Sports Counselor, Early Care and After kid care at JCC Mayer Kaplan;

Montessori Child Care;

Brand Ambassador and Field Marketing Manager, traveled the US and I did everything from handing out fliers, and granola bars, coaxing people into taking photos at our events, riding around on a Segway, working tradeshows, and promoting movies in full costume;

Liquor Promoter (sometimes in costume);

Non-union modeling and commercial work, from Life Fitness, Dick Sporting Goods and American Crew. One of the oddest and fun jobs was being a Live Cast Model for a Civil War museum. Somewhere there are a bunch of mannequins with my face;

Participated in focus groups (yes enough to consider it a job);

Door security, to barback, and eventually bartender which led me to become a semi-mixologist creating cocktail menus and partially managing the beverage program;

Founded (almost) a coffee company;

Dating and relationship coach at Suave Lover;

Marketing associate for the American Red Cross;

Marketing associate for NTN Bearing Corp;

Marketing associate for Tru Rehabilitation and Wellness".

Today Benjamin is talking about his career and how truly working for yourself at work and in life. 

Support the show

Are you looking for more inspiration? Why not take our ten minutes career test?
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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

"Do what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life".
But how many of us have been lucky enough to be on the right path early in life?
As strange as it may sound, doing what we love in life is a choice of courage.
Courage to leave the known for the unknown.
Explore the unexplored.
Believe that good things are going to happen if we recognise our talents.

Our guest today is Sarah Burrows, career change, confidence, and new business coach with a background in Psychology.

Sara has a  Master's degree in Psychology, accredited by the British Psychological Society, has worked with coaches in a British military rehabilitation programme, and has supported leadership training and mentoring programmes with corporate organisations.

She works 1to1 with women (and men) to find the courage and clarity they need to transition into a job they love.

“A few years ago, I pivoted in my career to run my own coaching business and it taught me all of the things I wish I had known and had the courage to do previously. Instead of falling into a job because I thought it was 'right”'. 

Today she is going to talk about the most common fears people face when reflecting on their careers and how to find the courage to change, to do what you love in life, considering that the average person spends up to 80,000 hours at work in their life time.

Support the show

Are you looking for more inspiration? Why not take our ten minutes career test?
Just click here to start the test.

If you want to receive your regular dose of inspiration follow us on
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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

Today the UK Cabinet Office has launched the Civil Service Apprenticeship Strategy with the aim to emphasize quality training and set targets that will help build a more diverse pipeline of recruits into government by 2025. 

What does this mean? That the UK government is becoming one of the leading voices of “the career changers movement”, opening the door of a new career to people whose careers have been affected by the pandemic. 

Heather Hillier, our special guest, is one of those people and she is here today to share her career change story. Heather is a former airline pilot who lost her job during the pandemic and embarked on a new career in government via an apprenticeship. 

Heather joined the Maritime & Coastguard Agency in July 2020 during lockdown.  Prior to this, she was an Airline Captain with Flybe, until the company went into administration in March 2020. 

Aviation has been her career path for almost 26 years.  Her husband was also a Captain with Flybe so they found themselves faced with the overnight loss of their entire household income on 5th March 2020.

She set out to find a job to pay the bills, but as Covid started to take hold she realised that the impact on the aviation industry was likely to be far-reaching. This is when she started thinking about a new career. She saw the advert for a Talent and Development Trainer with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which she found appealing as it was about helping people achieve their potential and making a difference in a job that mattered.

Support the show

Are you looking for more inspiration? Why not take our ten minutes career test?
Just click here to start the test.

If you want to receive your regular dose of inspiration follow us on
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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal. 

Our guest today is Carrie Lynn Hotson, job interview coach and HR Consultant.

Carrie has written 1000's interview questions, interviewed 100s and 100s  of candidates, and SADLY had to watch as many people weren't able to succeed because they didn't know how to prepare.

Today she is going to talk want on the importance of understanding what each interview question means, how to find the right examples, structure your answers and HAVE FUN in the process!

You will learn:

How to land your dream jobs? What are the steps to follow? 

What are the biggest mistakes you do before, during, and after an interview? 

What is the best way to write a CV that will get you selected for an interview?

What is the best way to prepare for an interview?

How are answers marked during an interview? 

Support the show

Are you looking for more inspiration? Why not take our ten minutes career test?
Just click here to start the test.

If you want to receive your regular dose of inspiration follow us on
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The Career Changers is a fully self-funded project.  There is so much more we would like to do, to make this community grow. You can support us with a donation via PayPal.